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^fes^     - 

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i 


Ilenry   D.   Bacon, 

St.   Louis,  Mo. 


fr 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

G-IFT  OF 

HENRY  DOUGLASS  BACON. 

1877. 


Accessions  No.  ../£J~£&.-.  Shelf  No. .. .  > 


THE 


MODERN 


BRITISH   ESSAYISTS, 


UNIVERSITY 


Sill  JAMES   MACKINTOSH. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY     AND     HART 

1848. 


THE 


MISCELLANEOUS    VOKKS 


OF 


THE  RIGHT   HONOURABLE 


SIE   JAMES   MACKINTOSH, 


THREE  VOLUMES, 


COMPLETE   IN    ONE. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY   AND    HART. 

1848. 


Fruitful  byT.  K.  &  P.  G.  Collins. 


ADVERTISEMENT  TO  THE  LONDON  EDITION, 

BY  THE  EDITOR. 


THESE  Volumes*  contain  whatever  (with  the  exception  of  his  History  of  England)  is 
oelieved  to  be  of  the  most  value  in  the  writings  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  Something  of 
method,  it  will  be  observed,  has  been  attempted  in  their  arrangement  by  commencing 
with  what  is  more  purely  Philosophical,  and  proceeding  through  Literature  to  Politics ; 
each  of  those  heads  being  generally,  though  not  quite  precisely,  referable  to  each  volume 
respectively.  With  such  selection  would  naturally  have  terminated  his  responsibility  \ 
but  in  committing  again  to  the  press  matter  originally  for  the  most  part  hastily  printed, 
the  Editor  has  assumed — as  the  lesser  of  two  evils — a  larger  exercise  of  discretion  in  the 
revision  of  the  text  than  he  could  have  wished  to  have  felt  had  been  imposed  upon  him. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  continually  arresting  the  eye  of  the  reader  by  a  notification  of  almost 
mechanical  alterations,  he  has  to  premise  here  that  where  inaccuracies  and  redundancies 
of  expression  were  obvious,  these  have  been  throughout  corrected  and  retrenched.  A  few 
transpositions  of  the  text  have  also  been  made ; — as  where,  by  the  detachment  of  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  what  the  present  Editor,  on  its  original  publication  allowed  to  be  called, 
perhaps  too  largely,  the  "  History  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,"  a  stricter  chronological  order 
has  been  observed,  at  the  same  time  that  the  residue — losing  thereby  much  of  its  frag 
mentary  character — may  now,  it  is  hoped,  fairly  claim  to  be  all  that  is  assumed  in  its  new 
designation.  Of  the  contributions  to  periodical  publications,  such  portions  only  find  place 
here  as  partake  most  largely  of  the  character  of  completeness.  Some  extended  quota 
tions,  appearing  for  the  most  part  as  notes  on  former  occasions,  have  been  omitted,  with  a 
view  to  brevity,  on  the  present;  while,  in  addition  to  a  general  verification  of  the  Author's 
references,  a  few  explanatory  notes  have  been  appended,  wherever  apparently  needful, 
by  the  Editor. 

R.  J.  MACKINTOSH. 

*  The  Miscellaneous  Works  of  the  Right  Honourable  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  3  vols.  8vo.f  Lon 
don:  Longman,  Brown,  Green,  and  Longman,  1846. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

On  the  Philosophical  Genius  of  Lord  Bacon  and  Mr.  Locke 17 

A  Discourse  on  the  Law  of  Nature  and  Nations 27 

Life  of  Sir  Thomas  More 43 

Appendix 81 

A  Refutation  of  the  Claim  on  behalf  of  King  Charles  I.  to  the  Authorship  of  the  EIKilN 

BASIAIKH 82 

Dissertation  on  the  Progress  of  Ethical  Philosophy,  chiefly  during  the  Seventeenth  and 

Eighteenth  Centuries. 94 

Introduction ib. 

Section  I.  Preliminary  Observations 96 

II.  Retrospect  of  Ancient  Ethics  ...    99 

III.  Retrospect  of  Scholastic  Ethics 104 

IV.  Modern  Ethics Ill 

V.  Controversies  concerning  the  Moral  Faculties  and  the  Social  Affections  117 

VI.  Foundations  of  a  more  just  Theory  of  Ethics 131 

VII.  General  Remarks 175 

Notes  and  Illustrations 188 

An  account  of  the  Partition  of  Poland 198 

Sketch  of  the  Administration  and  Fall  of  Struensee 217 

Statement  of  the  Case  of  Donna  Maria  da  Gloria,  as  a  Claimant  to  the  Crown  of  Por 
tugal 225 

Character  of  Charles,  First  Marquis  Cornwallis 235 

Character  of  the  Right  Honourable  George  Canning 238 

Preface  to  a  Reprint  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  of  1755 242 

On  the  Writings  of  Machiavel 245 

Review  of  Mr.  Godwin's  Lives  of  Edward  and  John  Philips,  &c.  &c 249 

Review  of  Rogers'  Poems .* 254 

Review  of  Madame  de  StaePs  "  De  L'Allemagne" 260 

Review  of  the  Causes  of  the  Revolution  of  1688 271 

CHAPTER  I.— General  state  of  affairs  at  home.— Abroad.— Characters  of  the 
Ministry.— Sunderland.— Rochester.— Halifax.— Godolphin.— Jeffreys.— Fever- 
sham. — His  conduct  after  the  victory  of  Sedgemoor. — Kirke. — Judicial  pro 
ceedings  in  the  West.— Trials  of  Mrs.  Lisle.— Behaviour  of  the  King.— Trial 
of  Mrs.  Gaunt  and  others.— Case  of  Hampden.— Prideaux.— Lord  Brandon.— 

Delamere ib, 

CHAPTER  II.— Dismissal  of  Halifax.— Meeting  of  Parliament.— Debates  on  the 
Address. — Prorogation  of  Parliament. — Habeas  Corpus  Act. — State  of  the  Ca 
tholic  Party.— Character  of  the  Queen.— Of  Catherine  Sedley.— Attempt  to 
support  the  Dispensing  Power  by  a  Judgment  of  a  Court  of  Law. — Godden  V. 
Hales. — Consideration  of  the  Arguments. — Attack  on  the  Church. — Establish 
ment  of  the  Court  of  Commissioners  for  ecclesiastical  causes. — Advancement 

of  Catholics  to  offices. — Intercourse  with  Rome 284 

a 


xii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  III.— State  of  the  Army.— Attempts  of  the  King  to  convert  it.— The 
Princess  Anne. — Dryden. — Lord  Middleton  and  others. — Revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes. — Attempt  to  convert  Rochester. — Conduct  of  the  Queen. — 

Religious  conference. — Failure  of  the  attempt. — His  dismissal 299 

CHAPTER  IV.— Scotland.— Administration  of  Queensberry .— Conversion  of  Perth. 
— Measures  contemplated  by  the  King. — Debates  in  Parliament  on  the  King's 
letter. — Proposed  bill  of  toleration — unsatisfactory  to  James. — Adjournment  of 

Parliament. — Exercise  of  prerogative. Ireland. — Character  of  Tyrconnel. — 

Review  of  the  state  of  Ireland. — Arrival  of  Tyrconnel. — His  appointment  as 
Lord  Deputy. — Advancement  of  Catholics  to  offices. — Tyrconnel  aims  at  the 

sovereign  power  in  Ireland. — Intrigues  with  France 307 

CHAPTER  V.— Rupture  with  the  Protestant  Tories.— Increased  decision  of  the 
King's  designs. — Encroachments  on  the  Church  establishment. — Charter-House. 
— Oxford,  University  College.— Christ  Church.— Exeter  College,  Cambridge.— 
Oxford,  Magdalen  College. — Declaration  of  liberty  of  conscience. — Similar  at- 
.  tempts  of  Charles. — Proclamation  at  Edinburgh. — Resistance  of  the  Church. — 
Attempt  to  conciliate  the  Nonconformists. — Review  of  their  sufferings. — Bax 
ter.  — Bunyan.  —  Presbyterians.  — Independents.  —  Baptists.  —  Quakers. — Ad 
dresses  of  thanks  for  the  declaration 319 

CHAPTER  VI.— D' Adda  publicly  received  as  the  Nuncio.— Dissolution  of  Parlia 
ment.— Final  breach.— Preparations  for  a  new  Parliament.— New  charters. — 
Removal  of  Lord  Lieutenants. — Patronage  of  the  Crown. — Moderate  views  of 
Sunderland. — House  of  Lords. — Royal  progress. — Pregnancy  of  the  Queen. — 

London  has  the  appearance  of  a  Catholic  city 337 

CHAPTER  VII.— Remarkable  quiet.— Its  peculiar  causes.— Coalition  of  Notting 
ham  and  Halifax. — Fluctuating  counsels  of  the  Court. — "Parliamentum  Pacifi- 

cum." — Bill  for  liberty  of  conscience. — Conduct  of  Sunderland. — Jesuits 350 

CHAPTER  VIII.— Declaration  of  Indulgence  renewed.— Order  that  it  should  be 
read  in  Churches. — Deliberations  of  the  clergy. — Petition  of  the  Bishops  to  the 
King. — Their  examination  before  the  Privy  Council,  committal,  trial,  and  ac 
quittal. — Reflections. — Conversion  of  Sunderland. — Birth  of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

—State  of  Affairs 359 

CHAPTER  IX. — Doctrine  of  obedience. — Right  of  resistance.— Comparison  of 
foreign  and  civil  war. — Right  of  calling  auxiliaries. — Relations  of  the  people  of 

England  and  of  Holland 380 

Memoir  of  the  Affairs  of  Holland,  1667—1686 384 

Discourse  read  at  the  opening  of  the  Literary  Society  of  Bombay 398 

Vindicae  Gallicae :— A  Defence  of  the  French  Revolution  and  its  English  Admirers, 
against  the  accusations  of  the  Right  Hon.  Edmund  Burke,  including  some 

Strictures  on  the  late  Production  of  Mons.  de  Calonne 404 

Introduction ib. 

Section  I.  The  General  Expediency  and  Necessity  of  a  Revolution  in  France 406 

II.  Of  the  composition  and  character  of  the  National  Assembly 424 

III.  Popular  excesses  which  attended  the  Revolution 430 

IV.  New  Constitution  of  France 436 

V.  English  admirers  vindicated 448 

VI.  Speculations  on  the  probable  consequences  of  the  French  Revolution 

in  Europe 457 

Reasons  against  the  French  War  of  1793 461 

On  the  State  of  France  in  1815 466 

On  the  Right  of  Parliamentary  Suffrage 472 

A  Speech  in  Defence  of  John  Peltier,  accused  of  a  Libel  on  the  First  Consul  of  France  484 
A  Charge,  delivered  to  the  Grand  Jury  of  the  Island  of  Bombay,  on  the  20th  July,  1811  504 
Speech  on  the  Annexation  of  Genoa  to  the  Kingdom  of  Sardinia,  delivered  in  the 

House  of  Commons,  April  27,  1815 508 


CONTENTS.  xfci 

PAGE 

Speech  on  moving  for  a  Committee  to  inquire  into  the  State  of  the  Criminal  Law ; 

delivered  in  the  House  of  Commons,  March  2,  1819 , ....  524 

Speech  on  Mr.  Brougham's  Motion  for  an  Address  to  the  Crown,  with  Reference  to  the 
Tria.1  and  Condemnation  of  the  Rev.  John  Smith,  of  Demerara ;  delivered  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  June  1,  1824 534 

Speech  on  presenting  a  Petition  from  the  Merchants  of  London  for  the  Recognition  of 
the  Independent  States,  established  in  the  Countries  of  America,  formerly  sub 
ject  to  Spain;  delivered  in  the  House  of  Commons,  June  15,  1824 549 

Speech  on  the  Civil  Government  of  Canada ;  delivered  in  the  House  of  Commons, 

May  2;  1828 564 

Speech  on  moving  for  Papers  relative  to  the  Affairs  of  Portugal;  delivered  in  the 

House  of  Commons,  June  1,  1829 569 

Speech  on  the  second  Reading  of  the  Bill  to  amend  the  Representation  of  the  People 

of  England  and  Wales;  delivered  in  the  House  of  Commons,  July  4,  1831 580 

Appendix 591 


ON  THE 


PHILOSOPHICAL  GENIU! 


OF 


V1ESITY] 
\#* 


OIH1 
«>  __ 


LORD  BACON  AND  KR.  LOCO. 


"HISTORY,' 'says Lord  Bacon,  "is Natural,  [ 
Civil  or  Ecclesiastical,  or  Literary  \  whereof  , 
of.the  three  first  I  allow  as  extant,  the  fourth  : 
/  note  as  deficient.    For  no  man  hath  pro 
pounded  to  himself  the  general  state  of  learn 
ing,  to  be  described  and  represented  from, 
age  to  age,  as  many  have  done  the  works  of 
Nature,  and  the  State  civil  and  ecclesias 
tical  j  without  which  the  history  of  the  world  | 
seemeth  to  me  to  be  as  the  statue  of  Poly-  ! 
phemus  with  his  eye  out ;  that  part  being  I 
wanting  which  doth  most   show  the   spirit  i 
and  life  of  the  person.     And  yet  I  am  not 
ignorant,  that  in  divers  particular  sciences,  as 
of  the  jurisconsults,  the  mathematicians,  the 
rhetoricians,  the  philosophers,  there  are  set 
down  some  small  memorials  of  the  schools, 
— of  authors  of  books ;  so  likewise  some  bar 
ren  relations  touching  the  invention  of  arts 
or  usages.     But  a  just  story  of  learning,  con 
taining  the  antiquities  and  originals  of  know 
ledges,  and  their  sects,  their  inventions,  their 
traditions,  their  divers  administrations  and 
managings,  their  oppositions,  decays,  depres 
sions,   oblivions,  removes,  with  the  causes 
and  occasions  of  them,  and  all  other  events 
concerning  learning  throughout  the  ages  of 
the  world,  I  may  truly  affirm  to  be  wanting. 
The  use  and  end  of  which  work  I  do  not  so 
much  design  for  curiosity,  or  satisfaction  of 
those  who  are  lovers  of  learning,  but  chiefly 
for  a  more  serious  and  grave  purpose,  which 
is  this,  in  few  words,  '  that  it  will  make  learned 
men  wise  in  the  use  and  administration  of 
learning.'  "t 

Though  there  are  passages  in  the  writings 
of  Lord  Bacon  more  splendid  than  the  above, 
few,  probably,  better  display  the  union  of  all 
the  qualities  which  characterized  his  philo 
sophical  genius.  He  has  in  general  inspired 
a  fervour  of  admiration  which  vents  itself  in 
indiscriminate  praise,  and  is  very  adverse 
to  a  calm  examination  of  the  character  of 
his  understanding,  which  was  very  peculiar, 
and  on  that  account  described  with  more  than 
ordinary  imperfection,  by  that  unfortunately 

*  These  remarks  are  extracted  from  the  Edin 
burgh  Review,  vol.  xxvii.  p.  180 ;  vol.  xxxvi.  p. 
229.— ED. 

t  Advancement  of  Learning,  book  ii. 
3 


vague  and  weak  part  of  language  which  at 
tempts  to  distinguish  the  varieties  of  mental 
superiority.  To  this  cause  it  may  be  as 
cribed,  that  perhaps  no  great  man  has  been 
either  more  ignorantly  censured,  or  more  un- 
instructively  commended.  It  is  easy  to  de 
scribe  his  transcendent  merit  in  general  terms 
of  commendation;  for  some  of  his  great 
qualities  lie  on  the  surface  of  his  writings. 
But  that  in  which  he  most  excelled  all  other 
men,  was  the  range  and  compass  of  his  in 
tellectual  view  and  the  power  of  contemplat 
ing  many  and  distant  objects  together  without 
indistinctness  or  confusion,  which  he  himself 
has  called  the  "discursive"  or  "comprehen 
sive"  understanding.  This  wide  ranging  in 
tellect  was  illuminated  by  the  brightest 
Fancy  that  ever  contented  itself  with  the 
office  of  only  ministering  to  Reason :  and 
from  this  singular  relation  of  the  two  grand 
faculties  of  man,  it  has  resulted,  that  his  phi 
losophy,  though  illustrated  still  more  than 
adorned  by  the  utmost  splendour  of  imagery, 
continues  still  subject  to  the  undivided  su 
premacy  of  Intellect.  In  the  midst  of  all 
the  prodigality  of  an  imagination  which, 
had  it  been  independent,  would  have  been 
poetical,  his  opinions  remained  severely  ra 
tional. 

It  is  not  so  easy  to  conceive,  or  at  least  to 
describe,  other  equally  essential  elements  of 
his  greatness,  and  conditions  of  his  success. 
His  is  probably  a  single  instance  of  a  mind 
which,  in  philosophizing,  always  reaches  the 
point  of  elevation  whence  the  whole  prospect 
is  commanded,  without  ever  rising  to  such  a 
distance  as  to  lose  a  distinct  perception  of 
every  part  of  it.*  It  is  perhaps  not  less  singu- 


*  He  himself  who  alone  was  qualified,  has  de 
scribed  the  genius  of  his  philosophy  hoih  in  respect 
to  the  degree  and  manner  in  which  he  rose  from, 
particulars  to  generals:  "  Axiomata  infima  non 
multum  abexperientia  nuda  discrepant.  Suprema 
vero  ilia  et  genera!issima(quae  habentur)  notionalia 
sunt  et  abstracta,  et  nil  habent  solidi.  At  media 
sunt  axiomata  illavera,  et  solida,  et  viva,  in  quibus 
humanae  res  et  fortunae  sits  sunt,  et  supra  haec 
quoque,  tandem  ipsa  ilia  generalissima,  talia  scili 
cet  quae  non  abstracta  sint,  sed  per  haec  media 
vere  limitantur." — Novum  Organum,  lib.  i.  apho- 
ris.  104, 

B2  17 


18 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


lar,  that  his  philosophy  should  be  founded  at 
once  on  disregard  for  the  authority  of  men, 
and  on  reverence  for  the  boundaries  pre 
scribed  by  Nature  to  human  inquiry ;  that  he 
who  thought  so  little  of  what  man  had  done, 
hoped  so  highly  of  what  he  could  do ;  that  so 
daring  an  innovator  in  science  should  be  so 
wholly  exempt  from  the  love  of  singularity 
or  paradox ;  and  that  the  same  man  who  re 
nounced  imaginary  provinces  in  the  empire 
of  science,  and  withdrew  its  landmarks  with 
in  the  limits  of  experience,  should  also  exhort 
posterity  to  push  their  conquests  to  its  utmost 
verge,  with  a  boldness  which  will  be  fully 
justified  only  by  the  discoveries  of  ages  from 
which  we  are  yet  far  distant. 

No  man  ever  united  a  more  poetical  style 
to  a  less  poetical  philosophy.  One  great  end 
of  his  discipline  is  to  prevent  mysticism  and 
fanaticism  from  obstructing  the  pursuit  of 
truth.  With  a  less  brilliant  fancy,  he  would 
have  had  a  mind  less  qualified  for  philoso- 
.phical  inquiry.  His  fancy  gave  him  that 
power  of  illustrative  metaphor,  by  which  he 
seemed  to  have  invented  again  the  part  of 
language  which  respects  philosophy ;  and  it 
rendered  new  truths  more  distinctly  visible 
even  to  his  own  eye,  in  their  bright  clothing 
of  imagery.  Without  it,  he  must,  like  others, 
have  been  driven  to  the  fabrication  of  uncouth 
technical  terms,  which  repel  the  mind,  either 
by  vulgarity  or  pedantry,  instead  of  gently 
leading  it  to  novelties  in  science,  through 
agreeable  analogies  with  objects  already  fa 
miliar.  A  considerable  portion  doubtless  of 
the  courage  with  which  he  undertook  the  re 
formation  of  philosophy,  was  caught  from  the 
general  spirit  of  his  extraordinary  age,  when 
the  mind  of  Europe  was  yet  agitated  by  the 
joy  and  pride  of  emancipation  from  long 
bondage.  The  beautiful  mythology,  and  the 
poetical  history  of  the  ancient  world, — not 
yet  become  trivial  or  pedantic, — appeared 
before  his  eyes  in  all  their  freshness  and  lus 
tre.  To  the  general  reader  they  were  then  a 
discovery  as  recent  as  the  world  disclosed  by 
Columbus.  The  ancient  literature,  on  which 
his  imagination  looked  back  for  illustration, 
had  then  as  much  the  charm  of  novelty  as 
that  rising  philosophy  through  which  his  rea 
son  dared  to  look  onwrard  to  some  of  the  last 
periods  in  its  unceasing  and  resistless  course. 

In  order  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  this 
wonderful  person,  it  is  essential  to  fix  stead 
ily  in  our  minds,  what  he  was  not, — what  he 
did  not  do, — and  what  he  professed  neither 
to  be,  nor  to  do.  He  was  not  what  is  called 
a  metaphysician :  his  plans  for  the  improve 
ment  of  science  were  not  inferred  by  ab 
stract  reasoning  from  any  of  those  primary 
principles  to  which  the  philosophers  of 
Greece  struggled  to  fasten  their  systems. 
Hence  he  has  been  treated  as  empirical  and 
superficial  by  those  who  take  to  themselves 
the  exclusive  name  of  profound  speculators. 
He  was  not,  on  the  other  hand,  a  mathema 
tician,  an  astronomer,  a  physiologist,  a  chem 
ist.  He  was  not  eminently  conversant  with 
the  particular  truths  of  any  of  those  sciences 


which  existed  ir^jis  time.  For  this  reason, 
he  was  underrated  tven  by  men  themselves 
of  the  highest  merit,  and  by  some  who  had 
acquired  the  most  just  reputation,  by  add  ing- 
new  facts  to  the  stock  of  certain  knowledge. 
It  is  not  therefore  very  surprising  to  find, 
that  Harvey,  "  though  the  friend  as  well  as 
physician  of  Bacon,  though  he  esteemed  him 
much  for  his  wit  and  style,  would  not  allow 
him  to  be  a  great  philosopher;"  but  said  to 
Aubrey,  "He  writes  philosophy  like  a  Lord 
Chancellor/'' — "in derision," — as  the. honest 
biographer  thinks  fit  expressly  to  add.  On 
the  same  ground,  though  in  a  manner  not  so 
agreeable  to  the  nature  of  his  own  claims  on 
reputation,  Mr.  Hume  has  decided,  that  Ba 
con  was  not  so  great  a  man  as  Galileo,  be 
cause  he  was  not  so  great  an  astronomer. 
The  same  sort  of  injustice  to  his  memory  has 
been  more  often  committed  than  avowed,  by 
professors  of  the  exact  and  the  experimental 
sciences,  who  are  accustomed  to  regard,  as 
the  sole  test  of  service  to  Knowledge,  a  pel- 
pable  addition  to  her  store.  It  is  very  true 
that  he  made  no  discoveries :  but  his  life 
was  employed  in  teaching  the  method  by 
wrhich  discoveries  are  made.  This  distinc 
tion  was  early  observed  by  that  ingenious 
poet  and  amiable  man,  on  whom  we.  by  our 
unmerited  neglect,  have  taken  too  severe  a 
revenge,  for  the  exaggerated  praises  be 
stowed  on  him  by  our  ancestors : — 

"  Bacon,  like  Moses,  led  us  forth  at  last, 
The  barren  wilderness  he  past, 
Did  on  the  very  border  stand 
Of  the  blest  promised  land  ; 
And  from  the  mountain  top  of  his  exalted  wit, 
Saw  it  himself,  and  showed  us  it."* 

The  writings  of  Bacon  do  not  even  abound 
with  remarks  so  capable  of  being  separated 
from  the  mass  of  previous  knowledge  and 
reflection,  that  they  can  be  called  new .  This 
at  least  is  very  far  from  their  greatest  dis 
tinction :  and  where  such  remarks  occur, 
they  are  presented  more  often  as  examples 
of  his  general  method,  than  as  important 
on  their  own  separate  account.  In  physics, 
which  presented  the  principal  field  for  dis 
covery,  and  which  owe  all  that  they  are.  or 
can  be,  to  his  method  and  spirit,  the  experi 
ments  and  observations  which  he  either  made 
or  registered,  form  the  least  valuable  part  of 
his  writings,  and  have  furnished  some  cul 
tivators  of  that  science  with  an  opportunity 
for  an  ungrateful  triumph  over  his  mistakes. 
The  scattered  remarks,  on  the  other  hand,  of 
a  moral  nature,  where  absolute  novelty  is 
precluded  by  the  nature  of  the  subject,  mani 
fest  most  strongly  both  the  superior  force 
and  the  original  bent  of  his  understanding. 
We  more  properly  contrast  than  compare 
the  experiments  in  the  Natural  History,  with 
the  moral  and  political  observations  which 
enrich  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  the 
speeches,  the  letters,  the  History  of  Henry 
VII.,  and,  above  all,  the  Essays,  a  book 
which,  though  it  has  been  praised  with  equal 


Cowley,  Ode  to  the  Royal  Society. 


ON  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  GENIUS  OF  BACON  AND  LOCKE. 


19 


fervour  by  Voltaire,  Johnson  and  Burke,  has 
never  been  characterized  with  such  exact 
justice  and  such  exquisite  felicity  of  expres 
sion,  as  in  the  discourse  of  Mr.  Stewart.*  It 
will  serve  still  more  distinctly  to  mark  the 
natural  tendency  of  his  mind,  to  observe  that 
his  moral  and  political  reflections  relate  to 
these  practical  subjects,  considered  in  their 
most  practical  point  of  view ;  and  that  he 
has  seldom  or  never  attempted  to  reduce  to 
theory  the  infinite  particulars  of  that  "  civil 
knowledge,"  which,  as  he  himself  tells  us, 
is,  "  of  all  others,  most  immersed  in  matter, 
and  hardliest  reduced  to  axiom." 

His  mind,  indeed,  was  formed  and  exer 
cised  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  :  his  genius 
was  eminently  civil.  His  understanding  was 
peculiarly  fitted  for  questions  of  legislation 
and  of  policy;  though  his  character  was  not 
an  instrument  well  qualified  to  execute  the 
dictates  of  his  reason.  The  same  civil  wis 
dom  which  distinguishes  his  judgments  on 
human  affairs,  may  also  be  traced  through 
his  reformation  of  philosophy.  It  is  a  prac 
tical  judgment  applied  to  science.  What  he 
effected  was  reform  in  the  maxims  of  state, 
— a  reform  which  had  always  before  been 
unsuccessfully  pursued  in  the  republic  of 
letters.  It  is  not  derived  from  metaphysical 
reasoning,  nor  from  scientific  detail,  but  from 
a  species  of  intellectual  prudence,  which, 
on  the  practical  ground  of  failure  and  dis 
appointment  in  the  prevalent  modes  of  pur 
suing  knowledge,  builds  the  necessity  of 
alteration,  and  inculcates  the  advantage  of 
administering  the  sciences  on  other  princi 
ples.  It  is  an  error  to  represent  him  either 
as  imputing  fallacy  to  the  syllogistic  method, 
or  as  professing  his  principle  of  induction  to 
be  a  discovery.  The  rules  and  forms  of  ar 
gument  will  always  form  an  important  part 
of  the  art  of  logic ;  and  the  method  of  induc 
tion,  which  is  the  art  of  discovery,  was  so 
far  from  being  unknown  to  Aristotle,  that  it 
was  often  faithfully  pursued  by  that  great 
observer.  What  Bacon  aimed  at,  he  accom 
plished  ;  which  was,  not  to  discover  new 
principles,  but  to  excite  a  new  spirit,  and  to 
render  observation  and  experiment  the  pre 
dominant  characteristics  of  philosophy.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  Bacon  could  not  have 
been  the  author  of  a  system  or  the  founder 
of  a  sect.  He  did  not  deliver  opinions;  he 
taught  modes  of  philosophizing.  His  early 


*  "Under  the  same  head  of  Ethics,  may  be 
mentioned  the  small  volume  to  which  he  has  given 
the  title  of  'Essays,'— the  best  known  and  most 
popular  of  all  his  works.  It  is  also  one  of  those 
where  the  superiority  of  his  genius  appears  to  the 
greatest  advantage  ;  the  novelty  and  depth  of  his 
reflections  often  receiving  a  strong  relief  from  the 
triteness  of  the  subject.  It  may  be  read  from  be 
ginning  to  end  in  a  few  hours  ;  and  yet,  after  the 
twentieth  perusal,  one  seldom  fails  to  remark  in 
it  something  unobserved  before.  This,  indeed,  is 
a  characteristic  of  all  Bacon's  writings,  and  is  only 
to  be  accounted  for  by  the  inexhaustible  aliment 
they  furnish  to  our  own  thoughts,  and  the  sympa 
thetic  activity  they  impart  to  our  torpid  faculties" 
Encyclopedia  B^'annica,  vol.  i.  p.  36. 


immersion  in  civil  affairs  fitted  him  for  this 
species  of  scientific  reformation.  His  politi 
cal  course,  though  in  itself  unhappy,  proba 
bly  conduced  to  the  success,  and  certainly 
influenced  the  character,  of  the  contemplative 
part  of  his  life.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  ac 
tive  habits,  it  is  likely  that  the  pedantry  and 
quaintness  of  his  age  would  have  still  more 
deeply  corrupted  his  significant  and  majestic 
style.  The  force  of  the  illustrations  which 
he  takes  from  his  experience  of  ordinary  life, 
is  often  as  remarkable  as  the  beauty  of  those 
which  he  so  happily  borrows  from  his  study 
of  antiquity.  But  if  we  have  caught  the 
leading  principle  of  his  intellectual  character, 
we  must  attribute  effects  still  deeper  and 
more  extensive,  to  his  familiarity  with  the 
active  world.  It  guarded  him  against  vain 
subtlety,  and  against  all  speculation  that  was 
either  visionary  or  fruitless.  It  preserved 
him  from  the  reigning  prejudices  of  contem 
plative  men.  and  from  undue  preference  to 
particular  parts  of  knowledge.  If  he  had  been 
exclusively  bred  in  the  cloister  or  the  schools, 
he  might  not  have  had  courage  enough  to 
reform  their  abuses.  It  seems  necessary  that 
he  should  have  been  so  placed  as  to  look  on 
science  in  the  free  spirit  of  an  intelligent 
spectator.  Without  the  pride  of  professors, 
or  the  bigotry  of  their  followers,  he  surveyed 
from  the  world  the  studies  which  reigned  in 
the  schools ;  and,  trying  them  by  their  fruits, 
he  saw  that  they  were  barren,  and  therefore 
pronounced  that  they  were  unsound.  He 
himself  seems,  indeed,  to  have  indicated  as 
clearly  as  modesty  would  allow,  in  a  case 
that  concerned  himself,  and  where  he  de 
parted  from  an  universal  and  almost  na 
tural  sentiment,  that  he  regarded  scholastic 
seclusion,  then  more  unsocial  and  rigorous 
than  it  now  can  be,  as  a  hindrance  in  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge.  In  one  of  the  noblest 
passages  of  his  writings,  the  conclusion  "  of 
the  Interpretation  of  Nature,"  he  tells  us, 
"That  there  is  no  composition  of  estate  or 
society,  nor  order  or  quality  of  persons,  which 
have  not  some  point  of  contrariety  towards 
true  knowledge;  that  monarchies  incline 
wiu  to  profit  and  pleasure ;  commonwealths 
to  glory  and  vanity  ;  universities  to  sophistry 
and  affectation ;  cloisters  to  fables  and  unpro 
fitable  subtlety;  study  at  large  to  variety: 
and  that  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  mixture  of 
contemplations  with  an  active  life,  or  retiring 
wholly  to  contemplations,  do  disable  or  hin 
der  the  mind  more." 

But,  though  he  was  thus  free  from  the 
prejudices  of  a  science,  a  school  or  a  sect, 
other  prejudices  of  a  lower  nature,  and  be 
longing  only  to  the  inferior  class  of  those  who 
conduct  civil  affairs,  have  been  ascribed  to 
him  by  encomiasts  as  well  as  by  opponents. 
He  has  been  said  to  consider  the  great  end 
of  science  to  be  the  increase  of  the  outward 
accommodations  and  enjoyments  of  human 
life :  we  cannot  see  any  foundation  for  this 
charge.  In  labouring,  indeed,  to  correct  the 
direction  of  study,  and  to  withdraw  it  from 
these  unprofitable  subtleties,  it  was  neces- 


20 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


sary  to  attract  it  powerfully  towards  outward 
acts  and  works.  He  no  doubt  duly  valued 
"  the  dignity  of  this  end,  the  endowment  of 
man's  life  with  new  commodities  ;77  and  he 
strikingly  observes,  that  the  most  poetical 
people  of  the  world  had  admitted  the  inven 
tors  of  the  useful  and  manual  arts  among 
the  highest  beings  in  their  beautiful  mytho 
logy.  Had  he  lived  to  the  age  of  Watt  and 
Davy,  he  would  not  have  been  of  the  vulgar 
and  contracted  mind  of  those  who  cease  to 
admire  grand  exertions  of  intellect,  because 
they  are  useful  to  mankind :  but  he  would 
certainly  have  considered  their  great  works 
rather  as  tests  of  the  progress  of  knowledge 
than  as  parts  of  its  highest  end.  His  im 
portant  questions  to  the  doctors  of  his  lime 
were  : — "  Is  truth  ever  barren  ?  Are  we  the 
richer  by  one  poor  invention,  by  reason  of  all 
the  learning  that  hath  been  these  many 
hundred  years?77  His  judgment,  we  may 
also  hear  from  himself: — "Francis  Bacon 
thought  in  this  manner.  The  knowledge 
whereof  the  world  is  now  possessed,  espe 
cially  that  of  nature,  extendeth  not  to  magni 
tude  and  certainty  of  works."  He  found 
knowledge  barren ;  he  left  it  fertile.  He  did 
not  underrate  the  utility  of  particular  inven 
tions  ;  but  it  is  evident  that  he  valued  them 
most,  as  being  themselves  among  the  high 
est  exertions  of  superior  intellect, — as  being 
monuments  of  the  progress  of  knowledge, — 
as  being  the  bands  of  that  alliance  between 
action  and  speculation,  wherefrom  spring  an 
appeal  to  experience  and  utility,  checking 
the  proneness  of  the  philosopher  to  extreme 
refinements  ;  while  teaching  men  to  revere, 
and  exciting  them  to  pursue  science  by  these 
splendid  proofs  of  its  beneficial  power.  Had 
he  seen  the  change  in  this  respect,  which, 
produced  chiefly  in  his  own  country  by  the 
spirit  of  his  philosophy,  has  made  some  de 
gree  of  science  almost  necessary  to  the  sub 
sistence  and  fortune  of  large  bodies  of  men, 
he  would  assuredly  have  regarded  it  as  an 
additional  security  for  the  future  growth  of 
the  human  understanding.  He  taught,  as  he 
tells  us,  the  means,  not  of  the  "amplification 
of  the  power  of  one  man  over  his  country,  nor 
of  the  amplification  of  the  power  of  that  coun 
try  over  other  nations  ;  but  the  amplification 
of  the  power  and  kingdom  of  mankind  over 
the  world/7 — "a  restitution  of  man  to  the 
sovereignty  of  nature,77* — "and  the  enlarg 
ing  the  bounds  of  human  empire  to  the  ef 
fecting  all  things  possible.77!— From  the 
enlargement  of  reason,  he  did  not  separate 
the  growth  of  virtue,  for  he  thought  that 
"  truth  and  goodness  were  one,  differing  but 
as  the  seal  and  the  print  ;  for  truth  prints 
goodness.)7i 

As  civil  history  teaches  statesmen  to  profit 
by  the  faults  of  their  predecessors,  he  pro 
poses  that  the  history  of  philosophy  should 
teach,  by  example,  "learned  men  to  become 


*  Of  the  Interpretation  of  Nature. 

t  New  Atlantis. 

J  Advancement  of  Learning,  book  i. 


wise  in  the  administration  of  learning.'7  Early 
immersed  in  civil  affairs,  and  deeply  imbued 
with  their  spirit,  his  mind  in  this  place  con 
templates  science  only  through  the  analogy 
of  government,  and  considers  principles  of 
philosophizing  as  the  easiest  maxims  of  po 
licy  for  the  guidance  of  reason.  It  seems 
also,  that  in  describing  the  objects  of  a  his 
tory  of  philosophy,  and  the  utility  to  be  de 
rived  from  it.  he  discloses  the  principle  of 
his  own  exertions  in  behalf  of  knowledge ; — 
whereby  a  reform  in  its  method  and  maxims, 
justified  by  the  experience  of  their  injurious 
effects,  is  conducted  with  a  judgment  analo 
gous  to  that  civil  prudence  which  guides  a 
wise  lawgiver.  If  (as  may  not  improperly 
be  concluded  from  this  passage)  the  reforma 
tion  of  science  was  suggested  to  Lord  Bacon, 
by  a  review  of  the  history  of  philosophy,  it 
must  be  owned,  that  his  outline  of  that  history 
has  a  very  important  relation  to  the  general 
character  of  his  philosophical  genius.  The 
smallest  circumstances  attendant  on  that  out 
line  serve  to  illustrate  the  powers  and  habits 
of  thought  which  distinguished  its  author.  It 
is  an  example  of  his  faculty  of  anticipating. 
— not  insulated  facts  or  single  discoveries, — 
but  (what  from  its  complexity  and  refinement 
seem  much  more  to  defy  the  power  of  pro 
phecy)  the  tendencies  of  study,  and  the 
modes  of  thinking,  which  were  to  prevail  in 
distant  generations,  that  the  parts  which  he 
had  chosen  to  unfold  or  enforce  in  the  Latin 
versions,  are  those  which  a  thinker  of  the  pre 
sent  age  would  deem  both  most  excellent 
and  most  arduous  in  a  history  of  philosophy; 
— "'the  causes  of  literary  revolutions;  the 
study  of  contemporary  writers,  not  merely  as 
the  most  authentic  sources  of  information, 
but  as  enabling  the  historian  to  preserve  in 
his  own  description  the  peculiar  colour  of 
every  age,  and  to  recall  its  literary  genius 
from  the  dead.77  This  outline  has  the  un 
common  distinction  of  being  at  once  original 
and  complete.  In  this  province,  Bacon  had 
no  forerunner  ;  and  the  most  successful  fol 
lower  will  be  he,  who  most  faithfully  ob 
serves  his  precepts. 

Here,  as  in  every  province  of  knowledge, 
he  concludes  his  review  of  the  performances 
and  prospects  of  the  human  understanding, 
by  considering  their  subservience  to  the 
grand  purpose  of  improving  the  condition,  the 
faculties,  and  the  nature  of  man,  without 
which  indeed  science  would  be  no  more  than 
a  beautiful  ornament,  and  literature  would 
rank  no  higher  than  a  liberal  amusement. 
Yet  it  must  be  acknowledged,  that  he  rather 
perceived  than  felt  the  connexion  of  Truth 
and  Good.  Whether  he  lived  too  early  to  have 
sufficient  experience  of  the  moral  benefit  of 
civilization,  or  his  mind  had  early  acquired  too 
exclusive  an  interest  in  science,  to  look  fre 
quently  beyond  its  advancement ;  or  whether 
the  infirmities  and  calamities  of  his  life 
aad  blighted  his  feelings,  and  turned  away 
his  eyes  from  the  active  world; — to  what 
ever  cause  we  may  ascribe  the  defect,  cer 
tain  it  is;  that  his  works  want  one  excellence 


ON  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  GENIUS  OF  BACON  AND  LOCKE. 


21 


of  the  highest  kind,  which  they  would  have 
possessed  if  he  had  habitually  represented 
the  advancement  of  knowledge  as  the  most 
effectual  means  of  realizing  the  hopes  of 
Benevolence  for  the  human  race. 


The  character  of  Mr.  Locke's  writings  can 
not  be  well  understood,  without  considering 
the  circumstances  of  the  writer.  Educated 
among  the  English  Dissenters,  during  the 
short  period  of  their  political  ascendency,  he 
early  imbibed  the  deep  piety  and  ardent  spirit 
of  liberty  which  actuated  that  body  of  men  ; 
and  he  probably  imbibed  also,  in  their  schools, 
the  disposition  to  metaphysical  inquiries 
which  has  every  where  accompanied  the 
Calvinistic  theology.  Sects,  founded  on  the 
right  of  private  judgment,  naturally  tend  to 
purify  themselves  from  intolerance,  and  in 
time  learn  to  respect,  in  others,  the  freedom 
of  thought  to  the  exercise  of  which  they  owe 
their  own  existence.  By  the  Independent 
divines  who  were  his  instructors,  our  philoso 
pher  was  taught  those  principles  of  religious 
liberty  which  they  were  the  first  to  disclose 
to  the  world.*  When  free  inquiry  led  him 
to  milder  dogmas,  he  retained  the  severe  mo 
rality  which  was  their  honourable  singulari 
ty,  and  which  continues  to  distinguish  their 
successors  in  those  communities  which  have 
abandoned  their  rigorous  opinions.  His  pro 
fessional  pursuits  afterwards  engaged  him  in 
the  study  of  the  physical  sciences,  at  the  mo 
ment  when  the  spirit  of  experiment  and  ob 
servation  was  in  its  youthful  fervour,  and 
wrhen  a  repugnance  to  scholastic  subtleties 
was  the  ruling  passion  of  the  scientific  world. 
At  a  more  mature  age,  he  was  admitted  into 
the  society  of  great  wits  and  ambitious  poli 
ticians.  During  the  remainder  of  his  life,  he 
was  often  a  man  of  business,  and  always  a 
man  of  the  world,  without  much  undisturbed 
leisure,  and  probably  with  that  abated  relish 
for  merely  abstract  speculation,  which  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  converse  with  society 
and  experience  in  affairs.  But  his  political 
connexions  agreeing  with  his  early  bias,  made 
him  a  zealous  advocate  of  liberty7  in  opinion 
and  in  government ;  and  he  gradually  limited 
his  zeal  and  activity  to  the  illustration  of  such 
general  principles  as  are  the  guardians  of 
these  great  interests  of  human  society. 

Almost  all  his  writings  (even  his  Essay  it 
self)  were  occasional,  and  intended  directly 
to  counteract  the  enemies  of  reason  and  free 
dom  in  his  own  age.  The  first  Letter  on 
Toleration,  the  most  original  perhaps  of  his 


*  Orme's  Memoirs  of  Dr.  Owen,  pp.  99 — 110. 
In  this  very  fcbie  volume,  it  is  clearly  proved  that 
the  Independents  were  the  first  teachers  of  reli 
gious  liberty.  The  industrious,  ingenious,  and 
tolerant  writer,  is  unjust  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  who 
had  no  share  (as  Mr.  Orme  supposes)  in  the  per 
secuting  councils  of  Charles  II.  It  is  an  import 
ant  fact  in  the  history  of  Toleration,  that  Dr. 
Owen,  the  Independent,  was  Dean  of  Christ- 
church  in  1651,  when  Locke  was  admitted  a  mem 
ber  of  that  College,  "  under  a  fanatical  tutor,"  as 
Antony  Wood  says. 


works,  was  composed  in  Holland,  in  a  retire 
ment  where  he  was  forced  to  conceal  him 
self  from  the  tyranny  which  pursued  him 
into  a  foreign  land ;  and  it  was  published  in 
England,  in  the  year  of  the  Revolution,  to 
vindicate  the  Toleration  Act,  of  which  he 
lamented  the  imperfection.* 

His -Treatise  on  Government  is  composed 
of  three  parts,  of  different  character,  and 
very  unequal  merit.  The  confutation  of  Sir 
Robert  Filmer,  with  which  it  opens,  has  long 
lost  all  interest,  and  is  now  to  be  considered 
as  an  instance  of  the  hard  fate  of  a  philoso 
pher  who  is  compelled  to  engage  in  a  conflict 
with  those  ignoble  antagonists  who  acquire  a 
momentary  importance  by  the  defence  of 
pernicious  falsehoods.  The  same  slavish  ab 
surdities  have  indeed  been  at  various  times 
revived  :  but  they  never  have  assumed,  and 
probably  never  will  again  assume,  the  form 
in  which  they  were  exhibited  by  Filmer. 
Mr.  Locke's  general  principles  of  government 
were  adopted  by  him,  probably  without  much 
examination,  as  the  doctrine  which  had  for 
ages  prevailed  in  the  schools  of  Europe,  and 
which  afforded  an  obvious  and  adequate  jus 
tification  of  a  resistance*  to  oppression.  He 
delivers  them  as  he  found  them,  without 
even  appearing  to  have  made  them  his  own 
by  new  modifications.  The  opinion,  that 
the  right  of  the  magistrate  to  obedience  is 
founded  in  the  original  delegation  of  power 
by  the  people  to  the  government,  is  at  least 
as  old  as  the  writings  of  Thomas  Aquinas:! 
and  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  it  wras  regarded  as  the  common 
doctrine  of  all  the  divines,  jurists  and  philo 
sophers,  who  had  at  that  time  examined 
the  moral  foundation  of  political  authority.}: 
It  then  prevailed  indeed  so  universally, 


*  "We  have  need,"  says  he,  "of  more  gene 
rous  remedies  than  have  yet  been  used  in  our 
distempers.  It  is  neither  declarations  of  indul 
gence,  nor  acts  of  comprehension  such  as  have  yet 
been  practised  or  projected  amongst  us,  that  can 
do  the  work  among  us.  Absolute  liberty,  just  and 
true  liberty,  equal  and  impartial  liberty,  is  the 
thing  that  we  stand  in  need  of.  Now,  though 
this  has  indeed  been  much  talked  of,  I  doubt  it  has 
not  been  much  understood, — I  am  sure  not  at  all 
practised,  either  by  our  governors  towards  the 
people  in  general,  or  by  any  dissenting  parties  of 
the  people  towards  one  another."  How  far  are  we, 
at  this  moment  [1821] ,  from  adopting  these  admir 
able  principles  !  and  with  what  absurd  confidence 
do  the  enemies  of  religious  liberty  appeal  to  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Locke  for  continuing  those  re 
strictions  on  conscience  which  he  so  deeply 
lamented  ! 

t  "  Non  cujuslibet  ratio  facit  legem,  sed  multi- 
tudinis,  aut  principis ,  vicem  multitudinis  gerentis." 
— Summa  Theologian,  pars  i.  quaest  90. 

t  "  Opinionem  jam  factam  communem  omnium 
Scholasticorum."  Antonio  de  Dominis,  De  Re- 
publica  Ecclesiastica,  lib.  vi.  cap.  2.  Antonio  de 
Dominis,  Archbishop  of  Spalato  in  Dalmatia, 
having  imbibed  the  free  spirit  of  Father  Paul, 
inclined  towards  Protestantism,  or  at  least  towards 
such  reciprocal  concessions  as  might  reunite  the 
churches  of  the  West.  During  Sir  Henry  Wot- 
ton's  remarkable  embassy  at  Venice,  he  was  pur- 
suaded  to  go  to  England,  where  he  was  made 
Dean  of  Windsor.  Finding,  perhaps,  the  Protest  • 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


that  it  was  assumed  by  Hobbes  as  the  basis 
of  his  system  of  universal  servitude.  The  di 
vine  right  of  kingly  government  was  a  princi 
ple  very  little  known,  till  it  was  incuicatecl 
in  the  writings  of  English  court  divines  after 
the  accession  of  the  Stuarts.  The  purpose  of 
Mr.  Locke's  work  did  not  lead  him  to  inquire 
more  anxiously  into  the  solidity  of  these  uni 
versally  received  principles ;  nor  were  there 
at  the  time  any  circumstances,  in  the  condi 
tion  of  the  country,  which  could  suggest  to 
his  mind  the  necessity  of  qualifying  their 
application.  His  object,  as  he  says  himself, 
was  "to  establish  the  throne  of  our  great 
Restorer,  our  present  King  William  j  to  make 
good  his  title  in  the  consent  of  the  people, 
which,  being  the  only  one  of  all  lawful  go 
vernments,  he  has  more  fully  and  clearly 
than  any  prince  in  Christendom  •  and  to  jus 
tify  to  the  world  the  people  of  England, 
whose  love  of  their  just  and  natural  rights, 
with  their  resolution  to  preserve  them,  saved 
the  nation  when  it  was  on  the  very  brink  of 
slavery  and  ruin.'7  It  was  essential  to  his 
purpose  to  be  exact  in  his  more  particular 
observations:  that  part  of  his  work  is,  ac 
cordingly,  remarkable  for  general  caution, 
and  every  where  tiears  marks  of  his  own 
considerate  mind.  By  calling  William  "a 
Restorer,"  he  clearly  points  out  the  charac 
teristic  principle  of  the  Revolution ;  and  suf 
ficiently  shows  that  he  did  not  consider  it 
as  intended  to  introduce  novelties,  but  to 
defend  or  recover  the  ancient  laws  and  lib 
erties  of  the  kingdom.  In  enumerating  cases 
which  justify  resistance,  he  confines  himself, 
almost  as  cautiously  as  the  Bill  of  Rights,  to 
the  grievances  actually  suffered  under  the 
Jate  reign :  and  where  he  distinguishes  be 
tween  a  dissolution  of  government  and  a  dis 
solution  of  society,  it  is  manifestly  his  object 
to  guard  against  those  inferences  which  would 
have  rendered  the  Revolution  a  source  of  an 
archy,  instead  of  being  the  parent  of  order 
and  security.  In  one  instance  only,  that  of 
taxation,  where  he  may  be  thought  to  have 
introduced  subtle  and  doubtful  speculations 
into  a  matter  altogether  practical,  his  purpose 
was  to  discover  an  immovable  foundation 
for  that  ancient  principle  of  rendering  the 
government  dependent  on  the  representatives 
of  the  people  for  pecuniary  supply,  which 
first  established  the  English  Constitution ; 
which  improved  and  strengthened  it  in  a 
course  of  ages;  and  which,  at  the  Revolution, 
finally  triumphed  over  the  conspiracy  of  the 
Stuart  princes.  If  he  be  ever  mistaken  in  his 
premises,  his  conclusions  at  least  are,  in  this 
part  of  his  work,  equally  just,  generous,  and 
prudent.  Whatever  charge  of  haste  or  inac- 

ants  more  inflexible  than  he  expected,  he  returned 
to  Rome,  possibly  with  the  hope  of  more  success 
in  that  quarter.  But,  though  he  publicly  abjured 
his  errors,  he  was  soon,  in  consequence  of  some 
free  language  in  conversation,  thrown  into  a  dun 
geon,  where  he  died.  His  own  writings  are  for 
gotten  ;  but  mankind  are  indebted  to  him  for  the 
admirable  history  of  the  Council  of  Trent  by  Fa 
ther  Paul,  of  which  he  brought  the  MSS.  with  him 
to  London. 


curacy  may  be  brought  against  his  abstract 
principles,  he  thoroughly  weighs,  and  mature 
ly  considers  the  practical  results.  Those  who 
consider  his  moderate  plan  of  Parliamentary 
Reform  as  at  variance  with  his  theory  of 
government,  may  perceive,  even  in  this  re 
pugnance,  whether  real  or  apparent,  a  new 
indication  of  those  dispositions  which  ex 
posed  him  rather  to  the  reproach  of  being  an 
inconsistent  reasoner,  than  to  that  of  being 
a  dangerous  politician.  In  such  works,  how 
ever,  the  nature  of  the  subject  has.  in  some 
degree,  obliged  most  men  of  sense  to  treat  it 
with  considerable  regard  to  consequences ; 
though  there  are  memorable  and  unfortunate 
examples  of  an  opposite  tendency. 

The  metaphysical  object  of  the  Essay  on 
Human  Understanding,  therefore,  illustrates 
the  natural  bent  of  the  author's  genius  more 
forcibly  than  those  writings  which  are  con 
nected  with  the  business  and  interests  of  men . 
The  reasonable  admirers  of  Mr.  Locke  would 
have  pardoned  Mr.  Stewart,  if  he  had  pro 
nounced  more  decisively,  that  the  first  book 
of  that  work  is  inferior  to  the  others;  and 
we  have  satisfactory  proof  that  it  was  so 
considered  by  the  author  himself,  who,  in. 
the  abridgment  of  the  Essay  which  he  pub 
lished  in  Leclerc's  Review,  omits  it  altoge 
ther,  as  intended  only  to  obviate  the  preju 
dices  of  some  philosophers  against  the  more 
important  contents  of  his- work.*  It  must  be 
owned,  that  the  very  terms  "  innate  ideas'' 
and  "innate  principles,"  together  with  the 
division  of  the  latter  into  "  speculative  and 
practical."  are  not  only  vague,  but  equivo 
cal  ]  that  they  are  capable  of  different  senses : 
and  that  they  are  not  always  employed  in 
the  same  sense  throughout  this  discussion. 
Nay,  it  will  be  found  very  difficult,  after  the 
most  careful  perusal  of  Mr.  Locke's  first 
book,  to  state  the  question  in  dispute  clearly 
and  shortly,  in  language  so  strictly  philoso 
phical  as  to  be  free  from  any  hypothesis. 
As  the  antagonists  chiefly  contemplated  by 
Mr.  Locke  were  the  followers  of  Descartes, 
perhaps  the  only  proposition  for  which  he 
must  necessarily  be  held  to  contend  was, 
that  the  mind  has  no  ideas  which  do  not  arise 
from  impressions  on  the  senses,  or  from  re 
flections  on  our  own  thoughts  and  feelings. 
But  it  is  certain,  that  he  sometimes  appears 
to  contend  for  much  more  than  this  proposi 
tion  ;  that  he  has  generally  been  understood 
in  a  larger  sense  }  and  that,  thus  interpreted, 
his  doctrine  is  not  irreconcilable  to  those 
philosophical  systems  with  which  it  has  been 
supposed  to  be  most  at  variance. 

These  general  remarks  may  be  illustrated 
by  a  reference  to  some  of  those  ideas  which 
are  more  general  and  important,  and  seem 


*  "  J'ai  tache  d'abord  de  prouver  que  notre  es 
prit  est  au  commencement  ce  qu'on  appelle  un 
tabula  rasa,  c'est-a-dire,  sans  idees  et  sans  con- 
noissances.  Mais  comme  ce  n'a  etc  que  pour  de- 
truire  les  prejuges  de  quelques  philosophies,  j'ai 
cru  que  dans  ce  petit  abrege  de  mes  principes,  je 
devois  passer  toutes  les  disputes  preliminaires  qui 
composent  le  livre  premier."  Bibliotheque  Uni- 
verselle,  Janv.  1688 


ON  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  GENIUS  OF  BACON  AND  LOCKE. 


more  dark  than  any  others ; — perhaps  only 
because  we  seek  in  them  for  what  is  not  to 
be  found  in  any  of  the  most  simple  elements 
of  human  knowledge.  The  nature  of  our 
notion  of  space,  and  more  especially  of  that 
of  time,  seems  to  form  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  our  intellectual  being.  Neither  of  these 
notions  can  be  conceived  separately.  Nothing 
outward  can  be  conceived  without  space; 
for  it  is  space  which  gives  owtaess  to  objects, 
or  renders  them  capable  of  being  conceived 
as  outward.  Nothing  can  be  conceived  to 
exist;  without  conceiving  some  time  in  which 
it  exists.  Thought  and  feeling  may  be  con 
ceived,  without  at  the  same  time  conceiving 
space  ;  but  no  operation  of  mind  can  be  re 
called  which  does  not  suggest  the  conception 
of  a  portion  of  time,  in  which  such  mental 
operation  is  performed.  Both  these  ideas 
are  so  clear  that  they  cannot  be  illustrated, 
and  so  simple  that  they  cannot  be  defined  : 
nor  indeed  is  it  possible,  by  the  use  of  any 
•words,  to  advance  a  single  step  towards  ren 
dering  them  more,  or  otherwise  intelligible 
than  the  lessons  of  Nature  have  already 
made  them.  The  metaphysician  knows  no 
more  of  either  than  the  rustic.  If  we  confine 
ourselves  merely  to  a  statement  of  the  facts 
which  we  discover  by  experience  concerning 
these  ideas,  we  shall  find  them  reducible,  as 
has  just  been  intimated,  to  the  following; — 
namely,  that  they  are  simple ;  that  neither 
space  nor  time  can  be  conceived  without 
some  other  conception  ;  that  the  idea  of  space 
always  attends  that  of  every  outward  object ; 
and  that  the  idea  of  time  enters  into  every 
idea  which  the  mind  of  man  is  capable  of 
forming.  Time  cannot  be  conceived  sepa 
rately  from  something  else ;  nor  can  any  thing 
else  be  conceived  separately  from  time.  If 
we  are  asked  whether  the  idea  of  time  be 
innate,  the  only  proper  answer  consists  in 
the  statement  of  the  fact,  that  it  never  arises 
in  the  human  mind  otherwise  than  as  the 
concomitant  of  some  other  perception  ;  and 
that  thus  understood,  it  is  not  innate,  since  it 
is  always  directly  or  indirectly  occasioned 
by  some  action  on  the  senses.  Various  modes 
of  expressing  these  facts  have  been  adopted 
by  different  philosophers,  according  to  the 
variety  of  their  technical  language.  By 
Kant,  space  is  said  to  be  the  form  of  our  per 
ceptive  faculty,  as  applied  to  outward  ob 
jects  ;  and  time  is  called  the  form  of  the 
same  faculty,  as  it  regards  our  mental  ope 
rations  :  by  Mr.  Stewart,  these  ideas  are  con 
sidered  "as  suggested  to  the  understanding'1* 
by  sensation  or  reflection,  though,  according 
to  him,  "the  mind  is  not  directly  and  imme 
diately  furnished  "  with  such  ideas,  either  by 
sensation  or  reflection :  and,  by  a  late  emi 
nent  metaphysician,!  they  were  regarded  as 
perceptions,  in  the  nature  of  those  arising 
from  the  senses,  of  which  the  one  is  attend^ 
ant  on  the  idea  of  every  outward  object,  and 
the  other  concomitant  with  the  consciousness 


of  every  mental  operation.  Each  of  these 
modes  of  expression  has  its  own  advantages. 
The  first  mode  brings  forward  the  univer 
sality  and  necessity  of  these  two  notions ;  the 
second  most  strongly  marks  the  distinction 
between  them  and  the  fluctuating  percep 
tions  naturally  referred  to  the  senses ;  while 
the  last  has  the  opposite  merit  of  presenting 
to  us  that  incapacity  of  being  analyzed,  in 
which  they  agree  with  all  other  simple  ideas. 
On  the  other  hand,  each  of  them  (perhaps 
from  the  inherent  imperfection  of  language) 
seems  to  insinuate  more  than  the  mere  re 
sults  of  experience.  The  technical  terms 
introduced  by  Kant  have  the  appearance  of 
an  attempt  to  explain  what,  by  the  writer's 
own  principles,  is  incapable  of  explanation ; 
Mr.  Wedgwood  maybe  charged  with  giving 
the  same  name  to  mental  phenomena,  which 
coincide  in  nothing  but  simplicity ;  and  Mr. 
Stewart  seems  to  us  to  have  opposed  two 
modes  of  expression  to  each  other,  which, 
when  they  are  thoroughly  analyzed,  repre 
sent  one  and  the  same  fact. 

Leibnitz  thought  that  Locke's  admission 
of  "  ideas  of  reflection"  furnished  a  ground 
for  negotiating  a  reconciliation  between  his 
system  and  the  opinions  of  those  who,  in 
the  etymological  sense  of  the  word,  are  more 
metaphysical;  and  it  may  very  well  be 
doubted,  whether  the  ideas  of  Locke  much 
differed  from  the  "innate  ideas"  of  Des 
cartes,  especially  as  the  latter  philosopher 
explained  the  term,  when  he  found  himself 
pressed  by  acute  objectors.  "  I  never  said 
or  thought,"  says  Descartes,  "  that  the  mind 
needs  innate  ideas,  which  are  something  dif 
ferent  from  its  own  faculty  of  thinking ;  but, 
as  I  observed  certain  thoughts  to  be  in  my 
mind,  which  neither  proceeded  from  outward 
objects,  nor  were  determined  by  my  will, 
but  merely  from  my  own  faculty  of  thinking, 
I  called  these  l  innate  ideas,'  to  distinguish 
them  from  such  as  are  either  adventitious 
(i.  c.  from  without),  or  compounded  by  our 
imagination.  I  call  them  innate,  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  generosity  is  innate  in  some 
families,  gout  and  stone  in  others;  because 
j  the  children  of  such  families  come  into  the 
world  with  a  disposition  to  such  virtue,  or  to 
such  maladies."*  In  a  letter  to  Mersenne,* 
he  says,  "by  the  word  'idea.'  I  understand 
all  that  can  be  in  our  thoughts,  arid  I  dis- 
i  tinguish  three  sorts  of  ideas  ; — adventitious, 
like  the  common  idea  of  the  sun ;  framed 
by  the  mind,  such  as  that  which  astronomical 
reasoning  gives  us  of  the  sun ;  and 


Philosophical  Essays,  essay  i.  chap.  2. 
*  Mr.  Thomas  Wedgwood ;  see  Life  of  Mack 
intosh,  vol.  i.  p.  289. 


*  This  remarkable  passage  of  Descartes  is  to  be 
found  in  a  French  translation  of  the  preface  and 
notes  to  the  Principia  Philosophic,  probably  by 
himself. — (Lettres  de  Descartes,  vol.  i.  lett.  99.) 
It  is  justly  observed  by  one  of  his  most  acute  an 
tagonists,  that  Descartes  does  not  steadily  adhero 
to  this  sense  of  the  word  "innate,"  but  varies  it 
in  the  exigencies  of  controversy,  so  as  to  give  it 
at  each  moment  the  import  which  best  suits  the 
nature  of  the  objection  with  which  he  has  then  to 
contend. — Huet,  Censura  Philosophic  Cartesi 
ans,  p.  93. 

t  Lettres,  vol.  ii.  lett.  54. 


24 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


as  the  idea  of  God,  mind,  body,  a  triangle, 
and  generally  all  those  which  represent  true, 
immutable,  and  eternal  essences."  It  must 
be  owned,  that,  however  nearly  the  first  of 
these  representations  may  approach  to  Mr. 
Locke's  ideas  of  reflection,  the  second  devi 
ates  from  them  very  widely,  and  is  not  easily 
reconcilable  with  the  first.  The  comparison 
of  these  two  sentences,  strongly  impeaches 
the  steadiness  and  consistency  of  Descartes 
in  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  system. 

A  principle  in  science  is  a  proposition  from 
which  many  other  propositions  may  be  in 
ferred.  That  principles,  taken  in  this  sense 
of  propositions,  are  part  of  the  original  struc 
ture  or  furniture  of  the  human  mind,  is  an 
assertion  so  unreasonable,  that  perhaps  no 
philosopher  has  avowedly,  or  at  least  perma 
nently,  adopted  it.  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgot 
ten,  that  there  must  be  certain  general  laws 
of  perception,  or  ultimate  facts  respecting 
that  province  of  mind,  beyond  which  human 
knowledge  cannot  reach.  Such  facts  bound 
our  researches  in  every  part  of  knowledge, 
and  the  ascertainment  of  them  is  the  utmost 
possible  attainment  of  Science.  Beyond 
them  there  is  nothing,  or  at  least  nothing  dis 
coverable  by  us.  These  observations,  however 
universally  acknowledged  when  they  are 
stated,  are  often  hid  from  the  view  of  the 
system-builder  when  he  is  employed  in  rear 
ing  his  airy  edifice.  There  is  a  common 
disposition  to  exempt  the  philosophy  of  the 
human  understanding  from  the  dominion  of 
that  irresistible  necessity  which  confines  all 
other  knowledge  within  the  limits  of  experi 
ence  ; — arising  probably  from  a  vague  notion 
that  the  science,  without  which  the  princi 
ples  of  no  other  are  intelligible,  ought  to  be 
able  to  discover  the  foundation  even  of  its 
own  principles.  Hence  the  question  among 
the  German  metaphysicians,  "  What  makes 
experience  possible  1"  Hence  the  very  gen 
eral  indisposition  among  metaphysicians  to 
acquiesce  in  any  mere  fact  as  the  result  of 
their  inquiries,  and  to  make  vain  exertions 
in  pursuit  of  an  explanation  of  it,  without 
recollecting  that  the  explanation  must  always 
consist  of  another  fact,  which  must  either 
equally  require  another  explanation,  or  be 
equally  independent  of  it.  There  is  a  sort 
of  sullen  reluctance  to  be  satisfied  with  ul 
timate  facts,  which  has  kept  its  ground  in  the 
theory  of  the  human  mind  long  after  it  has 
been  banished  from  all  other  sciences.  Phi 
losophers  are,  in  this  province,  often  led  to 
waste  their  strength  in  attempts  to  find  out 
what  supports  the  foundation ;  and,  in  these 
efforts  to  prove  first  principles,  they  inevita 
bly  find  that  their  proof  must  contain  an  as 
sumption  of  the  thing  to  be  proved,  and  that 
their  argument  must  return  to  the  point  from 
which  it  set  out. 

Mental  philosophy  can  consist  oi  nothing 
but  facts;  and  it  is  at  least  as  vain  to  inquire 
into  the  cause  of  thought,  as  into  the  cause 
of  attraction.  What  the  number  and  nature 
of  the  ultimate  facts  respecting  mind  may 
be;  is  a  question  which  can  only  be  deter 


mined  by  experience :  and  it  is  of  the  ut 
most  importance  not  to  allow  their  arbitrary 
multiplication,  which  enables  some  indivi 
duals  to  impose  on  us  their  own  erroneous 
or  uncertain  speculations  as  the  fundamental 
principles  of  human  knowledge.  No  gene 
ral  criterion  has  hitherto  been  offered,  by 
which  these  last  principles  may  be  distin 
guished  from  all  other  propositions.  Perhaps 
a  practical  standard  of  some  convenience 
would  be.  that  all  rcasoners  should  be  required 
to  admit  every  principle  of  which  the  denial 
renders  reasoning  impossible.  This  is  only  to 
require  that  a  man  should  admit,  in  general 
terms,  those  principles  which  he  must  as 
sume  in  every  particular  argument,  and  which 
he  has  assumed  in  every  argument  which  he 
has  employed  against  their  existence.  It  is, 
in  other  words,  to  require  that  a  disputant 
shall  not  contradict  himself;  for  every  argu 
ment  against  the  fundamental  laws  of  thought 
absolutely  assumes  their  existence  in  the 
premises,  while  it  totally  denies  it  in  the 
conclusion. 

Whether  it  be  among  the  ultimate  facts  in 
human  nature,  that  the  mind  is  disposed  or 
determined  to  assent  to  some  proposition s, 
and  to  reject  others,  when  they  are  first  sub 
mitted  to  its  judgment,  without  inferring 
their  truth  or  falsehood  from  any  process  of 
reasoning,  is  manifestly  as  much  a  question 
of  mere  experience  as  any  other  which  re 
lates  to  our  mental  constitution.  It  is  certain 
that  such  inherent  inclinations  may  be  con 
ceived,  without  supposing  the  ideas  of  which 
the  propositions  are  composed  to  be,  in  any 
sense,  'innate';  if,  indeed,  that  unfortunate 
word  be  capable  of  being  reduced  by  defini 
tion  to  any  fixed  meaning.  "  Innate,"  says 
Lord  Shaftesbury.  "  is  the  word  Mr.  Locke 
poorly  plays  with :  the  right  word,  though 
less  used,  is  connate.  The  question  is  not 
about  the  time  when  the  ideas  enter  the 
mind,  but,  whether  the  constitution  of  man  be 
such,  as  at  some  time  or  other  (no  matter 
when),  the  ideas  will  not  necessarily  spring 
up  in  him."  These  are  the  words  of  Lord 
Shaftesbury  in  his  Letters,  which,  not  being 
printed  in  any  edition  of  the  Characteristics, 
are  less  known  than  they  ought  to  be  ;  though, 
in  them,  the  fine  genius  and  generous  prin 
ciples  of  the  writer  are  less  hid  by  occasional 
affectation  of  style,  than  in  any  other  of  his 
writings.* 

The  above  observations  apply  with  still 
greater  force  to  what  Mr.  Locke  calls  "prac 
tical  principles."  Here,  indeed,  he  contra 
dicts  himself;  for,  having  built  one  of  his 
chief  arguments  against  other  speculative  or 
practical  principles,  on  what  he  thinks  the 
incapacity  of  the  majority  of  mankind  to  en 
tertain  those  very  abstract  ideas,  of  which 
these  principles,  if  innate,  would  imply  the 
presence  in  every  mind,  he  very  inconsistent- 

*  Dr.  Lee,  an  antagonist  of  Mr.  Locke,  has 
stated  ihe  question  of  innate  ideas  more  fully  than 
Shaftesbury,  or  even  Leibnitz  :  he  has  also  antici 
pated  some  of  the  reasonings  of  Buffier  and  Rei(K 
— Lee's  Notes  on  Locke,  (olio,  London,  1702. 


ON  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  GENIUS  OF  BACON  AND  LOCKE. 


25 


ly  admits  the  existence  of  one  innate  practi 
cal  principle, — "  a  desire  of  happiness,  and 
an  aversion  to  misery.*'*  without  considering 
that  happiness  and  misery  are  also  abstract 
terms,  which  excite  very  indistinct  concep 
tions  in  the  minds  of  "a  great  part  of  man 
kind."  It  would  be  easy  also  to  show,  if  this 
were  a  proper  place,  that  the  desire  of  happi 
ness,  so  far  from  being  an  innate,  is  not  even 
an  original  principle ;  that  it  presupposes  the 
existence  of  all  those  particular  appetites 
and  desires  of  which  the  gratification  is  plea 
sure,  and  also  the  exercise«of  that  deliberate 
reason  which  habitually  examines  how  far 
each  gratification,  in  all  its  consequences,  in 
creases  or  diminishes  that  sum  of  enjoyment 
which  constitutes  happiness.  If  that  subject 
could  be  now  fully  treated,  it  would  appear 
that  this  error  of  Mr.  Locke,  or  another 
equally  great,  that  we  have  only  one  practical 
principle, — the  desire  of  pleasure, — is  the 
root  of  most  false  theories  of  morals;  and 
that  it  is  also  the  source  of  many  mistaken 
speculations  on  the  important  subjects  of 
government  and  education,  which  at  this 
moment  mislead  the  friends  of  human  im 
provement,  and  strengthen  the  arms  of  its 
enemies.  But  morals  fell  only  incidentally 
under  the  consideration  of  Mr.  Locke;  and 
his  errors  on  that  greatest  of  all  sciences  were 
the  prevalent  opinions  of  his  age,  which  can 
not  be  justly  called  the  principles  of  Hobbes, 
though  that  extraordinary  man  had  alone  the 
boldness  to  exhibit  these  principles  in  con 
nexion  with  their  odious  but  strictly  logical 
consequences. 

The  exaggerations  of  this  first  book,  how 
ever,  afford  a  new  proof  of  the  author's 
steady  regard  to  the  highest  interests  of  man 
kind.  He  justly  considered  the  free  exercise 
of  reason  as  the  highest  of  these,  and  that 
on  the  security  of  which  all  the  others  de 
pend.  The  circumstances  of  his  life  rendered 
it  a  long  warfare  against  the  enemies  of 
freedom  in  philosophising,  freedom  in  wor 
ship,  and  freedom  from  every  political  re 
straint  which  necessity  did  not  justify.  In 
his  noble  zeal  for  liberty  of  thought,  he 
dreaded  the  tendency  of  a  doctrine  which 
might  "  gradually  prepare  mankind  to  swal 
low  that  for  an  innate  principle  which  may 
serve  his  purpose  who  teacheth  them."f  He 
may  well  be  excused,  if,  in  the  ardour  of  his 
generous  conflict,  he  sometimes  carried  be 
yond  the  bounds  of  calm  and  neutral  reason 
his  repugnance  to  doctrines  which,  as  they 
were  then  generally  explained,  he  justly  re 
garded  as  capable  of  being  employed  to 
shelter  absurdity  from  detection,  to  stop  the 
progress  of  free  inquiry,  and  to  subject  the 
general  reason  to  the  authority  of  a  few  in 
dividuals.  Every  error  of  Mr.  Locke  in 
speculation  may  be  traced  to  the  influence 
of  some  virtue ; — at  least  every  error  except 
some  of  the  erronftous  opinions  generally  re 
ceived  in  his  age,  which,  with  a  sort  of  pas- 

*  Essay  on    Human   Understanding,   book  i. 
chap.  3.  $  3. 
t  Chap.  4.  $  24. 

4 


sive  acquiescence,  he  suffered  to  retain  their 
place  in  his  mind. 

It  is  with  the  second  book  that  the  Essay 
on  the  Human  Understanding  properly  be 
gins;  and  this  book  is  the  first  considerable 
contribution  in  modern  limes  towards  the 
experimental*  philosophy  of  the  human 
mind.  The  road  was  pointed  out  by  Bacon; 
and,  by  excluding  the  fallacious  analogies  of 
thought  to  outward  appearance,  Descartes 
may  be  said  to  have  marked  out  the  limits 
of  the  proper  field  of  inquiry.  But,  before 
Locke,  there  was  no  example  in  intellectual 
philosophy  of  an  ample  enumeration  of  facts, 
collected  and  arranged  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  legitimate  generalization.  He  him 
self  tells  us.  that  his  purpose  was,  '•  in  a  plain 
historical  method,  to  give  an  account  of  the 
ways  by  which  our  understanding  comes  to 
attain  those  notions  of  things  we  have."  In. 
more  modern  phraseology,  this  would  be 
called  an  attempt  to  ascertain,  by  observa 
tion,  the  most  general  facts  relating  to  the 
origin  of  human  knowledge.  There  is  some 
thing  in  the  plainness,  and  even  homeliness 
of  Locke's  language,  which  strongly  indicates 
his  very  clear  conception,  that  experience 
must  be  his  sole  guide,  and  his  unwilling 
ness,  by  the  use  of  scholastic  language,  to 
imitate  the  example  of  those  who  make  a 
show  of  explaining  facts,  while%in  reality  they 
only  "darken  counsel  by  words  without 
knowledge."  He  is  content  to  collect  the 
laws  of  thought,  as  he  would  have  collected 
those  of  any  other  object  of  physical  know 
ledge,  from  observation  alone.  He  seldom 
embarrasses  himself  with  physiological  hy- 
pothesis,f  or  wastes  his  strength  on  those 


*  This  word  "experimental,"  has  the  defect  of 
not  appearing  to  comprehend  the  knowledge  which 
flows  from  observation,  as  well  as  that  which  is 
obtained  by  experiment.  The  German  word  "  em 
pirical,"  is  applied  to  all  the  information  which  ex 
perience  affords  ;  but  it  is  in  our  language  degraded 
by  another  application.  I  therefore  must  use 
"experimental"  in  a  larger  sense  than  its  ety 
mology  warrants. 

t  A  stronger  proof  can  hardly  be  required' than 
the  following  sentence,  of  his  freedom  from  phy 
siological  prejudice.  "  This  laying  up  of  our 
ideas  in  the  repository  of  the  memory,  signifies  no 
more  but  this,  that  the  mind  has  the  power  in  many 
cases  to  revive  perceptions,  with  another  percep 
tion  annexed  to  them,  that  it  has  had  them  be 
fore."  The  same  chapter  is  remarkable  for  the 
exquisite,  and  almost  poetical  beauty,  of  some  of 
its  illustrations.  "Ideas  quickly  fade,  and  often 
vanish  quite  out  of  the  understanding,  leaving  no 
more  footsteps  or  remaining  characters  of  them 
selves  than  shadows  do  flying-  over  a  field  of  corn.'r 
— "  The  ideas,  as  well  as  children  of  our  youth, 
often  die  before  us,  and;  our  minds  represent  to- 
us  those  tombs  to  which  we  are  approaching; 
where,  though  the  brass  and  marble  remain,  yet 
the  inscriptions  are  effaced  by  time,  and  the  ima 
gery  moulders  away.  Pictures  drawn  in  our 
minds  are  laid  in  fading  colours,  and,  unless  some 
times  refreshed,  vanish  and  disappear," — book  ii. 
chap.  10.  This  pathetic  language  must  have  been 
inspired  by  experience  ;  and,  though  Locke  could 
not  have  been  more  than  fifty-six  when  he  wrote 
these  sentences,  it  is  too  well  known  that  the  first 
decays  of  memory  may  be  painfully  felt  long  be 
fore  they  can  be  detected  by  the  keenest  observer. 
C 


26 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


insoluble  problems  which  were  then  called 
metaphysical.  Though,  in  the  execution  of 
his  plan,  there  are  many  and  great  defects, 
the  conception  of  it  is  entirely  conformable  to 
the  Verulamian  method  of  induction,  which, 
even  after  the  fullest  enumeration  of  parti 
culars,  requires  a  cautious  examination  of 
each  subordinate  class  of  phenomena,  before 
we  attempt,  through  a  very  slowly  ascending 
series  of  generalizations,  to  soar  to  compre 
hensive  laws  "  Philosophy,"  as  Mr. Play  fair 
excellently  renders  Bacon,  u  has  either  taken 
much  from  a  few  things,  or  too  little  from  a 
great  many;  and  in  both  cases  has  too  nar 
row  a  basis  to  be  of  much  duration  or  utility." 
Or,  to  use  the  very  words  of  the  Master  him 
self — "  We  shall  then  have  reason  to  hope 
well  of  the  sciences,  when  we  rise  by  con 
tinued  steps  from  particulars  to  inferior 
axioms,  and  then  to  the  middle,  and  only  at 
last  to  the  most  general.*  It  is  not  so  much 
by  an  appeal  to  experience  (for  some  degree 
of  that  appeal  is  universal),  as  by  the  mode 
of  conducting  it,  that  the  followers  of  Bacon 
are  distinguished  from  the  framers  of  hy 
potheses."  It  is  one  thing  to  borrow  from 
experience  just  enough  to  make  a  supposition 
plausible;  it  is  quite  another  to  take  from  it 
all  that  is  necessary  to  be  the  foundation  of 
just  theory. 

•  In  this  respect  perhaps,  more  than  in  any 
other,  the  philosophical  writings  of  Locke  are 
contradistinguished  from  those  of  Hobbes. 
The  latter  saw,  with  astonishing  rapidity  of  in 
tuition  some  of  the  simplest  and  most  general 
facts  which  may  be  observed  in  the  operations 
of  the  understanding;  and  perhaps  no  man 
ever  possessed  the  same  faculty  of  conveying 
his  abstract  speculations  in  language  of  such 
clearness,  precision,  and  force,  as  to  engrave 
them  on  the  mind  of  the  reader.  But  he 
did  not  wait  to  examine  whether  there  might 
not  be  other  facts  equally  general  relating 
'to  the  intellectual  powers;  and  he  therefore 
"took  too  little  from  a  great  many  things." 
He  fell  into  the  double  error  of  hastily  ap 
plying  his  general  laws  to  the  most  compli 
cated  processes  of  thought,  without  consider 
ing  whether  these  general  laws  were  not 
themselves  limited  by  other  not  less  compre 
hensive  laws,  and  without  trying  to  discover 
how  they  were  connected  with  particulars, 
by  a  scale  of  intermediate  and  secondary 
laws.  This  mode  of  philosophising  was  well 
suited  to  the  dogmatic  confidence  and  dicta 
torial  tone  which  belonged  to  the  character 
of  the  philosopher  of  Malmsbury.  and  which 
enabled  him  to  brave  the  obloquy  attendant 
on  singular  and  obnoxious  opinions.  "  The 
plain  historical  method,"  on  the  other  hand, 
chosen  by  Mr.  Locke,  produced  the  natural 
fruits  of  caution  and  modesty ;  taught  him  to 
distrust  hasty  and  singular  conclusions;  dis 
posed  him,  on  fit  occasions,  to  entertain  a 
mitigated  scepticism;  and  taught  him  also 
the  rare  courage  to  make  an  ingenuous 
avowal  of  ignorance.  This  contrast  is  one 

*  Novum  Organum,  lib.  i.  $  civ. 


of  our  reasons  for  doubting  whether  Locke 
be  much  indebted  to  Hobbes  for  his  specu 
lations;  and  certainly  the  mere  coincidence 
of  the  opinions  of  two  metaphysicians  is 
slender  evidence,  in  any  case,  that  either 
of  them  has  borrowed  his  opinions  from  the 
other.  Where  the  premises  are  different, 
and  they  have  reached  the  same  conclusion 
by  different  roads,  such  a  coincidence  is 
scarcely  any  evidence  at  all.  Locke  and 
Hobbes  agree  chiefly  on  those  points  in 
which,  except  the^Cartesians.  all  the  specu 
lators  of  their  age  were  also  agreed.  They 
differ  on  the  most  momentous  questions, — 
the  sources  of  knowledge, — the  power  of  ab 
straction, — the  nature  of  the  will ;  on  the  two 
last  of  which  subjects,  Locke,  by  his  very 
failures  themselves,  evinces  a  strong  repug 
nance  to  the  doctrines  of  Hobbes.  They  dif 
fer  not  only  in  all  their  premises,  and  many 
of  their  conclusions,  but  in  their  manner  of 
philosophising  itself.  Locke  had  no  preju 
dice  which  co.uld  lead  him  to  imbibe  doc 
trines  from  the  enemy  of  liberty  and  religion. 
His  style,  with  all  its  faults,  is  that  of  a  man 
who  thinks  for  himself;  and  an  original  style 
is  not  usually  the  vehicle  of  borrowed  opin 
ions. 

Few  books  have  contributed  more  than 
Mr.  Locke's  Essay  to  rectify  prejudice ;  to 
undermine  established  errors;  to  diffuse  a 
just  mode  of  thinking;  to  excite  a  fearless 
spirit  of  inquiry,  and  yet  to  contain  it  within 
the  boundaries  which  Nature  has  prescribed 
to  the  human  understanding.  An  amend 
ment  of  the  general  habits  of  thought  is,  in 
most  parts  of  knowledge,  an  object  as  impor 
tant  as  even  the  discovery  of  new  truths; 
though  it  is  not  so  palpable,  nor  in  its  nature 
s-o  capable  of  being  estimated  by  superficial 
observers.  In  the  mental  and  moral  world, 
which  scarcely  admits  of  any  thing  which 
can  be  called  discovery,  the  correction  of  the 
intellectual  habits  is  probably  the  greatest 
service  which  can  be  rendered  to  Science. 
In  this  respect,  the  merit  of  Locke  is  unri 
valled.  His  writings  have  diffused  through 
out  the  civilized  world,  the  love  of  civil  lib 
erty  and  the  spirit  of  toleration  and  charity 
in  religious  differences,  with  the  disposition 
to  reject  whatever  is  obscure,  fantastic,  or 
hypothetical  in  speculation, — to  reduce  ver 
bal  disputes  to  their  proper  value, — to  aban 
don  problems  which  admit  of  no  solution, — 
to  distrust  whatever  cannot  clearly  be  ex 
pressed, — to  render  theory  the  simple  ex 
pression  of  facts, — and  to  prefer  those  studies 
which  most  directly  contribute  to  human 
happiness.  If  Bacon  first  discovered  the 
rules  by  which  knowledge  is  improved, 
Locke  has  most  contributed  to  make  man 
kind  at  large  observe  them.  He  has  done 
most,  though  often  by  remedies  of  silent 
and  almost  insensible  operation,  to  cure 
those  mental  distempers  which  obstructed 
the  adoption  of  these  rules;  and  has  thus 
led  to  that  general  diffusion  of  a  healthful 
and  vigorous  understanding,  which  is  at  once 
the  greatest  of  all  improvements;  and  the 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


27 


instrument  by  which  all  other  progress  must 
be  accomplished.  He  has  left  to  posterity 
the  instructive  example  of  a  prudent  re 
former,  and  of  a  philosophy  temperate  as  well 
as  liberal,  which  spares  the  feelings  of  the 
good,  and  avoids  direct  hostility  with  obsti 
nate  and  formidable  prejudice.  These  bene 
fits  are  very  slightly  counterbalanced  by 
some  political  doctrines  liable  to  misapplica 
tion,  and  by  the  scepticism  of  some  of  his 
ingenious  followers ; — an  inconvenience  to 
which  every  philosophical  school  is  exposed, 
which  does  not  steadily  limit  its  theory  to  a 


mere  exposition  of  experience.  If  Locke 
made  few  discoveries,  Socrates  made  none : 
yet  both  did  more  for  the  improvement  of  the 
understanding,  and  not  less  for  the  progress 
of  knowledge,  than  the  authors  of  the  most 
brilliant  discoveries.  Mr.  Locke  will  ever 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  great  ornaments 
of  the  English  nation ;  and  the  most  distant 
posterity  will  speak  of  him  in  the  language 
addressed  to  him  by  the  poet — 
"  O  Decus  Angliacoe  certe,  O  Luxalteragentis!"* 

*  Gray,  De  Principiis  Cogitandi. 


A    DISCOURSE 

ON  THE 


LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS.* 


BEFORE  I  begin  a  course  of  lectures  on  a 
science  of  great  extent  and  importance,  I 
think  it  my  duty  to  lay  before  the  public  the 
reasons  which  have  induced  me  to  undertake 
such  a  labour,  as  well  as  a  short  account  of 
the  nature  and  objects  of  the  course  which  I 
propose  to  deliver.  I  have  always  been  un 
willing  to  waste  in  unprofitable  inactivity 
that  leisure  which  the  first  years  of  my  pro 
fession  usually  allow,  and  which  diligent 
men,  even  with  moderate  talents,  might  of 
ten  employ  in  a  manner  neither  discreditable 
to  themselves,  nor  wholly  useless  to  others. 
Desirous  that  my  own  leisure  should  not  be 
consumed  in  sloth,  I  anxiously  looked  about 
for  some  way  of  rilling  it  up,  which  might 
enable  me  according  to  the  measure  of  my 
humble  abilities,  to  contribute  somewhat  to 
the  stock  of  general  usefulness.  I  had  long 
been  convinced  that  public  lectures,  which 
have  been  used  in  most  ages  and  countries  to 
teach  the  elements  of  almost  every  part  of 
learning,  were  the  most  convenient  mode  in 
which  these  elements  could  be  taught; — 
that  they  were  the  best  adapted  for  the  im 
portant  purposes  of  awakening  the  attention 
of  the  student,  of  abridging  his  labours,  of 
guiding  his  inquiries,  of  relieving  the  tedious- 
ness  of  private  study,  and  of  impressing  on 
his  recollection  the  principles  of  a  science. 
I  saw  no  reason  why  the  law  of  England 
should  be  less  adapted  to  this  mode  of  in 
struction,  or  less  likely  to  benefit  by  it,  than 


*  This  discourse  was  the  preliminary  one  of  a 
course  of  lectures  delivered  in  the  hall  of  Lincoln's 
Inn  during  the  spring  of  the  year  1799.  From  the 
state  of  the  original  MSS.  notes  of  these  lectures, 
in  the  possession  of  the  editor,  it  would  seem  that 
the  lecturer  had  trusted,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  passages  prepared  in  extenso,  to  his  powerful 
memory  for  all  the  aid  that  was  required  beyond 
Vvhat  mere  catchwords  could  supply. — ED. 


any  other  part  of  knowledge.  A  learned  gen 
tleman,  however,  had  already  occupied  that 
ground,*  and  will,  I  doubt  not,  persevere  in 
the  useful  labour  which  he  has  undertaken. 
On  his  province  it  was  far  from  my  wish  to 
intrude.  It  appeared  to  me  that  a  course 
of  lectures  on  another  science  closely  con 
nected  with  all  liberal  professional  studies, 
and  which  had  long  been  the  subject  of  my 
own  reading  and  reflection,  might  not  only 
prove  a  most  useful  introduction  to  the  law 
of  England,  but  might  also  become  an  inter 
esting  part  of  general  study,  and  an  import 
ant  branch  of  the  educatiou  of  those  who 
were  not  destined  for  the  profession  of  the 
law.  I  was  confirmed  in  my  opinion  by  the 
assent  and  approbation  of  men,  whose 
names,  if  it  were  becoming  to  mention  them 
on  so  slight  an  occasion,  would  add  authority 
to  truth,  and  furnish  some  excuse  even  for 
error.  Encouraged  by  their  approbation,  I 
resolved  without  delay  to  commence  the  un 
dertaking,  of  which  I  shall  now  proceed  to 
give  some  account ;  without  interrupting  the 
progress  of  my  discourse  by  anticipating  or 
answering  the  remarks  of  those  who  may, 
perhaps,  sneer  at  me  for  a  departure  from, 
the  usual  course  of  my  profession,  because 
I  am  desirous  of  employing  in  a  rational  and 
useful  pursuit  that  leisure,  of  which  the 
same  men  would  have  required  no  account, 
if  it  had  been  wasted  on  trifles,  or  even 
abused  in  dissipation. 

The  science  which  teaches  the  rights  and 
duties  of  men  and  of  states,  has,  in  modern 
times,  been  called  "  the  law  of  nature  and 
nations."  Under  this  comprehensive  title 

*  See  "  A  Syllabus  of  Lectures  on  the  Law  of 
England,  to  be  delivered  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Hall  by 
M.  Nolen,  Esq." 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


28 

are  included  the  rules  of  morality,  as  they 
prescribe  the  conduct  of  private  men  towards 
each  other  in  all  the  various  Delations  of  hu 
man  life ;  as  they  regulate  both  the  obedi 
ence  of  citizens  to  the  laws,  and  the  authority 
of  the  magistrate  in  framing  laws,  and  ad 
ministering  government  j  and  as  they  modify 
the  intercourse  of  independent  common 
wealths  in  peace,  and  prescribe  limits  to  their 
hostility  in  war.  This  important  science 
comprehends  only  that  part  of  private  ethics 
which  is  capable  of  being  reduced  to  fixed 
and  general  rules.  It  considers  only  those 
general  principles  of  jurisprudence  and  poli 
tics  which  the  wisdom  of  the  lawgiver  adapts 
to  the  peculiar  situation  of  his  own  country, 
and  which  the  skill  of  the  statesman  applies 
to  the  more  fluctuating  and  infinitely  varying 
circumstances  which  affect  its  immediate 
welfare  and  safety.  "  For  there  are  in  nature 
certain  fountains  of  justice  whence  all  civil 
laws  are  derived,  but  as  streams  •  and  like  as 
waters  do  take  tinctures  and  tastes  from  the 
soils  through  which  they  run,  so  do  civil  laws 
vary  according  to  the  regions  and  govern 
ments  where  they  are  planted,  though  they 
proceed  from  the  same  fountains."* 

On  the  great  questions  of  morality,  of  poli 
tics,  and  of  municipal  law,  it  is  the  object 
of  this  science  to  deliver  only  those  funda 
mental  truths  of  which  the  particular  appli 
cation  is  as  extensive  as  the  whole  private 
and  public  conduct  of  men  j — to  discover 
those  "fountains  of  justice,"  without  pursu 
ing  the  '-streams"  through  the  endless  va 
riety  of  their  course.  But  another  part  of 
the  subject  is  to  be  treated  with  greater  ful 
ness  and  minuteness  of  application  ;  namely, 
that  important  branch  of  it  which  professes 
to  regulate  the  relations  and  intercourse  of 
states,  and  more  especially,  (both  on  account 
of  their  greater  perfection  and  their  more 
immediate  reference  to  use),  the  regulations 
of  that  intercourse  as  they  are  modified  by 
the  usages  of  the  civilized  nations  of  Chris 
tendom.  Here  this  science  no  longer  rests 
on  general  principles.  That  province  of  it 
which  we  now  call  the  tc  law  of  nations,"  has, 
in  many  of  its  parts,  acquired  among  Euro 
pean  ones  much  of  the  precision  and  cer 
tainty  of  positive  law ;  and  the  particulars 
of  that  law  are  chiefly  to  be  found  in  the 
works  of  those  writers  who  have  treated  the 
science  of  which  I  now  speak.  It  is  because 
they  have  classed  (in  a  manner  which  seems 
peculiar  to  modern  times)  the  duties  of  indi 
viduals  with  those  of  nations,  and  established 
their  obligation  on  similar  grounds,  that  the 
whole  science  has  been  called,  "  the  law  of 
nature  and  nations." 

Whether  this  appellation  be  the  happiest 
that  could  have  been  chosen  for  the  science, 
and  by  what  steps  it  came  to  be  adopted 


*  Advancement  of  Learning,  book  ii.  I  have 
not  been  deterred  by  some  petty  incongruity  of 
metaphor  from  quoting  this  noble  sentence.  Mr. 
Hume  had,  perhaps,  this  sentence  in  his  recollec 
tion,  when  he  wrote  a  remarkable  passage  of  his 
works.  See  his  Essays,  vol.  ii.  p.  352. 


among  our  modern  moralists  and  lawyers,* 
are  inquiries,  perhaps,  of  more  curiosity  than 
use,  and  ones  which,  if  they  deserve  any 
where  to  be  deeply  pursued,  will  be  pursued 
with  more  propriety  in  a  full  examination  of 
the  subject  than  within  the  short  limits  of  an 
introductory  discourse.  Names  are,  how 
ever,  in  a  great  measure  arbitrary;  but  the 
distribution  of  knowledge  into  its  parts, 
though  it  may  often  perhaps  be  varied  with 
little  disadvantage,  yet  certainly  depends 
upon  some  fixed  principles.  The  modern 
method  of  considering  individual  and  na 
tional  morality  as  the  subjects  of  the  same 
science,  seems  to  me  as  convenient  and  rea 
sonable  an  arrangement  as  can  be  adopted. 
The  same  rules  of  morality  which  hold  toge 
ther  men  in  families,  and  which  form  families 
into  comrnon\vealths,  also  link  together  these 
commonwealths  as  members  of  the  great  so 
ciety  of  mankind.  Commonwealths,  as  well 
as  private  men,  are  liable  to  injury,  and  ca 
pable  of  benefit,  from  each  other;  it  is, 
therefore,  their  interest,  as  well  as  their 
duty,  to  reverence,  to  practise,  and  to  en 
force  those  rules  of  justice  which  control 
and  restrain  injury,  —  which  regulate  and 
augment  benefit, — which,  even  in  their  pre 
sent  imperfect  observance,  preserve  civilized 
states  in  a  tolerable  condition  of  security 
from  wrong,  and  which,  if  they  could  be  gen 
erally  obeyed,  would  establish,  and  perma 
nently  maintain,  the  well-being  of  the  uni 
versal  commonwealth  of  the  human  race.  It 
is  therefore  with  justice,  that  one  part  of  this 
science  has  been  called  "the  natural  law  of 
individuals,"  and  the  other  "  the  natural  law 
of  states;''  and  it  is  too  obvious  to  require 
observation,!  that  the  application  of  both 
these  laws,  of  the  former  as  much  as  of  the 
latter,  is  modified  and  varied  by  cugtoms: 


*  The  learned  reader  is  aware  that  the  "jus 
naturae"  and  "jus  gentium"  of  the  Roman  law- 
yers  are  phrases  of  very  different  import  from  the 
modern  phrases,  "law  of  nature"  and  "  law  of 
nations."  "Jus  naturale,"  says  Ulpian,  "  est 
quod  natura  omnia  animalia  docuit."  "  Quod 
naturalis  ratio  inter  omnes  homines  constituit,  id 
apud  omnes  perasque  custoditur;  vocaturque  jus 
gentium."  But  they  sometimes  neglect  this  subtle 
distinction — "Jure  naturali  quod  appellatur  jus 
gentium."  "  Jus  feciale"  was  the  Roman  term 
for  our  law  of  nations.  "  Belli  quideni  83quitas 
sanclissime  populi  Rom.  feciali  jure  perscripta 
est."  De  Officiis,  lib.  i.  cap.  ii.  Our  learned  ci 
vilian  Zouch  has  accordingly  entitled  his  work, 
"  De  Jure  Feciali,  sive  de  Jure  inter  Gentes." 
The  Chancellor  D'Aguesseau,  probably  without 
knowing  the  work  of  Zouch,  suggested  that  this 
law  should  be  called.  "  Droit  entre  les  Gens" 
((Euvres,  vol.  ii.  p.  337),  in  which  he  has  been 
followed  by  a  late  ingenious  writer,  Mr.  Bentham, 
(Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Le 
gislation,  p.  324.)  Perhaps  these  learned  writers 
do  employ  a  phrase  which  expresses  the  subject 
of  this  law  with  more  accuracy  than  our  common 
language  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  innovations  in  the 
terms  of  science  always  repay  us  by  their  superior 
precision  for  the  uncertainty  and  confusion  which 
the  change  occasions. 

t  This  remark  is  suggested  by  an  objection  of 
Vattel,  which  is  more  specious  than  solid.  See 
his  Preliminaries.  $  6. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


29 


conventions,  character,  and  situation.  With 
a  view  to  these  principles,  the  writers  on 
general  jurisprudence  have  considered  states 
as  moral  persons;  a  mode  of  expression 
which  has  been  called  a  fiction  of  law,  but 
which  may  be  regarded  with  more  propriety 
as  a  bold  metaphor,  used  to  convey  the  im 
portant  truth,  that  nations,  though  they  ac 
knowledge  no  common  superior,  and  neither 
can,  nor  ought,  to  be  subjected  to  human 
punishment,  are  yet  under  the  same  obliga 
tions  mutually  to  practise  honesty  and  hu 
manity,  which  would  have  bound  individu 
als. — if  the  latter  could  be  conceived  ever 
to  nave  subsisted  without  the  protecting  re 
straints  of  government,  and  if  they  were  not 
compelled  to  the  discharge  of  their  duty  by 
the  just  authority  of  magistrates,  and  by  the 
wholesome  terrors  of  the  laws.  With  the 
same  views  this  law  has  been  styled,  and 
(notwithstanding  the  objections  of  some  writ 
ers  to  the  vagueness  of  the  language)  ap 
pears  to  have  been  styled  with  great  pro 
priety,  "  the  law  of  nature."  It  may  with 
sufficient  correctness,  or  at  least  by  an  easy 
metaphor,  be  called  a  "  law,"  inasmuch  as 
it  is  a  supreme,  invariable,  and  uncontrolla 
ble  rule  of  conduct  to  all  men,  the  violation 
of  which  is  avenged  by  natural  punishments, 
necessarily  flowing  from  the  constitution  of 
things,  and  as  fixed  and  inevitable  as  the 
order  of  nature.  It  is  "  the  law  of  nature," 
because  its  general  precepts  are  essentially 
adapted  to  promote  the  happiness  of  man, 
as  long  as  he  remains  a  being  of  the  same 
nature  with  which  he  is  at  present  endowed, 
or,  in  other  words,  as  long  as  he  continues  to 
be  man,  in  all  the  variety  of  times,  places, 
-and  circumstances,  in  which  he  has  been 
known,  or  can  be  imagined  to  exist ;  because 
it  is  discoverable  by  natural  reason,  and  suit 
able  to  our  natural  constitution  ;  and  because 
its  fitness  and  wisdom  are  founded  on  the 
general  nature  of  human  beings,  and  not  on 
any  of  those  temporary  and  accidental  situ 
ations  in  which  they  may  be  placed.  It  is 
with  still  more  propriety,  and  indeed  with 
the  highest  strictness,  and  the  most  perfect 
accuracy,  considered  as  a  law,  when,  accord 
ing  to  those  just  and  magnificent  views 
which  philosophy  and  religion  open  to  us  of 
the  government  of  the  world,  it  is  received 
and  reverenced  as  the  sacred  code,  promul 
gated  by  the  great  Legislator  of  the  Universe 
for  the  guidance  of  His  creatures  to  happi 
ness  ;— guarded  and  enforced,  as  our  own 
experience  may  inform  us,  by  the  penal 
sanctions  of  shame,  of  remorse,  of  infamy, 
and  of  misery ;  and  still  farther  enforced  by 
the  reasonable  expectation  of  yet  more  awful 
penalties  in  a  future  and  more  permanent 
state  of  existence.  It  is  the  contemplation 
of  the  law  of  nature  under  this  full,  mature, 
and  perfect  idea  of  its  high  origin  and  tran 
scendent  dignity,  that  called  forth  the  enthu 
siasm  of  the  greatest  men,  and  the  greatest 
writers  of  ancient  and  modern  times,  in 
those  sublime  descriptions,  in  which  they 
have  exhausted  all  the  powers  of  language. 


and  surpassed  all  the  other  exertions,  even 
of  their  own  eloquence,  in  the  display  of  its 
beauty  and  majesty.  It  is  of  this  law  that 
Cicero  has  spoken  in  so  many  parts  of  his 
writings,  not  only  with  all  the  splendour  and 
copiousness  of  eloquence,  but  with  the  sen 
sibility  of  a  man  of  virtue,  and  with  the  gra 
vity  and  comprehension  of  a  philosopher.* 
It  is  of  this  law  that  Hooker  speaks  in  so 
sublime  a  strain : — "  Of  Law,  no  less  can  be 
said,  than  that  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God, 
her  voice  the  harmony  of  the  world ;  all  things 
in  heaven  and  earth  do  her  homage,  the  very 
least  as  feeling  her  care,  the  greatest  as  not 
exempted  from  her  power;  both  angels  and 
men,  and  creatures  of  what  condition  soever, 
though  each  in  different  sort  and  manner, 
yet  all  with  uniform  consent  admiring  her 
as  the  mother  of  their  peace  and  joy."t 

Let  not  those  who,  to  use  the  language  of 
the  same  Hooker,  "talk  of  truth."  without 
"  ever  sounding  the  depth  from  'whence  it 
springeth,"  hastily  take  it  for  granted,  that 
these  great  masters  of  eloquence  and  reason 
were  led  astray  by  the  specious  delusions  of 
mysticism,  from  the  sober  consideration  of 
the  true  grounds  of  morality  in  the  nature, 
necessities,  and  interests  of  man.  They 
studied  and  taught  the  principles  of  morals; 
but  they  thought  it  still  more  necessary,  and 
more  wise, — a  much  nobler  task,  and  more 
becoming  a  true  philosopher,  to  inspire  men 
with  a  love  and  reverence  for  virtue.!  They 
were  not  contented  with  elementary  specu 
lations  :  they  examined  the  foundations  of 
our  duty;  but  they  felt  and  cherished  a  most 
natural,  a  most  seemly,  a  most  rational  en 
thusiasm,  when  they  contemplated  the  ma 
jestic  edifice  which  is  reared  on  these  solid 
foundations.  They  devoted  the  highest  ex 
ertions  of  their  minds  to  spread  that  benefi 
cent  enthusiasm  among  men.  They  conse 
crated  as  a  homage  to  Virtue  the  most  perfect 


*  "  Est  quidem  vera  lex  recta  ratio,  naturae 
congruens,  diffusa  in  omnes,  constans,  sempiter- 
na;  qua?  vocet  ad  officium  jubendo,  vetando  a 
fraude  deterreat,  quce  tamen  neque  probos  frustra 
jubet  aut  vetat,  neque  improbos  jubendo  aut  ve 
tando  movet.  Huic  legi  neque  obrogari  fas  est, 
neque  derogari  ex  hac  aliquid  licet,  neque  tola 
abrogari  potest.  Nee  vero  aut  per  senatum  aut 
per  populum  solvi  hac  lege  possumus:  neque  est 
quaerendus  explanator  aut  interpres  ejus  alius. 
Nee  erit  alia  lex  Romae,  alia  Athenis,  alia  nunc, 
alia  posthac  ;  sed  et  omnes  gentes  et  omni  tern- 
pore  una  lex  et  sernpilerna,  et  immutabilis  con- 
tinebit ;  unusque  erit  communis  quasi  magister  et 
imperator  omnium  Deus,  ille  legis  hujus  inventor, 
disceptator,  lalor :  cui  qui  non  parebit  ipse  sc 
fugiet  et  naturam  hominis  aspernabitur,  atque 
hoc  ipso  luet  maximas  pcenas,  etiamsi  caetera  sup- 
plicia,  qua?  putantur,  effugerit." — De  Repub.  lib. 
iii.  cap.  22. 

t  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  book  i.  in  the  conclusion. 

+  "  Age  vero  urbibus  constitutis,  ut  fidem  co- 
lere  et  justitiam  retinere  discerent,  et  aliis  parere 
sua  voluntate  consuescerent,  ac  non  modo  labores 
excipiendps  communis  commodi  causa,  sed  etiam 
vitam  amittendam  existimarent ;  qui  tandem  fieri 
potuit,  nisi  homines  ea,  quae  ratione  invenisser.t, 
eloquentia  persuadere  potuissent  V' — De  Iiivent. 
Rher.  lib.  i.  cap.  2. 

c  2 


30 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


fruits  of  their  genius.  If  these  grand  senti 
ments  of  "the  good  and  fair"  have  some 
times  prevented  them  from,  delivering  the 
principles  of  ethics  with  the  nakedness  and 
dryness  of  science,  at  least  we  must  own 
that  they  have  chosen  the  better  part, — that 
they  have  preferred  virtuous  feeling  to  moral 
theory,  and  practical  benefit  to  speculative 
exactness.  Perhaps  these  wise  men  may 
have  supposed  that  the  minute  dissection 
and  anatomy  of  Virtue  might,  to  the  ill-judg 
ing  eye,  weaken  the  charm  of  her  beauty. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  attempt  a  theme  which 
has  perhaps  been  exhausted  by  these  great 
writers.  I  am  indeed  much  less  called  upon 
to  display  the  worth  and  usefulness  of  the 
law  of  nations,  than  to  vindicate  myself  from 
presumption  iii  attempting  a  subject  which 
has  been  already  handled  by  so  many  mas 
ters.  For  the  purpose  of  that  vindication  it 
will  be  necessary  to  sketch  a  very  short  and 
slight  account  (for  such  in  this  place  it  must 
unavoidably  be)  of  the  progress  and  present 
state  of  the  science,  arid  of  that  succession 
of  able  writers  who  have  gradually  brought 
it  to  its  present  perfection. 

We  have  no  Greek  or  Roman  treatise  re 
maining  on  the  law  of  nations.  From  the 
title  of  one  of  the  lost  works  of  Aristotle,  it 
appears  that  he  composed  a  treatise  on  the 
laws  of  war,*  which,  if  we  had  the  good  for 
tune  to  possess  it,  would  doubtless  have  am 
ply  satisfied  our  curiosity,  and  would  have 
taught  us  both  the  practice  of  the  ancient 
nations  and  the  opinions  of  their  moralists, 
with  that  depth  and  precision  which  distin 
guish  the  other  works  of  that  great  philoso 
pher.  We  can  now  only  imperfectly  collect 
that  practice  and  those  opinions  from  various 
passages  which  are  scattered  over  the  writ 
ings  of  philosophers,  historians,  poets,  and 
orators.  When  the  time  shall  arrive  for  a 
more  full  consideration  of  the  state  of  the 
government  and  manners  of  the  ancient 
world,  I  shall  be  able,  perhaps,  to  offer  satis 
factory  reasons  why  these  enlightened  na 
tions  did  not  separate  from  the  general  pro 
vince  of  ethics  that  part  of  morality  which 
regulates  the  intercourse  of  states,  and  erect 
it  into  an  independent  science.  It  would  re 
quire  a  long  discussion  to  unfold  the  various 
causes  which  united  the  modern  nations  of 
Europe  into  a  closer  society. — which  linked 
them  together  by  the  firmest  bands  of  mutual 
dependence,  and  which  thus,  in  process  of 
time,  gave  to  the  law  that  regulated  their 
intercourse,  greater  importance,  higher  im 
provement,  and  more  binding  force.  Among 
these  causes,  we  may  enumerate  a  common 
extraction,  a  common  religion,  similar  man 
ners,  institutions,  and  languages;  in  earlier 
ages  the  authority  of  the  See  of  Rome,  and 
the  extravagant  claims  of  the  imperial  crown ; 
in  latter  times  the  connexions  of  trade,  the 
jealousy  of  power,  the  refinement  of  civiliza 
tion,  the  cultivation  of  science,  and,  above  all, 
that  general  mildness  of  character  and  man- 

*  A/ttSUti^AT*  TWV  TTOXttAC/eV. 


ners  which  arose  from  the  combined  and 
progressive  influence  of  chivalry,  of  com 
merce,  of  learning  and  of  religion.  Nor  must 
we  omit  the  similarity  of  those  political  in 
stitutions  which,  in  every  country  that  had 
been  overrun  by  the  Gothic  conquerors,  bore 
discernible  marks  (which  the  revolutions  of 
succeeding  ages  had  obscured,  but  not  ob 
literated)  of  the  rude  but  bold  and  noble  out 
line  of  liberty  that  was  originally  sketched 
by  the  hand  of  these  generous  barbarians. 
These  and  many  other  causes  conspired  to 
unite  the  nations  of  Europe  in  a  more  inti 
mate  connexion  and  a  more  constant  inter 
course,  and,  of  consequence,  made  the  regu 
lation  of  their  intercourse  more  necessary, 
and  the  law  that  was  to  govern  it  more  im 
portant.  In  proportion  as  they  approached 
to  the  condition  of  provinces  of  the  same  em 
pire,  it  became  almost  as  essential  that 
Europe  should  have  a  precise  and  compre 
hensive  code  of  the  law  of  nations,  as  that 
each  country  should  have  a  system  of  mu 
nicipal  law.  The  labours  of  the  learned, 
accordingly,  began  to  be  directed  to  this  sub 
ject  in  the  sixteenth  century,  soon  after  the 
revival  of  learning,  and  after  that  regular 
distribution  of  power  and  territory  which  has 
subsisted,  with  little  variation,  until  our 
times.  The  critical  examination  of  these 
early  writers  would,  perhaps,  not  be  very  in 
teresting  in  an  extensive  work,  and  it  would 
be  unpardonable  in  a  short  discourse.  It 
is  sufficient  to  observe  that  they  were  all 
more  or  less  shackled  by  the  barbarous  phi 
losophy  of  the  schools,  and  that  they  were 
impeded  in  their  progress  by  a  timorous  def 
erence  for  the  inferior  and  technical  parts  of 
the  Roman  law,  without  raising  their  views 
to  the  comprehensive  principles  which  will 
for  ever  inspire  mankind  with  veneration  for 
that  grand  monument  of  human  wisdom.  It 
was  only,  indeed,  in  the  sixteenth  century 
that  the  Roman  law  was  first  studied  and 
understood  as  a  science  connected  with  Ro 
man  history  and  literature,  and  illustrated  by 
men  whom  Ulpian  and  Papinian  would  not 
have  disdained  to  acknowledge  as  their  suc 
cessors.*  Among  the  writers  of  that  age  we 
may  perceive  the  ineffectual  attempts,  the 
partial  advances,  the  occasional  streaks  of 
light  which  always  precede  great  discov 
eries,  and  works  that  are  to  instruct  pos 
terity. 

The  reduction  of  the  law  of  nations  to  a 
system  was  reserved  for  Grotius.  It  was  by 
the  advice  of  Lord  Bacon  and  Peiresc  that  he 
undertook  this  arduous  task.  He  produced  a 
work  which  we  now,  indeed,  justly  deem  im 
perfect,  but  which  is  perhaps  the  most  com 
plete  that  the  world  has  yet  owed,  at  so  early 
a  stage  in  the  progress  of  any  science,  to  the 

*  Cujacius,  Brissonius,  Hottomannus,  &c.,  &c. 
— See  Gravina  Origines  Juris  Civilis  (Lips.  1737), 
pp.  132 — 138.  Leibnitz,  a  great  mathematician  as 
well  as  philosopher,  declares  that  he  knows  no 
thing  which  approaches  so  near  to  the  method 
and  precision  of  Geometry  as  the  Roman  law.—' 
Op.  vol.  iv.  p.  254. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  TRE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


31 


genius  and  learning  of  one  man.  So  great  is 
the  uncertainty  of  posthumous  reputation, 
and  so  liable  is  the  fame  even  of  the  greatest 
men  to  be  obscured  by  those  new  fashions 
of  thinking  and  writing  which  succeed  each 
other  so  rapidly  among  polished  nations,  that 
Grotius,  who  filled  so  large  a  space  in  the 
eye  of  his  contemporaries,  is  now  perhaps 
known  to  some  of  my  readers  only  by  name. 
Yet  if  we  fairly  estimate  both  his  endow 
ments  and  his  virtues,  we  may  justly  consider 
him  as  one  of  the  most  memorable  men  who 
have  done  honour  to  modern  times.  He 
combined  the  discharge  of  the  most  impor 
tant  duties  of  active  and  public  life  with  the 
attainment  of  that  exact  and  various  learning 
which  is  generally  the  portion  only  of  the 
recluse  student.  He  was  distinguished  as 
an  advocate  and  a  magistrate,  and  he  com 
posed  the  most  valuable  works  on  the  law 
of  his  own  country;  he  was  almost  equally 
celebrated  as  an  historian,  a  scholar,  a  poet, 
and  a  divine ; — a  disinterested  statesman,  a 
philosophical  lawyer,  a  patriot  who  united 
moderation  with  firmness,  and  a  theologian 
who  was  taught  candour  by  his  learning. 
Unmerited  exile  did  not  damp  his  patriot 
ism;  the  bitterness  of  controversy  did  not 
extinguish  his  charity.  The  sagacity  of  his 
numerous  and  fierce  adversaries  could  not 
discover  a  blot  on  his  character ;  and  in  the 
midst  of  all  the  hard  trials  and  galling  provo 
cations  of  a  turbulent  political  life,  he  never 
once  deserted  his  friends  when  they  were 
unfortunate,  nor  insulted  his  enemies  when 
they  were  weak.  In  times  of  the  most  fu 
rious  civil  and  religious  faction  he  preserved 
his  name  unspotted,  and  he  knew  how  to 
reconcile  fidelity  to  his  own  party,  with 
moderation  towards  his  opponents. 

Such  was  the  man  who  was  destined  to 
give  a  new  form  to  the  law  of  nations,  or  ra 
ther  to  create  a  science,  of  which  only  rude 
sketches  and  undigested  materials  were 
scattered  over  the  writings  of  those  who  had 
gone  before  him.  By  tracing  the  laws  of  his 
country  to  their  principles,  he  was  led  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  law  of  nature,  which 
he  justly  considered  as  the  parent  of  all  mu 
nicipal  law.*  Few  works  were  more  cele 
brated  than  that  of  Grotius  in  his  own  days, 
and  in  the  age  which  succeeded.  It  hap, 
however,  been  the  fashion  of  the  last  half- 
century  to  depreciate  his  work  as  a  shape 
less  compilation,  in  which  reason  lies  buried 
under  a  mass  of  authorities  and  quotations. 
This  fashion  originated  among  French  wits 
and  declaimers,  and  it  has  been,  I  know  not 
for  what  reason,  adopted,  though  with  far 
greater  moderation  and  decency,  by  some 
respectable  writers  among^  ourselves.  As  to 
those  who  first  used  this  language,  the  most 
candid  supposition  that  we  can  make  with 
respect  to  them  is,  that  they  never  read  the 
work:  for,  if  they  had  not  been  deterred 
from  the  perusal  of  it  by  such  a  formidable 


*  "  Proavia  juris  civilis." 
Pacis,  proleg.  §  xvi. 


De  Jure  Belli  ac 


display  of  Greek  characters,  they  must  soon 
have  discovered  that  Grotius  never  quotes 
on  any  subject  till  he  has  first  appealed  to 
some  principles,  and  often,  in  my  humble 
opinion,  though  not  always,  to  the  soundest 
and  most  rational  principles. 

But  another  .sort  of  answer  is  due  to  some 
of  those*  who  have  criticised  Grotius,  and 
that  answer  might  be  given  in  the  words  of 
Grotius  himself. t  He  was  not  of  such  a  stu 
pid  and  servile  cast  of  mind,  as  to  quote  the 
opinions  of  poets  or  orators,  of  historians 
and  philosophers,  as  those  of  judges,  from 
whose  decision  there  was  no  appeal.  He 
quotes  them,  as  he  tells  us  himself,  as  wit 
nesses  whose  conspiring  testimony,  mightily 
strengthened  and  confirmed  by  their  discord 
ance  on  almost  every  other  subject,  is  a 
conclusive  proof  of  the  unanimity  of  the 
whole  human  race  on  the  great  rules  of  duty 
and  the  fundamental  principles  of  morals. 
On  such  matters,  poets  and  orators  are  the 
most  unexceptionable  of  all  witnesses;  for 
they  address  themselves  to  the  general  feel 
ings  and  sympathies  of  mankind ;  they  are 
neither  warped  by  system,  nor  perverted  by 
sophistry ;  they  can  attain  none  of  their  ob 
jects,  they  can  neither  please  nor  persuade, 
if  they  dwell  on  moral  sentiments  not  in  uni 
son  with  those  of  their  readers.  No  system 
of  moral  philosophy  can  surely  disregard  the 
general  feelings  of  human  nature  and  the 
according  judgment  of  all  ages  and  nations. 
But  where  are  these  feelings  and  that  judg 
ment  recorded  and  preserved  ?  In  those 
very  writings  which  Grotius  is  gravely 
blamed  for  having  quoted.  The  usages  arid 
laws  of  nations,  the  events  of  history,  the 
opinions  of  philosophers,  the  sentiments  of 
orators  and  poets,  as  well  as  the  observation  of 
common  life,  are,  in  truth,  the  materials  out 
of  which  the  science  of  morality  is  formed ; 
and  those  who  neglect  them  are  justly  charge 
able  with  a  vain  attempt  to  philosophise 
without  regard  to  fact  and  experience, — the 
sole  foundation  of  all  true  philosophy. 

If  this  were  merely  an  objection  of  taste, 
I  should  be  willing  to  allow  that  Grotius  has 
indeed  poured  forth  his  learning  with  a  pro 
fusion  that  sometimes  rather  encumbers  than 
adorns  his  work,  and  which  is  not  always 
necessary  to  the  illustration  of  his  subject. 
Yet,  even  in  making  that  concession,  I  should 
rather  yield  to  the  taste  of  others  than  speak 
from  my  own  feelings.  I  own  that  such  rich 
ness  and  splendour  of  literature  have  a  power 
ful  charm  for  me.  They  fill  my  mind  with 
an  endless  variety  of  delightful  recollections 
and  associations.  They  relieve  the  under 
standing  in  its  progress  through  a  vast 
science,  by  calling  up  the  memory  of  great 
men  and  of  interesting  events.  By  this 
means  we  see  the  truths  of  morality  clothed 
with  all  the  eloquence, — not  that  could  be 
produced  by  the  powers  of  one  man, — but 
that  could  be  bestowed  on  them  by  the  eol- 


*  Dr.  Paley,  Principles  of  Moral  and  Political 
Philosophy,  pref.  pp.  xiv.  xv. 
t  De  Jure  Belli,  proleg.  §  40. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


lective  genius  of  the  world.  Even  Virtue 
and  Wisdom  themselves  acquire  new  majesty 
in  my  eyes,  when  I  thus  see  all  the  great 
masters  of  thinking  and  writing  called  to 
gether,  as  it  were,  from  all  times  and  coun 
tries,  to  do  them  homage,  and  to  appear  in 
their  train. 

But  this  is  no  place  for  discussions  of  taste, 
and  I  am  very  ready  to  own  that  mine  may 
be  corrupted.  The  work  of  Grotius  is  liable 
to  a  more  serious  objection,  though  I  do  not 
recollect  that  it  has  ever  been  made.  His 
method  is  inconvenient  and  unscientific :  he 
has  inverted  the  natural  order.  That  natural 
order  undoubtedly  dictates,  that  we  should 
first  search  for  the  original  principles  of  the 
science  in  human  nature ;  then  apply  them 
to  the  regulation  of  the  conduct  of  indivi 
duals  ;  and  lastly,  employ  them  for  the  decision 
of  those  difficult  and  complicated  questions 
that  arise  with  respect  to  the  intercourse 
of  nations.  But  Grotius  has  chosen  the  re 
verse  of  this  method.  He  begins  with  the 
consideration  of  the  states  of  peace  and  war, 
and  he  examines  original  principles  only  oc 
casionally  and  incidentally,  as  they  grow  out 
of  the  questions  which  he  is  called  upon  to 
decide.  It  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  this 
disorderly  method, — which  exhibts  the  ele 
ments  of  the  science  in  the  form  of  scattered 
digressions,  that  he  seldom  employs  sufficient 
discussion  on  these  fundamental  truths,  and 
never  in  the  place  where  such  a  discussion 
would  be  most  instructive  to  the  reader. 

This  defect  in  the  plan  of  Grotius  was  per 
ceived  and  supplied  by  PufTendorfT,  who  re 
stored  natural  law  to  that  superiority  which 
belonged  to  it,  and,  with  great  propriety,  treat 
ed  the  law  of  nations  as  only  one  main  branch 
of  the  parent  stock.  Without  the  genius  of 
his  master,  and  with  very  inferior  learning, 
he  has  yet  treated  this  subject  with  sound 
sense,  with  clear  method, with  extensive  and 
accurate  knowledge,  and  with  a  copious 
ness  of  detail  sometimes  indeed  tedious,  but 
always  instructive  and  satisfactory.  His 
work  will  be  always  studied  by  those  who 
spare  no  labour  to  acquire  a  deep  knowledge 
of  the  subject;  but  it  will,  in  our  times,  I 
fear,  be  oftener  found  on  the  shelf  than  on 
the  desk  of  the  general  student.  In  the  time 
of  Mr.  Locke  it  was  considered  as  the  manual 
of  those  who  were  intended  for  active  life ; 
but  in  the  present  age,  I  believe  it  will  be 
found  that  men  of  business  are  too  much  occu 
pied, — men  of  letters  are  too  fastidious,  and 
men  of  the  world  too  indolent,  for  the  study 
or  even  the  perusal  of  such  works.  Far  be 
it  from  me  to  derogate  from  the  real  and 
great  merit  of  so  useful  a  writer  as  PufTen 
dorfT.  His  treatise  is  a  mine  in  which  all  his 
successors  must  dig.  I  only  presume  to  sug 
gest,  that  a  book  so  prolix,  and  so  utterly  void 
of  all  the  attractions  of  composition,  is  likely 
to  repel  many  readers  who  are  interested  in 
its  subject,  and  who  might  perhaps  be  dis 
posed  to  acquire  some  knowledge  of  the 
principles  of  public  law. 

Many  other  circumstances  might  be  men 


tioned,  which  conspire  to  prove  that  neither 
of  the  great  works  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
has  superseded  the  necessity  of  a  new  at 
tempt  to  lay  before  the  public  a  system  of 
the  law  of  nations.  The  language  of  Science 
is  so  completely  changed  since  both  these 
works  were  written,  that  whoever  was  now 
to  employ  their  terms  in  his  moral  reasonings 
would  be  almost  unintelligible  to  some  of 
his  hearers  or  readers. — and  to  some  among 
them,  too,  who  are  neither  ill  qualified,  nor 
ill  disposed,  to  study  such  subjects  with  con 
siderable  advantage  to  themselves.  The 
learned,  indeed,  well  know  how  little  novelty 
or  variety  is  to  be  found  in  scientific  disputes. 
The  same  truths  and  the  same  errors  have 
been  repeated  from  age  to  age,  with  little  va 
riation  but  in  the  language ;  and  novelty  of 
expression  is  often  mistaken  by  the  ignorant 
for  substantial  discovery.  Perhaps,  too,  very 
nearly  the  same  portion  of  genius  and  judg 
ment  has  been  exerted  in  most  of  the  various 
forms  under  which  science  has  been  culti 
vated  at  different  periods  of  history.  The 
superiority  of  those  writers  who  continue  to 
be  read,  perhaps  often  consists  chiefly  in 
taste,  in  prudence,  in  a  happy  choice  of  sub 
ject,  in  a  favourable  moment,  in  an  agreeable 
style,  in  the  good  fortune  of  a  prevalent  lan 
guage,  or  in  other  advantages  which  are 
either  accidental,  or  are  the  result  rather  of 
the  secondary,  than  of  the  highest,  faculties 
of  the  mind.  But  these  reflections,  while 
they  moderate  the  pride  of  invention,  and 
dispel  the  extravagant  conceit  of  superior 
illumination,  yet  serve  to  prove  the  use,  and 
indeed  the  necessity,  of  composing,  from 
time  to  time,  new  systems  of  science  adapt 
ed  to  the  opinions  and  language  of  each  suc 
ceeding  period.  Every  age  must  be  taught 
in  its  own  language.  If  a  man  were  now  to 
begin  a  discourse  on  ethics  with  an  account 
of  the  "moral  entities''  of  PufTendorfT,*  he 
would  speak  an  unknown  tongue. 

It  is  not,  however,  alone  as  a  mere  trans 
lation  of  former  writers  into  modern  language 
that  a  new  system  of  public  law  seems  likely 
to  be  useful.  The  age  in  which  we  live 
possesses  many  advantages  which  are  pe 
culiarly  favourable  to  such  an  undertaking. 
Since  the  composition  of  the  great  works  of 
Grotius  and  PufTendorfT,  a  more  modest, 
simple,  and  intelligible  philosophy  has  been, 
introduced  into  the  schools  ]  which  has  in 
deed  been  grossly  abused  by  sophists,  but 
which,  from  the  time  of  Locke,  has  been 
cultivated  and  improved  by  a  succession  of 
disciples  worthy  of  their  illustrious  master. 
We  are  thus  enabled  to  discuss  with  pre 
cision,  and  to  explain  with  clearness,  the 
principles  of  the  science  of  human  nature, 


*  1  do  not  mean  to  impeach  the  soundness  of 
any  part  of  Puffendorff's  reasoning  founded  on 
moral  entities :  it  may  be  explained  in  a  manner 
consistent  with  the  most  just  philosophy.  He  used, 
as  every  writer  must  do,  the  scientific  language  of 
his  own  time.  I  only  assert  that,  to  those  who 
are  unacquainted  with  ancient  systems,  his  philo 
sophical  vocabulary  is  obsolete  and  unintelligible. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


33 


which  are  in  themselves  on  a  level  with  the 
capacity  of  every  man  of  good  sense,  and 
which  only  appeared  to  be  abstruse  from  the 
unprofitable  subtleties  with  which  they  were 
loaded,  and  the  barbarous  jargon  in  which 
they  were  expressed.  The  deepest  doctrines 
of  morality  have  since  that  time  been  treated 
in  the  perspicuous  and  popular  style,  and 
with  some  degree  of  the  beauty  and  elo 
quence  of  the  ancient  moralists.  That  phi 
losophy  on  which  are  founded  the  principles 
of  our  duty,  if  it  has  not  become  more  cer 
tain  (for  morality  admits  no  discoveries),  is 
at  least  less  "harsh  and  crabbed,"  less  ob 
scure  and  haughty  in  its  language,  and  less 
forbidding  and  disgusting  in  its  appearance, 
than  in  the  days  of  our  ancestors.  If  this 
progress  of  leaning  towards  popularity  has 
engendered  (as  it  must  be  owned  that  it  has) 
a  multitude  of  superficial  and  most  mis 
chievous  sciolists,  the  antidote  must  come 
from  the  same  quarter  with  the  disease  : 
popular  reason  can  alone  correct  popular 
sophistry. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  advantage  wrhich  a 
wrriter  of  the  present  age  would  possess  over 
the  celebrated  jurists  of  the  last  century. 
Since  that  time  vast  additions  have  been 
made  to  the  stock  of  our  knowledge  of  hu 
man  nature.  Many  dark  periods  of  history 
have  since  been  explored :  many  hitherto 
unknown  regions  of  the  globe  have  been 
visited  and  described  by  travellers  and  navi 
gators  not  less  intelligent  than  intrepid.  We 
may  be  said  to  stand  at  the  confluence  of 
the  greatest  number  of  streams  of  knowledge 
flowing  from  the  most  distant  sources  that 
ever  met  at  one  point.  We  are  not  confined, 
as  the  learned  of  the  last  age  generally  were, 
to  the  history  of  those  renowned  nations  who 
are  our  masters  in  literature.  We  can  bring 
before  us  man  in  a  lower  and  more  abject 
condition  than  any  in  which  he  was  ever 
before  seen.  The  records  have  been  partly 
opened  to  us  of  those  mighty  empires  of 
Asia*  where  the  beginnings  of  civilization 
are  lost  in  the  darkness  of  an  unfathomable 
antiquity.  We  can  make  human  society 
pass  in  review  before  our  mind,  from  the 
brutal  and  helpless  barbarism  of  Terra  del 
Fuego,  and  the  mild  and  voluptuous  savages 
of  Otaheite,  to  the  tame,  but  ancient  and 
immovable  civilization  of  China,  which  be 
stows  its  own  arts  on  every  successive  race 

*  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  pass  over  this 
subject  without  paying  my  humble  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  Sir  William  Jones,  who  has  laboured 
so  successfully  in  Oriental  literature  ;  whose  fine 
genius,  pure  taste,  unwearied  industry,  unrivalled 
and  almost  prodigious  variety  of  acquirements, — 
not  to  speak  of  his  amiable  manners,  and  spotless 
integrity, — must  fill  every  one  who  cultivates  or 
admires  letters  with  reverence,  tinged  with  a  me 
lancholy  which  the  recollection  of  his  recent  deaih 
is  so  well  adapted  to  inspire.  I  hope  I  shall  be 
pardoned  if  I  add  my  applause  to  the  genius  and 
learning  of  Mr.  Maurice,  who  treads  in  the  steps 
of  his  illustrious  friend,  and  who  has  bewailed  his 
death  in  a  strain  of  genuine  and  beautiful  poetry, 
not  unworthy  of  happier  periods  of  our  English 
literature. 


of  conquerors, — to  the  meek  and  servile  na 
tives  of  Hindostan,  who  preserve  their  inge 
nuity,  their  skill,  and  their  science,  through 
a  long  series  of  ages,  under  the  yoke  of 
foreign  tyrants, — and  to  the  gross  and  in 
corrigible  rudeness  of  the  Ottomans,  incapa 
ble  of  improvement,  and  extinguishing  the 
remains  of  civilization  among  their  unhappy 
subjects,  once  the  most  ingenious  nations  of 
the  earth.  We  can  examine  almost  every 
imaginable  variety  in  the  character,  man 
ners,  opinions,  feelings,  prejudices,  and  in 
stitutions  of  mankind,  into  which  they  can 
be  thrown,  either  by  the  rudeness  of  barba 
rism,  or  by  the  capricious  corruptions  of  re 
finement,  or  by  those  innumerable  combina 
tions  of  circumstances,  which,  both  in  these 
opposite  conditions,  and  in  all  the  interme 
diate  stages  between  them,  influence  or 
direct  the  course  of  human  affairs.  History, 
if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  is  now 
a  vast  museum,  in  which  specimens  of  every 
variety  of  human  nature  may  be  studied. 
From  these  great  accessions  to  knowledge, 
lawgivers  and  statesmen,  but.  above  all, 
moralists  and  political  philosophers,  may 
reap  the  most  important  instruction.  They 
may  plainly  discover  in  all  the  useful  and 
beautiful  variety  of  governments  and  insti 
tutions,  and  under  all  the  fantastic  multitude 
of  usages  and  rites  which  have  prevailed 
among  men,  the  same  fundamental,  compre 
hensive  truths,  the  sacred  master-principles 
which  are  the  guardians  of  human  society, 
recognised  and  revered  (with  few  and  slight 
exceptions)  by  every  nation  upon  earth,  and 
uniformly  taught  (with  still  fewer  excep 
tions;)  bv  a  succession  of  wise  men  from  the 
first  dawn  of  speculation  to  the  present  mo 
ment.  The  exceptions,  few  as  they  are,  will, 
on  more  reflection,  be  found  rather  apparent 
than  real.  If  we  could  raise  ourselves  to 
that  height  from  which  we  ought  to  survey 
so  vast  a  subject,  these  exceptions  would 
altogether  vanish ;  the  brutality  of  a  handful 
of  savages  would  disappear  in  the  immense 
prospect  of  human  nature,  and  the  murmurs 
of  a  few  licentious  sophists  would  not  ascend 
to  break  the  general  harmony.  This  consent 
of  mankind  in  first  principles,  and  this  end 
less  variety  in  their  application,  which  is  one 
among  many  valuable  truths  which  we  may 
collect  from  our  present  extensive  acquaint 
ance  with  the  history  of  man.  is  itself  of  vast 
importance.  Much  of  the  majesty  and  au 
thority  of  virtue  is  derived  from  their  consent, 
and  almost  the  whole  of  practical  wisdom  is 
founded  on  their  variety. 

What  former  age  could  have  supplied  facts 
for  such  a  work  as  that  of  Montesquieu  ? 
He  indeed  has  been,  perhaps  justly,  charged 
with  abusing  this  advantage,  by  the  undis- 
tinguishing  adoption  of  the  narratives  of 
travellers  of  very  different  degrees  of  accu 
racy  and  veracity.  But  if  we  reluctantly 
confess  the  justness  of  this  objection  ;  if  we 
are  compelled  to  own  that  he  exaggerates 
the  influence  of  climate, — that  he  ascribes 
too  much  to  the  foresight  and  forming  skill 


34 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


of  legislators,  and  far  too  little  to  time  and 
circumstances,  in  the  growth  of  political  con 
stitutions, — that  the  substantial  character 
and  essential  differences  of  governments  are 
often  lost  and  confounded  in  his  technical 
language  and  arrangement, — that  he  often 
bends  the  free  and  irregular  outline  of  nature 
to  the  imposing  but  fallacious  geometrical 
regularity  of  system, — that  he  has  chosen  a 
style  of  affected  abruptness,  senteritious- 
ness,  and  vivacity,  ill  suited  to  the  gravity 
of  his  subject ; — after  all  these  concessions 
(for  his  fame  is  large  enough  to  spare  many 
concessions),  the  Spirit  of  Laws  will  still  re 
main  not  only  one  of  the  most  solid  and  du 
rable  monuments  of  the  powers  of  the  hu 
man  mind,  but  a  striking  evidence  of  the 
inestimable  advantages  which  political  philo 
sophy  may  receive  from  a  wide  survey  of 
all  the  various  conditions  of  human  society. 

In  the  present  century  a  slow  and  silent, 
but  very  substantial,  mitigation  has  taken 
place  in  the  practice  of  war ;  and  in  propor 
tion  as  that  mitigated  practice  has  received 
the  sanction  of  time,  it  is  raised  from  the  rank 
of  mere  usage,  and  becomes  part  of  the  law 
of  nations.  Whoever  will  compare  our  pre 
sent  modes  of  warfare  with  the  system  of 
Grotius*  will  clearly  discern  the  immense 
improvements  which  have  taken  place  in 
that  respect  since  the  publication  of  his 
work,  during  a  period,  perhaps  in  every  point 
of  view  the  happiest  to  be  found  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  world.  In  the  same  period  many 
important  points  of  public  law  have  been  the 
subject  of  contest  both  by  argument  and  by 
arms,  of  which  we  find  either  no  mention,  or 
very  obscure  traces,  in  the  history  of  prece 
ding  times. 

There  are  other  circumstances  to  which  I 
allude  with  hesitation  and  reluctance,  though 
it  must  be  owned  that  they  afford  to  a  writer 
of  this  age  some  degree  of  unfortunate  and 
deplorable  advantage  over  his  predecessors. 
Recent  events  have  accumulated  more  terri 
ble  practical  instruction  on  every  subject  of 
politics  than  could  have  been  in  other  times 
acquired  by  the  experience  of  ages.  Men's 
wit  sharpened  by  their  passions  has  penetra 
ted  to  the  bottom  of  almost  all  political  ques 
tions.  Even  the  fundamental  rules  of  moral 
ity  themselves  have,  for  the  first  time,  unfor 
tunately  for  mankind,  become  the  subject  of 
doubt  and  discussion.  I  shall  consider  it  as 
my  duty  to  abstain  from  all  mention  of  these 
awful  events,  and  of  these  fatal  controversies. 
But  the  mind  of  that  man  must  indeed  be  in 
curious  and  indocile,  who  has  either  over 
looked  all  these  things,  or  reaped  no  instruc 
tion  from  the  contemplation  of  them. 

From  these  reflections  it  appears,  that, 
since  the  composition  of  those  two  great 
works  on  the  law  of  nature  and  nations 
which  continue  to  be  the  classical  and  stand 
ard  works  on  that  subject,  we  have  gained 
both  more  convenient  instruments  of  reason- 

*  Especially  those  chapters  of  the  third  book, 
entitled,  "  Temperamentum  circa  Captivos,"  &c. 


ing  and  more  extensive  materials  for  science. 
— that  the  code  of  war  has  been  enlarged 
and  improved, — that  new  questions  have 
been  practically  decided, — and  that  new  con 
troversies  have  arisen  regarding  the  inter 
course  of  independent  states,  and  the  first 
principles  of  morality  and  civil  government. 

Some  readers  may,  howTever,  think  that  in 
these  observations  which  I  offer,  to  excuse 
the  presumption  of  my  own  attempt.  I  have 
omitted  the  mention  of  later  writers,  to 
whom  some  part  of  the  remarks  is  not  justly 
applicable.  But,  perhaps,  further  considera 
tion  will  acquit  me  in  the  judgment  of  such, 
readers.  Writers  on  particular  questions  of 
public  law  are  not  within  the  scope  of  my 
observations.  They  have  furnished  the  most 
valuable  materials;  but  I  speak  only  of  a 
system.  To  the  large  work  of  Wolfh'us,  the 
observations  which  i  have  made  on  PurTen- 
dorff  as  a  book  for  general  use,  will  surely 
apply  with  tenfold  force.  His  abridger,  Vat- 
tel,  deserves,  indeed,  considerable  praise  :  he 
is  a  very  ingenious,  clear,  elegant,  and  useful 
writer.  But  he  only  considers  one  part  of  this 
extensive  subject, — namely,  the  law  of  na 
tions,  strictly  so  called  ;  and  I  cannot  help 
thinking,  that,  even  in  this  department  of  the 
science,  he  has  adopted  some  doubtful  and 
dangerous  principles, — not  to  mention  his 
constant  deficiency  in  that  fulness  of  example 
and  illustration,  which  so  much  embellishes 
and  strengthens  reason.  It  is  hardly  neces 
sary  to  take  any  notice  of  the  text-book  of 
Heineccius,  the  best  writer  of  elementary 
books  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  on  any 
subject.  Burlamaqui  is  an  author  of  superior 
merit ;  but  he  confines  himself  too  much  to 
the  general  principles  of  morality  and  politics, 
to  require  much  observation  from  me  in  this 
place.  The  same  reason  will  excuse  me  for 
passing  over  in  silence  the  works  of  many 
philosophers  and  moralists,  to  whom,  in  the 
course  of  my  proposed  lectures,  I  shall  owe 
and  confess  the  greatest  obligations;  and  it 
might  perhaps  deliver  me  from  the  neces 
sity  of  speaking  of  the  work  of  Dr.  Paley,  if 
I  were  not  desirous  of  this  public  opportu 
nity  of  professing  my  gratitude  for  the  in 
struction  and  pleasure  which  I  have  received 
from  that  excellent  writer,  who  possesses,  in 
so  eminent  a  degree,  those  invaluable  quali 
ties  of  a  moralist. — good  sense,  caution, 
sobriety,  and  perpetual  reference  to  conve 
nience  and  practice;  and  who  certainly  is 
thought  less  original  than  he  really  is,  merely 
because  his  taste  and  modesty  have  led  him 
to  disdain  the  ostentation  of  novelty,  and  be 
cause  he  generally  employs  more  art  to 
blend  his  own  arguments  with  the  body  of 
received  opinions  (so  as  that  they  are  scarce 
to  be  distinguished),  than  other  men  in  the 
pursuit  of  a  transient  popularity,  have  exert 
ed  to  disguise  the  most  miserable  common 
places  in  the  shape  of  paradox. 

No  writer  since  the  time  of  Grotius,  of 
PufTendorff,  and  of  Wolf,  has  combined  an 
investigation  of  the  principles  of  natural  and 
public  law,  with  a  full  application  of  these 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


35 


principles  to  particular  cases ;  and  in  these 
circumstances,  I  trust,  it  will  not  be  deemed 
extravagant  presumption  in  me  to  hope  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  exhibit  a  view  of  this  science, 
which  shall,  at  least,  be  more  intelligible  and 
attractive  to  students,  than  the  learned  trea 
tises  of  these  celebrated  men.  I  shall  now 
proceed  to  state  the  general  plan  and  sub 
jects  of  the  lectures  in  which  I  am  to  make 
this  attempt. 

I.  The  being  whose  actions  the  law  of 
nature  professes  to  regulate,  is  man.  It  is 
on  the  knowledge  of  his  nature  that  the 
science  of  his  duty  must  be  founded.*  It  is 
impossible  to  approach  the  threshold  of  moral 
philosophy  without  a  previous  examination 
of  the  faculties  and  habits  of  the  human 
mind.  Let  no  reader  be  repelled  from  this 
examination  by  the  odious  and  terrible  name 
of  "metaphysics;"  for  it  is,  in  truth,  nothing 
more  than  the  employment  of  good  sense,  in 
observing  our  own  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
actions ;  and  when  the  facts  which  are  thus 
observed  are  expressed,  as  they  ought  to  be, 
in  plain  language,  it  is,  perhaps,  above  all 
other  sciences,  most  on  a  level  with  the 
capacity  and  information  of  the  generality  of 
thinking  men.  When  it  is  thus  expressed, 
it  requires  no  previous  qualification,  but  a 
sound  judgment  perfectly  to  comprehend  it ; 
and  those  who  wrap  it  up  in  a  technical  and 
mysterious  jargon,  always  give  us  strong 
reason  to  suspect  that  they  are  not  philoso 
phers,  but  impostors.  Whoever  thoroughly 
understands  such  a  science,  must  be  able  to 
teach  it  plainly  to  all  men  of  common  sense. 
The  proposed  course  will  therefore  open 
with  a  very  short,  and,  I  hope,  a  very  simple 
and  intelligible  account  of  the  powers  and 
operations  of  the  human  mind.  By  this 
plain  statement  of  facts,  it  will  not  be  diffi 
cult  to  decide  many  celebrated,  though  frivo 
lous  and  merely  verbal,  controversies,  which 
have  long  amused  the  leisure  of  the  schools, 
and  which  owe  both  their  fame  and  their 
existence  to  the  ambiguous  obscurity  of 
scholastic  language.  It  will,  for  example, 
only  require  an  appeal  to  every  man's  ex 
perience,  that  we  often  act  purely  from  a 
regard  to  the  happiness  of  others,  and  are 
therefore  social  beings ;  and  it  is  not  neces 
sary  to  be  a  consummate  judge  of  the  de 
ceptions- of  language,  to  despise  the  sophis 
tical  trifler,  who  tells  us,  that,  because  we 
experience  a  gratification  in  our  benevolent 
actions,  we  ^re  therefore  exclusively  and 
uniformly  selfish.  A  correct  examination 
of  facts  will  lead  us  to  discover  that  quality 
which  is  common  to  all  virtuous  actions,  and 
which  distinguishes  them  from  those  which 
are  vicious  and  criminal.  But  we  shall  see 
that  it  is  necessary  for  man  to  be  governed, 
not  by  his  own  transient  and  hasty  opinion 
upon  the  tendency  of  every  particular  action, 
but  by  those  fixed  and  unalterable  rules, 
which  are  the  joint  result  of  the  impartial 

*  "  Natura  enim  juris  explicanda  est  nobis, 
eaqne  ab  hominis  repetenda  natura." — De  Leg. 
lib.  i.  c.  5. 


judgment,  the  natural  feelings,  and  the  em 
bodied  experience  of  mankind.     The  autho 
rity  of  these  rules  is,  indeed,  founded  only 
on   their  tendency  to  promote  private  and 
public  welfare ;  but  the  morality  of  actions 
will  appear  solely  to  consist  in  their  corres 
pondence  with  the  rule.     By  the  help  of  this 
obvious  distinction  we  shall  vindicate  a  just 
theory,  which,  far  from  being  modern,  is,  in 
fact,  as  ancient  as  philosophy,  both   from 
plausible   objections,   and  from  fhe   odious 
imputation  of  supporting  those  absurd  and 
monstrous  systems  which  have  been  built 
upon  it.     Beneficial  tendency  is  the  founda 
tion  of  rales,  and   the   criterion   by  which 
habits  and  sentiments  are  to  be  tried  :  but  it 
is  neither  the  immediate  standard,  nor  can 
it  ever  be  the  principal  motive  of  action. 
An  action  to  be  completely  virtuous,  must 
accord   with   moral   rules,    and    must   flow 
from    our    natural    feelings   and  affections, 
moderated,    matured,    and    improved    into 
steady  habits  of  right  conduct.*    Without, 
however,  dwelling  longer  on  subjects  whicn 
cannot  be  clearly  stated,  unless  they  are  fully 
unfolded,  I  content  myself  with  observing, 
that  it  shall  be  my  object,  in  this  preliminary, 
but  most  important,  part  of  the  course,  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  morality  so  deeply  in  hu 
man  nature,  as  to  satisfy  the  coldest  inquirer; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  vindicate  the  para 
mount  authority  of  the  rales  of  our  duty,  at 
all  times,  and  in  all  places,  over  all  opinions 
of  interest  and  speculations  of  benefit,  so  ex 
tensively,  so  universally,  and  so  inviolabtyj 
as  may  well  justify  the   grandest   and  me 
most  apparently  extravagant  effusions  of  mo 
ral  enthusiasm.     If,  notwithstanding  all  my 
endeavours  to  deliver  these  doctrines  with 
the   utmost  simplicity,  any  of  my  auditors 
should  still  reproach  me  for  introducing  such 
abstruse  matters,  I  must  shelter  myself  be 
hind  the  authority  of  the  wisest  of  men.  u  If 
they  (the  ancient  moralists),  before  they  had 
come  to  the  popular  and  received  notions  of 
virtue  and  vice,  had  staid  a  little  longer  upon 
the  inquiry  concerning  the  roots  of  good  and 
evil,  they  had  given,  in  my  opinion,  a  great 
light  to  that  which  followed  ;  and  especially 
if  they  had  consulted  with  nature,  they  had 
made  their  doctrines  less  prolix,  and  more 
profound. "t     What  Lord  Bacon  desired  for 
the  mere  gratification  of  scientific  curiosity, 
the  welfare  of  mankind  now  imperiously  de 
mands.     Shallow  systems  of  metaphysics 
have  given  birth  to  a  brood  of  abominable 
and  pestilential  paradoxes,  which  nothing  but 
a  more    profound   philosophy  can   destroy. 
However  we  may,  perhaps,  lament  the  neces 
sity  of  discussions  which  may  shake  the  ha 
bitual  reverence  of  some  men  for  those  rules 
which  it  is  the  chief  interest  of  all  men  to 
practise,  we  have  now  no  choice  left.     We 
must  either  dispute,  or  abandon  the  ground. 
Undistinguishing  and  unmerited   invectives 

*  "  Est  autem  virtus  nihil  aliud,  quam  in  so 
perfecta  atque  ad  summum  perducta  na)ura." 
Ibid.  lib.  i.  c.  8. 

t  Advancement  of  Learning,  book  ii. 


36 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


against  philosophy  will  only  harden  sophists 
and  their  disciples  in  the  insolent  conceit, 
that  they  are  in  possession  of  an  undisputed 
superiority  of  reason;  and  that  their  antago 
nists  have  no  arms  to  employ  against  them, 
but  those  of  popular  declamation.  Let  us 
not  for  a  moment  even  appear  to  suppose, 
that  philosophical  truth  and  human  happiness 
are  so  irreconcilably  at  variance.  I  cannot 
express  my  opinion  on  this  subject  so  well  as 
in  the  words  of  a  most  valuable,  though  ge 
nerally  neglected  writer:  "The  science  of 
abstruse  learning,  when  completely  attain 
ed,  is  like  Achilles'  spear,  that  healed  the 
wounds  it  had  made  before ;  so  this  know 
ledge  serves  to  repair  the  damage  itself  had 
occasioned,  and  this  perhaps  is  all  that  it  is 
good  for ;  it  casts  no  additional  light  upon  the 
paths  of  life,  but  disperses  the  clouds  with 
which  it  had  overspread  them  before;  it  ad 
vances  not  the  traveller  one  step  in  his  jour 
ney,  but  conducts  him  back  again  to  the  spot 
from  whence  he  wandered.  Thus  the  land 
of  philosophy  consists  partly  of  an  open  cham 
paign  country,  passable  by  every  common 
understanding,  and  partly  of  a  range  of  woods, 
traversable  only  by  the  speculative,  and  where 
they  too  frequently  delight  to  amuse  them 
selves.  Since  then  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
make  incursions  into  this  latter  track,  and 
shall  probably  find  it  a  region  of  obscurity, 
danger,  and  difficulty,  it  behooves  us  to  use 
our  utmost  endeavours  for  enlightening  and 
smoothing  the  way  before  us."*  We  shall, 
however,  remain  in  the  forest  only  long 
enough  to  visit  the  fountains  of  those  streams 
which  flow  from  it,  and  which  water  and 
fertilise  the  cultivated  region  of  morals,  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  modes  of  warfare 
practised  by  its  savage  inhabitants,  and  to 
learn  the  means  of  guarding  our  fair  and 
fruitful  land  against  their  desolating  incur 
sions.  I  shall  hasten  from  speculations,  to 
which  I  am  naturally,  perhaps,  but  too  prone, 
and  proceed  to  the  more  profitable  considera 
tion  of  our  practical  duty. 

The  first  and  most  simple  part  of  ethics  is 
that  which  regards  the  duties  of  private  men 
towards  each  other,  when  they  are  considered 
apart  from  the  sanction  of  positive  laws.  I 
say  apart  from  that  sanction,  not  antecedent  to 
it ;  for  though  we  separate  private  from  politi 
cal  duties  for  the  sake  of  greater  clearness 
and  order  in  reasoning,  yet  we  are  not  to  be 
so  deluded  by  this  mere  arrangement  of  con 
venience  as  to  suppose  that  human  society 
ever  has  subsisted,  or  ever  could  subsist, 
without  being  protected  by  government,  and 
bound  together  by  laws.  All  these  relative 
duties  of  private  life  have  been  so  copiously 
and  beautifully  treated  by  the  moralists  of 
antiquity,  that  few  men  will  now  choose  to 
follow  them,  who  are  not  actuated  by  the  wild 
ambition  of  equalling  Aristotle  in  precision, 
or  rivalling  Cicero  in  eloquence.  They  have 
been  also  admirably  treated  by  modern  mo 
ralists,  among  whom  it  would  be  gross  in- 


*  Light  of  Nature,  vol. i.  pref.  p.  xxxiii. 


justice  not  to  number  many  of  the  preachers 
of  the  Christian  religion,  whose  peculiar  char 
acter  is  that  spirit  of  universal  charity,  which 
is  the  living  principle  of  all  our  social  duties. 
For  it  was  long  ago  said,  with  great  truth,  by 
Lord  Bacon,  "that  there  never  was  any  phi 
losophy,  religion,  or  other  discipline,  which 
did  so  plainly  and  highly  exalt  that  good 
which  is  communicative,  and  depress  the 
good  which  is  private  and  particular,  as  the 
Christian  faith."*  The  appropriate  praise  of 
this  religion  is  not  so  much  that  it  has  taught 
new  duties,  as  that  it  breathes  a  milder  and 
more  benevolent  spirit  over  the  whole  extent 
of  morals. 

On  a  subject  which  has  been  so  exhausted, 
I  should  naturally  have  contented  myself 
with  the  most  slight  and  general  survey,  if 
some  fundamental  principles  had  not  of  late 
been  brought  into  question,  which,  in  all 
former  times,  have  been  deemed  too  evident 
to  require  the  support  of  argument,  and 
almost  too  sacred  to  admit  the  liberty  of  dis 
cussion.  I  shall  here  endeavour  to  strengthen 
some  parts  of  the  fortifications  of  morality 
which  have  hitherto  been  neglected,  because 
no  man  had  ever  been  hardy  enough  to  attack 
them.  Almost  all  the  relative  duties  of  hu 
man  life  will  be  found  more  immediately,  or 
more  remotely,  to  arise  out  of  the  two  great 
institutions  of  property  and  marriage.  They 
constitute,  preserve,  and  improve  society. 
Upon  their  gradual  improvement  depends  the 
progressive  civilization  of  mankind  ;  on  them 
rests  the  whole  order  of  civil  life.  We  are 
told  by  Horace,  that  the  first  efforts  of  law 
givers  to  civilize  men  consisted  in  strength 
ening  and  regulating  these  institutions,  and 
fencing  them  round  with  rigorous  penal  laws. 

"  Oppida  coeperunt  munire,  et  ponere  leges, 
Ne  quis  fur  esset,  neu  latro,  neu  quis  adulter.?'t 

A  celebrated  ancient  orator. t  of  whose 
poems  we  have  but  a  few  fragments  remain 
ing,  has  well  described  the  progressive  order 
in  which  human  society  is  gradually  led  to 
its  highest  improvements  under  the  guardian 
ship  of  those  laws  which  secure  property 
and  regulate  marriage. 

"  Et  leges  sanctas  docuit,  et  chara  jugavit 
Corpora  conjugiis;  et  magnas  condidit  urbes." 

These  two  great  institutions  convert  the 
selfish  as  well  as  the  social  passions  of  our 
nature  into  the  firmest  bands  of  a  peaceable 
and  orderly  intercourse;  they  change  the 
sources  of  discord  into  principles  of  quiet; 
they  discipline  the  most  ungovernable,  they 
refine  the  grossest,  and  they  exalt  the  most 
sordid  propensities ;  so  that  they  become  the 
perpetual  fountain  of  all  that  strengthens, 
and  preserves,  and  adorns  society :  they  sus 
tain  the  individual,  and  they  perpetuate  the 
race.  Around  these  institutions  all  our  social 
duties  will  be  found  at  various  distances  to 
range  themselves ;  some  more  near,  obviously 


*  Advancement  of  Learning,  book  ii. 
t  Sermon,  lib.  i.  Serm.  Hi.  105. 
t  C.  Licinius  Calvus. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


essential  to  the  good  order  of  human  life ; 
others  more  remote,  and  of  which  the  ne 
cessity  is  not  at  first  view  so  apparent;  and 
some  so  distant,  that  their  importance  has 
been  sometimes  doubted,  though  upon  more 
mature  consideration  they  will  be  found  to 
be  outposts  and  advanced  guards  of  these 
fundamental  principles, — that  man  should 
securely  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labour,  and 
that  the  society  of  the  sexes  should  be  so 
wisely  ordered,  as  to  make  it  a  school  of  the 
kind  affections,  and  a  fit  nursery  for  the  com 
monwealth. 

The  subject  of  property  is  of  great  extent. 
It  will  be  necessary  to  establish  the  founda 
tion  of  the  rights  of  acquisition,  alienation, 
and  transmission,  not  in  imaginary  contracts 
or  a  pretended  state  of  nature,  but  in  their 
subserviency  to  the  subsistence  and  well- 
being  of  mankind .  It  will  not  only  be  curious, 
but  useful,  to  trace  the  history  of  property 
from  the  first  loose  and  transient  occupancy 
of  the  savage,  through  all  the  modifications 
which  it  has  at  different  times  received,  to 
that  comprehensive,  subtle,  and  anxiously 
minute  code  of  property  which  is  the  last 
result  of  the  most  refined  civilization. 

I  shall  observe  the  same  order  in  consider 
ing  the  society  of  the  sexes,  as  it  is  regulated 
by  the  institution  of  marriage.*  I  shall  en 
deavour  to  lay  open  those  unalterable  princi 
ples  of  general  interest  on  which  that  institu 
tion  rests;  and  if  I  entertain  a  hope  that  on 
this  subject  I  may  be  able  to  add  something 
to  what  our  masters  in  morality  have  taught 
us.  I  trust,  that  the  reader  will  bear  in  mind, 
as  an  excuse  for  my  presumption,  that  they 
were  not  likely  to  employ  much  argument 
where  they  did  not  foresee  the  possibility  of 
doubt.  I  shall  also  consider  the  historyt  of 
marriage,  and  trace  it  through  all  the  forms 
which  it  has  assumed,  to  that  descent  and 
happy  permanency  of  union,  which  has,  per 
haps  above  all  other  causes,  contributed  to 
the  quiet  of  society,  and  the  refinement  of 
manners  in  modern  times.  Among  many 
other  inquiries  which  this  subject  will  sug 
gest,  I  shall  be  led  more  particularly  to  ex 
amine  the  natural  station  and  duties  of  the 
female  sex,  their  condition  among  different 

*  See  on  this  subject  an  incomparable  fragment 
of  the  first  book  of  Cicero's  Economics,  which  is 
.too  long  for  insertion  here,  but  which,  if  it  be 
closely  examined,  may  perhaps  dispel  the  illusion 
of  those  gentlemen,  who  have  so  strangely  taken 
it  for  granted  that  Cicero  was  incapable  of  exact 
reasoning. 

t  This  progress  is  traced  with  great  accuracy  in 
some  beautiful  lines  of  Lucretius  : — 

Mulier,  conjuncta  viro,  concessit  in  unum  ; 

Castaque  private  Veneris  connubia  laeta 
Cognita  sunt,  prolemque  ex  se  videre  creatam  ; 
Turn  genus  humanum  primum  mollescere  ccepir. 

; pueriquo  parentum 

Blanditiis  facile  ingenium  fregere  superbum. 
Tune  et  amicitiam  cceperunt  jungere,  habentes 
Finitimi  inter  se,  nee  leedere,  nee  violare  ; 
Et  pueroscommendarunt,  muliebreque  saeclum, 
Vocibus  et  gestu  ;  cum  balbe  significarent, 
Imbecillorum  esse  aiquum  miserier  omni. 

De  Rerum  Nat.  lib.  v. 


nations,  its  improvement  in  Europe,  and  the 
bounds' which  nature  herself  has  prescribed 
to  the  progress  of  that  improvement :  beyond 
which  every  pretended  advance  will  be  a 
real  degradation. 

Having  established  the  principles  of  private 
duty,  I  shall  proceed  to  consider  man  under 
the  important  relation  of  subject  and  sove 
reign,  or,  in  other  words,  of  citizen  and  ma 
gistrate.  The  duties  which  arise  from  this 
relation  I  shall  endeavour  to  establish,  not 
upon  supposed  compacts,  which  are  alto 
gether  chimerical,  which  must  be  admitted 
to  be  false  in  fact,  and  which,  if  they  are  to 
be  considered  as  fictions,  will  be  found  to 
serve  no  purpose  of  just  reasoning,  and  to  be 
equally  the  foundation  of  a  system  of  uni 
versal  despotism  in  Hobbes,  and  of  universal 
anarchy  in  llousseau ;  but  on  the  solid  basis 
of  general  convenience.  Men  cannot  subsist 
without  society  and  mutual  aid ;  they  can 
neither  maintain  social  intercourse  nor  re 
ceive  aid  from  each  other  without  the  pro 
tection  of  government ;  and  they  cannot  en 
joy  that  protection  without  submitting  to 
the  restraints  which  a  just  goverment  im 
poses.  This  plain  argument  establishes  the 
duty  of  obedience  on  the  part  of  the  citizens, 
and  the  duty  of  protection  on  that  of  magis 
trates,  on  the  same  foundation  with  that  of 
every  other  moral  duty ;  and  it  s|iows,  with 
sufficient  evidence,  that  these  duties  are  re 
ciprocal  ; — the  only  rational  end  for  which 
the  fiction  of  a  contract  should  have  been 
invented.  I  shall  not  encumber  my  reason 
ing  by  any  speculations  on  the  origin  of 
government, — a  question  on  which  so  much 
reason  has  been  wasted  in  modern  times; 
but  which  the  ancients*  in  a  higher  spirit  of 
philosophy  have  never  once  mooted.  If  our 
principles  be  just,  our  origin  of  arovernment 
must  have  been  coeval  with  that  of  man 
kind  ;  and  as  no  tribe  has  ever  been  dis 
covered  so  brutish  as  to  be  without  some 
government,  and  yet  so  enlightened  as  to 
establish  a  government  by  common  consent, 
it  is  surely  unnecessary  to  employ  any  seri 
ous  argument  in  the  confutation  of  the  doc 
trine  that  is  inconsistent  with  reason,  and 
unsupported  by  experience.  But  though  all 
inquiries  into  the  origin  of  government  be 
chimerical,  yet  the  history  of  its  progress  is 
curious  and  useful.  The  various  stages 
through  which  it  passed  from  savage  inde 
pendence,  which  implies  every  rnan;s  power 
of  injuring  his  neighbour,  to  legal  liberty, 
which  consists  in  every  man's  security  against 
wrong;  the  manner  in  which  a  family  ex 
pands  into  a  tribe,  and  tribes  coalesce  into  a 


*  The  introduction  to  the  first  boqk  of  Aristotle's 
Politics  is  the  best  demonstration  of  the  necessity 
of  political  society  to  the  well-being,  and  indeed 
to  the  very  being,  of  man,  with  which  I  am  ac 
quainted.  Having  shown  the  circumstances  which 
render  man  necessarily  a  social  being,  he  justly 
concludes,  ''  K*/  wi  aptyamc  tvjst  TroxiTix-cv  ^wov." 
The  same  scheme  of  philosophy  is  admirably  pur 
sued  in  the  short,  but  invaluable  fragment  of  the 
sixth  book  of  Polybius,  which  describes  the  his 
tory  and  revolutions  of  government. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


nation. — in  which  public  justice  is  gradually  j 
engrafted  on  private  revenge,  and  temporary  j 
submission  ripened  into  habitual  obedience;  j 
form  a  most  important  and  extensive  subject 
of  inquiry,  which  comprehends  all  the  im 
provements  of  mankind  in  police,  in  judica 
ture,  alid  in  legislation. 

I  have  already  given  the  reader  to  under 
stand  that  the  description  of  liberty  which 
seems  to  me  the  most  comprehensive,  is  that 
of  security  against  wrong.  Liberty  is  there 
fore  the  object  of  all  government.  Men  are 
more  free  under  every  government,  even  the 
most  imperfect,  than  they  would  be  if  it 
were  possible  for  them  to  exist  without 
any  government  at  all :  they  are  more  secure 
from  wrong,  more  undisturbed  in  the  exer 
cise  of  their  natural  powers,  and  therefore 
more  free,  even  in  the  most  obvious  and 
grossest  sense  of  the  word,  than  if  they  were 
altogether  unprotected  against  injury  from 
each  other.  But  as  general  security  is  en 
joyed  in  very  different  degrees  under  dif- 
ierent  governments,  those  which  guard  it 
most  perfectly,  are  by  the  way  of  eminence 
called  "free."  Such  governments  attain  most 
completely  the  end  which  is  common  to  all 
government.  A  free  constitution  of  govern 
ment  and  a  good  constitution  of  government 
are  therefore  different  expressions  for  the' 
same  idea. 

Another  material  distinction,  however,  soon 
presents  itself.  In  most  civilized  states  the 
subject  is  tolerably  protected  against  gross 
injustice  from  his  fellows  by  impartial  laws, 
which  it  is  the  manifest  interest  of  the  sove 
reign  to  enforce  :  but  some  commonwealths 
are  so  happy  as  to  be  founded  on  a  principle 
of  much  more  refined  and  provident  wisdom. 
The  subjects  of  such  commonwealths  are 
guarded  riot  only  against  the  injustice  of  each 
other,  but  (as  far  as  human  prudence  can  con 
trive)  against  oppression  from  the  magistrate. 
Such  states,  like  all  other  extraordinary  exam 
ples  of  public  or  private  excellence  and  hap 
piness,  are  thinly  scattered  over  the  different 
ages  and  countries  of  the  world.  In  them  the 
will  of  the  sovereign  is  limited  with  so  exact  a 
measure,  that  his  protecting  authority  is  not 
weakened.  Such  a  combination  of  skill  arid 
fortune  is  not  often  to  be  expected,  and  indeed 
never  can  arise,  but  from  the  constant  though 
gradual  exertions  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  to 
improve  a  long  succession  of  most  favourable 
circumstances.  There  is,  indeed,  scarce  any 
society  so  wretched  as  to  be  destitute  of 
some  sort  of  weak  provision  against  the  in 
justice  of  their  governors.  Religious  institu 
tions,  favourite  prejudices,  national  manners, 
have  in  different  countries,  with  unequal  de 
grees  of  force,  checked  or  mitigated  the  ex 
ercise  of  supreme  power.  The  privileges  of 
a  powerful  nobility,  of  opulent  mercantile 
communities,  of  great  judicial  corporations, 
have  in  some  monarchies  approached  more 
near  to  a  control  on  the  sovereign.  Means 
have  been  devised  with  more  or  less  wisdom 
to  temper  the  despotism  of  an  aristocracy 
over  their  subjects,  and  in  democracies  to 


protect  the  minority  against  the  majority, 
and  the  whole  people  against  the  tyranny  of 
demagogues.  But  in  these  unmixed  forms 
of  government,  as  the  right  of  legislation  is 
vested  in  one  individual  or  in  one  order,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  legislative  power  may  shake 
off  all  the  restraints  which  the  laws  have 
imposed  on  it.  All  such  governments,  there 
fore,  tend  towards  despotism,  and  the  se 
curities  which  they  admit  against  misgovern- 
ment  are  extremely  feeble  and  precarious. 
The  best  security  which  human  wisdom  can 
devise,  seems  to  be  the  distribution  of  poli 
tical  authority  among  different  individuals 
and  bodies,  wTith  separate  interests,  and 
separate  characters,  corresponding  to  the 
variety  of  classes  of  which  civil  society  is 
composed, — each  interested  to  guard  their 
own  order  from  oppression  by  the  rest, — 
each  also  interested  to  prevent  any  of  the 
others  from  seizing  on  exclusive,  and  there 
fore  despotic  power  \  and  all  having  a  com 
mon  interest  to  co-operate  in  carrying  on  the 
ordinary  and  necessary  administration  of 
government.  If  there  were  not  an  interest 
to  resist  each  other  in  extraordinary  cases, 
there  would  not  be  liberty :  if  there  were 
not  an  interest  to  co-operate  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  affairs,  there  could  be  no  govern 
ment.  The  object  of  such  wise  institutions, 
which  make  selfishness  of  governors  a  se 
curity  against  their  injustice,  is  to  protect 
men  against  wrong  both  from  their  rulers  and 
their  fellows.  Such  governments  are,  with 
justice,  peculiarly  and  emphatically  called 
"  free  ;?;  and  in  ascribing  that  liberty  to  the 
skilful  combination  of  mutual  dependance 
and  mutual  check,  I  feel  my  own  conviction 
greatly  strengthened  by  calling  to  mind,  that 
in  this  opinion  I  agree  with  all  the  wise  men 
who  have  ever  deeply  considered  the  prin 
ciples  of  politics ; — with  Aristotle  and  Poly- 
bius,  with  Cicero  and  Tacitus,  with  Bacon  and 
Machiavel,  with  Montesquieu  and  Hume.* 
It  is  impossible  in  such  a  cursory  sketch  as 
the  present  even  to  allude  to  a  very  small 
part  of  those  philosophical  principles,  poli- 

*  To  the  weight  of  these  great  names  let  me 
add  the  opinion  of  two  illustrious  men  of  the  pre 
sent  age,  as  both  their  opinions  are  combined  by 
one  of  them  in  the  following  passages:  "He 
(Mr.  Fox)  always  thought  any  of  the  simple  un 
balanced  governments  bad  ;  simple  monarchy, 
simple  aristocracy,  simple  democracy  ;  he  held 
them  all  imperfect  or  vicious,  all  were  bad  by 
themselves  ;  the  composition  alone  was  good. 
These  had  been  always  his  principles,  in  which 
he  agreed  with  his  friend,  Mr.  Burke.'' — Speech 
on  the  Army  Estimates,  9th  Feb.  1790.  In  speak 
ing  of  both  these  illustrious  men,  whose  names  I 
here  join,  as  they  will  be  joined  in  fame  by  poste 
rity,  which  will  forget  their  temporary  differences 
in  the  recollection  of  their  genius  and  their  friend 
ship,  I  do  not  entertain  the  vain  imagination  that 
I  can  add  to  their  glory  by  any  thing  that  I  can 
say.  But  it  is  a  gratification  to  me  to  give  utter 
ance  to  my  feelings ;  to  express  the  profound  ve 
neration  with  which  I  am  filled  for  the  memory 
of  the  one,  and  the  warm  affection  which  I  cherish 
for  the  other,  whom  no  one  ever  heard  in  public 
without  admiration,  or  knew  in  private  life  with 
out  loving. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


39 


tical  reasonings,  and  historical  facts,  which 
are  necessary  for  the  illustration  of  this  mo 
mentous  subject.  In  a  full  discussion  of  it 
I  shall  be  obliged  to  examine  the  general 
frame  of  the  most  celebrated  governments 
of  ancient  and  modem  times,  and  especially 
of  those  which  have  been  most  renowned  for 
their  freedom.  The  result  of  such  an  exa 
mination  will  be,  that  no  institution  so  de 
testable  as  an  absolutely  unbalanced  govern 
ment,  perhaps  ever  existed;  that  the  simple 
governments  are  mere  creatures  of  the  ima 
gination  of  theorists,  who  have  transformed 
names  used  for  convenience  of  arrangement 
into  real  politics ;  that,  as  constitutions  of 
government  approach  more  nearly  to  that 
unmixed  and  uncontrolled  simplicity  they 
become  despotic,  and  as  they  recede  farther 
from  that  simplicity  they  become  free. 

By  the  constitution  of  a  state,  I  mean  "the 
body  of  those  written  and  unwritten  funda 
mental  laws  which  regulate  the  most  import 
ant  rights  of  the  higher  magistrates,  and  the 
most  essential  privileges*  of  the  subjects." 
Such  a  body  of  political  laws  must  in  all 
countries  arise  out  of  the  character  and 
situation  of  a  people ;  they  must  grow  with 
its  progress,  be  adapted  to  its  peculiarities, 
,  change  writh  its  changes,  and  be  incorporated 
vvith  its  habits.  Human  wisdom  cannot  form 
such  a  constitution  by  one  act,  for  human 
wisdom  cannot  create  the  materials  of  which 
It  is  composed.  The  attempt,  always  inef 
fectual,  to  change  by  violence  the  ancient 
habits  of  men,  and  the  established  order  of 
society,  so  as  to  fit  them  for  an  absolutely 
new  scheme  of  government,  flows  from  the 
most  presumptuous  ignorance,  requires  the 
support  of  the  most  ferocious  tyranny,  and 
leads  to  consequences  which  its  authors  can 
never  foresee, — generally,  indeed,  to  institu 
tions  the  most  opposite  to  those  of  which 
they  profess  to  seek  the  establishment.! 
But  human  wisdom  indefatigably  employed 
in  remedying  abuses,  and  in  seizing  favour 
able  opportunities  of  improving  that  order 
of  society  which  arises  from  causes  over 
which  we  have  little  control,  after  the  re 
forms  and  amendments  of  a  series  of  ages, 
has  sometimes,  though  very  rarely,  shown 
itself  capable  of  building  up  a  free  constitu 
tion,  which  is  "the  growth  of  time  and  na 
ture,  rather  than  the  work  of  human  inven- 

*  Privilege,  in  Roman  jurisprudence,  means  the 
exemption  of  one  individual  from  the  operation  of 
a  law.  Political  privileges,  in  the  sense  in  which 
I  employ  the  terms,  mean  those  rights  of  the 
subjects  of  a  free  state,  which  are  deemed  so  es 
sential  to  the  well-being  of  the  commonwealth, 
that  they  are  excepted  from  the  ordinary  discretion 
of  the  magistrate,  and  guarded  by  the  same  fun 
damental  laws  which  secure  his  authority. 

t  See  an  admirable  passage  on  this  subject  in 
Dr.  Smith's  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  (vol.  ii. 
pp.  101 — 112),  in  which  the  true  doctrine  of  re 
formation  is  laid  down  with  singular  ability  by  that 
eloquent  and  philosophical  writer.  See  also  Mr. 
Burke's  Speech  on  Economical  Reform ;  and 
Sir  M.  Hale  on  the  Amendment  of  Laws,  in  the 
Collection  of  my  learned  and  most  excellent 
friend,  Mr.  Hargrave,  p.  248. 


tion."*  Such  a  constitution  can  only  be 
formed  by  the  wise  imitation  of  "  the  great 
innovater  Time,  which,  indeed,  innovateth 
greatly,  but  quietly,  and  by  degrees  scarce  to 
be  perceived."]"  Without  descending  to  the 
puerile  ostentation  of  panegyric,  on  that  of 
which  all  mankind  confess  the  excellence, 
I  may  observe,  with  truth  and  soberness, 
thai  a  free  government  not  only  establishes 
a  universal  security  against  wrong,  but  that 
it  also  cherishes  all  the  noblest  powers  of 
the  human  mind;  that  it  tends  to  banish 
both  the  mean  and  the  ferocious  vices ;  that 
it  improves  the  national  character  to  which 
it  is  adapted,  and  out  of  which  it  grows ; 
that  its  whole  administration  is  a  practical 
school  of  honesty  and  humanity ;  and  that 
there  the  social  affections,  expanded  into 
public  spirit,  gain  a  wider  sphere,  and  a 
more  active  spring. 

I  shall  conclude  what  1  have  to  offer  on 
government,  by  an  account  of  the  constitu 
tion  of  England.  I  shall  endeavour  to  trace 
the  progress  of  that  constitution  by  the  light 
of  history,  of  laws,  and  of  records,  from  the 
earliest  times  to  the  present  age;  and  to 
show  how  the  general  principles  of  liberty, 
originally  common  to  it  with  the  other  Go 
thic  monarchies  of  Europe,  but  in  other 
countries  lost  or  obscured,  were  in  this  more 
fortunate  island  preserved,  matured,  and. 
adapted  to  the  progress  of  civilization.  I 
shall  attempt  to  exhibit  this  most  complicat 
ed  machine,  as  our  history  and  our  laws  shovr 
it  in  action ;  and  not  as  some  celebrated 
writers  have  most  imperfectly  represented  it, 
who  have  torn  out  a  few  of  its  more  simple 
springs,  and  putting  them  together,  miscal 
them  the  British  constitution.  So  prevalent, 
indeed,  have  these  imperfect  representations 
hitherto  been,  that  I  will  venture  to  affirm, 
there  is  scarcely  any  subject  which  has  been 
less  treated  as  it  deserved  than  the  govern 
ment  of  England.  Philosophers  of  great  and 
merited  reputation!:  have  told  us  that  it  con 
sisted  of  certain  portions  of  monarchy,  aris 
tocracy,  and  democracy, — names  which  are, 
in  truth,  very  little  applicable,  and  which,  if 
they  were,  would  as  little  give  an  idea  of  this 
government,  as  an  account  of  the  weight  of 
bone,  of  flesh,  and  of  blood  in  a  human  body, 
would  be  a  picture  of  a  living  man.  Nothing 
but  a  patient  arid  minute  investigation  of  the 


*  Pour  former  un  gouvernement  modere,  il 
faut  combiner  les  puissances,  les  regler,  les  tem- 
perer,  les  faire  as;ir  ;  donner  pour  ainsi  dire  un  lest 
a  1'une,  pour  la  mettre  en  etat  de  register  a  une 
autre  ;  c'est  un  chef-d'oeuvre  de  legislation  que  le 
hasard  fait  rarement,  et  que  rarement  on  laisse 
faire  a.  la  prudence.  Un  gouvernement  despot- 
ique  au  contraire  saute,  pour  ainsi  dire,  aux  yeux  ; 
il  est  uniforme  partout :  comme  il  ne  faut  que  des 
passions  pour  1'etablir,  tout  le  monde  est  bon  pour 
cela. — Montesquieu,  De  1' Esprit  de  Loix,  liv.  v. 
c.  14. 

t  Bacon,  Essay  xxiv.  (Of  Innovations.) 
t  The  reader  will  perceive  that  I  allude  to  Mon 
tesquieu,  whom  I  never  name  without  reverence, 
though  I  shall  presume,  with  humility,  to  criticise 
his  account  of  a  government  which  he  only  saw  at 
a  distance. 


40 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


practice  of  the  ^ government  in  all  its  parts, 
and  through  its  whole  history,  can  give  us 
just  notions  on  this  important  subject.  If  a 
lawyer,  without  a  philosophical  spirit,  be  un 
equal  to  the  examination  of  this  great  work 
of  liberty  and  wisdom,  still  more  unequal  is 
a  philosopher  without  practical,  legal,  and 
historical  knowledge  ;  for  the  first  may  want 
skill,  but  the  second  wants  materials.  The 
observations  of  Lord  Bacon  on  political  writ 
ers  in  general,  are  most  applicable  to  those 
who  have  given  us  systematic  descriptions 
cf  the  English  constitution.  "  All  those  who 
have  written  of  governments  have  written  as 
philosophers,  or  as  lawyers,  and  none  as  states 
men.  As  for  the  philosophers,  they  make  ima 
ginary  laws  for  imaginary  commonwealths, 
and  their  discourses  are  as  the  stars,  which 
give  little  light  because  they  are  so  high." — 
"Haec  cogmtio  ad  viros  civiles  proprie  perti- 
net,"  as  he  tells  us  in  another  part  of  his 
writings ;  but  unfortunately  no  experienced 
philosophical  British  statesman  has  yet  de 
voted  his  leisure  to  a  delineation  of  the  con 
stitution,  which  such  a  statesman  alone  can 
practically  and  perfectly  know. 

In  the  discussion  of  this  great  subject,  and 
in  all  reasonings  on  the  principles  of  politics, 
I  shall  labour,  above  all  things,  to  avoid  that 
which  appears  to  me  to  have  been  the  con 
stant  source  of  political  error  : — I  mean  the 
attempt  to  give  an  air  of  system,  of  simpli 
city,  and  of  rigorous  demonstration,  to  sub 
jects  which  do  not  admit  it.  The  only  means 
by  which  this  could  be  done,  was  by  refer 
ring  to  a  few  simple  causes,  what,  in  truth, 
arose  from  immense  and  intricate  combina 
tions,  and  successions  of  causes.  The  con 
sequence  was  very  obvious.  The  system 
of  the  theorist,  disencumbered  from  all  re 
gard  to  the  real  nature  of  things,  easily  as 
sumed  "an  air  of  speciousness :  it  required 
little  dexterity,  to  make  his  arguments  appear 
conclusive.  But  all  men  agreed  that  it  was 
utterly  inapplicable  to  human  affairs.  The 
theorist  railed  at  the  folly  of  the  world,  in 
stead  of  confessing  his  own ;  and  the  man 
of  practice  unjustly  blamed  Philosophy,  in 
stead  of  condemning  the  sophist.  The  causes 
which  the  politician  has  to  consider  are, 
above  all  others,  multiplied,  mutable,  minute, 
subtile,  and,  if  I  may  so  speak,  evanescent, 
— perpetually  changing  their  form,  and  vary 
ing  their  combinations, — losing  their  nature, 
while  they  keep  their  name, — exhibiting  the 
most  different  consequences  in  the  endless 
variety  of  men  and  nations  on  whom  they 
operate, — in  one  degree  of  strength  produc 
ing  the  most  signal  benefit,  and,  under  a 
slight  variation  of  circumstances,  the  most 
tremendous  mischiefs.  They  admit  indeed 
ofcbeing  reduced  to  theory  j  but  to  a  theory 
formed  on  the  most  extensive  views,  of  the 
most  comprehensive  and  flexible  principles, 
to  embrace  all  their  varieties,  and  to  fit  all 
their  rapid  transmigrations, — a  theory,  of 
•which  the  most  fundamental  maxim  is,  dis 
trust  in  itself,  and  deference  for  practical 
prudence.  Only  two  writers  of  former  times 


have,  as  far  as  I  know,  observed  this  general 
defect  of  political  reasoners ;  but  these  two 
are  the  greatest  philosophers  who  have  ever 
appeared  in  the  world.  The  first  of  them  is 
Aristotle,  who.  in  a  passage  of  his  politics,* 
to  which  I  cannot  at  this  moment  turn, 
plainly  condemns  the  pursuit  of  a  delusive 
geometrical  accuracy  in  moral  reasonings  as 
the  constant  source  of  the  grossest  error.  The 
second  is  Lord  Bacon,  who  tells  us,  with  that 
authority  of  conscious  wisdom  which  belongs 
to  him,  and  with  that  power  of  richly  adorn 
ing  Truth  from  the  wardrobe  of  Genius 
which  he  possessed  above  almost  all  men, 
l-  Civil  knowledge  is  conversant  about  a 
subject  which,  above  all  others,  is  most 
immersed  in  matter,  and  hardliest  reduced 
to  axiom.7 ;t 

I  shall  next  endeavour  to  lay  open  the 
general  principles  of  civil  and  criminal  laws. 
On  this  subject  I  may  with  some  confidence 
hope  that  I  shall  be  enabled  to  philosophise 
with  better  materials  by  my  acquaintance 
with  the  laws  of  my  own  country,  which  it 
is  the  business  of  my  life  to  practise,  and  of 
which  the  study  has  by  habit  become  my 
favourite  pursuit. 

The  first  principles  of  jurisprudence  are 
simple  maxims  of  Reason,  of  which  the  ob 
servance  is  immediately  discovered  by  expe 
rience  to  be  essential  to  the  security  of  men's 
rights,  and  which  pervade  the  laws  of  all 
countries.  An  account  of  the  gradual  appli 
cation  of  these  original  principles,  first  to 
more  simple,  and  afterwards  to  more  com 
plicated  cases,  forms  both  the  history  and 
the  theory  of  law.  Such  an  historical  ac 
count  of  the  progress  of  men,  in  reducing 
justice  to  an  applicable  and  practical  system, 
will  enable  us  to  trace  that  chain,  in  which 
so  many  breaks  and  interruptions  are  per 
ceived  by  superficial  observers,  but  which 
in  truth  inseparably,  though  with  many  dark 
and  hidden  windings,  links  together  the  se 
curity  of  life  and  property  with  the  most 
minute  and  apparently  frivolous  formalities 
of  legal  proceeding.  We  shall  perce-ive  that 
no  human  foresight  is  sufficient  to  establish 
such  a  system  at  once,  and  that,  if  it  were 
so  established,  the  occurrence  of  unforeseen 
cases  would  shortly  altogether  change-  it ; 
that  there  is  but  one  way  of  forming  a  civil 
code,  either  consistent  with  common  sense, 
or  that  has  ever  been  practised  in  any  coun 
try, — namely,  that  of  gradually  building  up 
the  law  in  proportion  as  the  facts  arise  which 
it  is  to  regulate.  We  shall  learn  to  appre- 


*  Probably  book  iii.  cap.  11.— Ed. 

t  This  principle  is  expressed  by  a  writer  of  a 
very  different  character  from  these  two  great  phi 
losophers, — a  writer,  "  qu'on  n'appellera  plus  phi- 
losophe,  mais  qu'on  appellera  leplus  eloquent  des 
sophistes,"  with  great  force,  and,  as  his  manner 
is.  with  some  exaggeration.  "II  n'y  a  point  de 
principes  abstraits  dans  la  politique.  C'est  une 
science  des  calculs,  des  combinaisons,  et  des  ex 
ceptions,  selon  les  lieux,  les  terns,  et  les  circonstan- 
ces." — Lettre  de  Rousseau  au  Marquis  de  Mira- 
beau.  The  second  proposition  is  true  ;  but  the 
first  is  not  a  just  inference  from  it.. 


ON  THE  STUDY  OF  THE  LAW  OF  NATURE  AND  NATIONS. 


41 


ciate  the  merit  of  vulgar  objections  against 
the  subtilty  and  complexity  of  laws.  We 
shall  estimate  the  good  sense  and  the  grati 
tude  of  those  who  reproach  lawyers  for  em 
ploying  all  the  powers  of  their  mind  to  dis 
cover  subtle  distinctions  for  the  prevention 
of  justice  ;*  and  we  shall  at  once  perceive 
that  laws  ought  to  be  neither  more  simple 
nor  more  complex  than  the  state  of  society 
which  they  are  to  govern,  but  that  they  ought 
exactly  to  correspond  to  it.  Of  the  two  faults, 
however,  the  excess  of  simplicity  would 
certainly  be  the  greatest ;  for  laws,  more 
complex  than  are  necessary,  would  only  pro 
duce  embarrassment ;  \vhereas  laws  more 
simple  than  the  affairs  which  they  regulate 
would  occasion  a  defeat  of  Justice.  More 
understanding  has  perhaps  been  in  this  man 
ner  exerted  to  fix  the  rules  of  life  than  in  any 
other  science  ;t  and  it  is  certainly  the  most 
honourable  occupation  of  the  understanding, 
because  it  is  the  most  immediately  subservi 
ent  to  general  safety  and  comfort.  There  is 
not  so  noble  a  spectacle  as  that  which  is  dis 
played  in  the  progress  of  jurisprudence ; 
where  we  may  contemplate  the  cautious  and 
unwearied  exertions  of  a  succession  of  wrise 
men,  through  a  long  course  of  ages,  with 
drawing  every  case  as  it  arises  from  the 
dangerous  power  of  discretion,  and  subject 
ing  it  to  inflexible  rules, — extending  the  do 
minion  of  justice  and  reason,  and  gradually 
contracting,  within  the  narrowest  possible 
limits,  the  domain  of  brutal  force  and  of  ar 
bitrary  will.  This  subject  has  been  treated 
with  such  dignity  by  a  writer  who  is  ad 
mired  by  all  mankind  for  his  eloquence,  but 
who  is,  if  possible,  still  more  admired  by  all 
competent  judges  for  his  philosophy, — a  writ 
er,  of  whom  I  may  justly  say,  that  he  was 
"gravissimus  et  dicendi  et  iritelligendi  auc- 
tor  et  magister," — that  I  cannot  refuse  my 
self  the  gratification  of  quoting  his  words : — 
"The  science  of  jurisprudence,  the  pride  of 
the  human  intellect,  which,  with  all  its  de 
fects,  redundancies,  and  errors,  is  the  collect 
ed  reason  of  ages  combining  the  principles 
of  original  justice  with  the  infinite  variety 
of  human  concerns. '7t 

I  shall  exemplify  the  progress  of  law,  and 
illustrate  those  principles  of  Universal  Jus 
tice  on  which  it  is  founded,  by  a  compara 
tive  review  of  the  two  greatest  civil  codes 
that  have  been  hitherto  formed, — those  of 
Rome  and  of  England,*— of  their  agreements 

*  "The  casuistical  subtilties  are  not  perhaps 
greater  than  the  subtilties  of  lawyers  ;  but  the  lat 
ter  are  innocent,  and  even  necessary." — Hume, 
Essays,  vol.  ii.  p.  558. 

t  "Law,"  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "is  the  science 
in  which  the  greatest  powers  of  the  understanding 
are  applied  to  the  greatest  number  of  facts."  No 
body,  who  is  acquainted  with  the  variety  and  mul 
tiplicity  of  the  subjects  of  jurisprudence,  and  with 
the  prodigious  powers  of  discrimination  employed 
upon  them,  can  doubt  the  truth  of  this  observation. 

t  Burke,  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  134. 

§  On  the  intimate  connection  of  these  two  codes, 
let  us  hear  the  words  of  Lord  Holt,  whose  name 
never  can  be  pronounced  without  veneration,  as 


and  disagreements,  both  in  general  provi 
sions,  and  in  some  of  the  most  important 
parts  of  their  minute  practice.  In  this  part 
of  the  course,  which  I  mean  to  pursue  with, 
such  detail  as  to  give  a  view  of  both  codes 
that  may  perhaps  be  sufficient  for  the  pur 
poses  of  the  general  student,  I  hope  to  con 
vince  him  that  the  laws  of  civilized  nations, 
particularly  those  of  his  own,  are  a  subject 
most  worthy  of  scientific  curiosity;  that  prin 
ciple  and  system  run  through  them  even  to 
the  minutest  particular,  as  really,  though  not 
so  apparently,  as  in  other  sciences,  and  ap 
plied  to  purposes  more  important  than  those 
of  any  other  science.  Will  it  be  presump 
tuous  to  express  a  hope,  that  such  an  in 
quiry  may  not  be  altogether  a  useless  intro 
duction  to  that  larger  and  more  detailed 
study  of  the  law  of  England,  which  is  the 
duty  of  those  who  are  to  profess  and  prac 
tise  that  law  ? 

In  considering  the  important  subject  of 
criminal  law  it  will  be  my  duty  to  found,  on 
a  regard  to  the  general  safety,  the  right  of 
the  magistrate  to  inflict  punishments,  even 
the  most  severe,  if  that  safety  cannot  be 
effectually  protected  by  the  example  of  infe 
rior  punishments.  It  will  be  a  more  agreea 
ble  part  of  my  office  to  explain  the  tempera 
ments  \vhich  Wisdom,  as  well  as  Humanity, 
prescribes  in  the  exercise  of  that  harsh  right, 
unfortunately  so  essential  to  the  preservation 
of  human  society.  I  shall  collate  the  penal 
codes  of  different  nations,  and  gather  to 
gether  the  most  accurate  statement  of  the 
result  of  experience  with  respect  to  the  effi 
cacy  of  lenient  and  severe  punishments; 
and  I  shall  endeavour  to  ascertain  the  princi 
ples  on  which  must  be  founded  both  the  pro 
portion  and  the  appropriation  of  penalties  t"> 
crimes.  As  to  the  law  of  criminal  proceed 
ing,  my  labour  will  be  very  easy;  for  on  thac 
subject  an  English  lawyer,  if  he  were  to  de 
lineate  the  model  of  perfection,  would  fiiH 
that,  with  few  exceptions,  he  had  trans 
cribed  the  institutions  of  his  own  country. 

The  next  great  division  of  the  subject  IP 
the  "law  of  nations,"  strictly  and  properly 
so  called.  I  have  already  hinted  at  the 
general  principles  on  which  this  law  is 
founded.  They,  like  all  the  principles  of 
natural  jurisprudence,  have  been  more  hap 
pily  cultivated,  and  more  generally  obeyed, 
in  some  ages  and  countries  than  in  others; 
and,  like  them,  are  susceptible  of  great  va 
riety  in  their  application,  from  the  character 
and  usage  of  nations.  I  shall  consider  these 
principles  in  the  gradation  of  those  which 
are  necessary  to  any  tolerable  intercourse 
between  nations,  of  those  which  are  essen 
tial  to  all  well-regulated  and  mutually  ad- 


long  as  wisdom  and  integrity  are  revered  among 
men  : — "  Inasmuch  as  the  laws  of  all  nations  are 
doubiless  raised  out  of  the  ruins  of  the  civil  law, 
as  all  governments  are  sprung  out  of  the  ruins  of 
the  Roman  empire,  it  must  be  owned  that  the 
principles  of  our  law  are  borrowed  from  the  civil 
law,  therefore  grounded  upon  the  same  reason  in 
many  things."  -12  Mod.  Rep.  482. 


42 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


vantageous  intercourse,  and  of  those  which 
are  highly  conducive  to  the  preservation  of 
a  mild  and  friendly  intercourse  between 
civilized  states.  Of  the  first  class,  every 
understanding  acknowledges  the  necessity, 
and  some  traces  of  a  faint  reverence  for 
them  are  discovered  even  among  the  most 
barbarous  tribes;  of  the  second;  every  well- 
informed  man  perceives  the  important  use, 
.and  they  have  generally  been  respected 
by  all  polished  nations;  of  the  third,  the 
great  benefit  may  be  read  in  the  history  of 
modern  Europe,  where  alone  they  have  been 
carried  to  their  full  perfection.  In  unfolding 
the  first  and  second  class  of  principles,  I 
shall  naturally  be  led  to  give  an  account  of 
that  law  of  nations,  which,  in  greater  or  less 
perfection,  regulated  the  intercourse  of  sa 
vages,  of  the  Asiatic  empires,  and  of  the  an 
cient  republics.  The  third  brings  me  to  the 
consideration  of  the  law  of  nations,  as  it  is 
now  acknowledged  in  Christendom.  From 
the  great  extent  of  the  subject,  and  the  par 
ticularity  to  which,  for  reasons  already  given, 
I  must  here  descend,  it  is  impossible  for  me, 
within  my  moderate  compass,  to  give  even 
an  outline  of  this  part  of  the  course.  It  com 
prehends,  as  every  reader  will  perceive,  the 
principles  of  national  independence,  the  in 
tercourse  of  nations  in  peace,  the  privileges 
of  ambassadors  and  inferior  ministers,  the 
commerce  of  private  subjects,  the  grounds 
of  just  war,  the  mutual  duties  of  belligerent 
and  neutral  powers,  the  limits  of  lawful  hos 
tility,  the  rights  of  conquest,  the  faith  to  be 
observed  in  warfare,  the  force  of  an  armis 
tice, — of  safe  conducts  and  passports,  the 
nature  and  obligation  of  alliances,  the  means 
of  negotiation,  arid  the  authority  and  inter 
pretation  of  treaties  of  peace.  All  these, 
and  many  other  most  important  and  compli 
cated  subjects,  with  all  the  variety  of  moral 
reasoning,  and  historical  examples  which  is 
necessary  to  illustrate  them,  must  be  fully 
examined  in  that  part  of  the  lectures,  in 
which  I  shall  endeavour  to  put  together  a 
tolerably  complete  practical  system  of  the 
law  of  nations,  as  it  has  for  the  last  two 
centuries  been  recognised  in  Europe. 

"Le  droit  des  gens  est  naturellement  fonde 
sur  ce  principe,  que  les  diverses  nations  doi- 
vent  se  faire,  dans  la  paix  le  plus  de  bien,  et 
dans  la  guerre  le  moins  de  mal,  qu'il  est  pos 
sible,  sans  nuire  a  leurs  veritables  interets. 
L'objet  de  la  guerre  c'est  la  victoire,  celui 
de  la  victoire  la  conquete ;  celui  de  la  con- 
>quete  la  conservation.  De  ce  principe  et  du 
precedent,  doivent  deriver  toutes  les  loix  qui 
forment  le  droit  des  gens.  Toutes  les  na 
tions  ont  un  droit  des  gens ;  et  les  Iroquois 
meme,  qui  mangent  leurs  prisonniers,  en  ont 
un.  Us  envoient  et  rec.oivent  des  embas- 
sades ;  ils  connoissent  les  droits  de  la  guerre 
et  de  la  paix :  le  mal  est  que  ce  droit  des 
gens  n'est  pas  fonde  sur  les  vrais  principes."* 

As  an  important  supplement  to  the  practi 
cal  system  of  our  modern  law  of  nations,  or 


*  De  1'Esprit  des  Loix,  liv.  i.  c.  3. 


rather  as  a  necessary  part  of  it,  I  shall  con 
clude  with  a  survey  of  the  diplomatic  and 
conventional  law  of  Europe,  and  of  the  trea 
ties  which  have  materially  affected  the  dis 
tribution  of  power  and  territory  among  the 
European  states, — the  circumstances  which 
gave  rise  to  them,  the  changes  which  they 
effected,  and  the  principles  which  they  in 
troduced  into  the  public  code  of  the  Christian 
commonwealth.  In  ancient  tim.es  the  know 
ledge  of  this  conventional  law  was  thought 
one  of  the  greatest  praises  that  could  be  be 
stowed  on  a  name  loaded  with  all  the  honours 
that  eminence  in  the  arts  of  peace  and  war 
can  confer:  "Equidem  existimo  judices, 
cum  in  omni  genere  ac  varietate  artiumj 
etiam  illarum,  quae  sine  summo  otio  non 
facile  discuntur,  Cn.  Pompeius  excellat,  sin- 
gularem  quandam  laudem  ejus  et  prsestabi- 
lem  esse  scientiam,  in  fcederibus,  pactioni- 
bus,  conditionibus,  populorum,  regum,  exte- 
rarum  nationum :  in  universo  denique  belli 
jure  acpacis.?;*  Information  on  this  subject 
is  scattered  over  an  immense  variety  of 
voluminous  compilations,  not  accessible  to 
every  one,  and  of  which  the  perusal  can  be 
agreeable  only  to  a  very  few.  Yet  so  much 
of  these  treaties  has  been  embodied  into  the 
general  law  of  Europe,  that  no  man  can  be 
master  of  it  who  is  not  acquainted  with  them. 
The  knowledge  of  them  is  necessary  to  ne 
gotiators  and  statesmen ;  it  may  sometimes 
be  important  to  private  men  in  various  situ 
ations  in  which  they  may  be  placed ;  it  is 
useful  to  all  men  who  wish  either  to  be  ac 
quainted  with  modern  history,  or  to  form  a 
sound  judgment  on  political  measures.  I 
shall  endeavour  to  give  such  an  abstract  ol 
it  as  may  be  sufficient  for  some,  and  a  con 
venient  guide  for  others  in  the  farther  pro 
gress  of  their  studies.  The  treaties  which  I 
shall  more  particularly  consider,  will  be  those 
of  Westphalia,  of  Oliva.  of  the  Pyrenees,  of 
Breda,  of  Nimeguen,  of  Ryswick,  of  Utrecht, 
of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  of  Paris  (1763),  and  of 
Versailles  (1783).  I  shall  shortly  explain, 
the  other  treaties,  of  which  the  stipulations 
are  either  alluded  to,  confirmed,  or  abro 
gated  in  those  which  I  consider  at  length. 
I  shall  subjoin  an  account  of  the  diplomatic 
intercourse  of  the  European  powers  with  the 
Ottoman  Porte,  and  with  other  princes  and 
states  who  are  without  the  pale  of  our  ordi 
nary  federal  law;  together  with  a  view  of 
the  most  important  treaties  of  commerce, 
their  principles,  and  their  consequences. 

As  an  useful  appendix  to  a  practical  trea 
tise  on  the  lawr  of  nations,  some  account  will 
be  given  of  those  tribunals  which  in  different 
countries  of  Europe  decide  controversies 
arising  out  of  that  law;  of  their  constitution, 
of  the  extent  of  their  authority,  and  of  their 
modes  of  proceeding;  more  especially  of 
those  courts  which  are  peculiarly  appointed 
for  that  purpose  by  the  laws  of  Great  Britain. 

Though  the  course,  of  which  I  have  sketch 
ed  the  outline,  may  seem  to  comprehend  so 


*  Cic.  Oral,  pro  L.  Corn.  Balbo,  c.  vi. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


43 


great  a  variety  of  miscellaneous  subjects,  yet 
they  are  all  in  truth  closely  and  inseparably 
interwoven.  The  duties  of  men,  of  subjects, 
of  princes,  of  lawgivers,  of  magistrates,  and 
of  states,  are  all  parts  of  one  consistent  sys 
tem  of  universal  morality.  Between  the  most 
abstract  and  elementary  maxim  of  moral 
philosophy,  and  the  most  complicated  con 
troversies  of  civil  or  public  law,  there  sub 
sists  a  connection  which  it  will  be  the  main 
object  of  these  lectures  to  trace.  The  princi 
ple  of  justice,  deeply  rooted  in  the  nature  and 
interest  of  man,  pervades  the  whole  system, 
and  is  discoverable  in  every  part  of  it,  even  to 
its  minutest  ramification  in  a  legal  formality, 
or  in  the  construction  of  an  article  in  a  treaty. 
I  know  not  whether  a  philosopher  ought 
to  confess,  that  in  his  inquiries  after  truth  he 
is  biassed  by  any  consideration, — even  by 
the  love  of  virtue.  But  I,  who  conceive  that 
a  real  philosopher  ought  to  regard  truth  itself 
chiefly  on  account  of  its  subserviency  to 
the  happiness  of  mankind,  am  not  ashamed 
to  confess,  that  I  shall  feel  a  great  consola 
tion  at  the  conclusion  of  these  lectures,  if, 
by  a  wide  survey  and  an  exact  examination 
of  the  conditions  and  relations  of  human  na 
ture,  I  shall  have  confirmed  but  one  indivi 


dual  in  the  conviction,  that  justice  is  the 
permanent  interest  of  all  men,  and  of  all 
commonwealths.  To  discover  one  new  link 
of  that  eternal  chain  by  which  the  Author 
of  the  universe  has  bound  together  the  hap 
piness  and  the  duty  of  His  creatures,  and  in- 
dissolubly  fastened  their  interests  to  each 
other,  would  fill  my  heart  with  more  plea 
sure  than  all  the  fame  with  which  the  most 
ingenious  paradox  ever  crowned  the  most 
eloquent  sophist.  I  shall  conclude  this  Dis 
course  in  the  noble  language  of  two  great 
orators  and  philosophers,  who  have,  in  a  few 
words,  stated  the  substance,  the  object,  and 
the  result  of  all  morality,  and  politics,  and 
law.  '-'Nihil  est  quod  adhuc  cle  republica 
putem  dictum,  et  quo  possim  longius  pro- 
gredi.  nisi  sit  confirmatum,  non  modo  falsum 
esse  illud,  sine  injuria  non  posse,  sed  hoc 
verissimum,  sine  summa  justitia  rempubli- 
cam  geri  nullo  modo  posse."*  '*  Justice  is 
itself  the  great  standing  policy  of  civil  so 
ciety,  and  any  eminent  departure  from  it 
under  any  circumstances,  lies  under  the  sus 
picion  of  being  no  policy  at  all."t 


*  CicDeRepub.  lib.ii. 

t  Burke,  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  207. 


LIFE  OF  SIB,  THOMAS  MORE. 


ARISTOTLE  and  Bacon,  the  greatest  philo 
sophers  of  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world, 
agree  in  representing  poetry  as  being  of  a 
more  excellent  nature  than  history.  Agree 
ably  to  the  predominance  of  mere  under 
standing  in  Aristotle's  mind,  he  alleges  as 
his  cause  of  preference  that  poetry  regards 
general  truth,  or  conformity  to  universal 
nature  ;  while  history  is  conversant  only  with 
a  confined  and  accidental  truth,  dependent  on 
time,  place,  and  circumstance.  The  ground 
assigned  by  Bacon  is  such  as  naturally  issued 
from  that  fusion  of  imagination  with  reason, 
which  constitutes  his  philosophical  genius. 
Poetry  is  ranked  more  highly  by  him,  be 
cause  'the  poet  presents  us  with  a  pure  ex 
cellence  and  an  unmingled  grandeur,  not  to 
be  found  in  the  coarse  realities  of  life  or  of 
history ;  but  which  the  mind  of  man,  although 
not  destined  to  reach,  is  framed  to  contem 
plate  with  delight. 

The  general  difference  between  biography 
and  history  is  obvious.  There  have  been 
many  men  in  every  age  whose  lives  are  full 
of  interest  and  instruction  ;  but  who,  having 
never  taken  a  part  in  public  affairs,  are  alto 
gether  excluded  from  the  province  of  the 
historian :  there  have  been  also,  probably, 
equal  numbers  who  have  influenced  the  for 
tune  of  nations  in  peace  or  in  war,  of  the 
peculiarities  of  whose  character  we  have  no 
information ;  and  who,  for  the  purposes  of 
the  biographer,  may  be  said  to  have  had  no 


[  private  life.     These  are  extreme  cases  :  but 
i  there  are  other  men,  whose  manners  and 
I  acts   are   equally  well  known,  whose  indi- 
|  vidual  lives  are  deeply  interesting,   whose 
j  characteristic  qualities  are  peculiarly  striking, 
'  who  have  taken  an  important  share  in  events 
:  connected  with  the  most  extraordinary  revo 
lutions  of  human  affairs,  and  whose  biogra 
phy  becomes  more  difficult  from  that  com- 
'  bination  and  intermixture   of  private  with 
;  public  occurrences,  which  render  it  instruc- 
!  tive  and  interesting.    The  variety  and  splen- 
;  dour  of  the  lives  of  such  men  render  it  often 
:  difficult  to  distinguish  the  portion  of  them 
;  which  ought  to  be  admitted  into  history,  from 
i  that  which  should  be  reserved  for  biography. 
;  Generally  speaking,  these  two  parts  are  so 
distinct  and  unlike,  that  they  cannot  be  con 
founded  without  much  injury  to  both ; — as 
when  the  biographer  hides  the  portrait  of 
the  individual  by  a  crowded  and  confined 
picture  of  events,  or  when  the  historian  al 
lows  unconnected  narratives  of  the  lives  of 
j  men  to  break  the  thread  of  history.     The 
j  historian  contemplates  only  the  surface  of 
:  human  nature,   adorned  and   disguised  (as 
j  when  actors  perform  brilliant  parts  before  a 
;  great  audience),  in  the  midst  of  so  many 
[  dazzling  circumstances,    that  it  is   hard  to 
j  estimate  the  intrinsic  worth  of  individuals, 
i  — and  impossible,  in  an  historical  relation,, 
to  exhibit  the  secret  springs  of  their  con 
duct. 


44 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


The  biographer  endeavours  to  follow  the 
hero  and  the  statesman,  from  the  field,  the 
council,  or  the  senate,  to  his  private  dwell 
ing,  where,  in  the  midst  of  domestic  ease, 
or  of  social  pleasure,  he  throws  aside  the 
robe  and  the  mask,  becomes  again  a  man 
instead  of  an  actor,  and.  in  spite  of  himself, 
often  betrays  those  frailties  and  singularities 
which  are  visible  in  the  countenance  and 
voice,  the  gesture  and  manner,  of  every  one 
when  he  is  not  playing  a  part.  It  is  par 
ticularly  difficult  to  observe  the  distinction 
in  the  case  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  because  he 
was  so  perfectly  natural  a  man  that  he  car 
ried  his  amiable  peculiarities  into  the  gravest 
deliberations  of  state,  and  the  most  solemn 
acts  of  law.  Perhaps  nothing  more  can  be 
universally  laid  down,  than  that  the  biogra 
pher  never  ought  to  introduce  public  events, 
except  in  as  far  as  they  are  absolutely  neces 
sary  to  the  illustration  of  character,  and  that 
the  historian  should  rarely  digress  into  bio 
graphical  particulars,  except  in  as  far  as  they 
contribute  to  the  clearness  of  his  narrative 
of  political  occurrences. 

Sir  Thomas  More  was  born  in  Milk  Street, 
in  the  city  of  London,  in  the  year  1480,  three 
years  before  the  death  of  Edward  IV.  His 
family  was  respectable, — no  mean  advantage 
at  that  time.  His  father,  Sir  John  More,  who 
was  born  about  1440,  was  entitled  by  his 
descent  to  use  an  armorial  bearing, — a  privi 
lege  guarded  strictly  and  jealously  as  the 
badge  of  those  who  then  began  to  be  called 
gentry,  and  who,  though  separated  from  the 
lords  of  parliament  by  political  rights,  yet 
formed  with  them  in  the  order  of  society 
one  body,  corresponding  to  those  called  noble 
in  the  other  countries  of  Europe.  Though 
the  political  power  of  the  barons  was  on  the 
wane,  the  social  position  of  the  united  body 
of  nobility  and  gentry  retained  its  dignity.* 
Sir  John  More  was  one  of  the  justices  of  the 
court  of  King's  Bench  to  the  end  of  his  long 
life  ;  and,  according  to  his  son's  account,  well 
performed  the  peaceable  duties  of  civil  life, 
being  gentle  in  his  deportment,  blameless, 
meek  and  merciful,  an  equitable  judge,  and 
an  upright  man.t 

Sir  Thomas  More  received  the  first  rudi 
ments  of  his  education  at  St.  Anthony's 
school,  in  Thread-needle  Street,  under  Nicho 
las  Hart :  for  the  daybreak  of  letters  was  now 

*  "  In  Sir  Thomas  More's  epitaph,  he  describes 
himself  as  '  born  of  no  noble  family,  but  of  an 
honest  stock,'  (ov  in  the  words  of  the  original, 
familia  non  celebri,  sed  honesta  natus,)  a  true 
translation,  as  we  here  take  nobility  and  nolle; 
fo,r  none  under  a  baron,  except  he  be  of  the  privy 
council,  doth  challenge  it;  and  in  this  sense  he 
meant  it ;  but  as  the  Latin  word  nobilis  is  taken  in 
other  countries  for  gentrie,  it  was  otherwise.  Sir 
John  More  bare  arms  from  his  birth  ;  and  though 
we  cannot  certainly  tell  who  were  his  ancestors, 
they  must  needs  be  gentlemen." — Life  of  More 
(commonly  reputed  to  be)  by  Thomas  More,  his 
great  grandson,  pp.  3,  4.  This  book  will  be  cited 
henceforward  as  "  More." 

t  "  Homo  civilis,  innocens,  mitis,  integer." — 
Epitaph 


so  bright,  that  the  reputation  of  schools  was 
carefully  noted,  and  schoolmasters  began  to 
be  held  in  some  part  of  the  estimation  which 
they  merit.  Here,  however,  his  studies  were 
confined  to  Latin ;  the  cultivation  of  Greek, 
which  contains  the  sources  and  models  of 
Roman  literature,  being  yet  far  from  having 
descended  to  the  level  of  the  best  among  the 
schools.  It  was  the  custom  of  that  age  that 
young  gentlemen  should  pass  part  of  their 
boyhood  in  the  house  and  service  of  their 
superiors,  where  they  might  profit  by  listen 
ing  to  the  conversation  of  men  of  experience, 
and  gradually  acquire  the  manners  of  the 
world.  It  was  not  deemed  derogatory  from 
youths  of  rank, — it  was  rather  thought  a 
beneficial  expedient  for  inuring  them  to  stern 
discipline  and  implicit  obedience,  that  they 
should  be  trained,  during  this  noviciate,  in 
humble  and  even  menial  offices.  A  young 
gentleman  thought  himself  no  more  lowered 
by  serving  as  a  page  in  the  family  of  a  great 
peer  or  prelate,  than  a  Courtenay  or  a  How 
ard  considered  it  as  a  degradation  to  be  the 
huntsman  or  the  cupbearer  of  a  Tudor. 

More  was  fortunate  in  the  character  of  his 
master:  when  his  school  studies  were  thought 
to  be  finished,  about  his  fifteenth  year,  he 
was  placed  in  the  house  of  Cardinal  Morton, 
archbishop  of  Canterbury.  This  prelate, 
who  was  born  in  1410,  was  originally  an  emi 
nent  civilian,  canonist,  and  a  practiser  of 
note  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts.  He  had 
been  a  Lancastrian,  and  the  fidelity  with 
which  he  adhered  to  Henry  VI.,  till  that  un 
fortunate  prince's  death,  recommended  him 
to  the  confidence  and  patronage  of  Edward 
IV.  He  negotiated  the  marriage  with  the 
princess  Elizabeth,  which  reconciled  (with 
whatever  confusion  of  titles)  the  conflicting 
pretensions  of  York  and  Lancaster,  and 
raised  Henry  Tudor  to  the  throne.  By  these 
services,  and  by  his  long  experience  in  af 
fairs,  he  continued  to  be  prime  minister  till 
his  death,  which  happened  in  1500,  at  the 
advanced  age  of  ninety.*  Even  at  the  time 
of  More's  entry  into  his  household,  the  old 
cardinal,  though  then  fourscore  and  five 
years,  was  pleased  with  the  extraordinary 
promise  of  the  sharp  and  lively  boy  •  as  aged 
persons  sometimes,  as  it  were,  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  pleasure  of  youth,  by  enter 
ing  for  a  moment  into  its  feelings.  More 
broke  into  the  rude  dramas  performed  at  the 
cardinal's  Christmas  festivities,  to  which  he 
wras  too  young  to  be  invited,  and  often  in 
vented  at  the  moment  speeches  for  himself, 
"  which  made  the  lookers-on  more  sport  than 
all  the  players  beside."  The  cardinal,  much 
delighting  in  his  wit  and  towardness,  would 
often  say  of  him  unto  the  nobles  that  dined 
with  him. — "  This  child  here  waiting  at  the 
table,  whosoever  shall  live  to  see  it,  will 


*  Dodd's  Church  History,  vol.  i.  p.  141.  The 
Roman  Catholics,  now  restored  to  their  just  rank 
in  society,  have  no  longer  an  excuse  for  not  con 
tinuing  this  useful  work.  [This  has  been  accord 
ingly  done  since  this  note  was  written,  by  the  Rev. 
M.  A.  Tierney.— Ed.] 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


45 


prove  a  marvellous  man."*  More,  in  his 
historical  work,  thus  commemorates  this 
early  friend,  not  without  a  sidelong  glance 
at  the  acts  of  a  courtier  : — "  He  was  a  man 
of  great  natural  wit,  very  well  learned,  hon 
ourable  in  behaviour,  lacking  in  no  wise  to 
win  favour.;Jt  In  Utopia  he  praises  the  car 
dinal  more  lavishly,  and  with  no  restraint 
from  the  severe  justice  of  history.  It  was 
in  Morton's  house  that  he  was  probably  first 
known  to  Colet,  dean  of  St.  Paul's,  the  foun 
der  of  St.  Paul's  school,  and  one  of  the  most 
eminent  restorers  of  ancient  literature  in 
England ;  who  was  wont  to  say,  that  "  there 
was  but  one  wit  in  England,  and  that  was 
young  Thomas  More."! 

More  went  to  Oxford  in  1497,  where  he 
appears  to  have  had  apartments  in  St.  Mary's 
Hall,  but  to  have  carried  on  his  studies  at 
Canterbury  College, §  on  the  spot  where 
Wolsey  afterwards  reared  the  magnificent 
edifice  of  Christchurch.  At  that  university 
he  found  a  sort  of  civil  war  waged  between 
the  partisans  of  Greek  literature,  who  were 
then  innovators  in  education  and  suspected 
of  heresy,  if  not  of  infidelity,  on  the  one 
hand  j  and  on  the  other  side  the  larger  body, 
comprehending  the  aged,  the  powerful,  and 
the  celebrated,  who  were  content  to  be  no 
wiser  than  their  forefathers.  The  younger 
followers  of  the  latter  faction  affected  the 
ridiculous  denomination  of  Trojans,  and  as 
sumed  the  names  of  Priam,  Hector,  Paris, 
and  ^Eneas,  to  denote  their  hostility  to  the 
Greeks.  The  puerile  pedantry  of  these  cox 
combs  had  the  good  effect  of  awakening  the 
zeal  of  More  for  his  Grecian  masters,  and  of 
inducing  him  to  withstand  the  barbarism 
which  would  exclude  the  noblest  produc 
tions  of  the  human  mind  from,  the  education 
of  English  youth.  He  expostulated  with  the 
university  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  whole 
body,  reproaching  them  with  the  better  ex 
ample  of  Cambridge,  where  the  gates  were 
thrown  open  to  the  higher  classics  of  Greece, 
as  freely  as  to  their  Roman  imitators.il  The 
established  clergy  even  then,  though  Luther 
had  not  yet  alarmed  them,  strangers  as  they 
were  to  the  new  learning,  affected  to  con 
temn  that  of  which  they  were  ignorant,  and 
could  riot  endure  the  prospect  of  a  rising 
generation  more  learned  than  themselves. 
Their  whole  education  was  Latin,  and  their 
instruction  was  limited  to  Roman  and  canon 
law,  to  theology,  and  school  philosophy. 
They  dreaded  the  downfal  of  the  authority 
of  the  Vulgate  from  the  study  of  Greek  and 
Hebrew.  But  the  course  of  things  was  irrre- 
sistible.  The  scholastic  system  was  now  on 
the  verge  of  general  disregard,  and  the  pe 
rusal  of  the  greatest  Roman  writers  turned 
all  eyes  towards  the  Grecian  masters.  What 


*  Roper's  Life  of  Sir  T.  More,  edited  by  Singer. 
This  book  will  be  cited  henceforward  as  "Roper." 

t  History  of  Richard  III. 

t  More,  p.  25. 

$  Athenae  Oxonienses,  vol.  i.  p.  79. 

II  See  this  Letter  in  the  Appendix  to  the  second 
volume  of  Jortin's  Life  of  Erasmus. 


man  of  high  capacity,  and  of  ambition  be 
coming  his  faculties,  could  read  Cicero  with 
out  a  desire  to  comprehend  Demosthenes  and 
Plato  ?  What  youth  desirous  of  excellence 
but  would  rise  from  the  study  of  the  Georgics 
and  the  JEiieid,  with  a  wish  to  be  acquainted 
with  Hesiod  and  Apollonius,  with  Pindar, 
and  above  all  with  Homer  ?  These  studies 
were  then  pursued,  not  with  the  dull  languor 
and  cold  formality  with  which  the  indolent,  in 
capable,  incurious  majority  of  boys  obey  the 
prescribed  rules  of  an  old  establishment,  but 
with  the  enthusiastic  admiration  with  which 
the  superior  few  feel  an  earnest  of  their  own 
higher  powers,  in  the  delight  which  arises 
in  their  minds  at  the  contemplation  of  new 
beauty,  and  of  excellence  unimagined  before. 

More  found  several  of  the  restorers  of 
Grecian  literature  at  Oxford,  who  had  been 
the  scholars  of  the  exiled  Greeks  in  Italy  : — 
Grocyn,  the  first  professor  of  Greek  in  the 
university  •  Linacre.  the  accomplished  foun 
der  of  the  college  of  physicians:  and  Wil 
liam  Latimer,  of  whom  we  know  little  more 
than  what  we  collect  from  the  general  tes 
timony  borne  by  his  most  eminent  contem 
poraries  to  his  learning  and  virtue.  Grocyn, 
the  first  of  the  English  restorers,  was  a  late 
learner,  being  in  the  forty-eighth  year  of  his 
age  when  he  went,  in  1488,  to  Italy,  where 
the  fountains  of  ancient  learning  were  once 
more  opened.  After  having  studied  under 
Politian,  and  learnt  Greek  from  Chalcon- 
dylas,  one  of  the  lettered  emigrants  who 
educated  the  teachers  of  the  western  nations, 
he  returned  to  Oxford,  where  he  taught  than 
language  to  More,  to  Linacre,  and  to  Eras 
mus.  Linacre  followed  the  example  of  Gro 
cyn  in  visiting  Italy,  and  profiting  by  the  in 
structions  of  Chalcondylas.  Colet  spent  four 
years  in  the  same  country,  and  in  the  like 
studies.  William  Latimer  repaired  at  a 
mature  age  to  Padua,  in  quest  of  that  know 
ledge  which  was  not  to  be  acquired  at  home. 
He  was  afterwards  chosen  to  be  tutor  to 
Reginald  Pole,  the  King's  cousin  :  and  Eras 
mus,  by  attributing  to  him  li  maidenly  mo 
desty,"  leaves  in  one  word  an  agreeable  im 
pression  of  the  character  of  a  man  chosen  for 
his  scholarship  to  be  Linacre's  colleague  in  a 
projected  translation  of  Aristotle,  and  solici 
ted  by  the -latter  for  aid  in  his  edition  of  the 
New  Testament.* 

At  Oxford  More  became  known  to  a  man 
far  more  extraordinary  than  any  of  these 
scholars.  Erasmus  had  been  invited  to  Eng 
land  by  Lord  Mountjoy,  who  had  been  his 
pupil  at  Paris,  and  continued  to  be  his  friend 
during  life.  He  resided  at  Oxford  during  a 
great  part  of  1497  ;  and  having  returned  to 
Paris  in  1498,  spent  the  latter  portion  of  the 
same  year  at  the  university  of  Oxford,  where 
he  again  had  an  opportunity  of  pouring  his 
zeal  for  Greek  study  into  the  mind  of  More. 
Their  friendship,  though  formed  at  an  age  of 
considerable  disparity, — Erasmus  being  then 


*  For  Latimer,  see  Dodd,  Church  History,  vol« 
i.  p.  219. :  for  Grocyn,  Ibid.  p.  227:  for  Colet  and 
Linacre,  all  biographical  compilations. 


46 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


thirty  and  More  only  seventeen, — lasted 
throughout  the  whole  of  their  lives.  Eras 
mus  had  acquired  only  the  rudiments  of 
Greek  at  the  age  most  suited  to  the  acquisi 
tion  of  languages,  and  was  now  completing 
his  knowledge  on  that  subject  at  a  period  of 
mature  manhood,  which  he  jestingly  com 
pares  with  the  age  at  which  the  elder  Cato 
commenced  his  Grecian  studies.*  Though 
Erasmus  himself  seems  to  have  been  much 
excited  towards  Greek  learning  by  the  ex 
ample  of  the  English  scholars,  yet  the  cul 
tivation  of  classical  literature  was  then  so 
small  a  part  of  the  employment  or  amuse 
ment  of  life,  that  William  Latimer,  one  of 
the  most  eminent  of  these  scholars,  to  wrhom 
Erasmus  applied  for  aid  in  his  edition  of  the 
Greek  Testament,  declared  that  he  had  not 
read  a  page  of  Greek  or  Latin  for  nine  years,f 
that  he  had  almost  forgotten  his  ancient  lite 
rature,  and  that  Greek  books  were  scarcely 
procurable  in  England.  Sir  John  More,  in 
flexibly  adhering  to  the  old  education,  and 
dreading  that  the  allurements  of  literature 
might  seduce  his  son  from  law,  discouraged 
the  pursuit  of  Greek,  and  at  the  same  time 
reduced  the  allowance  of  Thomas  to  the 
level  of  the  most  frugal  life ; — a  parsimony 
for  which  the  son  was  afterwards,  though 
not  then,  thankful,  as  having  taught  him 
good  husbandry,  and  preserved  him  from 
dissipation. 

At  the  university,  or  soon  after  leaving  it, 
young  More  composed  the  greater  part  of 
his  English  verses ;  which  are  not  such  as. 
from  their  intrinsic  merit,  in  a  more  advanced 
state  of  our  language  and  literature,  would 
be  deserving  of  particular  attention.  But  as 
the  poems  of  a  contemporary  of  Skelton,  they 
may  merit  more  consideration.  Our  language 
was  still  neglected,  or  confined  chiefly  to  the 
vulgar  uses  of  life.  Its  force,  its  compass, 
and  its  capacity  of  harmony,  were  untried  : 
for  though  Chaucer  had  shone  brightly  for  a 
season,  the  century  which  followed  was  dark 
and  wintry.  No  master  genius  had  impreg 
nated  the  nation  with  poetical  sensibility. 
In  these  inauspicious  circumstances,  the  com 
position  of  poems,  especially  if  they  mani 
fest  a  sense  of  harmony,  and  some  adapta 
tion  of  the  sound  to  the  subject,  indicates  a 
delight  in  poetry,  and  a  proneness  to  that 
beautiful  art,  which  in  such  an  age  is  a 
more  than  ordinary  token  of  a  capacity  for  it. 
The  experience  of  all  ages,  however  it  may 
be  accounted  for,  shows  that  the  mind,  when 
melted  into  tenderness,  or  exalted  by  the 
contemplation  of  grandeur,  vents  its  feelings 
in  language  suited  to  a  state  of  excitement, 
and  delights  in  distinguishing  its  diction  from 


"  Delibayimus  et  olim  has  literas,  sed  summis 
duntaxat  labiis  ;  at  nuper  paulo  altius  ingressi, 
videmus  id  quod  saepenumero  apud  gravissimos 
auctores  legimus, — Latinam  eruditionem,  quamvis 
impendiosam,  citra  Gra3cismum  mancam  esse  ac 
dimidiatam.  Apud  nos  enim  rivuli  vix  quidam 
sunt,  et  lacunulae  lutulentas  ;  apud  illos  fontes  pu- 
rissimietfluminaaurum  volventia." — Opera,  LUO-. 
Bat.  1703.  vol.  iii.  p.  63. 
f  Ibid.  vol.  iii.  p.  293. 


common  speech  by  some  species  of  measure 
and  modulation,  which  combines  the  gratifi 
cation  of  the  ear  with  that  of  the  fancy  and 
the  heart.  The  secret  connection  between 
a  poetical  ear  and  a  poetical  soul  is  touched 
by  the  most  sublime  of  poets,  who  consoled 
himself  in  his  blindness  by  the  remembrance 
of  those  who,  under  the  like  calamity, 

Feed  on  thoughts  that  voluntary  move 

Harmonious  numbers. 

We  may  be  excused  for  throwing  a  glance 
over  the  compositions  of  a  writer,  who  is 
represented  a  century  after  his  death,  by  Ben 
Jon  son,  as  one  of  the  models  of  English  lite 
rature.  Mo  re's  poem  on  the  death  of  Eliza 
beth,  the  wife  of  Henry  VII.,  and  his  merry 
jest  How  a  Serjeant  would  play  the  Friar, 
may  be  considered  as  fair  samples  of  his 
pensive  and  sportive  vein.  The  superiority 
of  the  latter  shows  his  natural  disposition 
to  pleasantry.  There  is  a  sort  of  dancing 
mirth  in  the  metre  which  seems  to  warrant 
the  observation  above  hazarded,  that  in  a 
rude  period  the  structure  of  verse  may  be 
regarded  as  some  presumption  of  a  genius 
for  poetry.  In  a  refined  age,  indeed,  all  the 
circumstances  are  different :  the  frame-work 
of  metrical  composition  is  known  to  all  the 
world ;  it  may  be  taught  by  rule,  and  ac 
quired  mechanically;  the  greatest  facility  of 
versification  may  exist  without  a  spark  of 
genius.  Even  then,  however,  the  secrets  of 
the  art  of  versification  are  chiefly  revealed 
to  a  chosen  few  by  their  poetical  sensibility; 
so  that  sufficient  remains  of  the  original  tie 
still  continue  to  attest  its  primitive  origin. 
It  is  remarkable,  that  the  most  poetical  of 
the  poems  is  written  in  Latin  :  it  is  a  poem 
addressed  to  a  lady,  with  whom  he  had  been 
in  love  when  he  was  sixteen  years  old,  and 
she  fourteen ;  and  it  turns  chiefly  on  the 
pleasing  reflection  that  his  affectionate  re 
membrance  restored  to  her  the  beauty,  of 
which  twenty-five  years  seemed  to  others  to 
have  robbed  her.*  \/ 

When  More  had  completed  his  time  at 
Oxford,  he  applied  himself  to  the  study  of 
the  law,  which  was  to  be  the  occupation  of 
his  life.  He  first  studied  at  New  Inn,  and 
afterwards  at  Lincoln's  Inn.t  The  societies 
of  lawyers  having  purchased  some  mns,  or 
noblemen's  residences,  in  London,  were 
hence  called  "inns  of  court."  It  was  not 
then  a  metaphor  to  call  them  an  university ; 
they  had  professors  of  law;  they  conferred 
the  characters  of  barrister  arid  serjeant.  ana 
logous  to  the  degrees  of  bachelor,  master, 
and  doctor,  bestowed  by  the  universities; 
and  every  man,  before  he  became  a  barrister, 
was  subjected  to  examination,  and  obliged 


*  "  Gratulatur  quod  earn  repererit  incolumem 
quam  olim  ferme  puer  amaverat." — Not.  in  Poem. 
It  does  not  seem  reconcilable  with  dates,  that  his 
lady  could  have  been  the  younger  sister  of  Jane 
Colt.  Vide  infra. 

t  Inn  was  successively  applied,  like  the  French 
word  hotel,  first  to  the  town  mansion  of  a  great 
man,  and  afterwards  to  a  house  where  all  man 
kind  were  entertained  for  money. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


47 


V 


to  defend  a  thesis.  More  was  appointed 
reader  at  Furnival's  Inn,  where  he  delivered 
lectures  for  three  years.  The  English  law 
had  already  grown  into  a  science,  formed  by 
a  process  of  generalisation  from  usages  and 
decisions,  with  less  help  from  the  Roman 
law  than  the  jurisprudence  of  any  other 
country,  though  not  with  that  total  indepen 
dence  of  it  which  English  lawyers  in  former 
times  considered  as  a  subject  of  boast :  it 
was  rather  formed  as  the  law  of  Rome  itself 
had  been  formed,  than  adopted  from  that 
noble  system.  When  More  began  to  lecture 
on  English  law,  it  was  by  no  means  in  a 
disorderly  and  neglected  state.  The  eccle 
siastical  lawyers,  whose  arguments  and  de 
terminations  were  its  earliest  materials,  were 
well  prepared,  by  the  logic  and  philosophy 
of  their  masters  the  Schoolmen,  for  those 
exact  and  even  subtle  distinctions  which  the 
precision  of  the  rules  of  jurisprudence  emi 
nently  required.  In  the  reigns  of  the  Lan 
castrian  princes,  Littleton  had  reduced  the 
law  to  an  elementary  treatise,  distinguished 
by  a  clear  method  and  an  elegant  concise 
ness.  Fortescue  had  during  the  same  time 
compared  the  governments  of  England  and 
France  with  the  eye  of  a  philosophical  ob 
server.  Brooke  and  Fitzherbert  had  com 
piled  digests  of  the  law,  which  they  called 
(it  might  be  thought,  from  their  size,  ironi 
cally)  "  Abridgments."  The  latter  composed 
a  treatise,  still  very  curious,  on  "writs;" 
that  is,  on  those  commands  (formerly  from 
the  king)  which  constitute  essential  parts  of 
every  legal  proceeding.  Other  writings  on 
jurisprudence  occupied  the  printing  presses 
of  London  in  the  earliest  stage*  of  their  ex 
istence.  More  delivered  lectures  also  at  St. 
Lawrence's  church  in  the  Old  Jewry,  on 
the  work  of  St.  Augustine,  De  Civitate  Dei, 
that  is,  on  the  divine  government  of  the 
moral  world ;  which  must  seem  to  readers 
who  look  at  ancient  times  through  modern 
habits,  a  very  singular  occupation  for  a 
young  lawyer.  But  the  clergy  were  then  the 
chief  depositaries  of  knowledge,  and  were 
the  sole  canonists  and  civilians,  as  they  had 
once  been  the  only  lawyers. t  Religion, 
morals,  and  law,  were  then  taught  together 
without  due  distinction  between  them,  to 
the  injury  and  confusion  of  them  all.  To 
these  lectures,  we  are  told  by  the  affectionate 
biographer,  il  there  resorted  Doctor  Grocyri, 
an  excellent  cunning  man,  and  all  the  chief 
learned  of  the  city  of  London."!  More,  in 
his  lectures,  however,  did  not  so  much  dis 
cuss  "the  points  of  divinity  as  the  precepts 
of  moral  philosophy  and  history,  wherewith 
these  books  are  replenished. "§  The  effect 
of  the  deep  study  of  the  first  was,  perhaps, 
however,  to  embitter  his  polemical  writings, 
and  somewhat  to  sour  that  naturally  sweet 
temper,  which  was  so  deeply  felt  by  his 


*  Doctor  and  Student  (by  St.  Germain)  and  Di- 
versite  des  Courtes  were  both  printed  by  Rastell 
in  1534. 

t  Nullus  causidicus  nisi  dericus. 

J  Roper,  p.  5.  §  More,  p.  44. 


companions,  that  Erasmus  scarcely  ever  con 
cludes  a  letter  to  him  without  epithets  more 
indicative  of  the  most  tender  affection  than 
of  the  calm  feelings  of  friendship.* 

The  tenderness  of  More's  nature  combined 
with  the  instructions  and  habits  of  his  edu 
cation  to  predispose  him  to  piety.  As  he 
lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  great  Car 
thusian  monastery,  called  the  "Charter 
house,"  for  some  years,  he  manifested  a 
predilection  for  monastic  life,  arid  is  said  to 
have  practised  some  of  those"'austerities  and 
self-inflictions  which  prevail  among  the 
gloomier  and  sterner  orders.  A  pure  mind 
in  that  age  often  sought  to  extinguish  some 
of  the  inferior  impulses  of  human  nature,  in 
stead  of  employing  them  for  their  appointed 
purpose, — that  of  animating  the  domestic 
affections,  and  sweetening  the  most  impor 
tant  duties  of  life.  He  soon  learnt,  however,, 
by  self-examination,  his  unfitness  for  the 
priesthood,  and  relinquished  his  project  of 
taking  orders,  in  words  which  should  have 
warned  his  church  against  the  imposition  of 
unnatural  self-denial  on  vast  multitudes  and 
successive  generations  of  men. f 

The  same  affectionate  disposition  which 
had  driven  him  towards  the  visions,  and,, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  to  the  austerities  ol 
the  monks,  now  sought  a  more  natural  chan 
nel.  "  He  resorted  to  the  house  of  one  Mais- 
ter  Colt,  a  gentleman  of  Essex,  who  had  often 
invited  him  thither ;  having  three  daughters, 
whose  honest  conversation  and  virtuous  edu 
cation  provoked  him  there  especially  to  set 
his  affection.  And  albeit  his  mind  most 
served  him  to  the  second  daughter,  for  that 
he  thought  her  the  fairest  and  best  favoured, 
yet  when  he  considered  that  it  would  be 
both  great  grief,  and  some  shame  also,  to 
the  eldest,  to  see  her  younger  sister  prefer 
red  before  her  in  marriage,  he  then  of  a  cer 
tain  pity  framed  his  fancy  toward  her,  and 
soon  after  married  her,  neverthemore  dis 
continuing  his  study  of  the  law  at  Lincoln's- 
Inn."}  His  more  remote  descendant  adds, 
that  Mr.  Colt  "  proffered  unto  him  the  choice 
of  any  of  his  daughters;  and  that  More,  out 
of  a  kind  of  compassion,  settled  his  fancy  on 
the  eldest. "§  Erasmus  gives  a  turn  to  More's 
marriage  with  Jane  Colt,  which  is  too  inge 
nious  to  be  probable  : — "He  wedded  a  very 
young  girl  of  respectable  family,  but  who 
had  hitherto  lived  in  the  country  with  her 
parents  and  sisters,  and  was  so  uneducated, 
that  he  could  mould  her  to  his  own  tastes 
and  manners.  He  caused  her  to  be  in 
structed  in  letters,:  and  she  became  a  very 
skilful  musician,  which  peculiarly  pleased 
him."ll 

The  plain  matter  of  fact  seems  to  have 
been,  that  in  an  age  when  marriage  chiefly 
depended  upon  a  bargain  between  parents^ 


*  "  Suavissime  More."  "  Charissime  More." 
"  Mellitissime  More." 

t "  Maluit  maritus  esse  castus  quam  sacerdoa 
impurus."  Erasmus,  Op.  veil.  iii.  p.  475. 

J  Roper,  p.  6.  §  More,  p.  30. 

li  Erasmus,  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  475. 


48 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


on  which  sons  were  little  consulted,  and 
daughters  not  at  all,  More,  emerging  at 
twenty-one  from  the  toil  of  acquiring  Greek, 
and  the  voluntary  self-torture  of  Carthusian 
mystics,  was  delighted  at  his  first  entry 
among  pleasing  young  women,  of  whom 
the  least  attractive  might,  in  these  circum 
stances,  have  touched  him ;  and  that  his 
slight  preference  for  the  second  easily  yield 
ed  to  a  good-natured  reluctance  to  mortify 
the  elder.  Most  young  ladies  in  Essex,  in 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  must 
have  required  some  tuition  to  appear  iji  Lon 
don  among  scholars  and  courtiers,  who  were 
at  that  time  more  mingled  than  it  is  now 
usual  for  them  to  be.  It  is  impossible  to 
ascertain  the  precise  shade  of  feeling  which 
the  biographers  intended  to  denote  by  the 
words  "pity"  and  " compassion,"  for  the 
use  of  which  they  are  charged  with  a  want 
of  gallantry  or  delicacy  by  modern  writers; 
although  neither  of  these  terms,  when  the 
context  is  at  the  same  time  read,  seems  un 
happily  employed  to  signify  the  natural  re 
finement,  which  shrinks  from  humbling  the 
harmless  self-complacency  of  an  innocent 
girl. 

The  marriage  proved  so  happy,  that  no 
thing  was  to  be  regretted  in  it  but  the  short 
ness  of  the  union,  in  consequence  of  the  early 
death  of  Jane  Colt,  who  left  a  son  and  three 
daughters;  of  whom  Margaret,  the  eldest, 
inherited  the  features,  the  form,  and  the  ge 
nius  of  her  father,  and  requited  his  fond  par 
tiality  by  a  daughterly  love,  which  endured 
to  the  end. 

In  no  long  time*  after  the  death  of  Jane 
Colt,  he  married  Alice  Middleton,  a  widow, 
seven  years  older  than  himself,  and  not  hand 
some  ; — rather,  for  the  care  of  his  family,  and 
the  management  of  his  house,  than  as  a  com 
panion  and  a  friend.  He  treated  her,  and  in 
deed  all  females,  except  his  daughter  Mar 
garet,  as  better  qualified  to  relish  a  jest,  than 
to  take  a  part  in  more  serious  conversation ; 
and  in  their  presence  gave  an  unbounded 
scope  to  his  natural  inclination  towards  plea 
santry.  He  even  indulged  himself  in  a  Latin 
play  of  words  on  her  want  of  youth  and 
beauty,  calling  her  "nee  bella  nee  puella."t 
"  She  was  of  good  years,  of  no  good  favour 
or  complexion,  nor  very  rich,  and  by  disposi 
tion  near  and  worldly.  It  was  reported  that 
he  wooed  her  for  a  friend  of  his;  but  she 
answering  that  he  might  speed  if  he  spoke 
for  himself,  he  married  her  with  the  consent 
of  his  friend,  yielding  to  her  that  which  per 
haps  he  never  would  have  done  of  his  own 
accord.  Indeed,  her  favour  could  not  have 
bewitched,  or  scarce  moved,  any  man  to 
love  her;  but  yet  she  proved  a  kind  and 
careful  mother-in-law  to  his  children ."  Eras 
mus,  who  was  often  an  inmate  in  the  family, 
speaks  of  her  as  "  a  keen  and  watchful  ma- 


*  "  In  a  few  months,"  says  Erasmus,  Op.  vol. 
iii.  p.  475. : — "  within  two  or  three  years,"  ac 
cording  to  his  great  grandson. — More,  p.  32. 

t  Erasmus,  vol.  iii.  p.  475. 


nager,  with  whom  More  lived  on  terms  of 
as  much  respect  and  kindness  as  if  she  had 
been  fair  and  young."  Such  is  the  happy 
power  of  a  loving  disposition,  which  over 
flows  on  companions,  though  their  attrac 
tions  or  deserts  should  be  slender.  "No 
husband,"  continues  Erasmus,  "ever  gained 
so  much  obedience  from  a  wile  by  authority 
and  severity,  as  More  won  by  gentleness  and 
pleasantry.  Though  verging  on  old  age,  and 
not  of  a  yielding  temper,  he  prevailed  on  her 
to  take  lessons  on  the  lute,  the  cithara,  the 
viol,  the  monochord,  and  the  flute,  which  she 
daily  practised  to  him.  With  the  same  gen 
tleness  he  ruled  his  whole  family,  so  that  it 
was  without  broils  or  quarrels.  He  com 
posed  all  differences,  and  never  parted  with 
any  one  on  terms  of  unkindness.  The  house 
was  fated  to  the  peculiar  felicity  that  those 
who  dwelt  in  it  were  always  raised  to  a 
higher  fortune ;  and  that  no  spot  ever  fell  on 
the  good  name  of  its  happy  inhabitants." 
The  course  of  More's  domestic  life  is  mi 
nutely  described  by  eye-witnesses.  "His 
custom  was  daily  (besides  his  private  prayers 
with  his  children)  to  say  the  seven  psalms, 
the  litany,  and  the  suffrages  following;  so 
was  his  guise  with  his  wife,  children,  and 
household,  nightly  before  he  went  to  bed,  to 
go  to  his  chapel,  and  there  on  his  knees  or 
dinarily  to  say  certain  psalm_s  and  collects 
with  them."*  "  With  him," "says  Erasmus, 
"  you  might  imagine  yourself  in  the  acade 
my  of  Plato.  But  I  should  do  injustice  to 
his  house  by  comparing  it  to  the  academy 
of  Plato,  where  numbers,  and  geometrical 
figures,  and  sometimes  moral  virtues,  were 
the  subjects  of  discussion ;  it  would  be  more 
just  to  'call  it  a  school  and  exercise  of  the 
Christian  religion.  All  its  inhabitants,  male 
or  female,  applied  their  leisure  to  liberal 
studies  and  profitable  reading,  although  piety 
was  their  first  care.  No  wrangling,  no  angry 
word,  was  heard  in  it ;  no  one  was  idle :  every 
one  did  his  duty  with  alacrity,  and  not  with 
out  a  temperate  cheerfulness."!  Erasmus 
had  not  the  sensibility  of  More ;  he  was  more 
prone  to  smile  than  to  sigh  at  the  concerns 
of  men :  but  he  was  touched  by  the  remem 
brance  of  these  domestic  solemnities  in  the 
household  of  his  friend.  He  manifests  an 
agreeable  emotion  at  the  recollection  of  these 
scenes  in  daily  life,  which  tended  to  hallow 
the  natural  authority  of  parents,  to  bestow  a 
sort  of  dignity  on  humble  occupation,  to  raise 
menial  offices  to  the  rank  of  virtues,  and  to 
spread  peace  and  cultivate  kindness  among 
those  who  had  shared,  and  were  soon  again 
to  share,  the  same  modest  rites,  in  gently 
breathing  around  them  a  spirit  of  meek 
equality,  which  rather  humbled  the  pride  of 
the  great  than  disquieted  the  spirits  of  the 
lowly.  More  himself  justly  speaks  of  the 
hourly  interchange  of  the  smaller  acts  of 
kindness  which  flow  from  the  charities  of 
domestic  life,  as  having  a  claim  on  his  time 
as  strong  as  the  occupations  which  seemed 


*  Roper,  p.  25.       t  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  1812. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


49 


to  others  so  much  more  serious  and  impor 
tant.  "While,"  says  he,  "in  pleading,  in 
hearing,  in  deciding  causes  or  composing 
differences,  in  waiting  on  some  men  about 
business,  and  on  others  out  of  respect,  the 
greatest  part  of  the  day  is  spent  on  other 
men's  affairs,  the  remainder  of  it  must  be 
given  to  my  family  at  home ;  so  that  I  can 
reserve  no  part  of  it  to  myself,  that  is.  to 
study.  I  must  talk  with  my  wife,  and  chat 
with  my  children,  and  I  have  somewhat  to 
say  to  my  servants;  for  all  these  things  I 
reckon  as  a  part  of  my  business,  except  a 
man  will  resolve  to  be  a  stranger  at  home ; 
and  with  whomsoever  either  nature,  chance, 
or  choice,  has  engaged  a  man  in  any  com 
merce,  he  must  endeavour  to  make  himself 
as  acceptable  to  those  about  him  as  he  can."* 

His  occupations  now  necessarily  employed 
a  large  portion  of  his  time.  His  professional 
practice  became  so  considerable,  that  about 
the  accession  of  Henry  VIII.,  in  1509,  with 
his  legal  office  in  the  city  of  London,  it  pro 
duced  400L  a  year,  probably  equivalent  to 
an  annual  income  of  5000/.  in  the  present 
day.  Though  it  be  not  easy  to  determine  the 
exact  period  of  the  occurrences  of  his  life, 
from  his  establishment  in  London  to  his  ac 
ceptance  of  political  office,  the  beginning  of 
Henry  VIII. 's  reign  may  be  considered  as 
the  time  of  his  highest  eminence  at  the  bar. 
About  this  time  a  ship  belonging  to  the  Pope, 
or  claimed  by  his  Holiness  on  behalf  of  some 
of  his  subjects,  happened  to  come  to  South 
ampton,  where  she  was  seized  as  a  forfei 
ture, — probably  as  what  is  called  a  droit  of 
the  'crown,  or  a  droit  of  the  admiralty. — 
though  under  what  circumstances,  or  on  what 
grounds  we  know  not.  The  papal  minister 
made  suit  to  the  King  that  the  case  might  be 
argued  for  the  Pope  by  learned  counsel  in  a 
public  place,  and  in  presence  of  the  minister 
himself,  who  was  a  distinguished  civilian. 
None  was  found  so  well  qualified  to  be  of 
counsel  for  him  as  More,  who  could  report 
in  Latin  all  the  arguments  to  his  client,  and 
who  argued  so  learnedly  on  the  Pope's  side, 
that  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  order  for 
the  restitution  of  the  vessel  detained. 

It  has  been  already  intimated,  that  about 
the  same  time  he  had  been  appointed  to  a 
judicial  office  in  the  city  of  London,  which 
is  described  by  his  son-in-law  as  "  that  of 
one  of  the  under-sheriffs."  Roper,  who  was 
himself  for  many  years  an  officer  of  the  court 
of  King's  Bench,  gives  the  name  of  the  office 
correctly;  but  does  not  describe  its  nature 
and  importance  so  truly  as  Erasmus,  who 
tells  his  correspondent  that  More  passed 
several  years  in  the  city  of  London  as  a  judge 
in  civil  causes.  "This  office,"  he  says, 
"  though  not  laborious,  for  the  court  sits  only 
on  the  forenoon  of  every  Thursday,  is  ac 
counted  very  honourable.  No  judge  of  that 
court  ever  went  through  more  causes ;  none 
decided  them  more  uprightly;  often  remit 
ting  the  fees  to  which  he  was  entitled  from 

*  Dedication  of  Utopia  to  Peter  Giles,  (Burnet's 
translation,)  1684. 

7 


the  suitors.  His  deportment  in  this  capacity 
endeared  him  extremely  to  his  fellow-citi 
zens."*  The  under-sheriff  was  then  appa 
rently  judge  of  the  sheriff's  court,  which, 
being  the  county  court  for  London  and  Mid 
dlesex,  was,  at  that  time,  a  station  of  honour 
and  advantage. t  For  the  county  courts  in 
general,  and  indeed  all  the  ancient  subordi 
nate  jurisdictions  of  the  common  law,  had 
not  yet  been  superseded  by  that  concen 
tration  of  authority  in  the  hands  of  the  su 
perior  courts  at  Y\restminster,  which  con 
tributed  indeed  to  the  purity  arid  dignity  of 
the  judicial  character,  as  well  as  to  the  uni 
formity  and  the  improvement  of  the  admin 
istration  of  law, — but  which  cannot  be  said 
to  have  served  in  the  same  degree  to  pro 
mote  a  speedy  and  cheap  redress  of  the 
wrongs  suffered  by  those  suitors  to  whom 
cost  and  delay  are  most  grievous.  More's 
office,  in  that  state  of  the  jurisdiction,  might 
therefore  have  possessed  the  importance 
which  his  contemporaries  ascribed  to  it ; 
although  the  denomination  of  it  would  not 
make  such  an  impression  on  modern  ears. 
It  is  apparent,  that  either  as  a  considerable 
source  of  his  income,  or  as  an  honourable 
token  of  public  confidence,  this  office  was 
valued  by  More  ;  since  he  informs  Erasmus, 
in  1516,  that  he  had  declined  a  handsome 
pension  offered  to  him  by  the  king  on  his 
return  from  Flanders,  and  that  he  believed 
he  should  always  decline  it ;  because  either 
it  would  oblige  him  to  resign  his  office  in  the 
city,  which  he  preferred  to  a  better,  or  if  he 
retained  it,  in  case  of  a  controversy  of  the  city 
with  the  king  for  their  privileges,  he  might  be 
deemed  by  his  fellow-citizens  to  be  disabled 
by  dependence  on  the  crown  from  sincere 
ly  and  faithfully  maintaining  their  rights. t 
This  last  reasoning  is  also  interesting,  as  the 
first  intimation  of  the  necessity  of  a  city  law- 
officer  being  independent  of  the  crown,  and 
of  the  legal  resistance  of  the  corporation  of 
London  to  a  Tudor  king.  It  paved  the  way 
for  those  happier  times  in  which  the  great 
city  had  the  honour  to  number  the  Holts  and 
the  Denmans  among  her  legal  advisers. § 

*  Erasmus,  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  476. 

t "  In  urbe  sua  pro  shyrevo  dixit." — Epitaph. 

t  Erasmus,  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  220. 

$  From  communications  obtained  for  me  from 
the  records  of  the  City,  I  am  enabled  to  ascertain 
some  particulars  of  the  nature  of  More's  appoint 
ment,  which  have  occasioned  a  difference  of  opin 
ion.  On  the  8th  of  May,  1514,  it  was  agreed  by 
the  common  council,  "  that,  Thomas  More,  gen 
tleman,  one  of  t  he  under-sheriffs  of  London,  should 
occupy  his  office  and  chamber  by  a  sufficient  depu 
ty,  during  his  absence  as  the  king's  ambassador 
in  Flanders."  It  appears  from  several  entries  in 
the  same  records,  from  1496  to  1502  inclusive,  that 
the  nnder-sheriff  was  annually  elected,  or  rather 
confirmed  ;  for  the  practice  was  not  to  remove 
him  without  his  own  application  or  some  serious 
fault.  For  six  years  of  Henry's  reign,  Edward 
Dudley  was  one  of  the  under-sheriffs ;  a  circum 
stance  which  renders  the  superior  importance  of 
the  office  at  that  time  probable.  Thomas  Marowe, 
the  author  of  works  on  law  esteemed  in  his  time, 
though  not  published,  appears  also  in  the  above 
records  as  under-sheriff. 


50 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


More  is  the  first  person  in  our  history  dis 
tinguished  by  the  faculty  of  public  speaking. 
A  remarkable  occasion  on  which  it  was  suc 
cessfully  employed  in  parliament  against  a 
lavish  grant  of  money  to  the  crown  is  thus 
recorded  by  his  son-in-law  as  follows  : — "In 
the  latter  time  of  king  Henry  VII.  he  was 
made  a  burgess  of  the  parliament,  wherein 
was  demanded  by  the  king  about  three 
fifteenths  for  the  marriage  of  his  eldest 
daughter,  that  then  should  be  the  Scottish 
queen.  At  the  last  debating  whereof  he 
made  such  arguments  and  reasons  there 
against,  that  the  king's  demands  were  there 
by  clean  overthrown  ;  so  that  one  of  the 
king's  privy  chamber,  named  maister  Tyler, 
being  present  thereat,  brought  word  to  the 
king  out  of  the  parliament  house,  that  a 
beardless  boy  had  disappointed  all  his  pur 
pose.  Whereupon  the  king,  conceiving  great 
indignation  towards  him,  could  not  be  satis 
fied  until  he  had  some  way  revenged  it. 
And  forasmuch  as  he,  nothing  having,  could 
nothing  lose,  his  grace  devised  a  causeless 
quarrel  against  his  father;  keeping  him  in 
the  Tower  till  he  had  made  him  to  pay  100/. 
fine,"  (probably  on  a  charge  of  having  in 
fringed  some  obsolete  penal  law).  "  Shortly 
after,  it  fortuned  that  Sir  T.  More,  coming 
in  a  suit  to  Dr.  Fox,  bishop  of  Winchester, 
one  of  the  king's  privy  council,  the  bishop 
called  him  aside,  and,  pretending  great  fa 
vour  towards  him,  promised  that  if  he  would 
be  ruled  by  him  he  would  not  fail  into  the 
king's  favour  again  to  restore  him  ;  meaning, 
as  it  was  afterwards  conjectured,  to  cause 
him  thereby  to  confess  his  offences  against 
the  king,  whereby  his  highness  might,  with 
the  better  colour,  have  occasion  to  revenge 
his  displeasure  against  him.  But  when  he 
came  from  the  bishop  he  fell  into  communi 
cation  with  one  maister  Whitforde,  his  fami 
liar  friend,  then  chaplain  to  that  bishop,  and 
showed  him  what  the  bishop  had  said, 

E  raying  for  his  advice.  Whitforde  prayed 
im  by  the  passion  of  God  not  to  follow  the 
counsel;  for  my  lord,  to  serve  the  king's 
turn,  will  not  stick  to  agree  to  his  own  fa 
ther's  death.  So  Sir  Thomas  More  returned 
to  the  bishop  no  more ;  and  had  not  the  king 
died  soon  after,  he  was  determined  to  have 
gone  over  sea."*  That  the  advice  of  Whit 
forde  was  wise,  appeared  from  a  circum 
stance  which  occurred  nearly  ten  years  after, 
which  exhibits  a  new  feature  in  the  character 
of  the  King  and  of  his  bishops.  When  Dud 
ley  was  sacrificed  to  popular  resentment, 
under  Henry  VIII.,  and  when  he  was  on  his 
way  to  execution,  he  met  Sir  Thomas,  to 
whom  he  said, — ''-'Oh  More,  More!  God 
was  your  good  friend,  that  you  did  not  ask 
the  king  forgiveness,  as  manie  would  have 
had  you  do ;  for  if  you  had  done  so,  perhaps 

*  Roper,  p.  7.  There  seems  to  be  some  for- 
getfulness  of  dates  in  the  latter  part  of  this  passage, 
which  has  been  copied  by  succeeding;  writers. 
Margaret,  it  is  well  known,  was  married  in  1503  ; 
the  debate  was  not,  therefore,  later  than  that  year : 
but  Henry  VII.  lived  till  1509, 


you  should  have  been  in  the  like  case  with  us 
now."* 

It  was  natural  that  the  restorer  of  political 
eloquence,  which  had  slumbered  for  a  long 
series  of  ages,t  should  also  be  the  earliest  of 
the  parliamentary  champions  of  liberty.  But 
it  is  lamentable  that  we  have  so  little  infor 
mation  respecting  the  oratorical  powers  which 
alone  could  have  armed  him  for  the  noble 
conflict.  He  may  be  said  to  hold  the  same 
station  among  us,  which  is  assigned  by 
Cicero,  in  his  dialogue  On  the  Celebrated 
Orators  of  Rome,  to  Cato  the  censor,  whose 
consulship  was  only  about  ninety  years  prior 
to  his  own.  His  answer,  as  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  to  Wolsey,  of  which 
more  will  be  said  presently,  is  admirable  for 
its  promptitude,  quickness,  seasonableness, 
and  caution,  combined  with  dignity  and 
spirit.  It  unites  presence  of  mind  and  adap 
tation  to  the  person  and  circumstances,  with 
address  and  management  seldom  surpassed. 
If  the  tone  be  more  submissive  than  suits 
modern  ears,  it  is  yet  remarkable  for  that 
ingenious  refinement  which  for  an  instant 
shows  a  glimpse  of  the  sword  generally  hid 
den  under  robes  of  state.  "His  eloquent 
tongue,"  says  Erasmus,  "so  well  seconds 
his  fertile  invention,  that  no  one  speaks  bet 
ter  when  suddenly  called  forth.  His  atten 
tion  never  languishes ;  his  mind  is  always 
before  his  words  j  his ,  memory  has  all  its 
stock  so  turned  into  ready  money,  that,  with 
out  hesitation  or  delay,  it  gives  out  whatever 
the  time  and  the  case  may  require.  His 
acuteness  in  dispute  is  unrivalled,  and  he 
often  perplexes  the  most  renowned  theolo 
gians  when  he  enters  their  province. "£ 
Though  much  of  this  encomium  may  ben 
applicable  rather  to  private  conversation 
than  to  public  debate,  and  though  this  pre- 


perience  must  have  been  limited ;  it  is  still 
obvious  that  the  great  critic  has  ascribed  to 
his  friend  the  higher  part  of  those  mental 
qualities,  which,  when  justly  balanced  and] 
perfectly  trained,  constitute  a  great  orator,    j 
As  if  it  had  been  the  lot  of  More  to  open? 
all  the  paths  through  the  wilds  of  our  old 
English  speech,  he  is  to  be  considered  also 
as  our  earliest  prose  writer,  and  as  the  first 
Englishman  who  wrote  the   history  of  hiaj 
country  in  its  present  language.     The  his-j< 
torical  fragment^  commands  belief  by  sim 
plicity,  and  by  abstinence  from  too  confident, 
affirmation.      It  betrays    some    negligence 
about  minute  particulars,  which  is  not  dis 
pleasing  as  a  symptom  of  the  absence  of 
eagerness  to  enforce  a  narrative.     The  com 
position  has  an  ease  and  a  rotundity  (which 
gratify  the  ear  without  awakening  the  sus- 


*  More,  p.  38. 

t  "  Postquam  pugnatum  est  apud  Actium, 
magna  ilia  ingenia  cessere." — Tacitus,  Hist.  lib. 
i.  cap.  1. 

\  Erasmus,  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  476. 

$  History  of  Richard  III. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


51 


picion  of  art)  of  which  there  was  no  model 
in  any  preceding  writer  of  English  prose. 

In  comparing  the  prose  of  More  with  the 
modern  style,  we  must  distinguish  the  words 
from  the  composition.  A  very  small  part  of 
his  vocabulary  has  been  superannuated ;  the 
number  of  terms  which  require  any  expla 
nation  is  inconsiderable :  and  in  that  respect 
the  stability  of  the  language  is  remarkable. 
He  is,  indeed,  in  his  words,  more  English 
than  the  great  writers  of  a  century  after  him, 
who  loaded  their  native  tongue  with  expres 
sions  of  Greek  or  Latin  derivation.  Cicero, 
speaking  of  '{old  Cato,"  seems  almost  to  de 
scribe  More.  '-His  style  is  rather  antiquated ; 
he  has  some  words  displeasing  to  our  ears, 
but  which  were  then  in  familiar  use.  Change 
those  terms,  which  he  could  not,  you  will 
then  prefer  no  speaker  to  Cato."* 

But  in  the  combination  and  arrangement 
of  words,  in  ordinary  phraseology  and  com 
mon  habits  of  composition,  he  differs  more 
widely  from  the  style  that  has  now  been 
prevalent  among  us  for  nearly  two  centuries. 
His  diction  seems  a  continued  experiment  to 
discover  the  forms  into  which  the  language 
naturally  runs.  In  that  attempt  he  has  fre 
quently  failed.  Fortunate  accident,  or  more 
varied  experiment  in  aftertimes,  led  to  the 
adoption  of  other  combinations,  which  could 
scarcely  have  succeeded,  if  they  had  not 
been  more  consonant  to  the  spirit  of  the  lan 
guage,  arid  more  agreeable  to  the  ear  and  the 
feelings  of  the  people.  The  structure  of  his 
sentences  is  frequently  not  that  which  the 
English  language  has  finally  adopted:  the 
language  of  his  countrymen  has  decided, 
without  appeal,  against  the  composition  of 
the  father  of  English  prose. 

The  speeches  contained  in  his  fragment, 
like  many  of  those  in  the  ancient  historians, 
were  probably  substantially  real,  but  bright 
ened  by  ornament,  and  improved  in  compo 
sition.  It  could,  indeed,  scarcely  be  other 
wise  :  for  the  history  was  written  in  1513,t 
and  the  death  of  Edward  IV.,  with  which  it 
opens,  occurred  in  1483;  while  Cardinal 
Morton,  who  became  prime  minister  two 
years  after  that  event,  appears  to  have  taken 
young  More  into  his  household  about  the 
year  1493.  There  is,  therefore,  little  scope, 
in  so  short  a  time,  for  much  falsification,  by 
tradition,  of  the  arguments  and  topics  really 
employed.  These  speeches  have  the  merit 
of  being  accommodated  to  the  circumstances, 
and  of  being  of  a  tendency  to  dispose  those 
to  whom  they  were  addressed  to  promote 
the  object  of  the  speaker;  and  this  merit, 
rare  in  similar  compositions,  shows  that  More 

*  De  Clar.  Orat.  cap.  17- 

t  Holinshed,  vol.  iii.  p.  360.  Holinshed  called 
More's  work  "  unfinished."  That  it  was  meant 
to  extend  to  ihe  death  of  Richard  III.  seems  pro 
bable  from  the  following  sentence  : — "  But,  for 
asmuch  as  this  duke's  (the  Duke  of  Gloucester) 
demeanour  ministereth  in  effect  all  the  whole 
matter  whereof  this  book  shall  entreat,  it  is  there 
fore  convenient  to  show  you,  as  we  farther  go, 
what  manner  of  man  this  was  that  could  find  in 
his  heart  such  mischief  to  conceive." — p.  361. 


had  been  taught,  by  the  practice  of  speaking 
in  contests  where  objects  the  most  important 
are  the  prize  of  the  victor,  that  eloquence  is 
the  art  of  persuasion,  and  that  the  end  of  the 
orator  is  riot  the  display  of  his  talents,  but 
dominion  over  the  minds  of  his  hearers.  The 
dying  speech,  in  which  Edward  exhorts  the 
two  parties  of  his  friends  to  harmony,  is  a 
grave  appeal  to  their  prudence,  as  well  as  an 
affecting  address  from  a  father  and  a  king  to 
their  public  feelings.  The  surmises  thrown 
out  by  Richard  against  the  Widvilles  are 
short,  dark,  and  well  adapted  to  awaken  sus 
picion  and  alarm.  The  insinuations  against 
the  Queen,  and  the  threats  of  danger  to  the 
lords  themselves  from  leaving  the  person  of 
the  Duke  of  York  in  the  hands  of  that  prin 
cess,  in  Richard's  speech  to  the  Privy  Coun 
cil,  before  the  Archbishop  of  York  was  sent 
to  Westminster  to  demand  the  surrender  of 
the  boy.  are  admirable  specimens  of  the 
address  and  art  of  crafty  ambition.  Gene 
rally  speaking,  the  speeches  have  little  of 
the  vague  common-place  of  rhetoricians  and 
declaimers ;  and  the  time  is  not  wasted  in 
parade.  In  the  case,  indeed,  of  the  dispute 
between  the  Archbishop  and  the  Queen, 
about  taking  the  Duke  of  York  out  of  his 
mother's  care,  and  from  the  Sanctuary  at 
Westminster,  there  is  more  ingenious  argu 
ment  than  the  scene  allows ;  and  the  mind 
rejects  logical  refinements,  of  which  the  use, 
on  such  an  occasion,  is  quite  irreconcilable  to 
dramatic  verisimilitude.  The  Duke  of  Buck 
ingham  alleged  in  council,  that  sanctuary 
could  be  claimed  only  against  danger ;  and 
that  the  royal  infant  had  neither  wisdom  to 
desire  sanctuary,  nor  the  malicious  intention 
in  his  acts  without  which  he  could  not  re 
quire  it.  To  this  notable  paradox,  which 
amounted  to  an  affirmation  that  no  certainly 
innocent  person  could  ever  claim  protection 
from  a  sanctuary,  when  it  was  carried  to  the 
Queen,  she  answered  readily,  that  if  she 
could  be  in  sanctuary,  it  followed  that  her 
child,  who  was  her  ward,  was  included  in 
her  protection,  as  much  as  her  servants,  who 
were,  without  contradiction,  allowed  to  be. 

The  Latin  epigrams  of  More,  a  small  vo 
lume  which  it  required  two  years  to  carry 
though  the  press  at  Basle,  are  mostly  trans 
lations  from  the  Anthologia,  which  were 
rather  made  known  to  Europe  by  the  fame 
of  the  writer,  than  calculated  to  increase  it. 
They  contain,  however,  some  decisive  proofs 
that  he  always  entertained  the  opinions  re 
specting  the  dependence  of  all  government 
on  the  consent  of  the  people,  to  which  he 
professed  his  adherence  almost  in  his  dying 
moments.  Latin  versification  was  not  in 
that  early  period  successfully  attempted  in 
any  Transalpine  country.  The  rules  of  pros 
ody,  or  at  least  the  laws  of  metrical  compo 
sition,  were  not  yet  sufficiently  studied  for 
such  attempts.  His  Latinity  was  of  the  same 
school  with  that  of  his  friend  Erasmus; 
which  was,  indeed,  common  to  the  first  gen 
eration  of  scholars  after  the  revival  of  clas,5i~ 
cal  study.  Finding  Latin  a  sort  of  general 


52 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


language  employed  by  men  of  letters  in  their 
conversation  and  correspondence,  they  con 
tinued  the  use  of  it  in  the  mixed  and  cor 
rupted  state  to  which  such  an  application 
had  necessarily  reduced  it :  they  began, 
indeed,  to  purify  it  from  some  grosser  cor 
ruptions;  but  they  built  their  style  upon 
the  foundation  of  this  colloquial  dialect, 
with  no  rigorous  observation  of  the  good 
usage  of  the  Roman  language.  Writings 
of  business,  of  pleasantry,  of  familiar  inter 
course,  could  never  have  been  composed 
in  pure  Latinity;  which  was  still  more  in 
consistent  with  new  manners,  institutions, 
and  opinions,  and  with  discoveries  and  in 
ventions  added  to  those  which  were  trans 
mitted  by  antiquity.  Erasmus,  who  is  the 
master  and  model  of  this  system  of  compo 
sition,  admirably  shows  how  much  had  been 
gained  by  loosening  the  fetters  of  a  dead 
speech,  and  acquiring  in  its  stead  the  na 
ture,  ease,  variety,  and  vivacity  of  a  spoken 
and  living  tongue.  The  course  of  circum 
stances,  however,  determined  that  this  lan 
guage  should  not  subsist,  or  at  least  flourish, 
for  much  more  than  a  century.  It  was  as 
sailed  on  one  side  by  the  purely  classical, 
whom  Erasmus,  in  derision,  calls  "Cicero- 
nians  ;"  and  when  it  was  sufficiently  emas 
culated  by  dread  of  their  censure,  it  was 
finally  overwhelmed  by  the  rise  of  a' national 
literature  in  every  European  language. 

More  exemplified  the  abundance  and  flexi 
bility  of  the  Erasmian  Latinity  in  Utopia, 
with  which  this  short  view  of  all  his  writings, 
except  those  of  controversy,  may  be  fitly  con 
cluded.  The  idea  of  the  work  had  been  sug 
gested  by  some  of  the  dialogues  of  Plato, 
who  speaks  of  vast  territories,  formerly  culti 
vated  and  peopled,  but  afterwards,  by  some 
convulsion  of  nature,  covered  by  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  These  Egyptian  traditions,  or  le 
gends,  harmonised  admirably  with  that  dis 
covery  of  a  new  continent  by  Columbus, 
which  had  roused  the  admiration  of  Europe 
about  twenty  years  before  the  composition 
of  Utopia.  This  was  the  name  of  an  island 
feigned  to  have  been  discovered  by  a  sup 
posed  companion  of  Amerigo  Vespucci,  who 
is  made  to  tell  the  wondrous  tale  of  its  con 
dition  to  More,  at  Antwerp,  in  1514  :  and  in 
it  was  the  seat  of  the  Platonic  conception  of 
an  imaginary  commonwealth.  All  the  names 
which  he  invented  for  men  or  places*  were 


*The  following  specimen  of  Utopian  ety 
mologies  may  amuse  some  readers  : — 
Utopia       -       -  OUTOTTOS  -  nowhere. 
Achorians        -  d-^wpoc  -  of  no  country 
Ademians    -    -  d-Ja^o?  -  of  no  people. 

TThe  in- 

Anyder(ariver)     a-Mup    -  waterless. 
Amaurot  (a  city)    d-,u«.v/>o?   dark, 

Hythloday  -  Jaua-vfaoe  -   a  learner  of 
trifles,  &c. 


visible 
city  is 
on  the 
river 
water 
less. 


Some  are  intentionally  unmeaning,  and  oth 
ers  are  taken  from  little  known  language  in 


intimations  of  their  being  unreal,  and  were, 
perhaps,  by  treating  with  raillery  his  own] 
notions,  intended  to  silence  gairisayers.    The  1 
first  book,  which  is  preliminary,  is  naturally 
and  ingeniously  opened  by  a  conversation,  I 
in  which  Raphael  Hylhloclay,  the  Utopian : 
traveller,   describes   his   visit   to   England;. 
where,  as  much  as  in  other  countries,  he] 
found  all  proposals  for  improvement  encoun-  ] 
tered  by  the  remark,  that, — "Such  things' 
pleased  our  ancestors,  and  it  were  well  for 
us  if  we  could   but  match  them;  as  if  it 
were  a  great  mischief  that  any  should  be  j 
found  wiser  than  his  ancestors."     "  I  met," 
he  goes  on  to  say,  "  these  proud,  morose,  and] 
absurd  judgments,  particularly  once  when  • 
dining  with  Cardinal   Morton  at  London."] 
'•There  happened  to  be  at  table  an  English  , 
lawyer,  who  run  out  into  high  commenda-  3 
tion  of  the  severe  execution  of  justice  upon 
thieves,  who  were  then  hanged  so  fast  that 
there  were  sometimes  twenty  hanging  upon 
one  gibbet,  and  added,  'that  he  could  not 
wonder  enough  how  it  came  to  pass  that] 
there  were  so  many  thieves  left  robbing  in] 
all  places.'"     Raphael  answered,  "that  it 
was  because  the  punishment  of  death  was 
neither  just  in  itself,  nor  good  for  the  public; 
for  as  the  severity  was  too  great,  so  the  rem- \ 
edy  was  not  effectual.    You,  as  well  as  other 
nations,  like  bad  schoolmasters,  chastise  their 
scholars  because  they  have  not  the  skill  to 
teach  them."    Raphael  afterwards  more  spe 
cially  ascribed  the  gangs  of  banditti  w7ho, 
after  the  suppression  of  Perkin  Warbeck'sJ 
Cornish    revolt,    infested    England,    to   two^ 
causes;  of  which  the  first  was  the  frequent; 
disbanding  of  the  idle  and  armed  retainers 
of  the  nobles,  who,  when  from  necessity  let 
loose  from  their  masters,  were  too  proud  for 
industry,  and  had  no  resource  but  rapine; 
and  the  second  was  the  conversion  of  mucbJ 
corn  field   into  pasture  for  sheep,  because 
the  latter  had  become  more  profitable, — byj 
which  base  motives  many  landholders  were 
tempted  to  expel  their  tenants  and  destroy, 
the  food  of  man.     Raphael   suggested   thej 
substitution  of  hard   labour   for  death;  for: 
which  he  quoted  the  example  of  the  Ro 
mans,  and  of  an  imaginary  community  inj 
Persia.     "The   lawyer   answered,    'that  it 
could  never  be  so  settled  in  England,  with-j 
out  endangering  the  whole  nation  by  it :?  he 
shook  his  head,  and  made  some  grimaces, : 
and  then  held  his  peace,  and  all  the  com 
pany  seemed  to  be  of  his  mind.     But  the 
cardinal  said,  i  It  is  not  easy  to  say  whether 
this   plan  would   succeed  or  not,  since  no 
trial  has  been  made  of  it;   but   it  might 
be  tried   on  thieves  condemned   to  death, 
and  adopted  if  found  to  answer ;  and  vaga 
bonds  might  be  treated  in  the  same  way.' 
When    the  cardinal    had    said    this,   they 
all   fell   to  commend    the  motion,   though 

order  to  perplex  pedants.  Joseph  Scaliger 
represents  Utopia  as  a  word  not  formed  ac 
cording  to  the  analogy  which  regulates  the 
formation  of  Greek  words. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


53 


they  had  despised  it  when  it  came  from  me. 
They  more  particularly  commended  that 
concerning  the  vagabonds,  because  it  had 
been  added  by  him."  * 

From  some  parts  of  the  above  extracts  it 
is  apparent  that  More,  instead  of  having  an 
ticipated  the  economical  doctrines  of  Adam 
Smith,  as  some  modern  writers  have  fancied, 

1  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  prejudices 
of  his  contemporaries  against  the  inclosure 
of  commons,  and  the  extension  of  pasture. 
It  is,  however,  observable,  that  he  is  per 
fectly  consistent  with  himself,  and  follows 

f  his  principles  through  all  their  legitimate 
consequences,  though  they  may  end  in  doc- 

'••  trmes  of  very  startling  sound.  Considering 
separate  property  as  always  productive  of 
unequal  distribution  of  the  fruits  of  labour, 

".  and  regarding  that  inequality  of  fortune  as 
the  source  of  bodily  suffering  to  those  who 
labour,  and  of  mental  depravation  to  those 

'  who  are  not  compelled  to  toil  for  subsistence, 
Hythloday  is  made  to  say.  that,  "as  long  as 
there  is  any  property,  and  while  money  is 
the  standard  of  all  other  things,  he  cannot 
expect  that  a  nation  can  be  governed  either 
justly  or  happily."!  More  himself  objects 
to  Hythloday  :  "  It  seems  to  me  that  men 
cannot  live  conveniently  where  all  things 
are  common.  How  can  there  be  any  plenty 
where  every  man  will  excuse  himself  from 
labouring?  for  as  the  hope  of  gain  does  not 
excite  him,  so  the  confidence  that  he  has  in 
other  men's  industry  may  make  him  slothful. 
And  if  people  come  to  be  pinched  with  want, 
and  yet  cannot  dispose  of  any  thing  as  their 
own,  what  can  follow  but  perpetual  sedition 
and  bloodshed :  especially  when  the  reverence 
and  authority  due  to  magistrates  fall  to  the 

f  round ;  for  I  cannot  imagine  how  they  can  be 
ept  among  those  that  are  in  all  things  equal 
rto  one  another."  These  remarks  do  in  reality 
contain  the  germs  of  unanswerable  objections 
to  all  those  projects  of  a  community  of  goods, 
•which  suppose  the  moral  character  of  the 
majority  of  mankind  to  continue,  at  the  mo 
ment  of  their  adoption,  such  as  it  has  been 
heretofore  in  the  most  favourable  instances. 
If,  indeed,  it  be  proposed  only  on  the  suppo 
sition,  that  by  the  influence  of  laws,  or  by 
the  agency  of  any  other  cause,  mankind  in 
general  are  rendered  more  honest,  more  be 
nevolent;  more  disinterested  than  they  have  I 
hitherto  been,  it  is  evident  that  they  will,  in -I 
the  same  proportion,  approach  to  a  practice 
more  near  the  principle  of  an  equality  and  a 
community  of  all  advantages.  The  hints  of 
an  answer  to  Plato,  thrown  out  by  More,  are 
so  decisive,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  he 
left  this  speck  on  his  romance,  unless  we 
may  be  allowed  to  suspect  that  the  specula 
tion  was  in  part  suggested  as  a  convenient 
cover  for  that  biting  satire  on  the  sordid  and 
rapacious  government  of  Henry  VII.,  which 


*Burnet's  translation,  p.  13,  et 
t  Bur  net' s   translation,   p.  57. 


"fi 


appening   to 


write  where  I  have  no  access  to  the  original,  I  use 
Burnet's  translation.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
of  Burnet's  learning  or  fidelity. 


occupies  a  considerable  portion  of  Hythlo 
day'' s  first  discourse.  It  may  also  be  supposed 
that  More,  not  anxious  to  save  visionary  re 
formers  from  a  few  light  blows  in  an  attack 
aimed  at  corrupt  and  tyrannical  statesmen, 
thinks  it  suitable  to  his  imaginary  personage, 
and  conducive  to  the  liveliness  of  his  fiction, 
to  represent  the  traveller  in  Utopia  as  touched 
by  one  of  the  most  alluring  and  delusive  of 
political  chimeras. 

In  Utopia,  farm-houses  were  built  over  the 
whole  country,  to  which  inhabitants  were 
sent  in  rotation  from  the  fifty-four  cities. 
Every  family  had  forty  men  and  women, 
besides  two  slaves ;  a  master  and  mistress 
preside  over  every  family ;  and  over  thirty 
families  a  magistrate.  Every  year  twenty 
of  the  family  return  to  town,  being  two  years 
in  the  country;  so  that  ail  acquire  some 
knowledge  of  agriculture,  and  the  land  is 
never  left  in  the  hands  of  persons  quite 
unacquainted  with  country  labours.  When 
they  want  any  thing  in  the  country  which  it 
doth  not  produce,  they  fetch  it  from  the  city 
without  carrying  any  thing  in  exchange  :  the 
magistrates  take  care  to  see  it  given  to  them. 
The  people  of  the  towns  carry  their  commo 
dities  to  the  market  place,  where  they  are 
taken  away  by  those  who  need  them.  The 
chief  business  of  the  magistrates  is  to  take 
care  that  no  man  may  live  idle,  and  that 
every  one  should  labour  in  his  trade  for  six 
hours  of  every  twenty-four; — a  portion  of 
time,  wrhich,  according  to  Hythloday,  was 
sufficient  for  an  abundant  supply  of  all  the 
necessaries  and  moderate  accommodations 
of  the  community;  and  which  is  not  inad 
equate  where  all  labour,  and  none  apply 
extreme  labour  to  the  production  of  super 
fluities  to  gratify  a  few, — where  there  are 
no  idle  priests  or  idle  rich  men, — and  where 
women  of  ail  sorts  perform  their  light  allot 
ment  of  labour.  To  women  all  domestic 
offices  which  did  not  degrade  or  displease 
were  assigned.  Unhappily,  however,  the 
iniquitous  and  unrighteous  expedient  was 
devised,  of  releasing  the  better  order  of  fe 
males  from  offensive  and  noisome  occupa 
tions,  by  throwing  them  upon  slaves.  Their 
citizens  were  forbidden  to  be  butchers,  "be 
cause  they  think  that  pity  and  good-nature, 
which  are  among  the  best  of  those  affections 
that  are  born  within  us,  are  much  impaired 
by  the  butchering  of  animals;" — a  striking 
representation,  indeed,  of  the  depraving  ef 
fects  of  cruelty  to  animals,  but  abused  for 
the  iniquitous  and  cruel  purpose  of  training 
inferiors  to  barbarous  habits,  in  order  to  pre 
serve  for  their  masters  the  exclusive  benefit 
of  a  discipline  of  humanity.  Slaves,  too,  were 
employed  in  hunting,  which  was  deemed  too 
frivolous  and  barbarous  an  amusement  for 
citizens.  "  They  look  upon  hunting  as  one 
of  the  basest  parts  of  a  butcher's  business, 
for  they  account  it  more  decent  to  kill  beasts 
for  the  sustenance  of  mankind,  than  to  take 
pleasure  in  seeing  a  weak,  harmless,  and 
fearful  hare  torn  in  pieces  by  a  strong,  fierce, 
and  cruel  dog."  An  excess  of  population 
E  2 


54 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


•was  remedied  by  planting  colonies ;  a  defect, 
by  the  recall  of  the  necessary  number  of  for 
mer  colonists ;  irregularities  of  distribution, 
by  transferring  the  superfluous  members  of 
one  township  to  supply  the  vacancies  in  an 
other.  They  did  not  enslave  their  prisoners, 
nor  the  children  of  their  own  slaves.  In  those 
maladies  where  there  is  no  hope  of  cure  or 
alleviation,  it  was  customary  for  the  Utopian 
priests  to  advise  the  patient  voluntarily  to 
shorten  his  useless  and  burthensome  life  by 
opium  or  some  equally  easy  means.  In  cases 
of  suicide,  without  permission  of  the  priests 
and  the  senate,  the  party  is  excluded  from 
the  honours  of  a  decent  funeral.  They  allow 
divorce  in  cases  of  adultery,  and  incorrigible 
perverseness.  Slavery  is  the  general  punish 
ment  of  the  highest  crime.  They  have  few 
laws,  and  no  lawyers.  "Utopus,  the  founder 
of  the  state,  made  a  law  that  every  man 
might  be  of  what  religion  he  pleased,  and 
might  endeavour  to  draw  others  to  it  by  force 
of  argument  and  by  amicable  and  modest 
ways;  but  those  who  used  reproaches  or 
violence  in  their  attempts  were  to  be  con 
demned  to  banishment  or  slavery."  The 
following  passage  is  so  remarkable,  and  has 
hitherto  been  so  little  considered  in  the 
history  of  toleration,  that  I  shall  insert  it  at 
length  : — "  This  law  was  made  by  Utopus, 
not  only  for  preserving  the  public  peace, 
which,  he  said,  suffered  much  by  daily  con 
tentions  and  irreconcilable  heat  in  these 
matters,  but  because  he  thought  the  interest 
of  religion  itself  required  it.  As  for  those 
who  so  far  depart  from  the  dignity  of  human 
nature  as  to  think  that  our  souls  died  with 
our  bodies,  or  that  the  world  was  governed 
by  chance  without  a  wise  and  over-ruling 
Providence,  the  Utopians  never  raise  them 
to  honours  or  offices,  nor  employ  them  in  any 
public  trust,  but  despise  them  as  men  of  base 
and  sordid  minds :  yet  they  do  not  punish 
such  men,  because  they  lay  it  down  as  a 
ground,  that  a  man  cannot  make  himself 
believe  any  thing  he  pleases  :  nor  do  they 
drive  any  to  dissemble  their  thoughts;  so 
that  men  are  not  tempted  to  lie  or  disguise 
their  opinions  among  them,  which,  being  a 
sort  of  fraud,  is  abhorred  by  the  Utopians  :" 
— a  beautiful  and  conclusive  reason,  which, 
when  it  was  used  for  the  first  time,  as  it 
probably  was  in  Utopia,  must  have  been 
drawn  from  so  deep  a  sense  of  the  value  of 
sincerity  as  of  itself  to  prove  that  he  who 
thus  employed  it  was  sincere.  "  These  un 
believers  are  not  allowed  to  argue  before  the 
common  people ;  but  they  are  suffered  and 
even  encouraged  to  dispute  in  private  with 
their  priests  and  other  grave  men,  being 
confident  that  they  will  be  cured  of  these 
mad  opinions  by  having  reason  laid  before 
them." 

It  maybe  doubted  whether  some  extrava 
gancies  in  other  parts  of  Utopia  were  not  in 
troduced  to  cover  such  passages  as  the  above, 
by  enabling  the  writer  to  call  the  whole  a 
mere  sport  of  wit,  and  thus  exempt  him  from 
the  perilous  responsibility  of  having  main 


tained  such  doctrines  seriously.  In  other 
cases  he  seems  diffidently  to  propose  opinions 
to  which  he  was  in  some  measure  inclined, 
but  in  the  course  of  his  statement  to  have 
warmed  himself  into  an  indignation  against 
the  vices  and  corruptions  of  Europe,  which 
vents  itself  in  eloquent  invectives  not  un 
worthy  of  Gulliver.  He  makes  Hythloday 
at  last  declare, — "As  I  hope  for  mercy,  I  can 
have  no  other  notion  of  all  the  other  govern 
ments  that  I  see  or  know,  but  that  they  are 
a  conspiracy  of  the  richer  sort,  who,  on  pre 
tence  of  managing  the  public,  do  only  pursue 
their  private  ends."  The  true  notion  of  Uto 
pia  is,  however,  that  it  intimates  a  variety  of 
doctrines,  and  exhibits  a  multiplicity  of  pro 
jects,  which  the  writer  regards  with  almost 
every  possible  degree  of  approbation  and 
shade  of  assent ;  from  the  frontiers  of  serious 
and  entire  belief,  through  gradations  of  de 
scending  plausibility,  .where  the  lowest  are 
scarcely  more  than  the  exercises  of  inge 
nuity,  and  to  which  some  wild  paradoxes  are 
appended,  either  as  a  vehicle,  or  as  an  easy 
means  (if  necessary)  of  disavowing  the  se 
rious  intention  of  the  whole  of  this  Platonic 
fiction. 

It  must  be  owned,  that  though  one  class 
of  More's  successors  was  more  susceptible 
of  judicious  admiration  of  the  beauties  of 
Plato  and  Cicero  than  his  less  perfectly  form 
ed  taste  could  be,  and  though  another  divi 
sion  of  them  had  acquired  a  knowledge  of 
the  words  of  the  Greek  language,  and  per 
ception  of  their  force  and  distinctions,  for  the 
attainment  of  which  More  came  too  early 
into  the  world,  yet  none  would  have  been 
so  heartily  welcomed  by  the  masters  of  the 
Lyceum  and  the  Academy,  as  qualified  to 
take  a  part  in  the  discussion  of  those  grave 
and  lofty  themes  which  were  freely  agitated 
in  these  early  nurseries  of  human  reason. 

Th^  date 'of  the  publication  of  Utopia 
would  mark,  probably,  also  the  happiest  pe 
riod  of  its  author's  life.  He  had  now  acquired 
an  income  equivalent  to  four  or  five  thousand 
pounds  sterling  of  our  present  money,  by  his 
own  independent  industry  and  well-earned 
character.  He  had  leisure  "for  the  cultivation 
of  literature,  for  correspondence  with  his 
friend  Erasmus,  for  keeping  up  an  intercourse 
with  European  men  of  letters,  who  had  al 
ready  placed  him  in  their  first  class,  and  for 
the  composition  of  works,  from  which,  un 
aware  of  the  rapid  changes  which  were  to 
ensue,  he  probably  promised  himself  more 
fame,  or  at  least  more  popularity,  than  they 
have  procured  for  him.  His  affections  and 
his  temper  continued  to  insure  the  happiness 
of  his  home,  even  when  his  son  with  a  wife, 
three  daughters  with  their  husbands,  ana 
a  proportionable  number  of  grandchildren, 
dwelt  under  his  patriarchal  roof. 

At  the  same  period,  the  general  progress 
of  European  literature,  and  the  cheerful  pros 
pects  of  improved  education  and  diffused 
knowledge,  had  filled  the  minds  of  More  and 
Erasmus  with  delight.  The  expectation  of 
an  age  of  pacific  improvement  seems  to  have 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


55 


prevailed  among  studious  men  in  the  twenty 
years  which  elapsed  between  the  migration 
of  classical  learning  across  the  Alps,  and  the 
rise  of  the  religious  dissensions  stirred  up  by 
the  preaching  of  Luther.  "  I  foresee,"  says 
Bishop  Tunstall,  writing  to  Erasmus,  "  that 
our  posterity  will  rival  the  ancients  in  every 
sort  of  study ;  and  if  they  be  not  ungrateful, 
they  will  pay  the  greatest  thanks  to  those 
who  have  revived  these  studies.  Go  on,  and 
deserve  well  of  posterity,  who  will  never  suf 
fer  the  name  of  Erasmus  to  perish."*  Eras 
mus,  himself,  two  years  after,  expresses  the 
same  hopes,  which,  with  unwonted  courtesy, 
he  chooses  to  found  on  the  literary  character 
of  the  conversation  in  the  palace  of  Henry 
VIII.: — "The  world  is  recovering  the  use 
of  its  senses,  like  one  awakened  from  the 
deepest  sleep ;  and  yet  there  are  some  who 
cling  to  their  old  ignorance  with  their  hands 
and  feet,  and  will  not  suffer  themselves  to 
be  torn  from  it."f  To  Wolsey,  he  speaks  in 
still  more  sanguine  language,  mixed  with  the 
like  personal  compliment : — "  I  see  another 
golden  age  arising,  if  other  rulers  be  animat 
ed  by  your  spirit.  Nor  will  posterity  be  un 
grateful.  This  new  felicity,  obtained  for  the 
world  by  you,  will  be  commemorated  in  im 
mortal  monuments  by  Grecian  and  Roman 
eloquence."!  Though  the  judgment  of  pos 
terity  in  favour  of  kings  and  cardinals  is  thus 
confidently  foretold,  the  writers  do  not  the 
less  betray  their  hope  of  a  better  age,  which 
will  bestow  the  highest  honours  on  the  pro 
moters  of  knowledge.  A  better  age  was,  in 
truth,  to  come  ;  but  the  time  and  circum 
stances  of  its  appearance  did  not  correspond 
to  their  sanguine  hopes.  An  age  of  iron  was 
to  precede,  in  which  the  turbulence  of  refor 
mation  and  the  obstinacy  of  establishment 
were  to  meet  in  long  and  bloody  contest. 

When  the  storm  seemed  ready  to  break 
out,  Erasmus  thought  it  his  duty  to  incur  the 
obloquy  which  always  attends  mediatorial 
counsels.  "  You  know  the  character  of  the 
Germans,  who  are  more  easily  led  than 
driven.  Great  danger  may  arise,  if  the  na 
tive  ferocity  of  that  people  be  exasperated 
by  untimely  severities.  We  see  the  perti 
nacity  of  Bohemia  and  the  neighbouring  pro 
vinces.  A  bloody  policy  has  been  tried  with 
out  success.  Other  remedies  must  be  em 
ployed.  The  hatred  of  Rome  is  fixed  in  the 
minds  of  many  nations,  chiefly  from  the  ru 
mours  believed  of  the  dissolute  manners  of 
that  city,  and  from  the  immoralities  of 
the  representatives  of  the  supreme  pontiff 
abroad."  The  uncharitableness,  the  turbu 
lence,  the  hatred,  the  bloodshed,  which  fol 
lowed  the  preaching  of  Luther,  closed  the 
bright  visions  of  the  two  illustrious  friends, 
who  agreed  in  an  ardent  love  of  peace,  though 
not  without  a  difference  in  the  shades  and 


*  Erasmi  Opera,  vol.  iii.  p.  2G7. 

t  Ibid.  p.  321. 

t  Ibid.  p.  591.  To  this  theory  neither  of  the 
parties  about  to  contend  could  have  assented  ;  but 
it  is  not  on  that  account  the  less  likely  to  be  in  a 
great  measure  true. 


modifications  of  their  pacific  temper,  arising 
from  some  dissimilarity  of  original  character. 
The  tender  heart  of  More  clung  more  strong 
ly  to  the  religion  of  his  youth ;  while  Eras 
mus  more  anxiously  apprehended  the  dis 
turbance  of  his  tastes  and  pursuits.  The 
last  betrays  in  some  of  his  writings  a  tem 
per,  which  might  lead  us  to  doubt,  whether 
he  considered  the  portion  of  truth  which  was 
within  reach  of  his  friend  as  equivalent  to 
the  evils  attendant  on  the  search. 

The  public  life  of  More  may  be  said  to 
have  begun  in  the  summer  of  1514;*  with  a 
mission  to  Bruges,  in  which  Tunstall,  then 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  and  afterwards  Bishop 
of  Durham,  was  his  colleague,  and  of  which 
the  object  was  to  settle  some  particulars  re 
lating  to  the  commercial  intercourse  of  Eng 
land  with  the  Netherlands.  He  was  consoled 
for  a  detention,  unexpectedly  long,  by  the 
company  of  Tunstall,  whom  he  describesf 
as  one  not  only  fraught  with  all  learning,  and 
severe  in  his  life  and  morals,  but  inferior  to 
no  man  as  a  delightful  companion.  On  this 
mission  he  became  acquainted  with  several 
of  the  friends  of  Erasmus  in  Flanders,  where 
he  evidently  saw  a  progress  in  the  accom 
modations  and  ornaments  of  life,  to  which  he 
had  been  hitherto  a  stranger.  With  Peter 
Giles  of  Antwerp,  to  whom  he  intrusted  the 
publication  of  Utopia  by  a  prefatory  dedica 
tion,  he  continued  to  be  closely  connected 
during  the  lives  of  both.  In  the  year  follow 
ing,  he  was  again  sent  to  the  Netherlands  on 
a  like  mission;  the  intricate  relations  of  traf 
fic  between  the  two  countries  having  given 
rise  to  a  succession  of  disputes,  in  which  the 
determination  of  one  case  generally  produced 
new  complaints. 

In  the  beginning  of  1516  More  was  made 
a  privy-councillor;  and  from  that  time  may 
be  dated  the  final  surrender  of  his  own. 
tastes  for  domestic  life,  and  his  predilections 
for  studious  leisure,  to  the  flattering  impor 
tunities  of  Henry  VIII.  "  He  had  resolved,''" 
says  Erasmus,  "to  be  content  with  his  pri 
vate  station  ;  but  having  gone  on  more  than 
one  mission  abroad,  the  King,  not  discour 
aged  by  the  unusual  refusal  of  a  pension,  did 
not  rest  till  he  had  drawn  More  into  the 
palace.  For  why  should  I  not  say  ( drawn ,' 
since  no  man  ever  laboured  with  more  in 
dustry  for  admission  to  a  court,  than  More  to 
avoid  it?  The  King  would  scarcely  ever 
suffer  the  philosopher  to  quit  him.  For  if 
serious  affairs  were  to  be  considered,  who 
could  give  more  prudent  counsel?  or  if  the 
King's  mind  was  to  be  relaxed  by  cheerful 
conversation,  where  could  there  be  a  more 
facetious  companion  ?"J  Roper,  who  was 
an  eye-witness  of  these  circumstances,  re 
lates  them  withg  an  agreeable  simplicity. 
"  So  from  time  to  time  was  he  by  the  King 
advanced,  continuing  in  his  singular  favour 
and  trusty  service  for  twenty  years.  A  good 


*  Records  of  the  Common  Council  of  London, 
t  In  a  letter  to  Erasmus,  30th  April,  1516. 
J  Erasmus,  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  476. 


56 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


part  thereof  used  the  King,  upon  holidays, 
when  he  had  done  his  own  devotion,  to  send 
for  him  ;  and  there,  sometimes  in  matters  of 
astronomy,  geometry,  divinity,  and  such  other 
faculties,  and  sometimes  on  his  worldly 
affairs;  to  converse  with  him.  And  other 
whiles  in  the  night  would  he  have  him  up 
into  the  leads,  there  to  consider  with  him 
the  diversities,  courses,  motions,  and  opera 
tions  of  the  stars  and  planets.  And  because 
he  was  of  a  pleasant  disposition,  it  pleased 
the  King  and  Queen,  after  the  council  had 
supped  at  the  time  of  their  own  (i.  e.  the 
royal)  supper,  to  call  for  him  to  be  merry 
with  them."  What  Roper  adds  could  not 
have  been  discovered  by  a  less  near  ob 
server,  and  would  scarcely  be  credited  upon 
less  authority:  "When  them  he  perceived 
so  much  in  his  talk  to  delight,  that  he  could 
not  once  in  a  month  get  leave  to  go  home  to 
his  wife  and  children  (whose  company  he 
most  desired),  he.  mucn  misliking  this  re 
straint  on  his  liberty,  began  thereupon  some 
what  to  dissemble  his  nature,  and  so  by 
little  and  little  from  his  former  mirth  to  dis 
use  himself,  that  he  was  of  them  from 
thenceforth,  at  such  seasons,  no  more  so 
ordinarily  sent  for."*  To  his  retirement  at 
Chelsea,  however,  the  King  followed  him. 
"He  used  of  a  particular  love  to  come  of  a 
sudden  to  Chelsea,  and  leaning  on  his  shoul 
der,  to  talk  with  him  of  secret  counsel  in  his 
garden,  yea,  and  to  dine  with  him  upon  no 
inviting."!  The  taste  for  More's  conversa 
tion,  and  the  eagerness  for  his  company  thus 
displayed,  would  be  creditable  to  the  King, 
if  his  behaviour  in  after  time  had  not  con 
verted  them  into  the  strongest  proofs  of  utter 
depravity.  Even  in  Henry's  favour  there  was 
somewhat  tyrannictl ;  and  his  very  friend 
ship  was  dictatorial  arid  self-willed.  It  was 
reserved  for  him  afterwards  to  exhibit  the 
singular,  and  perhaps  solitary,  example  of 
a  man  unsoftened  by  the  recollection  of  a 
communion  of  counsels,  of  studies,  of  amuse 
ments,  of  social  pleasures  with  such  a  com 
panion.  In  the  moments  of  Henry's  par 
tiality,  the  sagacity  of  More  was  not  so  ut 
terly  blinded  by  his  good-nature,  that  he  did 
not  in  some  degree  penetrate  into  the  true 
character  of  these  caresses  from  a  beast  of 
prey.  "When  I  saw  the  King,"  says  his 
son-in-law,  "  walking  with  him  for  an  hour, 
holding  his  arm  about  his  neck,  I  rejoiced, 
and  said  to  Sir  Thomas,  how  happy  he  was 
whom  the  King  had  so  familiarly  entertained, 
as  I  had  never  seen  him  do  to  any  one  before, 
except  Cardinal  Wolsey.  l  I  thank  our  Lord, 
son,'  said  he,  'I  find  his  grace  my  very  good 
lord  indeed,  and  I  believe  he  doth  as  singu 
larly  favour  me  as  any  other  subject  within 
this  realm  :  howbeit,  son  Roj>er,  I  may  tell 
thee,  I  have  no  cause  to  be  proud  thereof; 
for  if  my  head  would  win  him  a  castle  in 
France,  when  there  was  war  between  us.  it 
should  not  faii  to  go.'  "t 


*  Roper,  p.  12.  t  More,  p.  49. 

t  Rooer,  pp.  21,  22,     Compare  this  insight  into 


An  edition  of  Utopia  had  been  printed  in 
correctly,  perhaps  clandestinely,  at  Paris; 
but,  in  1518,  Erasmus'  friend  and  printer, 
Froben,  brought  out  a  correct  one  at  Basle, 
the  publication  of  which  had  been  retarded 
by  the  expectation  of  a  preface  from  Buda3us, 
the  restorer  of  Greek  learning  in  France,  and 
probably  the  most  critical  scholar  in  that 
province  of  literature  on  the  north  of  the 
Alps.  The  book  was  received  with  loud  ap 
plause  by  the  scholars  of  France  and  Ger 
many.  Erasmus  in  confidence  observed  to 
an  intimate  friend,  that  the  second  book 
having  been  written  before  the  first,  had  oc 
casioned  some  disorder  arid  inequality  of 
style  •  but  he  particularly  praised  its  novelty 
and  originality,  and  its  keen  satire  on  the 
vices  and  absurdities  of  Europe. 

So  important  was  the  office  of  under-sheriff 
then  held  to  be,  that  More  did  not  resign  it 
till  the  23d  of  July,  1519,*  though  he  had  in 
the  intermediate  time  served  the  public  in 
stations  of  trust  and  honour.  In  1521  he 
was  knighted,  and  raised  to  the  office  of 
treasurer  of  the  exchequer,!  a  station  in  some 
respects  the  same  with  that  of  chancellor  of 
the  exchequer,  who  at  present  is  on  his  ap 
pointment  designated  by  the  additional  name 
of  under-treasurer.  It  is  a  minute  but  some 
what  remarkable,  stroke  in  the  picture  of 
manners,  that  the  honour  of  knighthood 
should  be  spoken  of  by  Erasmus,  if  not 
as  of  superior  dignity  to  so  important  an 
office,  at  least  as  observably  adding  to  its 
consequence. 

From  1517  to  1522,  More  was  employed 
at  various  times  at  Bruges,  in  missions  like 
his  first  to  the  Flemish  government,  or  at 
Calais  in  watching  and  conciliating  Francis 
I.,  with  wThom  Henry  and  Wolsey  long 
thought  it  convenient  to  keep  up  friendly 
appearances.  To  trace  the  date  of  More's 
reluctant  journeys  in  the  course  of  the  unin 
teresting  attempts  of  politicians  on  both  sides 
to  gain^or  dupe  each  other,  would  be  vain, 
without  some  outline  of  the  negotiations  in 
which  he  was  employed,  and  repulsive  to 
most  readers,  even  if  the  inquiry  promised 
a  better  chance  of  a  successful  result. — 
Wolsey  appears  to  have  occasionally  ap- 

Henry's  character  with  a  declaration  post  of  an 
opposite  nature,  though  borrowed  also  from  cas 
tles  and  towns,  made  by  Charles  V.  when  he 
hoard  of  More's  murder. 

*  Records  of  the  city  of  London. 

t  Est  quod  Moro  gratuleris ;  nam  Rex  hunc  nee 
ambientem  nee  jlagitantem  munere  magnifico  ho- 
nestavit,  addito  salario  nequaquam  penitendo  :  est 
enim  principi  suo  a  thesauris.  .  .  Nee  hoc  con- 
tentus,  equitis  aurati  dignitatem  adjecit. — Eras 
mus,  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  378. 

"  Then  died  Master  Weston,  treasurer  of  the 
exchequer,  whose  office  the  King,  of  his  own  ac 
cord,  without  any  asking,  freely  gave  unto  Sir 
Thomas  More."— Roper, 13. 

The  minute  verbal  coincidences  which  often 
occur  between  Erasmus  and  Roper,  cannot  be 
explained  otherwise  than  by  the  probable  suppo 
sition,  that  copies  or  originals  of  the  correspond 
ence  between  More  and  Erasmus  were  preserved 
by  Roper  after  the  death  of  the  former. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


pointed  commissioners  to  conduct  his  own 
affairs,  as  well  as  those  of  his  master,  at 
Calais.  At  this  place  they  could  receive  in 
structions  from  London  with  the  greatest 
rapidity,  and  it  was  easy  to  manage  negotia 
tions,  and  to  shift  them  speedily,  with  Brus 
sels  and  Paris;  with  the  additional  advan 
tage,  that  it  might  be  somewhat  easier  to 
conceal  from  each  one  in  turn  of  those  jealous 
courts  the  secret  dealings  of  his  employers 
with  the  other,  than  if  the  despatches  had 
been  sent  directly  from  London  to  the  place 
of  their  destination.  Of  this  commission 
More  was  once  at  least  an  unwilling  mem 
ber.  Erasmus,  in  a  letter  to  Peter  Giles  on 
the  15th  of  November,  1518,  says,  "More  is 
still  at  Calais,  of  which  he  is  heartily  tired. 
He  lives  with  great  expense,  and  is  engaged 
in  business  most  odious  to  him.  Such  are 
the  rewards  reserved  by  kings  for  their  fa 
vourites.7'*  Two  years  afterwards,  More 
writes  more  bitterly  to  Erasmus,  of  his  own 
residence  and  occupations.  "  I  approve  your 
determination  never  to  be  involved  in  the 
busy  trifling  of  princes;  from  which,  as  you 
love  me,  you  must  wish  that  I  were  extri 
cated.  You  cannot  imagine  how  painfully 
I  feel  myself  plunged  in  them,  for  nothing 
can  be  more  odious  to  me  than  this  legation. 
I  am  here  banished  to  a  petty  sea-port,  of 
which  the  air  and  the  earth  are  equally  dis 
agreeable  to  me.  Abhorrent  as  I  am  by  na 
ture  from  strife,  even  when  it  is  profitable, 
as  at  home,  you  may  judge  how  wearisome 
it  is  here  where  it  is  attended  by  loss."t — 
On  one  of  his  missions, — that  of  the  summer 
of  1519 — More  had  harboured  hopes  of  being 
consoled  by  seeing  Erasmus  at  Calais,  for  all 
the  tiresome  pageantry,  selfish  scuffles,  and 
paltry  frauds,  which  he  was  to  witness  at 
the  congress  of  kings,;  where  he  could  find 
little  to  alter  those  splenetic  views  of  courts, 
which  his  disappointed  benevolence  breathed 
in  Utopia.  Wolsey  twice  visited  Calais  du 
ring  the  residence  of  More,  who  appears  to 
have  then  had  a  weight  in  council,  and  a 
place  in  the  royal  favour,  second  only  to 
those  of  the  cardinal. 

In  1523. §  a  parliament  was  held  in  the 
middle  of  April,  at  Westminster,  in  which 
More  took  a  part  so  honourable  to  his  me 
mory,  that  though  it  has  been  already  men 
tioned  when  touching  on  his  eloquence,  it 
cannot  be  so  shortly  passed  over  here,  be 
cause  it  was  one  of  those  signal  acts  of  his 
life  which  bears  on  it  the  stamp  of  his  cha 
racter.  Sir  John,  his  father,  in  spite  of  very 
advanced  age,  had  been  named  at  the  be 
ginning  of  this  parliament  one  of  "  the  triers 
of  petitions  from  Gascony," — an  office  of 
which  the  duties  had  become  nominal,  but 
which  still  retained  its  ancient  dignity  ;  while 
of  the  House  of  Commons-.  Sir  Thomas  hira- 


*  Op.  vol.  ii.  p.  357. 
t  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  589. 

t  Ibid.  From  the  dates  of  the  following  letters 
of  Erasmus,  it  appears  that  the  hopes  of  More 
were  disappointed. 

*  14  Henry  VIII. 

8 


self  was  chosen  to  be  the  speaker.  He  ex 
cused  himself,  as  usual,  on  the  ground  of 
alleged  disability;  but  his  excuse  was  justly 
pronounced  to  be  inadmissible.  The  Jour 
nals  of  Parliament  are  lost,  or  at  least  have 
not  been  printed ;  and  the  Rolls  exhibit  only 
a  short  account  of  what  occurred,  which  is 
necessarily  an  unsatisfactory  substitute  for 
the  deficient  Journals.  But  as  the  matter 
personally  concerns  Sir  Thomas  More,  and 
as  the  account  of  it  given  by  his  son-in-law, 
then  an  inmate  in  his  house,  agrees  with  the 
abridgment  of  the  Rolls,  as  far  as  the  latter 
goes,  it  has  been  thought  proper  in  this  place 
to  insert  the  very  words  of  Roper's  narrative. 
It  may  be  reasonably  conjectured  that  the 
speeches  of  More  were  copied  from  his 
manuscript  by  his  pious  son-in-law."* — 
"Sith  I  perceive,  most  redoubted  sovereign,, 
that  it  standeth  not  with  your  pleasure  to 
reform  this  election,  and  cause  it  to  be 
changed,  but  have,  by  the  mouth  of  the  most 
reverend  father  in  God  the  legate,  your  high- 
ness's  chancellor,  thereunto  given  your  most 
royal  assent,  and  have  of  your  benignity  de 
termined  far  above  that  I  may  bear  for  this 
office  to  repute  me  meet,  rather  than  that 
you  should  seem  to  impute  unto  your  com 
mons  that  they  had  unmeetly  chosen,  I  arn 
ready  obediently  to  conform  myself  to  the 
accomplishment  of  your  highness's  pleasure 
and  commandment.  In  most  humble  wise 
I  beseech  your  majesty,  that  I  may  make  to 
you  two  lowly  petitions; — the  one  privately 
concerning  myself,  the  other  the  whole  as 
sembly  of  your  commons'  house.  For  my 
self,  most  gracious  sovereign,  that  if  it  mishap 
me  in  any  thing  hereafter,  that  is,  on  the  be 
half  of  your  commons  in  your  high  presence 
to  be  declared,  to  mistake  my  message,  and 
in  lack  of  good  utterance  by  my  mishearsal 
to  prevent  or  impair  their  prudent  instruc 
tions,  that  it  may  then  like  your  most  noble 
majesty  to  give  me  leave  to  repair  again 
unto  the  commons'  house,  and  to  confer  with 
them  and  take  their  advice  what  things  I 
shall  on  their  behalf  utter  and  speak  before 
your  royal  grace. 

"Mine  other  humble  request,  most  excel 
lent  prince,  is  this:  forasmuch  as  there  be 
of  your  commons  here  by  your  high  com 
mandment  assembled  for  your  parliament,  a 
great  number  of  which  are  after  the  accus 
tomed  manner  appointed  in  the  commons7 
house  to  heal  and  advise  of  the  common 
affairs  among  themselves  apart;  and  albeit, 
most  dear  liege  lord,  that  according  to  your 
most  prudent  advice,  by  your  honourable 
writs  every  where  declared,  there  hath  been 

*  This  conjecture  is  almost  raised  above  that 
name  by  what  precedes.  "Sir  Thomas  More 
made  an  oration,  not  now  extant,  to  the  king's 
highness,  for  his  discharge  from  the  speakership, 
whereunto  when  the  king  would  not  consent,  the 
speaker  spoke  to  his  grace  in  the  form  following." 
— It  cannot,  be  doubled,  without  injustice  to  the 
honest  and  amiable  biographer,  that  he  would 
have  his  readers  to  understand  that  the  original  of 
the  speeches,  which  actually  follow,  were  ex'ant 
in  his  hands. 


58 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


as  due  diligence  used  in  sending  up  to  your 
highness's  court  of  parliament  the  most  dis 
creet  persons  out  of  every  quarter  that  men 
could  esteem  meet  thereunto:  whereby  it  is 
riot  to  be  doubted  but  that  there  is  a  very 
substantial  assembly  of  right  wise,  meet, 
and  politique  persons :  yet,  most  victorious 
prince,  sith  among  so  many  wise  men,  neither 
is  every  man  wise  alike,  nor  among  so  many 
alike  well  willed,  every  man  well  spoken ; 
and  it  often  happeth  that  as  much  folly  is 
littered  with  painted  polish  speech,  so  many 
boisterous  and  rude  in  language  give  right 
substantial  counsel;  and  sith  also  in  matters 
of  great  importance,  the  mind  is  often  so  oc 
cupied  in  the  matter,  thai  a  man  rather  stu- 
dielh  what  to  say  lhan  how;  by  reason 
•whereof  the  wisest  man  and  best  spoken  in 
a  whole  country  fortuneth,  when  his  mind  is 
fervenl  in  the  matter,  somewhat  to  speak  in 
such  wise  as  he  would  afterwards  wish  to 
have  been  uttered  otherwise,  and  yet  no 
worse  will  had  when  he  spake  it  than  he  had 
when  he  would  so  gladly  change  it;  there 
fore,  most  gracious  sovereign,  considering 
that  in  your  high  court  of  parliament  is 
nothing  treated  but  matter  of  weight  and 
importance  concerning  your  realm,  and  your 
own  royal  eslale,  it  could  not  fail  to  put  to 
silence  from  the  giving  of  their  advice  and 
counsel  many  of  your  discreet  commons,  to 
the  great  hindrance  of  your  common  affairs, 
unless  every  one  of  your  commons  were  ut 
terly  discharged  from  all  doubt  and  fear  how 
any  thing  that  it  should  happen  them  to 
speak,  should  happen  of  your  highness  to  be 
taken.  And  in  this  point,  though  your  well- 
known  and  proved  benignity  putteth  every 
man  in  good  hope ;  yet  such  is  the  weight 
of  the  matter,  such  is  the  reverend  dread 
that  the  timorous  hearts  of  your  natural  sub 
jects  conceive  towards  your  highness,  our 
most  redoubted  king  and  undoubted  sove 
reign,  that  they  cannot  in  this  point  find 
themselves  satisfied,  except  your  gracious 
bounty  therein  declared  put  awray  the  scruple 
of  their  timorous  minds;  and  put  them  out 
of  doubt.  It  may  therefore  like  your  most 
abundant  grace  to  give  to  all  your  commons 
here  assembled  your  most  gracious  licence 
and  pardon  freely,  without  doubt  of  your 
dreadful  displeasure,  every  man  to  discharge 
his  conscience,  and  boldly  in  every  thing  in- 
<5ident  among  us  to  declare  his  advice;  and 
•whatsoever  happeneth  any  man  to  say,  that 
it  may  like  your  noble  majesty,  of  your  in 
estimable  goodness,  to  take  all  in  good  part, 
interpreting  every  man's  words,  how  uncun- 
ningly  soever  they  may  be  couched,  to  pro 
ceed  yet  of  good  zeal  towards  the  profit  of 
your  realm,  and  honour  of  your  royal  person ; 
and  the  prosperous  estate  and  preservation 
•whereof,  most  excellent  sovereign,  is  the 
thing  which  we  all,  your  majesty's  humble 
loving  subjects,  according  to  the  most  bound- 
en  duty  of  our  natural  allegiance,  most  highly 
desire  and  pray  for." 

This  speech,  the  substance  of  which  is  in 
the  Rolls  denominated  "the  protest,"  is  con 


formable  to  former  usage,  and  the  model  of 
speeches  made  since  that  time  in  the  like 
circumstances.  What  follows  is  more  sin 
gular,  and  not  easily  reconciled  with  the  in 
timate  connection  then  subsisting  between 
the  speaker  and  the  government,  especially 
with  the  cardinal : — 

"At  this  parliament  Cardinal  Wolsey  found 
himself  much  aggrieved  with  the  burgesses 
thereof;  for  that  nothing  was  so  soon  done  or 
spoken  therein,  but  that  it  was  immediately 
blown  abroad  in  every  alehouse.  It  fortuned 
at  that  parliament  a  very  great  subsidy  to 
be  demanded,  which  the  cardinal,  fearing 
would  not  pass  the  commons'  house,  deter 
mined,  for  the  furtherance  thereof,'  to  be 
there  present  himself.  Before  where  coming, 
after  long  debating  there,  whether  it  was 
better  but  with  a  few  of  his  lords,  as  the 
most  opinion  of  the  house  was,  or  with  his 
whole  train  royally  to  receive  him;  'Mas 
ters,'  quoth  sir  Thomas  More,  l  forasmuch  as 
my  lord  cardinal  lately,  ye  wot  well,  laid  to 
our  charge  the  lightness  of  our  tongues  for 
things  uttered  out  of  this  house,  it  shall  not 
in  my  mind  be  amiss  to  receive  him  with  all 
his  pomp,  with  his  maces,  his  pillars,  his 
poll-axes,  his  hat,  and  great  seal  too;  to  the 
intent,  that  if  he  find  the  like  fault  with  us 
hereafter,  we  may  be  the  bolder  from  our 
selves  to  lay  the  blame  on  those  whom  his 
grace  bringeth  here  with  him.'  Whereunto 
the  house  wholly  agreeing,  he  was  received 
accordingly.  Where  after  he  had  by  a  solemn 
oration,  by  many  reasons,  proved  how  neces 
sary  it  was  the  demand  then  moved  to  be 
granted,  and  farther  showed  that  less  would 
not  serve  to  maintain  the  prince's  purpose; 
he  seeing  the  company  sitting  still  silent,  and 
thereunto  nothing  answering,  and,  contrary 
to  his  expectation,  showing  in  themselves 
towards  his  request  no  towardness  of  incli 
nation,  said  to  them,  'Masters,  you  have 
many  wise  and  learned  men  amongst  you, 
and  sith  I  am  from  the  king's  own  person 
sent  hitherto  unto  you,  to  the  preservation  of 
yourselves  and  of  all  the  realm,  I  think  it 
meet  you  give  me  some  reasonable  answer.' 
Whereat  every  man  holding  his  peace,  then 
began  to  speak  to  one  Master  Marney,  after 
wards  lord  Marney:  'How  say  you,'  quoth 
he,  'Master  Marney?'  who  making  him  no 
answer  neither,  he  severally  asked  the  same 
question  of  divers  others,  accounted  the 
wisest  of  the  company ;  to  whom,  when 
none  of  them  all  would  give  so  much  as  one 
word,  being  agreed  before,  as  the  custom 
was.  to  give  answer  by  their  speaker ;  '  Mas 
ters.'  quoth  the  cardinal,  'unless  it  be  the 
manner  of  your  house,  as  of  likelihood  it  is; 
by  the  mouth  of  your  speaker,  whom  you 
have  chosen  for  trusty  and  wise  (as  indeed 
he  is),  in  such  cases  to  utter  your  minds, 
here  is,  without  doubt,  a  marvellously  obsti 
nate  silence :'  and  thereupon  he  required 
answer  of  Mr.  Speaker;  who  first  reverently, 
on  his  knees,  excusing  the  silence  of  the 
house,  abashed  at  the  presence  of  so  noble  a 
personage,  able  to  amaze  the  wisest  and  best 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


learned  in  a  realm,  and  then,  by  many  proba 
ble  arguments,  proving  that  for  them  to  make 
answer  was  neither  expedient  nor  agreeable 
with  the  ancient  liberty  of  the  house,  in  con 
clusion  for  himself,  showed,  that  though  they 
had  all  with  their  voices  trusted  him,  yet 
except  every  one  of  them  could  put  into  his 
own  head  their  several  wits,  he  alone  in  so 
weighty  a  matter  was  unmeet  to  make  his 
grace  answer.  Whereupon  the  cardinal, 
displeased  with  Sir  Thomas  More,  that  had 
not  in  this  parliament  in  all  things  satisfied 
his  desire,  suddenly  arose  and  departed."  * 

This  passage  deserves  attention  as  a  speci 
men  of  the  mild  independence  arid  quiet 
steadiness  of  More's  character,  and  also  as  a 
proof  how  he  perceived  the  strength  which 
the  commons  had  gained  by  the  power  of 
the  purse,  which  was  daily  and  silently 
growing,  and  which  could  be  disturbed  only 
by  such  an  unseasonable  show  of  an  imma 
ture  authority  as  might  too  soon  have  roused 
the  crown  to  resistance.  It  is  one  among 
many  instances  of  the  progress  of  the  influ 
ence  of  parliaments  in  the  midst  of  their 
apparently  indiscriminate  submission,  and  it 
affords  a  pregnant  proof  that  we  must  not 
estimate  the  spirit  of  our  forefathers  by  the 
humility  of  their  demeanour. 

The  reader  will  observe  how  nearly  the 
example  of  More  was  followed  by  a  succeed 
ing  speaker,  comparatively  of  no  distinction, 
but  in  circumstances  far  more  memorable,  in 
the  answer  of  Lenthall  to  Charles  I.,  when 
that  unfortunate  prince  came  to  the  House 
of  Commons  to  arrest  the  five  members  of 
that  assembly,  who  had  incurred  his  dis 
pleasure. 

There  is  another  point  from  which  these 
early  reports  of  parliamentary  speeches  may 
be  viewed,  and  from  \vhich  it  is  curious  to 
consider  them.  They  belong  to  that  critical 
moment  in  the  history  of  our  language  when 
it  was  forming  a  prose  style, — a  written  dic 
tion  adapted  to  grave  and  important  occa 
sions.  In  the  passage  just  quoted,  there  are 
about  twenty  words  and  phrases  (some  of 
them,  it  is  true,  used  more  than  once)  which 
would  not  now  be  employed .  Some  of  them 
are  shades,  such  as  "lowly/'  where  we  say 


"  humble  j"  "  company," 


a  house  of 


reverent," 
"   if 


reve- 

or   "reverential." 
it   should  so  hap- 


parliament;"  "simpleness,"  for  "'simpli 
city,"  with  a  deeper  tinge  of  folly  than  the 
single  word  now  ever  has:  "'right,"  then 
used  as  a  general  sign  of  the  superlative, 
where  we  say  "very,"  or  "most;"  " 
rend,"  for  "  rever 
"If  it  mishap  me 

pen,  "  to  mishap  in  me,"  "it  often  hap 
peth,"  are  instances  of  the  employment 
of  the  verb  "hap"  for  happen,  or  of  a 
conjugation  of  the  former,  which  has  fallen 
into  irrecoverable  disuse.  A  phrase  was 
then  so  frequent  as  to  become,  indeed,  the 
established  mode  of  commencing  an  address 
to  a  superior,  in  which  the  old  usage  was, 
"  It  may  like,"  or  "  It  may  please  your  Ma- 

*  Roper,  pp.  13—21. 


jesty,"  where  modern  language  absolutely 
requires  us  to  say,  "  May  it  please,"  by  a 
slight  inversion  of  the  words  retained,  but 
with  the  exclusion  of  the  word  "like"  in  that 
combination.  "Let"  is  used  for  "hinder," 
as  is  still  the  case  in  some  public  forms,  and 
in  the  excellent  version  of  the  Scriptures. 
"  Well  wilted"  is  a  happy  phrase  lost  to  the 
language  except  on  familiar  occasions  with  a 
smile,  or  by  a  master  in  the  art  of  combining 
words.  Perhaps  "enable  me,"  for  "give 
me  by  your  countenance  the  ability  which 
I  have  not,"  is  the  only  phrase  which  savours 
of  awkwardness  or  of  harsh  effect  in  the  ex 
cellent  speaker.  The  whole  passage  is  a 
remarkable  example  of  the  almost  imper 
ceptible  differences  which  mark  various 
stages  in  the  progress  of  a  language.  In 
several  of  the  above  instances  we  see  a  sort 
of  contest  for  admission  into  the  language 
between  two  phrases  extremely  similar,  and 
yet  a  victory  which  excluded  one  of  them  as 
rigidly  as  if  the  distinction  had  been  very 
wide.  Every  case  where  subsequent  usage 
has  altered  or  rejected  words  and  phrases 
must  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of  national  ver 
dict,  which  is  necessarily  followed  by  their 
disfranchisement.  They  have  no  longer  any 
claim  on  the  English  language,  other  than 
that  which  may  be  possessed  by  all  alien 
suppliants  for  naturalization.  Such  examples 
should  warn  a  writer,  desirous  to  be  lastingly 
read,  of  the  danger  which  attends  new 
words,  or  very  new  acceptations  of  those 
which  are  established,  or  even  of  attempts 
to  revive  those  wfrich  are  altogether  super 
annuated.  They  show  in  the  clearest  light 
that  the  learned  and  the  vulgar  parts  of  lan 
guage,  being  those  which  are  most  liable  to 
change,  are  unfit  materials  for  a  durable 
style ;  and  they  teach  us  to  look  to  those 
words  which  form  the  far  larger  portion  of 
ancient  as  well  as  of  modern  language, — that 
"  well  of  English  undefiled,"  which  has  been 
happily  resorted  to  from  More  to  Cowper,  as 
being  proved  by  the  unimpeachable  evidence 
of  that  long  usage  to  fit  the  rest  of  our  speech 
more  perfectly,  and  to  flow  more  easily, 
clearly,  and  sweetly,  in  our  composition. 

Erasmus  tells  us  that  Wolsey  rather  fear 
ed  than  liked  More.  When  the  short  session 
of  parliament  was  closed,  Wolsey,  in  his  gal 
lery  of  Whitehall,  said  to  More,  "  I  wish  to 
God  you  had  been  at  Rome,  Mr.  More,  when 
I  made  you  speaker." — "Your  Grace  not  of 
fended.,  so  would  I  too,  my  lord,"  replied  Sir 
Thomas :  "  for  then  should  I  have  seen  the 
place  I  long  have  desired  to  visit."*  More 
turned  the  conversation  by  saying  that  he 
liked  this  gallery  better  than  me  cardinal's 
at  Hampton  Court.  But  the  latter  secretly 
brooded  over  his  revenge,  which  he  after 
wards  tried  to  gratify  by  banishing  More, 
under  the  name  of  an  ambassador  to  Spain. 
He  tried  to  effect  his  purpose  by  magnifying 
the  learning  and  wisdom  of  More,  his  pecu 
liar  fitness  for  a  conciliatory  adjustment  of 


*  Roper,  p.  20. 

§ 


60 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  difficult  matters  which  were  at  issue  be 
tween  the  King  and  his  kinsman  the  Empe 
ror.  The  King  suggested  this  proposal  to 
More,  who,  considering  the  urisuitableness 
of  the  Spanish  climate  to  his  constitution, 
and  perhaps  suspecting  Wolsey  of  sinister 
purposes,  earnestly  besought  Henry  not  to 
send  his  faithful  servant  to  his  grave.  The 
King,  who  also  suspected  Wolsey  of  being 
actuated  by  jealousy,  answered.  u  It  is  not 
our  meaning,  Mr.  More,  to  do  you  any  hurt : 
but  to  do  you  good  we  should  be  glad ;  we 
shall  therefore  employ  you  otherwise."* 
More  could  boast  that  'he  had  never  asked 
the  King  the  value  of  a  penny  for  himself, 
when  on  the  25th  of  December,  1525,t  the 
King  appointed  him  chancellor  of  the  duchy 
of  Lancaster,  as  successor  of  Sir  Anthony 
Wingfield — an  office  of  dignity  and  profit, 
which  he  continued  to  hold  for  nearly  three 
years. 

In  the  summer  of  1527,  Wolsey  went  on 
his  magnificent  embassy  to  France,  in  which 
More  and  other  officers  of  state  were  joined 
with  him.  On  this  occasion  the  main,  though 
secret  object  of  Henry  was  to  pave  the  way 
for  a  divorce  from  Queen  Catharine,  with  a 
view  to  a  marriage  with  Anne  Boleyn,  a 
young  beauty  who  had  been  bred  at  the 
French  court,  where  her  father,  Sir  Thomas 
Boleyn,  created  Earl  of  Wiltshire,  had  been 
repeatedly  ambassador. 

On  their  journey  to  the  coast,  Wolsey 
sounded  Archbishop  Wareham  and  Bishop 
Fisher  on  the  important  secret  with  which 
he  was  intrusted.  Wareham,  an  estimable 
and  amiable  prelate,  appears  to  have  inti 
mated  that  his  opinion  was  favourable  to 
Henry's  pursuit  of  a  divorce. t  Fisher,  bi 
shop  of  Rochester,  an  aged  and  upright  man, 
promised  Wolsey  that  he  would  do  or  say 
nothing  in  the  matter,  nor  in  any  way  coun 
sel  the  Queen,  except  what  stood  with  Hen 
ry's  pleasure;  "for,"  said  he,  '-'though  she 
be  queen  of  this  realm,  yet  he  acknowledg- 
eth  you  to  be  his  sovereign  lord  :"§  as  if  the 
rank  or  authority  of  the  parties  had  any  con- 


*  More,  p.  53.  with  a  small  variation. 

t  Such  is  the  information  which  I  have  received 
from  the  records  in  the  Tower.  The  accurate  writer 
of  the  article  on  More,  in  the  Biographia  Britannica, 
is  perplexed  by  finding  Sir  Thomas  More,  chancel 
lor  of  the  duchy,  as  one  of  the  negotiators  of  a 
treaty  in  August,  1526,  which  seems  to  the  writer 
in  the  Biographia  to  bring  down  the  death  of  Wing- 
field  to  near  that  time  ;  he  being  on  all  sides  ac 
knowledged  to  be  More's  immediate  predecessor. 
But  there  is  no  difficulty,  unless  we  needlessly  as 
sume  that  the  negotiation  with  which  Wingfield 
was  concerned  related  to  the  same  treaty  which 
More  concluded.  On  the  contrary,  the  first  ap 
pears  to  have  been  a  treaty  with  Spain ;  the  last  a 
treaty  with  France. 

\  State  Papers,  Hen.  VIII.  vol.  i.  p.  1 96.  Wol- 
sey's  words  are, — "  He  expressly  affirmed,  that 
however  displeasantly  the  queen  took  this  matter, 
yet  the  truth  and  judgment  of  the  law  must  take 
place.  I  have  instructed  him  how  he  shall  order 
himself  if  the  queen  shall  demand  his  counsel, 
which  he  promises  me  to  follow." 

^  State  Papers,  Hen.  VIII.  vol.  i.  p.  168. 


cern  with  the  duty  of  honestly  giving  coun 
sel  where  it  is  given  at  all.  The  overbearing 
deportment  of  Wolsey  probably  overawed 
both  these  good  prelates:  he  understood 
them  in  the  manner  most  suitable  to  his  pur 
pose  ;  and,  confident  that  he  should  by  some 
means  finally  gain  them,  he  probably  colour 
ed  very  highly  their  language  in  his  commu 
nication  to  Henry,  whom  he  had  himself  just 
before  displeased  by  unexpected  scruples. 

It  was  generally  believed  by  their  contem 
poraries  that  More  and  Fisher  had  corrected 
the  manuscript  of  Henry's  answer  to  Luther ; 
while  it  is  certain  that  the  propensity  of  the 
King  to  theological  discussions  constituted 
one  of  the  links  of  his  intimacy  with  the 
former.  As  More's  writings  against  the  Lu 
therans  were  of  great  note  in  his  own  time; 
and  as  they  were  probably  those  of  his  works 
on  which  he  exerted  the  most  acuteness,  and 
employed  most  knowledge,  it  would  be  wrong 
to  omit  all  mention  of  them  in  an  estimate 
of  his  mind,  or  as  proofs  of  his  disposition. 
They  contain  many  anecdotes  which  throw 
considerable  light  on  our  ecclesiastical  his 
tory  during  the  first  prosecution  of  the  Pro 
testants,  or,  as  they  were  then  called,  Lu 
therans,  under  the  old  statutes  against  Lol 
lards,  during  the  period  which  extended  from 
1520  to  1532;  and  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
been  enough  examined  with  that  view  by  the 
historians  of  the  Church. 

Legal  responsibility,  in  a  well-constituted 
commonwealth,  reaches  to  all  the  avowed 
advisers  of  the  government,  and  to  all  those 
whose  concurrence  is  necessary  to  the  va 
lidity  of  its  commands :  but  moral  responsi 
bility  is  usually  or  chiefly  confined  to  the 
actual  authors  of  each  particular  measure. 
It  is  true,  that  when  a  government  has  at 
tained  a  state  of  more  than  usual  regularity, 
the  feelings  of  mankind  become  so  well 
adapted  to  it,  that  men  are  held  to  be  even 
morally  responsible  for  sanctioning,  by  a  base 
continuance  in  office,  the  bad  policy  which 
may  be  known  not  to  originate  with  them 
selves.  These  refinements  were,  however, 
unknown  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII I.  The 
administration  was  then  carried  on  under  the 
personal  direction  of  the  monarch,  who  gene 
rally  admitted  one  confidential  servant  only 
into  his  most  secret  counsels ;  and  all  the 
other  ministers,  whatever  their  rank  might 
be,  commonly  confined  their  attention  to  the 
business  of  their  own  offices,  or  to  the  exe 
cution  of  special  commands  intrusted  to 
them.  This  system  was  probably  carried  to 
its  utmost  height  under  so  self-willed  a  prince 
as  Henry,  and  by  so  domineering  a  minister 
as  Wolsey.  Although  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  More,  as  a  privy-councillor,  attended 
and  co-operated  at  the  examination  of  the 
unfortunate  Lutherans,  his  conduct  in  that 
respect  was  regarded  by  his  contemporaries 
as  little  more  than  the  enforcement  of  orders 
which  he  could  not  lawfully  decline  to  obey. 
The  opinion  that  a  minister  who  disap 
proves  measures  which  he  cannot  control  is 
bound  to  resign  his  office,  is  of  very  modern 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


61 


origin,  and  still  not  universally  entertained, 
especially  if  fidelity  to  a  party  be  not  called 
in  to  its  aid.  In  the  time  of  Henry,  he  was 
not  thought  even  entitled  to  resign.  The 
fact  of  More's  attendance,  indeed,  appears  in 
his  controversial  writings,  especially  by  his 
answer  to  Tyndal.  It  is  not  equitable  to 
treat  him  as  effectively  and  morally,  as  well 
as  legally,  answerable  for  measures  of  state, 
till  the  removal  of  Wolsey,  and  the  delivery 
of  the  great  seal  into  his  own  hands.  The 
injustice  of  considering  these  transactions  in 
any  other  light  appears  from  the  circum 
stance,  that  though  he  was  joined  with  Wol 
sey  in  the  splendid  embassy  to  France  in 
1527,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  More 
was  intrusted  with  the  secret  and  main  pur 
pose  of  the  embassy, — that  of  facilitating  a 
divorce  and  a  second  marriage.  His  respon 
sibility,  in  its  most  important  and  only  practi 
cal  part,  must  be  contracted  to  the  short  time 
which  extends  from  the  25th  of  October,  1529, 
when  he  was  appointed  chancellor,  to  the 
16lh  of  May,  1532,  when  he  was  removed 
from  his  office,  not  much  more  than  two 
years  and  a  half.*  Even  after  confining  it 
to  these  narrow  limits,  it  must  be  remember 
ed,  that  he  found  the  system  of  persecution 
established,  and  its  machinery  in  a  state  of 
activity.  The  prelates,  like  most  other  pre 
lates  in  Europe,  did  their  part  in  convicting 
the  Protestants  of  Lollardy  in  the  spiritual 
courts,  which  were  the  competent  tribunals 
for  trying  that  offence.  Our  means  of  deter 
mining  what  executions  for  Lollardy  (if  any) 
took  place  when  More  had  a  decisive  ascend 
ant  in  the  royal  councils,  are  very  imperfect. 
If  it  were  certain  that  he  was  the  adviser  of 
such  executions,  it  would  only  follow  that  he 
•executed  one  part  of  the  criminal  law,  with 
out  approving  it,  as  succeeding  judges  have 
certainly  done  in  cases  of  fraud  and  theft ; — 
where  they  no  more  approved  the  punish 
ment  of  death  than  the  author  of  Utopia 
might  have  done  in  its  application  to  heresy. 
If  the  progress  of  civilization  be  not  checked, 
we  seem  not  far  from  the  period  when  such 
capital  punishments  will  appear  as  little 
consistent  with  humanity,  and  indeed  with 
justice,  as  the  burning  of  heretics  now  ap 
pears  to  us.  More  himself  deprecates  an 
appeal  to  his  writings  and  those  of  his  friend 
Erasmus,  innocently  intended  by  themselves, 
but  abused  by  incendiaries  to  inflame  the 
fury  of  the  ignorant  multitude.!  "Men," 
says  he  (alluding  evidently  to  Utopia),  "can 
not  almost  now  speak  of  such  things  inso 
much  as  in  play,  but  that  such  evil  hearers 
were  a  great  deal  the  worse."  "I  would 
not  now  translate  the  Moria  of  Erasmus, — 
even  some  works  that  I  myself  have  written 
ere  this,  into  English,  albeit  there  be  none 
harm  therein."  It  is  evident  that  the  two 
philosophers  deeply  felt  the  injustice  of  citing 
against  them,  as  a  proof  of  inconsistency. 


*  Records  in  the  Tower, 
t  More's  answer  to   Tyndal,  part  i.  p.  128. — 
(Printed  by  John  Rastell,  *1532.) 


that  they  departed  from  the  pleasantries,  the 
gay  dreams, — at  most  the  fond  speculations, 
of  their  early  days,  when  they  saw  these 
tiarmless  visions  turned  into  weapons  of  de 
struction  in  the  blood-stained  hands  of  the 
boors  of  Saxony,  and  of  the  ferocious  fanatics 
of  Munster.  The  virtuous  love  of  peace 
might  be  more  prevalent  in  More ;  the  Epi 
curean  desire  of  personal  ease  predominated 
more  in  Erasmus :  but  both  were,  doubtless 
from  commendable  or  excusable  causes,  in 
censed  against  those  odious  disciples,  who 
now,  "'with  no  friendly  voice,"  invoked  their 
authority  against  themselves. 

If,  however,  we  examine  the  question 
on  the  grounds  of  positive  rtestimony,  it  is 
impossible  to  appeal  to  a  witness  of  more 
weight  than  Erasmus.  "It  is,"  said  he, 
"a  sufficient  proof  of  his  clemency,  that 
while  he  was  chancellor  no  man  was  put  to 
death  for  these  pestilent  dogmas,  while  so 
many  have  suffered  capital  punishment  for 
them  in  France,  in  Germany,  and  in  the 
Netherlands."*  The  only  charges  against 
him  on  this  subject,  which  are  adverted  to 
by  himself,  relate  to  minor  severities;  but 
as  these  may  be  marks  of  more  cruelty  than 
the  infliction  of  death,  let  us  listen  on  this 
subject  to  the  words  of  the  merciful  and 
righteous  man :f  "Divers of  them  have  said 
that  of  such  as  were  in  my  house  when  I 
was  chancellor,  I  used  to  examine  them 
with  torments,  causing  them  to  be  bound  to 
a  tree  in  my  garden,  and  there  piteousAy 
beaten.  Except  their  sure  keeping,  I  never 
did  else  cause  any  such  thing  to  be  done 
unto  any  of  the  heretics  in  all  my  life,  ex 
cept  only  twain :  one  was  a  child  and  a  ser 
vant  of  mine  in  mine  own  house,  whom  his 
father,  ere  he  came  to  me,  had  nursed  up  in 
such  matters,  and  set  him  to  attend  upon 
George  Jay.  This  Jay  did  teach  the  child 
his  ungracious  heresy  against  the  blessed 
sacrament  of  the  altar;  which  heresy  this 
child  in  my  house  began  to  teach  another 
child.  And  upon  that  point  I  caused  a  ser 
vant  of  mine  to  strip  him  like  a  child  before 
mine  household,  for  amendment  of  himself 
and  ensample  of  others."  "  Another  was 
one  who,  after  he  had  fallen  into  these  fran 
tic  heresies,  soon  fell  into  plain  open  frensy: 
albeit  that  he  had  been  in  Bedlam,  and  after 
wards  by  beating  and  correction  gathered  his 
remembrance  ;t  being  therefore  set  at  lib 
erty,  his  old  frensies  fell  again  into  his  head. 
Being  informed  of  his  relapse,  I  caused  him 
to  be  taken  by  the  constables  and  bounden 
to  a  tree  in  the  street  before  the  whole  town, 
and  there  striped  him  till  he  waxed  weary. 
Verily,  God  be  thanked,  I  hear  no  harm  of 
him  now.  And  of  all  who  ever  came  in  my 
hand  for  heresy,  as  help  me  God,  else  had 
never  any  of  them  any  stripe  or  stroke  given 
them,  so  much  as  a  fillip  in  the  forehead. "§ 


*  Op.  vol.  iii.  p.  1811. 

t  More's  Apology,  chap.  36. 

t  Such  was  then  the  mode  of  curing  insanity  ' 

$  Apology,  chap.  36.  ^ 


62 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


This  statement,  so  minute,  so  capable  of 
easy  confutation,  if  in  any  part  false,  was 
made  public  after  his  fall  from  power,  when 
he  was  surrounded  by  enemies,  arid  could 
have  no  friends  but  the  generous.  It  relates 
circumstances  of  public  notoriety,  or  at  least 
so  known  to  all  his  own  household  (from 
which  it  appears  that  Protestant  servants 
were  not  excluded),  which  it  would  have 
been  rather  a  proof  of  insanity  than  of  im 
prudence  to  have  alleged  in  his  defence,  if 
they  had  not  been  indisputably  and  confes 
sedly  true.  Wherever  he  touches  this  sub 
ject,  there  is  a  quietness  and  a  circumstan 
tiality,  which  are  among  the  least  equivocal 
marks  of  a  man  who  adheres  to  the  temper 
most  favourable  to  the  truth,  because  he  is 
conscious  that  the  truth  is  favourable  to 
him.*  Without  relying,  therefore,  on  the 
character  of  More  for  probity  and  veracity 
(which  it  is  derogatory  to  him  to  employ  for 
such  a  purpose),  the  evidence  of  his  hu 
manity  having  prevailed  over  his  opinion 
decisively  outweighs  the  little  positive  testi 
mony  produced  against  him.  The  charge 
against  More  rests  originally  on  Fox  alone, 
from  whom  it  is  copied  by  Burnet,  and  with 
considerable  hesitation  by  Strype.  But  the 
honest  martyrologist  wrrites  too  inaccurately 
to  be  a  weighty  witness  in  this  case ;  for  he 
tells  us  that  Firth  was  put  to  death  in  June 
1533,  and  yet  imputes  it  to  More,  who  had 
resigned  his  office  a  year  before.  In  the 
case  of  James  Baynham,  he  only  says  that 
the  accused  was  chained  to  two  posts  for 
two  nights  in  More's  house,  at  some  unspe 
cified  distance  of  time  before  his  execution. 

Burnet,  in  mentioning  the  extreme  tolera 
tion  taught  in  Utopia,  truly  observes,  that  if 
More  had  died  at  the  time  of  its  publication, 
"  he  would  have  been  reckoned  among  those 
who  only  wanted  a  fit  opportunity  of  decla 
ring  themselves  openly  for  a  reformation."  t 
The  same  sincere  and  upright  writer  was  too 
zealous  for  an  historian,  when  he  added  : — 
"When  More  was  raised  to  the  chief  post  in 
the  ministry,  he  became  a  persecutor  even 
to  blood,  and  defiled  those  hands  which  were 
never  polluted  with  bribes."  In  excuse  for 
the  total  silence  of  the  honest  bishop  re 
specting  the  opposite  testimony  of  More  him 
self  (of  whom  Burnet  speaks  even  then  with 
reverence),  the  reader  must  be  reminded 
that  the  third  volume  of  the  History  of  the 


*  There  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  this  obser 
vation  in  More's  Dialogue,  book  iii.  chap,  xvi., 
where  he  tells,  with  some  prolixity,  the  story  of 
Richard  Dunn,  who  was  found  dead,  and  hanging 
in  the  Lollard's  Tower.  The  only  part  taken  by 
More  in  this  affair  was  his  share  as  a  privy  coun 
cillor  in  the  inquiry,  whether  Dunn  hanged  him 
self,  or  was  murdered  and  then  hanged  up  by  the 
Bishop  of  London's  chancellor.  The  evidence  to 
prove  that  the  death  could  rot  be  suicide,  was  as 
absurd  as  the  story  of  the  bishop's  chancellor  was 
improbable.  He  was  afterwards,  .however,  con 
victed  by  a  jury,  but  pardoned,  it  should  seem 
rightly,  by  the  King. 

i  History  of  the  Reformation  (Lond.  1820), 
vol.  in.  pi.rt  i.  p.  45. 


Reformation  was  written  in  the  old  age  of 
the  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  thirty  years  after 
those  more  laborious  researches,  which  at 
tended  the  composition  of  the  two  former  vo 
lumes,  and  under  the  influence  of  those  ani 
mosities  against  the  Roman  Catholic  Chuich, 
which  the  conspiracy  of  Queen  Anne's  last 
ministers  against  the  Revolution  had  revived 
with  more  than  their  youthful  vigour.  It 
must  be  owned  that  he  from  the  commence 
ment  acquiesced  too  lightly  in  the  allegations 
of  Fox;  and  it  is  certain,  that  if  the  fact, 
however  deplorable,  had  been  better  proved, 
yet  in  that  age  it  would  not  have  warranted 
such  asperity  of  condemnation.* 

The  date  of  the  work  in  which  More  de 
nies  the  charge,  and  challenges  his  accusers 
to  produce  their  proofs,  would  have  aroused 
the  attention  of  Burnet  if  he  had  read  it. 
This  book,  entitled  "The  Apology  of  Sir 
Thomas  More/'  was  written  in  1533.  "after 
he  had  given  over  the  office  of  lord  chancel 
lor,"  and  when  he  was  in  daily  expectation 
of  being  committed  to  the  Tower.  Defence 
less  and  obnoxious  as  he  then  was,  no  man 
was  hardy  enough  to  dispute  his  truth.  Fox 
was  the  first  who,  thirty  years  afterwards, 
ventured  to  oppose  it  in  a  vague  statement, 
which  we  know  to  be  in  some  respects  inac 
curate  ]  and  on  this  slender  authority  alone 
has  rested  such  an  imputation  on  the  ve 
racity  of  the  most  sincere  of  men.  Who 
ever  reads  the  Apology  will  perceive,  from 
the  melancholy  ingenuousness  with  which 
he  speaks  of  the  growing  unpopularity  of  his 
religion  in  the  court  and  country,  that  he 
could  not  have  hoped  to  escape  exposure,  if 
it  had  been  then  possible  to  question  his 
declaration.! 

On  the  whole,  then,  More  must  not  only  be 
absolved ;  but  when  we  consider  that  his  ad 
ministration  occurred  during  a  hot  paroxysm 
of  persecution, — that  intolerance  was  the 
creed  of  his  age, — that  he  himself,  in  his 
days  of  compliance  and  ambition,  had  been 
drawn  over  to  it  as  a  theory, — that  he  was 
filled  with  alarm  and  horror  by  the  excesses 
of  the  heretical  insurgents  in  Germany,  we 
must  pronounce  him,  by  his  abstinence  from 
any  practical  share  in  it,  to  have  given 
stronger  proofs  than  any  other  man,  of  a  re 
pugnance  to  that  execrable  practice,  founded 


*  The  change  of  opinion  in  Erasmus,  and  the 
less  remarkable  change  of  More  in  the  same  re 
spect,  is  somewhat  excused  by  the  excesses  and 
disorders  which  followed  the  Reformation.  "  To 
believe,"  says  Bayle,  "that  the  church  required 
reformation,  and  to  approve  a  particular  manner 
of  reforming  it,  are  two  very  different  things.  To 
blame  the  opponents  of  reformation,  and  to  dis 
approve  the  conduct  of  the  reformers,  are  two 
things  very  compatible.  A  man  may  then  imi 
tate  Erasmus,  without  being  an  apostate  or  a  trai 
tor." — Dictionary,  art.  Castellan.  These  are  po 
sitions  too  reasonable  to  be  practically  believed, 
at  the  time  when  their  adoption  would  be  most 
useful. 

t  In  the  Apology,  More  states  that  four-tenths 
of  the  people  were  unable  to  read  ; — probably  an 
overrated  estimate  of  the  number  of  readers. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


on  the  unshaken  basis  of  his  natural  hu 
manity. 

The  fourth  book  of  the  Dialogue*  exhibits 
a  lively  picture  of  the  horror  \\ith  which  the 
excesses  of  the  Reformers  had  filled  the  mind 
of  this  good  man,  whose  justice  and  even 
humanity  were  disturbed,  so  far  at  least  as 
to  betray  him  into  a  bitterness  of  language 
and  harshness  of  opinion  foreign  from  his 
general  temper.  The  events  themselves  are, 
it  must  be  owned,  sufficient  to  provoke  the 
meekest, — to  appal  the  firmest  of  men. 
"The  temporal  lords,"  he  tells  us,  "were 
glad  to  hear  the  cry  against  the  clergy;  the 
people  were  glad  to  hear  it  against  the  clergy 
and  the  lords  too.  They  rebelled  first  against 
an  abbot,  and  after  against  a  bishop,  wrhere- 
with  the  temporal  lords  had  good  game  and 
sport,  arid  dissembled  the  matter,  gaping 
after  the  lands  of  the  spirituality,  till  they 
had  almost  played,  as  JEsop  telleth  of  the 
dog,  which,  to  snatch  at  the  shadow  of  the 
cheese  in  the  water,  let  fall  and  lost  the 
cheese  wrhich  he  bare  in  his  mouth.  The 
nplandish  Lutherans  set  upon  the  temporal 
lords:  they  slew  70,000  Lutherans  in  one 
summer,  and  subdued  the  remnant  in  that 
part  of  Almayne  into  a  right  miserable  servi 
tude.  Of  this  sect  was  the  great  partf  of 
those  ungracious  people  which  of  late  en 
tered  Rome  with  the  Duke  of  Bourbon." 
The  description  of  the  horrible  crimes  per 
petrated  on  that  occasion  is  so  disgusting  in 
some  of  its  particulars,  as  to  be  unfit  for  the 
decency  of  historical  narrative.  One  speci 
men  will  suffice,  which,  considering  the 
constant  intercourse  between  England  and 
Rome,  is  not  unlikely  to  have  been  related 
to  More  by  an  eye-witness : — "  Some  took 
children  and  bound  them  to  torches,  and 
brought  them  gradually  nearer  to  the  fire  to 
be  roasted,  while  the  fathers  and  mothers 
were  looking  on,  and  then  began  to  speak  of 
a  price  for  the  sparing  of  the  children  ;  ask 
ing  first  100  ducats,  then  fifty,  then  forty, 
then  at  last  offered  to  take  twain  :  after  they 
had  taken  the  last  ducat  from  the  father, 
then  would  they  let  the  child  roast  to  death." 
This  wickedness  (More  contended)  was  the 
fruit  of  Luther's  doctrine  of  predestination  ; 
"'for  what  good  deed  can  a  man  study  or 
labour  to  do,  who  believeth  Luther,  that  he 
hath  no  free  will  of  his  own."J  '"If  the 
world  were  not  near  an  end,  and  the  fervour 
of  devotion  almost  quenched,  it  could  never 
have  come  to  pass  that  so  many  people 
should  fall  to  the  following  of  so  beastly  a 
sect."  He  urges  at  very  great  length,  and 
with  great  ability,  the  tendency  of  belief  in 
destiny  to  overthrow  morality;  and  repre 
sents  it  as  an  opinion  of  which,  on  account 
ol  its  incompatibility  with  the  order  of  so- 


*  Dialogue  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  touching  the 
pestilent  sect  of  Luther,  composed  and  published 
when  he  was  chancellor  of  ihe  duchy  of  Lancaster, 
"but  newly  oversene  by  the  said  Sir  T.  More, 
chancellor  of  England,"  1530. 

t  A  violent  exaggeration. 

$  Dialogue,  book  iv.  chap.  8. 


ciety,  the  civil  magistrate  may  lawfully  pun 
ish  the  promulgation;  little  aware  how  de 
cisively  experience  was  about  to  confute 
such  reasoning,  however  specious,  by  the 
examples  of  nations,  who,  though  their  whole 
religion  was  founded  on  predestination,  were, 
nevertheless,  the  most  moral  portion  of  man 
kind.*  "The  fear;"  says  More,  "of  out 
rages  and  mischiefs  to  follow  upon  such  here 
sies,  with  the  proof  that  men  have  had  in 
pome  countries  thereof,  have  been  the  cause 
that  princes  and  people  have  been  constrained 
to  punish  heresies  by  a  terrible  death;  where 
as  else  more  easy  ways  had  been  taken  with 
them.  If  the  heretics  had  never  begun  with 
violence,  good  Christian  people  had  perad- 
venture'used  less  violence  against  them: 
while  they  forbare  violence,  there  was  little 
violence  done  unto  them.  'By  my  soul,; 
quoth  your  friend,t  ll  would  all  the  world 
were  agreed  to  take  violence  and  compulsion 
away.'  'Arid  sooth,'  said  I,  'if  it  were  so, 
yet  would  God  be  too  strong  for  his  ene 
mies.7  "  In  answer,  he  faintly  attempts  to 
distinguish  the  case  of  Pagans,  who  may  be 
tolerated,  in  order  to  induce  them  to  tolerate 
Christians,  from  that  of  heretics,  from  which 
no  such  advantage  was  to  be  obtained  in  ex 
change  ; — a  distinction,  however,  which  dis 
appeared  as  soon  as  the  supposed  heretics 
acquired  supreme  power.  At  last,  however, 
he  concludes  with  a  sentence  which  suffi 
ciently  intimates  the  inclination  of  his  judg 
ment,  and  showrs  that  his  ancient  opinions 
still  prevailed  in  the  midst  of  fear  and  ab 
horrence.  "And  yet,  as  I  said  in  the  begin 
ning,  never  were  they  by  any  temporal  pun 
ishment  of  their  bodies  any  thing  sharply 
handled  till  they  began  to  be  violent  them 
selves."  It  is  evident  that  his  mind  misgave 
him  \vhen  he  appeared  to  assent  to  intoler 
ance  as  a  principle  ;  for  otherwise  there  was 
no  reason  for  repeatedly  relying  on  the  de 
fence  of  society  against  aggression  as  its  jus 
tification.  His  silence,  however,  respecting 
the  notorious  fact,  that  Luther  strained  every 
nerve  to  suppress  the  German  insurgents, 
can  never  be  excused  by  the  sophistry  which 
ascribes  to  all  reformers  the  evil  done  by  those 
who  abuse  their  names.  It  was  too  much 
to  say  that  Luther  should  not  have  uttered 
wrhat  he  believed  to  be  sacred  and  necessary 
truth,  because  evil-doers  look  occasion  from 
it  to  screen  their  bad  deeds.  This  contro 
versial  artifice,  however  grossly  unjust,  is 
yet  so  plausible  and  popular,  that  perhaps 
no  polemic  ever  had  viriue  enough  to  resist 
the  temptation  of  employing  it.  What  other 
controversialist  can  be  named,  who,  having 
the  power  to  crush  antagonists  whom  he 
viewed  as  the  disturbers  of  the  qxiet  of  his 
own  declining  age, — the  destroyers  of  all  the 
hopes  which  he  had  cherished  for  mankind, 
contented  himself  with  severity  of  language 
(for  which  he  humbly  excuses  himself  in  his 


*  Switzerland.  Holland.  Scotland,  English  puri 
tans,  New  England,  French  Huguenots,  &c. 

t  This  wish  is  put  into  ihe  mouth  of  the  adverse 
speaker  in  the  Dialogue. 


64 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Apology — in  some  measure  a  dying  work), 
and  with  one  instance  of  unfair  inference 
against  opponents  who  were  too  zealous  to 
be  merciful. 

In  the  autumn  of  1529.  More,  on  his  return 
from  Cambray,  where  he  had  been  once 
more  joined  in  commission  with  his  friend 
Tunstall  as  ambassador  to  the  emperor,  paid 
a  visit  to  the  court,  then  at  Woodstock.  A 
letter  written  from  thence  to  his  wife,  on  oc 
casion  of  a  mishap  at  home,  is  here  inserted 
as  affording  a  little  glimpse  into  the  manage 
ment  of  his  most  homely  concerns,  and  es 
pecially  as  a  specimen  of  his  regard  for  a 
deserving  woman,  who  was,  probably,  too 
"coarsely  kind"  even  to  have  inspired  him 
with  tenderness.* 

l'  Mistress  Alyce,  in  my  most  harty  will, 
I  recomend  me  to  you.  And  whereas  I  am 
enfourmed  by  my  son  Heron  of  the  loss  of 
our  barnes  and  our  neighbours  also,  w'  all 
the  corne  that  was  therein,  albeit  (saving 
God's  pleasure)  it  is  gret  pitie  of  so  much 
good  corne  lost,  yet  sith  it  hath  liked  hym 
to  send  us  such  a  chance,  we  must  saie 
bound  en,  not  only  to  be  content,  but  also  to 
be  glad  of  his  visitation.  He  sent  us  all  that 
we  have  lost :  and  sith  he  hath  by  such  a 
chance  taken  it  away  againe,  his  pleasure 
be  fulfilled.  Let  us  never  grudge  thereat, 
but  take  it  in  good  worth,  and  hartely  thank 
him,  as  well  for  adversitie,  as  for  prosperitie. 
And  par  adventure  we  have  more  cause  to 
thank  him  for  our  losse,  than  for  our  winning : 
for  his  wisedom  better  seeth  what  is  good 
for  us  then  we  do  ourselves.  Therefore  I 
pray  you  be  of  good  cheere,  and  take  all  the 
howsold  with  you  to  church,  and  there  thank 
God  both  for  that  he  hath  given  us,  and  for 
that  he  has  left  us,  which  if  it  please  hym. 
he  can  increase  when  he  will.  And  if  it 
please  him  to  leave  us  yet  lesse,  at  hys  plea 
sure  be  it.  I  praye  you  to  make  some  good 
ensearche  what  my  poor  neighbours  have 
loste,  and  bidde  them  take  no  thought  there 
fore,  and  if  I  shold  not  leave  myself  a  spone, 
there  shall  no  poore  neighbour  of  mine  bere 
no  losse  by  any  chance  happened  in  my 
house.  I  pray  you  be  with  my  children  and 
household  mery  in  God.  And  devise  some 
what  with  your  friends,  what  way  wer  best 
to  take,  for  provision  to  be  made  for  corne 
for  our  household  and  for  sede  thys  yere 
coming,  if  ye  thinke  it  good  that  we  keepe 
the  ground  still  in  our  handes.  And  whether 
ye  think  it  good  yl  we  so  shall  do  or  not, 
yet  I  think  it  were  not  best  sodenlye  thus 
to  leave  it  all  up,  and  to  put  away  our  folk 
of  our  farme,  till  we  have  somewhat  advised 
us  thereon.  Howbeit  if  we  have  more  no  we 
than  ye  shall  neede,  and  which  can  get 
the  other  maisters,  ye  may  then  discharge 

*  In  More's  metrical  inscription  for  his  own 
monument,  we  find  a  just  but  long,  and  somewhat 
laboured,  commendation  of  Alice,  which  in  ten 
derness  is  outweighed  by  one  word  applied  to  the 
long-departed  companion  of  his  youth. 
"  Chara  Thomae  jacet  hie  Joanna  uxorcula  Mori." 


us  of  them.  But  I  would  not  that  any  man 
wer  sodenly  sent  away  he  wote  nere  we 
ther.  At  my  coming  hither,  I  perceived 
none  other,  but  that  I  shold  tary  still  with 
the  kinges  grace.  But  now  I  shall  (I  think), 
because  of  this  chance,  get  leave  this  next 
weke  to  come  home  arid  se  you ;  and  then 
shall  we  further  devise  together  uppon  all 
thinges,  what  order  shall  be  best  to  take  :  and 
thus  as  hartely  fare  you  well  with  all  our  chil 
dren  as  you  can  wishe.  At  Woodstok  the 
thirde  daye  of  Septembre,  by  the  hand  of 
"  Your  loving  husband, 

•'•THOMAS  MORE,  Knight." 

A  new  scene  now  opened  on  More,  of  whose 
private  life  the  above  simple  letter  enables  us 
to  form  no  inadequate  or  unpleasing  estimate. 
On  the  25th  of  October  1529,  sixteen  days 
after  the  commencement  of  the  prosecution 
against  Wolsey,  the  King,  by  delivering  the 
great  seal  to  him  at  Greenwich,  constituted 
him  lord  chancellor, — the  highest  dignity  of 
the  state  and  of  the  law,  and  which  had 
previously  been  generally  held  by  ecclesias 
tics.*  A  very  summary  account  of  the  na 
ture  of  this  hiffh  office,  may  perhaps  prevent 
some  confusion  respecting  it  among  those 
who  know  it  only  in  its  present  state.  The 
office  of  chancellor  was  known  to  all  the 
European  governments,  who  borrowed  it, 
like  many  other  institutions,  from  the  usage 
of  the  vanquished  Romans.  In  those  of 
England  and  France,  which  most  resembled 
each  other,  and  whose  history  is  most  fa 
miliar  and  most  interesting  to  us,f  the  chan 
cellor,  whose  office  had  been  a  conspicuous 
dignity  under  the  Lower  Empire,  was  origi 
nally  a  secretary  who  derived  a  great  part 
of  His  consequence  from  the  trust  of  holding 
the  king's  seal,  the  substitute  for  subscription 
under  illiterate  monarchs,  and  the  stamp  of 
legal  authority  in  more  cultivated  times. 
From  his  constant  access  to  the  king,  he 
acquired  every  where  some  authority  in  the 
cases  which  were  the  frequent  subject  of 
complaint  to  the  crown.  In  France  he  be 
came  a  minister  of  state  with  a  peculiar 
superintendence  over  courts  of  justice,  and 
some  remains  of  a  special  jurisdiction,  which 
continued  till  the  downfal  of  the  French 
monarchy.  In  the  English  chancellor  were 
gradually  united  the  characters  of  a  legal 
magistrate  and  a  political  adviser;  and  sincts 
that  time  the  office  has  been  confined  to 
lawyers  in  eminent  practice.  He  has  been 
presumed  to  have  a  due  reverence  for  the  law, 
as  well  as  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  it ; 
and  his  presence  and  weight  in  the  counsels 
of  a  free  commonwealth  have  been  regarded 
as  links  which  bind  the  state  to  the  law. 

One  of  the  earliest  branches  of  the  chan 
cellor's  duties  seems,  by  slow  degrees,  to 
have  enlarged  his  jurisdiction  to  the  extent 

*  Thorpe,  in  1371,  and  Knivet,  in  1372,  seem 
to  be  the  last  exceptions. 

t  Ducange  and  Spelman,  voce  Cancellarius, 
who  give  us  the  series  of  Chancellors  in  both 
countries. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


65 


which  it  reached  in  modern  times.*  From 
the  chancery  issued  those  writs  which  first 
put  the  machinery  of  law  in  motion  in  every 
case  where  legal  redress  existed.  In  that 
court  new  writs  were  framed,  when  it  was 
fit  to  adapt  the  proceedings  to  the  circum 
stances  of  a  new  case.  When  a  case  arose 
in  which  it  appeared  that  the  course  and 
order  of  the  common  law  could  hardly  be 
adapted,  by  any  variation  in  the  forms  of 
procedure,  to  the  demands  of  justice,  the 
complaint  was  laid  by  the  chancellor,  before 
the  king,  who  commanded  it  to  be  considered 
in  council, — a  practice  which,  by  degrees,  led 
to  a  reference  to  that  magistrate  by  himself. 
To  facilitate  an  equitable  determination  in 
such  complaints,  the  writ  was  devised  called 
the  writ  of  "subp&nd^  commanding  the 
person  complained  of  to  appear  before  the 
chancellor,  and  to  answer  the  complaint. 
The  essential  words  of  a  petition  for  this 
writ,  which  in  process  of  time  has  become 
of  so  great  importance,  were  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  III.  as  follows  :  "  Please  it  therefore, 
your  lordship, — considering  that  your  orator 
has  no  remedy  by  course  of  the  common 
law, — to  grant  a  writ  subpoena,  commanding 
T.  Coke  to  appear  in  chancery,  at  a  certain 
day,  arid  upon  a  certain  pain  to  be  limited 
by  you,  and  then  to  do  what  by  this  court 
shall  be  thought  reasonable  and  according 
to  conscience."  The  form  had  not  been 
materially  different  in  the  earliest  instances, 
which  appear  to  have  occurred  from  1380 
to  1400.  It  would  seem  that  this  device 
was  not  first  employed;  as  has  been  hitherto 
supposed,!  to  enforce  the  observance  of  the 
.duties  of  trustees  who  held  lands,  but  for 
cases  of  an  extremely  different  nature,  where 
the  failure  of  justice  in  the  ordinary  courts 
might  ensue,  not  from  any  defect  in  the 
common  law,  but  from  the  power  of  turbu 
lent  barons,  who,  in  their  acts  of  outrage  and 
lawless  violence,  bade  defiance  to  all  ordinary 
jurisdiction.  In  some  of  the  earliest  cases  we 
find  a  statement  of  the  age  and  poverty  of 
the  complainant,  and  of  the  power,  and  even 
learning,  of  the  supposed  wrongdoer ; — topics 
addressed  to  compassion,  or  at  most  to  equity 
in  a  very  loose  and  popular  sense  of  the  word, 
which  throw  light  on  the  original  nature  of 
this  high  jurisdiction. J  It  is  apparent,  from 
the  earliest  cases  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II., 


*  "  Non  facile  est  digito  monstrare  quibus 
gradihiis,  sed  conjecturam  accipe.'1 — Spelman, 
voce  Canrellarius. 

t  Blackstone,  book  iii.  chap.  4. 

t  Calendars  of  Proceedings  in  Chancery,  temp. 
Eliz.  London,  1827.  Of  ten  of  these  suits  which 
occurred  in  the  last  ten  years  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  one  complains  of  ouster  from  land  by 
violence  ;  another,  of  exclusion  from  a  benefice, 
by  a  writ  obtained  from  the  king  under  false  sug 
gestions;  a  third,  for  the  seizure  of  a  freeman, 
under  pretext  of  being  a  slave  (or  nief)  ;  a  fourth, 
for  being  disturbed  in  the  enjoyment  of  land  by  a 
trespasser,  abetted  by  the  sheriff;  a  fifth  for  im- 
,  prisonment  on  a  false  allegation  of  debt.  No  case 
is  extant  prior  to  the  first  year  of  Henry  V.,  which 
relates  f>  the  trust  of  lands,  which  eminent  writers 


that  the  occasional  relief  proceeding  from 
mixed  feelings  of  pity  and  of  regard  to  sub 
stantial  justice,  not  effectually  aided  by  law. 
or  overpowered  by  tyrannical  violence,  had 
then  grown  into  a  regular  system,  and  was 
subject  to  rules  resembling  those  of  legal 
jurisdiction.  At  first  sight  it  may  appear 
difficult  to  conceive  how  ecclesiastics  could 
have  moulded  into  a  regular  form  this  ano 
malous  branch  of  jurisprudence.  But  many 
of  the  ecclesiastical  order. — originally  the 
only  lawyers, — were  eminently  skilled  in  the 
civil  and  canon  law,  which  had  attained  an 
order  and  precision  unknown  to  the  digests 
of  barbarous  usages  then  attempted  in  France 
and  England.  The  ecclesiastical  chancellors 
of  those  countries  introduced  into  their  courts 
a  course  of  proceeding  very  similar  to  that 
adopted  by  other  European  nations,  who  all 
owned  the  authority  of  the  canon  law,  and 
were  enlightened  by  the  wisdom  of  the  Ro 
man  code.  The  proceedings  in  chancery, 
lately  recovered  from  oblivion,  show  the  sys 
tem  to  have  been  in  regular  activity  about 
a  century  and  a  half  before  the  chancellor 
ship  of  Sir  Thomas  More, — the  first  common 
lawyer  who  held  the  great  seal  since  the 
Chancellor  had  laid  any  foundations  (known 
to  us)  of  his  equitable  jurisdiction.  The 
course  of  education,  and  even  of  negotiation 
in  that  age,  conferred  on  Moore,  who  was 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  practisers  of 
the  common  law,  the  learning  and  ability  of 
a  civilian  and  a  canonist. 

Of  his  administration,  from  the  25th  of 
October  1529,  to  the  16th  of  May  1532,  four 
hundred  bills  and  answers  are  still  preserved, 
which  afford  an  average  of  about  a  hundred 
and  sixty  suits  annually.  Though  this  ave 
rage  may  by  no  means  adequately  represent 
the  whole  occupations  of  a  court  which  had 
many  other  duties  to  perform,  it  supplies  us 
with  some  means  of  comparing  the  extent 
of  its  business  under  him  with  the  number 
of  similar  proceedings  in  succeeding  limes. 
The  whole  amount  of  bills  and  answers  in  the 
reign  of  James  I.  was  thirty-two  thousand. 
How  far  the  number  may  have  differed  at 
different  parts  of  that  reign,  the  unarranged 
state  of  the  records  does  not  yet  enable  us 
to  ascertain.  But  supposing  it,  by  a  rough 
estimate,  to  have  continued  the  same,  the 
annual  average  of  bills  and  answers  during 
the  four  years  of  Lord  Bacon's  administration 
was  fourteen  hundred  and  sixty-one,  being 
an  increase  of  nearly  ten-fold  in  somewhat 
less  than  a  century.  Though  cases  con 
nected  with  the  progress  of  the  jurisdiction 
and  the  character  of  the  chancellor  must 
have  somewhat  contributed  to  this  remarka 
ble  increase,  yet  it  must  be  ascribed  princi 
pally  to  the  extraordinary  impulse  given  to 

have  represented  as  the  original  object  of  this 
jurisdiction.  In  the  reign i  of  Henry  VI.  there  is 
a  bill  against  certain  Wycliffites  for  outrages  done 
to  the  plaintiff,  Robert  Burton,  chanter  of  the 
cathedral  of  Lincoln,  on  account  of  his  zeal  as  an 
inquisitor  in  the  diocese  of  Lincoln,  to  convict 
and  punish  heretics. 

F2 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


daring  enterprise  and  national  wealth  by 
the  splendid  administration  of  Elizabeth. 
\vhich  multiplied  alike  the  occasions  of  liti 
gation  and  the  means  of  carrying  it  on.*  In 
a  century  and  a  half  after,  when  equitable 
jurisdiction  was  completed  in  its  foundations 
arid  most  necessary  parts  by  Lord  Chancellor 
Nottingham,  the  yearly  average  of  suits  was, 
during  his  tenure  of  the  great  seal,  about 
sixteen  hundred.!  Under  Lord  Hardwicke, 
the  chancellor  of  most  professional  celebrity, 
the  yearly  average  of  bills  and  answers  ap 
pears  to  have  been  about  two  thousand ; 
probably  in  part  because  more  questions  had 
been  finally  determined,  and  partly  also  be 
cause  the  delays  were  so  aggravated  by  the 
multiplicity  of  business,  that  parties  aggriev 
ed  chose  rather  to  submit  to  wrong  than  to 
be  ruined  in  pursuit  of  right.  This  last  mis 
chief  arose  in  a  great  measure  from  the 
variety  of  affairs  added  to  the  original  duties 
of  the  judge,  of  which  the  principal  w^ere 
bankruptcy  and  parliamentary  appeals.  Both 
these  causes  continued  to  act  with  increas 
ing  force  ;  so  that,  in  spite  of  a  vast  increase 
of  the  property  and  dealings  of  the  kingdom, 
the  average  number  of  bills  and  answers  was 
considerably  less  from  1800  to  1802  than  it- 
had  been  from  1745  to  1754.J 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  men  trained 
in  any  system  of  jurisprudence,  as  were  the 
ecclesiastical  chancellors,  could  have  been 
indifferent  to  the  inconvenience  and  vexa 
tion  which  necessarily  harass  the  holders 
of  a  merely  arbitrary  power.  Not  having  a 
law,  they  were  a  law  unto  themselves ;  and 
every  chancellor  who  contributed  by  a  de 
termination  to  establish  a  principle,  became 
instrumental  in  circumscribing  the  power  of 
his  successor.  Selden  is,  indeed,  represented 
to  have  said,  "  that  equity  is  according  to 
the  conscience  of  him  who  is  chancellor ; 
which  is  as  uncertain  as  if  we  made  the 
chancellor's  fodjjlhe  standard  for  the  mea 
sure  which  we*xjall  a  foot."§  But  this  was 
spoken  in  the  looseness  of  table-talk,  and 
under  the  influence  of  the  prejudices  then 
prevalent  among  common  lawyers  against 
equitable  jurisdiction.  Still,  perhaps,  in  his 
time  what  he  said  might  be  true  enough  for 
a  smart  saying:  but  in  process  of  years  a 
system  of  rules  has  been  established  which 
has  constantly  tended  to  limit  the  originally 
discretionary  powers  of  the  chancery.  Equity, 
in  the  acceptation  in  which  that  word  is  used 
in  English  jurisprudence,  is  no  longer  to  be 
confounded  with  that  moral  equity  which 

*  From  a  letter  of  Lord  Bacon  (Lords'  Journals, 
20th  March,  1680,)  it  appears  that  he  made  two 
thousand  decrees  and  orders  in  a  year ;  so  that  in 
his  time  the  bills  and  answers  amounted  to  about 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  business. 

t  The  numbers  have  been  obligingly  supplied 
by  the  gentlemen  of  the  Record  Office  in  the 
Tower. 

t  Account  of  Proceedings  in  Parliament  rela 
tive  to  the  Court  of  Chancery.  By  C.  P.  Cooper, 
Esq.  (Lond.  1828.)  p.  102,  &.C.— A  work  equally 
remarkable  for  knowledge  and  acuteness. 

$  Table  Talk,  (Edinb.  1809,)  p.  55. 


generally  corrects  the  unjust  operation  of 
law,  and  with  which  it  seems  to  have  been 
synonymous  in  the  days  of  Selden  arid  Bacon. 
It  is  a  part  of  law  formed  from  usages  and 
determinations  which  sometimes  differ  from 
what  is  called  "  common  law"  in  its  subjects, 
but  chiefly  varies  from  it  in  its  modes  of 
proof,  of  trial,  and  of  relief;  it  is  a  jurisdic 
tion  so  irregularly  formed,  and  often  so  little 
dependent  on  general  principles,  that  it.  can 
hardly  be  defined  or  made  intelligible  other 
wise  than  by  a  minute  enumeration  of  the 
matters  cognisable  by  it.* 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  that  Sir 
Thomas  More's  duties  differed  very  widely 
from  the  various  exertions  of  labour  and  in 
tellect  required  from  a  modern  chancellor. 
At  the  utmost  he  did  not  hear  more  than  two 
hundred  cases  and  arguments  yearly,  inclu 
ding  those  of  every  description.  No  authentic 
account  of  any  case  tried  before  him,  if  any 
such  be  extant,  has  been  yet  brought  to  light- 
No  law  book  alludes  to  any  part  of  his  judg 
ments  or  reasonings.  Nothing  of  this  higher 
part  of  his  judicial  life  is  preserved,  \\hich 
can  warrant  us  in  believing  more  than  that 
it  must  have  displayed  his  never-failing  in 
tegrity,  reason,  learning,  and  eloquence. 

The  particulars  of  his  instalment  are  not 
unworthy  of  being  specified  as  a  proof  of  the 
reverence  for  his  endowments  and  excel 
lences  professed  by  the  King  and  entertained 
by  the  public,  to  whose  judgment  the  min 
isters  of  Henry  seemed  virtually  to  appeal, 
with  an  assurance  that  the  Kirig''s  appoint 
ment  would  be  ratified  by  the  general  voice. 
'•He  was  led  between  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk  up  Westminster  Hall  to  the  Stone 
Chamber,  and  there  they  honourably  placed 
him  in  ine  high  judgment-seat  of  chancel 
lor  j"t  (for  the  chancellor  was,  by  his  oflice, 
the  president  of  that  terrible  tribunal.)  "The 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  premier  peer  and  lord  high 
treasurer  of  England,"  continues  the  biogra 
pher.  u  by  the  command  of  the  king,  spoke 
llmsunto  the  people  there  with  great  applause 
and  joy  gathered  together : — 

"  '  The  King's  majesty  (which,  I  pray  God, 
may  prove  happie  and  fortunate  to  the  whole 
realme  of  England)  hath  raised  to  the  most 
high  dignitie  of  chancellourship  Sir  Thomas 
More,  a  man  for  his  extraordinarie  worth 
and  sufficiencie  well  knowne  to  himself  and 
the  whole  realme,  for  no  other  cause  or  earth- 
lie  respect,  but  for  that  he  hath  plainely  per- 
ceaved  all  the  gifts  of  nature  and  grace  to  be 
heaped  upon  him,  which  either  ihe  people 
could  desire,  or  himself  wish,  for  the  dis 
charge  of  so  great  an  office.  For  the  ad 
mirable  wisedome,  integritie,  arid  innocencie. 
joyned  with  most  pleasant  facilitie  of  witt, 
that  this  man  is  endowed  wit  hall,  have  been 
sufficiently  knowTen  to  all  Englishmen  from 
his  youth,  and  for  these  manie  yeares  also  to 


*  Blackstone,  book  iii.  ch;ip.  27.  Lord  Hard- 
wicke's  Letter  to  Lord  Kames,  30ih  June,  1757. 
— Lord  Woodhouselee's  Life  of  Lord  Kames,  vol. 
i.  p.  237. 

t  More,  pp.  156,  163. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


67 


the  King's  majestie  himself.  This  hath  the 
King  abundantly  found  in  manie  and  weightie 
affayres,  which  he  hath  happily  dispatched 
both  at  home  and  abroad,  in  divers  offices 
which  he  hath  born,  in  most  honourable  em- 
bassages  which  he  hath  undergone,  and  in 
his  daily  counsell  and  advises  upon  all  other 
occasions.  He  hath  perceaved  no  man  in 
his  realme  to  be  more  wise  if!  deliberating, 
more  sincere  in  opening  to  him  what  he 
thought,  nor  more  eloquent  to  adorne  the 
matter  which  he  uttered.  Wherefore,  be 
cause  he  saw  in  him  such  excellent  endow 
ments,  and  that  of  his  especiall  care  he  hath 
a  particular  desire  that  his  kingdome  and 
people  might  be  governed  with  all  equitie 
and  justice,  integritie  and  wisedome,  he  of 
his  owne  most  gracious  disposition  hath 
created  this  singular  man  lord  chancellor; 
that,  by  his  laudable  performance  of  this 
office,  his  people  may  enjoy  peace  and  jus 
tice;  and  honour  also  and  fame  may  re- 
dounde  to  the  whole  kingdome.  It  may 
perhaps  seem  to  manie  a  strange  and  un- 
usuall  matter,  that  this  dignitie  should  be 
bestowed  upon  a  layman,  none  of  the  nobili- 
tie,  and  one  that  hath  wife  and  children ;  be 
cause  heretofore  none  but  singular  learned 
prelates,  or  men  of  greatest  nobilitie,  have 
possessed  this  place;  but  what  is  wanting  in 
these  respects,  the  admirable  vertues,  the 
matchless  guifts  of  witt  and  wisedome  of 
this  man,  doth  most  plentifully  recompence 
the  same.  For  the  King's  majestie  hath  not 
regarded  how  great,  but  wrhat  a  man  he  was; 
he  hath  not  cast  his  eyes  upon  the  nobilitie 
of  his  bloud,  but  on  the  worth  of  his  person ; 
he  hath  respected  his  sufficiericie,  not  his 
profession;  finally,  he  would  show  by  this 
his  choyce,  that  he  hath  some  rare  subjects 
amongst  the  rowe  of  gentlemen  and  laymen, 
who  deserve  to  manage  the  highest  offices 
of  the  realme,  which  bishops  and  noblemen 
think  they  only  can  deserve.  The  rarer 
therefore  it  was,  so  much  both  himself  held 
it  to  be  the  more  excellent,  and  to  his  people 
he  thought  it  would  be  the  more  gratefull. 
Wherefore,  receave  this  your  chancellour 
with  joyful  acclamations,  at  whose  hands 
you  may  expect  all  happinesse  and  content.7 
"  Sir  Thomas  More,  according  to  his  wont 
ed  modestie,  was  somewhat  abashed  at  this 
the  duke's  speech,  in  that  it  sounded  so 
much  to  his  praise,  but  recollecting  himself 
as  that  place  and  time  would  give  him  leave, 
he  answered  in  this  sorte : — <•  Although,  most 
noble  duke,  and  you  right  honourable  lords, 
and  worshipfull  gentlemen,  I  knowe  all  these 
things,  which  the  King's  majestie,  it  seemeth, 
hath  bene  pleased  should  be  spoken  of  me 
at  this  time  and  place,  and  your  grace  hath 
with  most  eloquent  wordes  thus  amplifyed, 
are  as  far  from  me,  as  I  could  wish  with  all 
my  hart  they  were  in  me  for  the  better  per 
formance  of  so  great  a  charge ;  and  although 
this  your  speach  hath  caused  in  me  greater 
feare  than  I  can  well  express  in  words :  yet 
this  incomparable  favour  of  my  dread  soue- 
raigne,  by  which  he  showeth  how  well,  yea 


how  highly  he  conceaveth  of  my  weake- 
nesse,  having  commanded  that  my  meanesse 
should  be  so  greatly  commended,  cannot  be 
but  most  acceptable  unto  me ;  and  I  cannot 
choose  but  give  your  most  noble  grace  ex 
ceeding  thankes,  that  what  his  majestie  hath 
willed  you  briefly  to  utter,  you,  of  the  abun 
dance  of  your  love  unto  me,  have  in  a  large 
and  eloquent  oration  dilated.  As  for  myself, 
I  can  take  it  no  otherwise,  but  that  his  ma- 
jestie's  incomparable  favour  towards  me,  the 
good  will  and  incredible  propension  of  his 
royall  minde  (wherewith  he  has  these  manie 
yeares  favoured  me  continually)  hath  alone 
without  anie  desert  of  mine  at  all,  caused 
both  this  my  new  honour,  and  these  your 
undeserved  commendations  of  me.  For  who 
am  I,  or  what  is  the  house  of  my  father,  that 
the  King's  highnesse  should  heape  upon  me 
by  such  a  perpeiuall  streame  of  affection, 
these  so  high  honours?  I  am  farre  lesse  then 
anie  the  meanest  of  his  benefitts  bestowed 
on  me;  how  can  I  then  thinke  myself  wor- 
thie  or  fitt  for  this  so  peerlesse  dignitie  ?  I 
have  bene  drawen  by  force,  as  the  King's 
majestie  often  professeth.  to  his  highnesse's 
service,  to  be  a  courtier;  but  to  take  this 
dignitie  upon  me,  is  most  of  all  against  my 
will ;  yet  such  is  his  highnesse's  benignitie, 
such  is  his  bountie,  that  he  highly  esteem- 
eth  the  small  dutiefulnesse  of  his  meanest 
subjects,  and  seeketh  still  magnificently  to 
recompence  his  servants ;  not  only  such  as 
deserve  well,  but  even  such  as  have  but  a 
desire  to  deserve  well  at  his  hands,  in  which 
number  I  have  alwaies  wished  myself  to  be 
reckoned,  because  I  cannot  challenge  myself 
to  be  one  of  the  former;  which  being  so,  you 
may  all  perceave  with  me  how  great  a  bur 
den  is  layde  upon  my  backe,  in  that  I  must 
strive  in  some  sorte  with  my  diligence  and 
dutie  to  corresponde  with  his  royall  benevo 
lence,  and  to  be  answerable J^hat  great  ex 
pectation,  which  he  and  yo^Mfeme  to  have 
of  me ;  wherefore  those  so  ffl§R  praises  are 
by  me  so  much  more  grievous  unto  me,  by 
how  much  more  I  know  the  greater  charge 
I  have  to  render  myself  worthie  of,  and  the 
fewer  means  I  have  to  make  them  goode. 
This  weight  is  hardly  suitable  to  my  weake 
shoulders;  this  honour  is  not  correspondent 
to  my  poore  desert;  it  is  a  burden,  not  a 
glorie ;  a  care,  not  a  dignitie ;  the  one  there 
fore  I  must  beare  as  manfully  as  I  can,  and 
discharge  the  other  with  as  much  dexteritie 
as  I  shall  be  able.  The  earnest  desire  which 
I  have  alwaies  had  and  doe  now  acknow 
ledge  myself  to  have,  to  satisfye  by  all 
meanes  I  can  possible,  the  most  ample  be 
nefitts  of  his  highnesse,  will  greatly  excite 
and  ayde  me  to  the  diligent  performance  of 
all,  which  I  trust  also  I  shall  be  more  able 
to  doe.  if  I  finde  all  your  good  wills  and 
wishes  both  favourable  unto  me,  and  con 
formable  to  his  royall  munificence  :  because 
my  serious  endeavours  to  doe  well,  joyned 
with  your  favourable  acceptance,  will  easily 
procure  that  whatsoever  is  performed  by  me, 
though  it  be  in  itself  but  small,  yet  will  it 


68 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAY'S. 


seeme  great  and  praiseworthie ;  for  those 
things  are  alwaies  atchieved  happily,  which 
are  accepted  willingly ;  and  those  succeede 
fortunately,  which  are  receaved  by  others 
courteously.  As  you  therefore  doe  hope  for 
great  matters,  and  the  best  at  my  hands,  so 
though  I  dare  not  promise  anie  such,  yet  do 
I  promise  truly  and  affectionately  to  per- 
forme  the  best  I  shall  be  able.' 

"When  Sir  Thomas  More  had  spoken 
these  wordes,  turning  his  face  to  the  high 
judgment  seate  of  the  chancerie,  he  pro 
ceeded  in  this  manner : — l  But  when  I  looke 
upon  this  seate,  when  I  thinke  how  greate 
arid  what.kinde  of  personages  have  possessed 
this  place  before  me,  when  I  call  to  minde 
who  he  was  that  sate  in  it  last  of  all — a  man 
•of  what  singular  wisdome,  of  what  notable 
experience,  what  a  prosperous  and  favour 
able  fortune  he  had  for  a  great  space,  arid 
how  at  the  last  he  had  a  most  grevious  fall, 
arid  dyed  inglorious — I  have  cause  enough 
by  my  predecessor's  example  to  think  hon 
our  but  slipperie,  and  this  dignitie  not  so 
grateful  to  me  as  it  may  seeme  to  others  ; 
for  both  is  it  a  hard  matter  to  follow  with 
like  paces  or  praises,  a  man  of  such  admira 
ble  witt,  prudence,  authoritie,  and  splendour, 
to  whome  I  may  seeme  but  as  the  lighting 
of  a  candle,  when  the  sun  is  downe ;  arid 
.also  the  sudden  and  unexpected  fall  of  so 
.great  a  man  as  he  was  doth  terribly  putt  me 
in  minde  that  this  honour  ought  not  to  please 
me  too  much,  nor  the  lustre  of  this  glistering 
seate  dazel  mine  eyes.  Wherefore  I  ascende 
this  seate  as  a  place  full  of  labour  and  dan 
ger,  voyde  of  all  solide  and  true  honour; 
the  wrhich  by  how  much  the  higher  it  is,  by 
so  much  greater  fall  I  am  to  feare,  as  well  in 
respect  of  the  verie  nature  of  the  thing  it 
selfe,  as  because  I  am  warned  by  this  late 
fearfull  examrie.  And  truly  I  might  even 
now  at  this4|^ftkjust  entrance  stumble,  yea 
faynte,  burl^MJiis  majestie's  most  singular 
favour  towar^KT me;  and  all  your  good  wills, 
which  your  joyfull  countenance  doth  testifye 
in  this  most  honorable  assemblie,  doth  some 
what  recreate  and  refresh  me;  otherwise 
this  seate  would  be  no  more  pleasing  to  me, 
than  that  sword  was  to  Damocles,  which 
hung  over  his  head,  tyed  only  by  a  hayre  of 
a  horse's  tale,  when  he  had  store  of  delicate 
fare  before  him,  seated  in  the  chair  of  slate 
of  Denis  the  tir'ant  of  Sicilie ;  this  therefore 
shall  be  always  fresh  in  my  minde,  this  will 
I  have  still  before  mine  eies,  that  this  seate 
will  be  honorable,  famous,  and  full  of  glorie 
unto  me,  if  I  shall  with  care  and  diligence, 
fidelitie  and  wisedome,  endeavour  to  doe 
my  dutie,  and  shall  persuade  myself,  that 
the  enjoying  thereof  may  be  but  short  and 
uncertaine :  the  one  whereof  my  labour  ought 
to  performe ;  the  other  my  predecessor's  ex 
ample  may  easily  teach  me.  All  which  be 
ing  so,  you  may  easily  perceave  what  great 
pleasure  I  take  in  this  high  dignitie,  or  in 
this  most  noble  duke's  praising  of  me.' 

"  All  the  world  took  notice  now  of  sir 
Thomas's  dignitie,  whereof  Erasmus  writeth 


to  John  Fabius,  bishop  of  Vienna,  thus  :~ 
1  Concerning  the  new  increase  of  honour 
lately  happened  to  Thomas  More,  I  should 
easily  make  you  believe  it,  if  I  should  show 
you  the  letters  of  many  famous  men,  rejoi 
cing  with  much  alacritie,  and  congratulating 
the  King,  the  realme,  himself,  and  also  me, 
for  More's  honor,  in  being  made  lord  chan- 
cellour  of  England.' " 

At  the  period  of  the  son's  promotion,  Sir 
John  More  who  was  nearly  of  the  age  of 
ninety,  was  the  most  ancient  judge  of  the 
King's  Bench.  "What  a  grate'furspectacle 
was  it,"  says  their  descendant,  "to  see  the 
son  ask  the  blessing  of  the  father  every  day 
upon  his  knees  before  he  sat  upon  his  own 
seat  V*  Even  in.  a  more  unceremonious 
age,  the  simple  character  of  More  would 
have  protected  these  daily  rites  of  filial  re 
verence  from  that  suspicion  of  affectation; 
which  could  alone  destroy  their  charm. 
But  at  that  time  it  must  have  borrowed  its 
chief  power  from  the  conspicuous  excellence 
of  the  father  and  son.  For  if  inward  worth 
had  then  borne  any  proportion  to  the  grave 
and  reverend  ceremonial  of  the  age,  we 
might  be  well  warranted  in  regarding  our 
forefathers  as  a  race  of  superior  beings. 

The  contrast  which  the  humble  and  affa 
ble  More  afforded  to  the  haughty  cardinal, 
astonished  and  delighted  the  suitors.  No 
application  could  be  made  to  Wolsey,  which 
did  not  pass  through  many  hands;  and  no 
man  could  apply,  whose  fingers  were  not 
tipped  with  gold :  but  More  sat  daily  in  an 
open  hall,  that  he  might  receive  in  person 
the  petitions  of  the  poor.  If  any  reader 
should  blame  his  conduct  in  this  respect,  as 
a  breach  of  an  ancient  and  venerable  pre 
cept, — "Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness  in 
judgment ;  thou  shalt  not  respect  the  person 
of  the  poor,  nor  honour  the  person  of  the 
mighty ;  but  in  righteousness  shalt  \ho\i  judge 
thy  neighbour,"!  let  it  be  remembered,  that 
there  still  clung  to  the  equitable  jurisdiction 
some  remains  of  that  precarious  and  eleemo 
synary  nature  from  which  itorigirially  sprung; 
which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  compassionate 
chancellor,  might  warrant  more  preference 
for  the  helpless  poor  than  could  be  justified 
in  proceedings  more  rigorously  legal. 

Courts  of  law  were  jealous  then,  as  since, 
of  the  power  assumed  by  chancellors  to 
issue  injunctions  to  parties  to  desist  from, 
doing  certain  acts  which  they  were  by  lavv 
entitled  to  do,  until  the  court  of  chancery 
should  determine  whether  the  exercise  of  the 
legal  right  would  not  work  injustice.  There 
are  many  instances  in  which  irreparable 
wrong  may  be  committed,  before  a  right  can 
be  ascertained,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  pro 
ceedings.  In  such  cases  it  is  the  province 
of  the  Chancellor  to  take  care  that  affairs 
shall  continue  in  their  actual  condition  until 
the  questions  in  dispute  be  determined.  A 
considerable  outcry  against  this  necessary, 
though  invidious  authority,  was  raised  at  the 


More,  p.  163.        t  Leviticus,  chap.  xix.  v.  15. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


commencement  of  More's  chancellorship. 
He  silenced  this  clamour  with  his  wonted 
prudence  and  meekness.  Having  caused 
one  of  the  six  clerks  to  make  out  a  list  of  the 
injunctions  issued  by  him,  or  pending  before 
him,  he  invited  all  the  judges  to  dinner.  He 
laid  the  list  before  them;  and  explained  the 
circumstances  of  each  case  so  satisfactorily, 
that  they  all  confessed  that  in  the  like  case 
they  would  have  done  no  less.  Nay,  he 
offered  to  desist  from  the  jurisdiction,  if  they 
would  undertake  to  contain  the  law  within 
the  boundaries  of  righteousness,  which  he 
thought  they  ought  in  conscience  to  do.  The 
judges  declined  to  make  the  attempt;  on 
which  he  observed  privately  to  Roper,  that 
he  saw  they  trusted  to  their  influence  for 
obtaining  verdicts  which  would  shift  the  re 
sponsibility  from  them  to  the  juries.  "  Where 
fore,"  said  he,  "I  am  constrained  *to  abide 
the  adventure  of  their  blame." 

Dauncey,  one  of  his  sons-in-law,  alleged 
that  under  Wolsey  "  even  the  door-keepers 
got  great  gains,"  and  was  so  perverted  by 
the  venality  there  practised  that  he  expostu 
lated  with  More  for  his  churlish  integrity. 
The  chancellor  said,  that  if  "his  father, 
whom  he  reverenced  dearly,  were  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  devil,  whom  he  hated  with 
all  his  might,  on  the  other,  the  devil  should 
have  his  right."  He  is  represented  by  his 
descendant,  as  softening  his  answer  by  pro 
mising  minor  advantages,  such  as  priority  of 
hearing,  and  recommendation  of  arbitration, 
where  the  case  of  a  friend  was  bad.  The 
biographer,  however,  not  being  a  lawyer, 
might  have  misunderstood  the  conversation, 
which  had  to  pass  through  more  than  one 
generation  before  the  tradition  reached  him ; 
or  the  words  may  have  been  a  ha'sty  effusion 
of  good  nature,  uttered  only  to  qualify  the 
roughness  of  his  honesty.  If  he  had  been 
called  on  to  perform  these  promises,  his  head 
and  heart  would  have  recoiled  alike  from 
breaches  of  equality  which  he  would  have 
felt  to  be  altogether  dishonest.  When  Heron, 
another  of  his  sons-in-law,  relied  on  the  bad 
practices  of  the  times,  so  far  as  to  entreat  a 
favourable  judgment  in  a  cause  of  his  own, 
More,  though  the  most  affectionate  of  fathers, 
immediately  undeceived  him  by  an  adverse 
decree.  .  This  act  of  common  justice  is  made 
an  object  of  panegyric  by  the  biographer,  as 
if  it  were  then  deemed  an  extraordinary  in 
stance  of  virtue;  a  deplorable  symptom  of 
that  corrupt  state  of  general  opinion,  which, 
half  a  century  later,  contributed  to  betray 
into  ignominious  vices  the  wisest  of  men, 
and  the  most  illustrious  of  chancellors, — if 
the  latter  distinction  be  not  rather  due  to  the 
virtue  of  a  More  or  a  Somers. 

He  is  said  to  have  despatched  the  causes 
oefore  him  so  speedily,  that,  on  asking  for 
the  next,  he  was  told  that  none  remained ; 
which  is  boastfully  contrasted  by  Mr.  More, 
his  descendant,  with  the  arrear  of  a  thousand 
in  the  time  of  that  gentleman,  who  lived  in 
the  reign  of  Charles  I. :  though  we  have 
already  seen  that  this  difference  may  be  re 


ferred  to  other  causes,  and  therefore  that  the 
fact,  if  true,  proves  no  more  than  his  exem 
plary  diligence  arid  merited  reputation. 

The  scrupulous  and  delicate  integrity  of 
More  (for  so  it  must  be  called  in  speaking  of 
that  age)  was  more  clearly  shown  after  his 
resignation,  than  it  could  have  been  during 
his  continuance  in  office.  One  Parnell  com 
plained  of  him  for  a  decree  obtained  by  his 
adversary  Vaughan.  whose  wife  had  bribed 
the  chancellor  by  a  gilt  cup.  More  surprised 
the  counsel  at  first,  by  owning  that  he  re 
ceived  the  cup  as  a  new  year's  gift.  Lord 
Wiltshire,  a  zealous  Protestant,  indecently, 
but  prematurely,  exulted:  "Did  I  not  tell 
you,  my  lords,"  said  he,  "'that  you  would 
find  this  matter  true'?"  "'But,  my  lords," 
replied  More,  "hear  the  other  part  of  my 
tale."  He  then  told  them  that,  "having 
drank  to  her  o'f  wine  with  which  his  butler 
had  filled  the  cup,  and  she  having  pledged 
him,  he  restored  it  to  her,  and  would  listen 
to  no  refusal."  When  Mrs.  Croker,  for 
whom  he  had  made  a  decree  against  Lord 
Arundel,  came  to  him  to  request  his  accep 
tance  of  a  pair  of  gloves,  in  which  were  con 
tained  401.  in  angels,  he  told  her,  with  a 
smile,  that  it  were  ill  manners  to  refuse  a 
lady's  present ;  but  though  he  should  keep 
the  gloves,  he  must  return  the  gold,  which 
he  enforced  her  to  receive.  Gresham,  a 
suitor,  sent  him  a  present  of  a  gilt  cup,  of 
which  the  fashion  pleased  him :  More  ac 
cepted  it ;  but  would  not  do  so  till  Gresham 
received  from  him  another  cup  of  greater 
value,  but  of  which  the  form  and  workman 
ship  were  less  suitable  to  the  Chancellor.  It 
would  be  an  indignity  to  the  memory  of  such 
a  man  to  quote  these  ^acts  as  proofs  of  his 
probity;  but  they  may  be  mentioned  as  spe 
cimens  of  the  simple  and  unforced  honesty 
of  one  who  rejected  impropmroflers  with  all 
the  ease  and  pleasantry  oj^^HBn  courtesy. 

Henry,  in  bestowing  {^I^HRt  seal  on 
More,  hoped  to  dispose  his^Hf  ellor  to  lend 
his  authority  to  the  projects  of  divorce  and 
second  marriage,  which  were  now  agitating 
the  King's  mind,  and  were  the  main  objects 
of  his  policy.*  Arthur,  the  eldest  son  of 
Henry  VII.,  having  married  Catharine,  the 
daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  sove 
reigns  of  Castile  and  Arragon,  and  dying 
very  shortly  after  his  nuptials,  Henry  had 
obtained  a  dispensation  from  Pope  Julius  II. 
to  enable  the  princess  to  marry  her  brother- 
in-law,  afterwards  Henry  VIII.  j  and  in  this 
last-mentioned  union,  of  which  the  Princess 
|  Mary  was  the  only  remaining  fruit,  the  par- 
I  ties  had  lived  sixteen  years  in  apparent  har- 
|  mony.  But  in  the  year  15,27,  arose  a  con- 
i  currence  of  events,  which  tried  and  estab- 
j  lished  the  virtue  of  More,  and  revealed  to 
|  the  world  the  depravity  of  his  master.  Henry 
had  been  touched  by  the  charms  of  Anne 
i  Boleyn,  a  beautiful  young  lady,  in  her  t  wenty- 

i  *" Thomas  Morus.  doctrina  et  prnbiiafe  sperta- 
;  bills  vir,  cnncellarius  in  Wolsrei  locum  constitui- 
j  tur.  Ntufiquam  Regis  causa  cequior." — Thuanus, 
!  Historia  sui  Temporis,  lib.  ii.  c.  16. 


70 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


second  year,  the  daughter  of  Sir  Thomas 
Boleyn,  Earl  of  Wiltshire,  who  had  lately 
returned  from  the  court  of  France,  where 
her  youth  had  been  spent.  At  the  same 
moment  it  became  the  policy  of  Francis  I. 
to  loosen  all  the  ties  which  joined  the  King 
of  England  to  the  Emperor.  When  the 
Bishop  of  Tarbes.  his  ambassador  in  Eng 
land,  found,  on  his  arrival  in  London,  the 
growing  distaste  of  Henry  for  his  inoffensive 
and  exemplary  wife,  he  promoted  the  King's 
inclination  towards  divorce,  and  suggested 
a  marriage  with  Margaret  Duchess  of  Alen- 
9011,  the  beautiful  and  graceful  sister  of 
Francis  I.* 

At  this  period  Henry  for  the  first  time 
professed  to  harbour  conscientious  doubts 
whether  the  dispensation  of  Julius  II.  could 
suspend  the  obligation  of  the  divine  prohibi 
tion  pronounced  against  such  a  marriage  as 
his  in  the  Levitical  law.t  The  court  of 
Rome  did  not  dare  to  contend  that  the  dis 
pensation  could  reach  the  case  if  the  prohi 
bition  were  part  of  the  universal  law  of  God. 
Henry,  on  the  other  side,  could  not  consistent 
ly  question  its  validity,  if  he  considered  the 
precept  as  belonging  to  merely  positive  law. 
To  this  question,  therefore,  the  dispute  was 
confined,  though  both  parties  shrunk  from  an 
explicit  and  precise  avowal  of  their  main 
ground.  The  most  reasonable  solution  that 
it  was  a  local  and  temporary  law,  forming  a 
part  of  the  Hebrew  code,  might  seem  at  first 
sight  to  destroy  its  authority  altogether.  But 
if  either  party  had  been  candid,  this  prohi 
bition,  adopted  by  all  Christendom,  might  be 
justified  by  that  general  usage,  in  a  case 
where  it  was  not  remarkably  at  variance 
with  reason  or  the  ptiblic  welfare.  But  such 
a  doctrine  would  have  lowered  the  ground 
of  the  Papal  authority  too  much  to  be  ac 
ceptable  t^taaae,  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
rested  it  j^^BBbpexceptionable  a  foundation 
to  suit  thefj^Hpf  Henry.  False  allegations 
of  facts  in^raftfeamble  of  the  bull  were 
alleged  on  the  same  side ;  but  they  were  in 
conclusive.  The  principal  arguments  in  the 
King's  favour  were,  that  no  precedents  of 
such  a  dispensation  seem  to  have  been  pro 
duced  j  arid  that  if  the  Levitical  prohibitions 


*  "  Margarita  Francisci  soror,  spectatae  formae 
et  yenustatis  foDmina,  Carolo  Alenconio  diice 
marito  paulo  ante  mortuo,  vidua  permanserat.  Ea 
destinata  uxor  Henrico :  missique  Wolsaaus  et 
Bigerronum  Prresul  qui  de  dissolvendo  matrimo- 
nio  cum  Gallo  agerent.  Ut  Caletum  appulit, 
Wolsaeus  mandatum  a  rege  contrarium  accipit, 
resciyitque  per  amicos  Henricum  non  tam  Galli 
adfinitatem  quam  insanum  amorem,  quo  Annam 
Bolenam  prosequebatur,  explere  velle." — Ibid. 
No  trace  of  the  latter  part  appears  in  the  State 
Papers  just  (1831)  published. 

t  Leviticus,  chap.  xx.  v.  22.  But  see  Deutero 
nomy,  chap.  xxy.  v.  5.  The  latter  text,  which 
allows  an  exception  in  the  case  of  a  brother's  wife 
being  left  childless,  may  be  thought  to  strengthen 
the  prohibition  in  all  cases  not  excepted.  It  may 
seem  applicable  to  the  precise  case  of  Henry. 
But  the  application  of  that  text  is  impossible  ;  for 
it  contains  an  injunction,  of  which  the  breach  is 
chastised  by  a  disgraceful  punishment. 


do  not  continue  in  force  under  the  Gospel, 
there  is  no  prohibition  against  incestuous 
marriages  in  the  system  of  the  New  Testa 
ment.  It  was  a  disadvantage  to  the  Church 
of  Rome  in  the  controversy,  that  being  driven 
from  the  low  ground  by  its  supposed  ten 
dency  to  degrade  the  subject,  and  deterred 
from  the  high  ground  by  the  fear  of  the  re 
proach  of  daring  usurpation,  the  inevitable 
consequence  was  confusion  and  fluctuation 
respecting  the  first  principles  on  which  the 
question  was  to  be  determined. 

To  pursue  this  subject  through  the  long 
negotiations  and  discussions  which  it  occa 
sioned  during  six  years,  would  be  to  lead  us 
far  from  our  subject.  Clement  VII.  (Medici) 
had  been  originally  inclined  to  favour  the 
suit*  of  Henry,  according  to  the  usual  policy 
of  the  Roman  Court,  which  sought  plausible 
pretexts  for  facilitating  the  divorce  of  kings, 
whose  matrimonial  connections  might  be 
represented  as  involving  the  quiet  of  nations. 
The  sack  of  Rome,  however,  and  his  own 
captivity  left  him  full  of  fear  of  the  Empe 
ror's  power  and  displeasure  ;  it  is  even  said 
that  Charles  V.,  who  had  discovered  the 
secret  designs  of  the  English  court,  had  ex 
torted  from  the  Pope,  before  his  release,  a  pro 
mise  that  no  attempt  would  be  made  to  dis 
honour  an  Austrian  princess  by  acceding  to 
the  divorce."!"  The  Pope,  unwilling  to  provoke 
Henry,  his  powerful  and  generous  protector, 
instructed  Campeggio  to  attempt,  at  first,  a 
reconciliation  between  the  King  and  Queen  ; 
secondly,  if  that  failed,  to  endeavour  to  per 
suade  her  that  she  ought  to  acquiesce  in  her 
husband's  desires,  by  entering  into  a  cloister 
— (a  proposition  which  seems  to  show  a  rea 
diness  in  the  Roman  court  to  waive  their 
theological  difficulties);  and  thirdly,  if  nei 
ther  of  these  attempts  were  successful,  to 
spin  out  the  negotiation  to  the  greatest  length, 
in  order  to  profit  by  the  favourable  incidents 
which  time  might  bring  forth.  The  impa 
tience  of  the  King  and  the  honest  indigna 
tion  of  the  Queen  defeated  these  arts  of 
Italian  policy;  while  the  resistance  of  Anne 
Boleyn  to  the  irregular  gratification  of  the 
King's  desires, — without  the  belief  of  which 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive  the  motives  for 
his  perseverance  in  the  pursuit  of  an  unequal 
marriage, — opposed  another  impediment  to 
the  counsels  and  contrivances  of  Clement, 
which  must  have  surprised  and  perplexed  a 
Florentine  pontiff.  The  proceedings,  how 
ever,  terminated  in  the  sentence  pronounced 
by  Cranmer  annulling  the  marriage,  the 
espousal  of  Anne  Boleyn  by  the  King,  and 
the  rejection  of  the  Papal  jurisdiction  by 
the  kingdom,  which  still,  however,  adhered 
to  the  doctrines  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church. 

The  situation  of  More  during  a  great  part 
of  these  memorable  events  was  embarrass 
ing.  The  great  offices  to  which  he  had 
been  raised'by  the  King,  the  personal  favoui 
hitherto  constantly  shown  to  him,  and  the 


*  Pallavicino,  lib.  ii.  c.  15. 


t  Ibid. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


natural  tendency  of  his  gentle  and  quiet  dis 
position,  combined  to  disincline  him  to  re 
sistance  against  the  wishes  of  his  friendly 
master.  On  the  other  hand,  his  growing 
dread  and  horror  of  heresy,  with  its  train  of 
disorders;  his  belief  that  universal  anarchy 
would  be  the  inevitable  result  of  religious 
dissension,  and  the  operation  of  seven  years' 
controversy  on  behalf  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
in  heating  his  mind  on  all  subjects  involving 
the  extent  of  her  authority,  made  him  re 
coil  from  designs  which  were  visibly  tend 
ing  towards  disunion  with  the  Roman  pon 
tiff', — the  centre  of  Catholic  union,  and  the 
supreme  magistrate  of  the  ecclesiastical 
commonwealth.  Though  his  opinions  re 
lating  to  the  Papal  authority  were  of  a  mo 
derate  and  liberal  nature,  he  at  least  respect 
ed  it  as  an  ancient  and  venerable  control  on 
licentious  opinions,  of  which  the  prevailing 
heresies  attested  the  value  and  the  necessity. 
Though  he  might  have  been  better  pleased 
with  another  determination  by  the  supreme 
pontiff,  it  did  not  follow  that  he  should  con 
tribute  to  weaken  the  holy  See,  assailed  as  it 
was  on  every  side,  by  taking  an  active  part 
in  resistance  to  the  final  decision  of  a  lawful 
authority.  Obedience  to  the  supreme  head 
of  the  Church  in  a  case  which  ultimately 
related  only  to  discipline,  appeared  peculiarly 
incumbent  on  all  professed  Catholics.  But 
however  sincere  the  zeal  of  More  for  the 
-Catholic  religion  and  his  support  of  the  legi 
timate  supremacy  of  the  Roman  See  un 
doubtedly  were,  he  was  surely  influenced  at 
the  same  time  by  the  humane  feelings  of 
his  just  and  generous  nature,  which  engaged 
his  heart  to  espouse  the  cause  of  a  blame 
less  and  wronged  princess,  driven  from  the 
throne  and  the  bed  of  a  tyrannical  husband. 
Though  he  reasoned  the  case  as  a  divine  and 
a  canonist,  he  must  have  felt  it  as  a  man ; 
and  honest  feeling  must  have  glowed  be 
neath  the  subtleties  and  formalities  of  doubt 
ful  and  sometimes  frivolous  disputations.  It 
was  probably  often  the  chief  cause  of  con 
duct  for  which  other  reasons  might  be  sin 
cerely  alleged. 

In  steering  his  course  through  the  intrigues 
and  passions  of  the  court,  it  is  very  observa 
ble  that  More  most  warily  retired  from  every 
opposition  but  that  which  Conscience  abso 
lutely  required :  he  shunned  unnecessary 
disobedience  as  much  as  unconscientious 
compliance.  If  he  had  been  influenced  solely 
by  prudential  considerations,  he  could  not 
have  more  cautiously  shunned  every  need 
less  opposition ;  but  in  that  case  he  would  not 
have  gone  so  far.  He  displayed,  at  the  time 
of  which  we  now  speak,  that  very  peculiar 
excellence  of  his  character,  which,  as  it 
showed  his  submission  to  be  the  fruit  of 
sense  of  duty,  gave  dignity  to  that  which  in 
others  is  apt  to  seem,  and  to  be  slavish.  His 
anxiety  had  increased  with  the  approach  to 
maturity  of  the  King's  projects  of  divorce  and 
second  marriage.  Some  anecdotes  of  this 
period  are  preserved  by  the  affectionate  and 
descriptive  pen  of  Margaret  Roper's  husband, 


which,  as  he  evidently  reports  in  the  chan- 
ellor's  language,  it  would  be  unpardonable 
to  relate  in  any  other  words  than  those  of 
the  venerable  man  himself.  Roper,  indeed, 
ike  another  Plutarch,  consults  the  unre 
strained  freedom  of  his  story  by  a  disregard 
of  dates,  which,  however  agreeable  to  a  gene 
ral  reader,  is  sometimes  unsatisfactory  to  a 
searcher  after  accuracy.  Yet  his  office  in  a 
court  of  law,  where  there  is  the  strongest 
inducement  to  ascertain  truth,  arid  the  largest 
experience  of  the  means  most  effectual  for 
hat  purpose,  might  have  taught  him  the  ex 
treme  importance  of  time  as  well  as  place  in 
estimating  the  bearing  and  weight  of  testi 
mony. 

:'0n  a  time  walking  with  me  along  the 
Thames'  side  at  Chelsea,  he  said  unto  me, 
'  Now  would  to  our  Lord,  son  Roper,  upon 
condition  that  three  things  were  well  esta 
blished  in  Christendom,  I  were  put  into  a  sack, 
and  were  presently  cast  into  the  Thames.' 
— ' What  great  things  be  those,  sir?'  quoth 
I,  'that  should  move  you  so  to  wish.' — 'In 
faith,  son,  they  be  these,'  said  he.  'The 
first  is,  that  whereas  the  most  part  of  Chris 
tian  princes  be  at  mortal  war,  they  were  all 
at  universal  peace.  The  second,  that  where 
the  church  of  Christ  is  at  present  sore  afflict 
ed  with  many  errors  and  heresies,  it  were 
well  settled  in  perfect  uniformity  of  reli 
gion.  The  third)  that  as  the  matter  of  the 
King's  marriage  is  now  come  in  question,  it 
were,  to  the  glory  of  God  and  quietness  of 
all  parties,  brought  to  a  good  conclusion.'  "* 
On  another  occasion.!  "  before  the  matri 
mony  was  brought  in  question,  when  I.  in 
talk  with  Sir  Thomas  More  (of  a  certain  joy), 
commended  unto  him  the  happy  estate  of 
this  realm,  that  had  so  catholic  a  prince,  so 
grave  and  sound  a  nobility,  and  so  loving, 
obedient  subjects,  agreeing  in  one  faith. 
'Truth  it  is,  indeed,  son  Roper;  and  yet  I 
pray  God,  as  high  as  we  sit  upon  the  moun 
tains,  treading  heretics  under  our  feet  like 
ants,  live  not  the  day  that  we  gladly  would 
wish  to  be  at  league  and  composition  with 
them,  to  let  them  have  their  churches,  so 
that  they  would  be  contented  to  let  us  have 
ours  quietly.'  I  answered,  'By  my  troth,  it 
is  very  desperately  spoken.'  He,  perceiving 
me  to  be  in  a  fume,  said  merrily, — 'Well, 
well,  son  Roper,  it  shall  not  be  so/  Whom," 
concludes  Roper,  in  sixteen  years  and  more, 
being  in  his  house,  conversant  with  him,  I 
never  could  perceive  him  as  much  as  once 
in  a  fume."  Doubtless  More  was  some 
what  disquieted  by  the  reflection,  that  some 
of  those  who  now  appealed  to  the  freedom 
of  his  youthful  philosophy  against  himself 
would  speedily  begin  to  abuse  such  doctrines 
by  turning  them  against  the  peace  which  he 
loved, — that  some  of  the  spoilers  of  Rome 


*  The  description  of  the  period  appears  to  suit 
the  year  1529,  before  the  peace  of  Cambray  and 
the  recall  of  the  lesate  Campeggio. 

t  Probably  in  the  beginning  of  1527,  after  the 
promotion  of  More  to  be  chancellor  of  the  duchy 
of  Lancaster. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


might  exhibit  the  like  scenes  of  rapine  and 
blood  in  the  city  which  was  his  birth-place 
and  his  dwelling-place :  yet,  even  then,  the 
placid  mien,  which  had  stood  the  test  of 
every  petty  annoyance  for  sixteen  years, 
was  unruffled  by  alarms  for  the  impending- 
fate  of  his  country  and  of  his  religion. 

Henry  used  every  means  of  procuring  an 
opinion  favourable  to  his  wishes  from  his 
chancellor,  who,  however,  excused  himself 
as  unmeet  for  such  matters,  having  never 
professed  the  study  of  divinity.  But  the 
King  "  sorely"  pressed  him.*  and  never 
ceased  urging  him  until  he  had  promised  to 
give  his  consent,  at  least,  to  examine  the 
question,  conjointly  with  his  friend  Tunstall 
and  other  learned  divines.  This  examina 
tion  over,  More,  with  his  wonted  ingenuity 
and  gentleness,  conveyed  the  result  to  his 
master.  "To  be  plain  with  your  grace, 
neither  your  bishops,  wise  and  virtuous 
though  they  be;  nor  myself,  nor  any  other 
of  your  council,  by  reason  of  your  manifold 
benefits  bestowed  on  us.  are  meet  counsel 
lors  for  your  grace  herein.  If  you  mind  to 
understand  the  truth,  consult  St.  Jerome,  St. 
Augustin,  and.  other  holy  doctors  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  churches,  who  will  not  be  inclined 
to  deceive  you  by  respect  of  their  own  worldly 
commodity,  or  by  fear  of  your  princely  dis 
pleasure. "t  Though  the  King  di'd  not  like 
what  "  w^as  disagreeable  to  his  desires,  yet 
the  language  of  More  was  so  wisely  temper 
ed,  that  for  the  present  he  took  it  in  good 
part,  and  oftentimes  had  conferences  with 
the  chancellor  thereon."  The  native  meek 
ness  of  More  was  probably  more  effectual 
than  all  the  arts  by  which  courtiers  ingratiate 
themselves,  or  insinuate  unpalatable  counsel. 
Shortly  after,  the  King  again  moved  him  to 
weigh  and  consider  the  great  matter :  the 
chancellor  fell  down  on  his  knees,  and  re 
minding  Henry  of  his  own  words  on  deliver 
ing  the  great  seal,  which  were, — "  First  look 
upon  God,  and  after  God  upon  me,"  added, 
that  nothing  had  ever  so  pained  him  as  that 
he  was  not  able  to  serve  him  in  that  matter, 
without  a  breach  of  that  original  injunction. 
The  King  said  he  was  .content  to  continue 
his  favour,  and  never  with  that  matter  mo 
lest  his  conscience  afterwards ;  but  when  the 
progress  towards  the  marriage  was  so  far 
advanced  that  the  chancellor  saw  how  soon 
his  active  co-operation  must  be  required,  he 
made  suit  to  his  "  singular  dear  friend,"  the 
Duke  of  Norfolk,  to  procure  his  discharge 
from  office.  The  duke,  often  solicited  by 
More,  then  obtained,  by  importunate  suit,  a 
clear  discharge  for  the  chancellor;  and  upon 
the  repairing  to  the  King,  to  resign  the  great 
seal  into  his  hands,  Henry  received  him  with 
thanks  and  praise  for  his  worthy  service,  and 
assured  him,  that  in  any  suit  that  should 
either  concern  his  honour  or  appertain  unto 
his  profit,  he  would  show  himself  a  good 
and  gracious  master  to  his  faithful  servant. 
He  then  further  directed  Norfolk,  when  he 


installed  his  successor,  to  declare  publicly, 
"  that  his  majesty  had  with  pain  yielded  to 
the  prayers  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  by  the  re 
moval  of  such  a  magistrate."* 

At  the  time  of  his  resignation  More  assert 
ed,  and  circumstances,  without  reference  to 
his  character,  demonstrate  the  truth  of  his 
assertion,  that  his  whole  income,  independ 
ent  of  grants  from  the  crown,  did  not  amount 
to  more  than  501.  yearly.  This  was  not  more 
than  an  eighth  part  of  his  gains  at  the  bar 
and  his  judicial  salary  from  the  city  of  Lon 
don  taken  together; — so  great  was  the  pro 
portion  in  which  his  fortune  had  declined 
during  eighteen  years  of  employment  in 
offices  of  such  trust,  advantage,  and  honour. t 
In  this  situation  the  clergy  voted,  as  a  testi 
monial  of  their  gratitude  to  him,  the  sum  of 
5000/.,  which,  according  to  the  rate  of  inte 
rest  at  that  time,  would  have  yielded  him 
500L  a  year,  being  ten  times  the  yearly  sum 
which  he  could  then  call  his  own.  But  good 
and  honourable  as  he  knewT  their  messengers, 
of  whom  Tunstall  was  one,  to  be,  he  declar 
ed,  "that  he  would  rather  cast  their  money 
into  the  sea  than  lake  it ;" — not  speaking  from 
a  boastful  pride,  most  foreign  from  his  nature, 
but  shrinking  with  a  sort  of  instinctive  deli 
cacy  from  the  touch  of  money,  even  before 
he  considered  how  much  the  acceptance  of 
the  gift  might  impair  his  usefulness. 

His  resources  were  of  a  nobler  nature. 
The  simplicity  of  his  tastes,  and  the  mode 
ration  of  his  indulgences  renderedVetrench- 
rnent  a  task  so  easy  to  himself,  as  to  be 
scarcely  perceptible  in  his  personal  habits. 
His  fool  or  jester,  then  a  necessary  part  of  a 
great  man's  establishment,  he  gave  to  the 
lord  mayor  for  the  time  being.  His  first  care 
was  to  provide  for  his  attendants,  by  placing 
his  gentlemen  and  yeomen  with  peers  and 
prelates,  and  his  eight  watermen  in  the  ser 
vice  of  his  successor  Sir  T.  Audley,  to  whom 
he  gave  his  great  barge, — one  of  the  most 
indispensable  appendages  of  his  office  in  an 
age  when  carriages  were  unknown.  His  sor 
row's  were  for  separation  from  those  whom 
he  loved.  He  called  together  his  children 
and  grandchildren,  who  had  hitherto  lived 
in  peace  and  love  under  his  patriarchal  roof, 
and,  lamenting  that  he  could  not,  as  he  was 
wont,  and  as  he  gladly  would,  bear  out  the 
whole  charges  of  them  all  himself,  continue 
living  together  as  they  were  wont,  he  prayed 
them  to  give  him  their  counsel  on  this  trying 
occasion.  When  he  saw  them  silent,  and 
unwilling  to  risk  their  opinion,  he  gave  them 
his,  seasoned  with  his  natural  gaiety,  and 
containing  some  strokes  illustrative  of  the 
state  of  society  at  that  time  : — "  I  have  been 
brought  up,"  quoth  he,  "  at  Oxford,  at  an  inn 
of  chancery,  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  and  also  in  the 
king's  court,  from  the  lowest  degree  to  the 
highest,  and  yet  I  have  at  present  left  me  lit 
tle  above  100Z.  a  year"  (including  the  king's 


*  Roper,  p.  32. 


t  Ibid.  p.  48. 


*  "  Honorifice  jussit  rex  de  me  testatum  reddere 
quod  ap.gro  ad  pieces  meas  nie  demiseri.t." — More 
to  Erasmus. 

t  Apology,  chap,  x. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


73 


grants;)  "so  that  now  if  we  like  to  live  to 
gether  we  must  be  content  to  be  contributa- 
ries  together  :  but  we  must  not  fall  to  the  low 
est  fare  first: — we  will  begin  with  Lincoln's 
Inri  diet,  where  many  right  worshipful  and 
of  good  years  do  live  lull  well ;  which,  if  we 
find  not  ourselves  the  first  year  able  to  main 
tain,  then  will  we  the  next  year  go  one  step 
to  New  Inn  fare  :  if  that  year  exceed  our  abili 
ty,  we  will  the  next  year  descend  to  Oxford 
fare,  where  many  grave,  learned,  and  ancient 
fathers  are  continually  conversant.  If  our 
ability  stretch  not  to  maintain  either,  then 
may  we  yet  with  bags  and  wallets  go  a  beg 
ging  together,  and  hoping  for  charity  at  every 
man's  door,  to  sing  Salve  regina;  and  so  still 
keep  company  and  be  merry  together."*  On 
the  Sunday  following  his  resignation,  he  stood 
at  the  door  of  his  wife's  pew  in  the  church, 
where  one  of  his  dismissed  gentlemen  had 
been  used  to  stand,  and  making  a  low  obei 
sance  to  Alice  as  she  entered,  said  to  her  with 
perfect  gravity, — "Madam,  my  lord  is  gone." 
He  who  for  seventeen  years  had  not  raised  his 
voice  in  displeasure,  could  not  be  expected 
to  sacrifice  the  gratification  of  his  innocent 
merriment  to  the  heaviest  blows  of  fortune. 

Nor  did  he  at  fit  times  fail  to  prepare  his 
beloved  children  for  those  more  cruel  strokes 
\vhich  he  began  to  foresee.  Discoursing  with 
them,  he  enlarged  on  the  happiness  of  suf 
fering  for  the  love  of  God,  the  loss  of  goods, 
of  liberty,  of  lands,  of  life.  He  would  further 
say  unto  them,  ':  that  if  he  might  perceive 
his  wife  and  children  would  encourage  him 
to  die  in  a  good  cause,  it  should  so  comfort 
him,  that  for  very  joy,  it  would  make  him 
run  merrily  to  death." 

It  must  be  owned  that  Henry  felt  the 
weight  of  this  great  man's  opinion,  and  tried 
every  possible  means  to  obtain  at  least  the 
appearance  of  his  spontaneous  approbation. 
Tunstall  and  other  prelates  were  command 
ed  to  desire  his  attendance  at  the  coronation 
of  Anne  at  Westminster.  They  wrote  a  let- 
ler  to  persuade  him  to  comply,  and  accom 
panied  it  with  the  needful  present  of  20/.  to 
buy  a  court  dress.  Such  overtures  he  had 
foreseen ;  for  he  said  some  time  before  to 
Roper,  when  he  first  heard  of  that  marriage, 
"God  grant,  son  Roper,  that  these  matters 
within  a  while  be  not  confirmed  with  oaths  !" 
He  accordingly  answered  his  friends  the  bi 
shops  well : — "  Take  heed,  my  lords:  by  pro 
curing  your  lordships  to  be  present  at  the 
coronation,  they  will  next  ask  you  to  preach 
for  the  setting  forth  thereof;  and  finally  to 
write  books  to  all  the  world  in  defence 
thereof." 

Another  opportunity  soon  presented  itself 
for  trying  to  subdue  the  obstinacy  of  More, 
whom  a  man  of  violent  nature  might  believe 
to  be  fearful,  because  he  was  peaceful. 
Elizabeth  Barton,  called  "  the  holy  maid  of 
Kent,"  who  had  been,  for  a  considerable 
number  of  years,  afflicted  by  convulsive 
maladies,  felt  her  morbid  susceptibility  so 


Roper,  pp.  51,52. 
10 


excited  by  Henry's  profane  defiance  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  and  his  cruel  desertion  of 
Catharine,  his  faithful  wife,  that  her  pious 
arid  humane  feelings  led  her  to  represent, 
and  probably  to  believe,  herself  to  be  visited 
by  a  divine  revelation  of  those  punishments 
which  the  King  was  about  to  draw  down  on 
himself  and  on  the  kingdom.  In  the  univer 
sal  opinion  of  the  sixteenth  century,  such  in 
terpositions  were  considered  as  still  occurring. 
The  neighbours  and  visiters  of  the  unfortu 
nate  young  woman  believed  her  ravings  to 
be  prophecies,  and  the  contortions  of  her 
body  to  be  those  of  a  frame  heaving  and 
struggling  under  the  awful  agitations  of  di 
vine  inspiration,  and  confirmed  that  convic 
tion  of  a  mission  from  God,  for  which  she 
was  predisposed  by  her  own  pious  benevo 
lence,  combined  with  the  general  error  of  the 
age.  '  Both  Fisher  and  More  appear  not  to 
have  altogether  disbelieved  her  pretensions  : 
More  expressly  declared,  that  he  durst  not 
and  would  not  be  bold  in  judging  her  mira 
cles.*1  In  the  beginning  of  her  prophecies, 
the  latter  had  been  commanded  by  the  King 
to  inquire  into  her  case  j  and  he  made  a  re 
port  to  Henry,  who  agreed  with  him  in  con 
sidering  the  whole  of  her  miraculous  preten 
sions  as  frivolous,  and  deserving  no  farther 
regard.  But  in  1532,  several  monks t  so 
magnified  her  performances  to  More  that  he 
was  prevailed  on  to  see  her ;  but  refused  to 
hear  her  speak  about  the  King,  saying  to  her, 
in  general  terms,  that  he  had  no  desire  to 
pry  into  the  concerns  of  others.  Pursuant, 
as  it  is  said,  to  a  sentence  by  or  in  the  Star 
Chamber,  she  stood  in  the  pillory  at  PauFa 
Cross,  acknowledging  herself  to  be  guilty  of 
the  imposture  of  claiming  inspiration,  and 
saying  that  she  was  tempted  to  this  fraud  by 
the  instigation  of  the  devil.  Considering  the- 
circumstances  of  the  case,  and  the  character 
of  the  parties,  it  is  far  more  probable  that  the 
ministers  sliould  have  obtained  a  false  con 
fession  from  her  hopes  of  saving  her  life,  than 
that  a  simple  woman  should  have  contrived 
and  carried  on,  for  many  years,  a  system  of 
complicated  and  elaborate  imposture.  It 
would  not  be  inconsistent  with  this  aquittal, 
to  allow  that,  in  the  course  of  her  self-delu 
sion,  she  should  have  been  induced,  by  some 
ecclesiastics  of  the  tottering  Church,  to  take 
an  active  part  in  these  pious  frauds,  which 
there  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  per 
sons  of  unfeigned  religion  have  been  often 
so  far  misguided  by  enthusiastic  zeal,  as  to 
perpetrate  or  to  patronize.  But  whatever 
were  the  motives  or  the  extent  of  the  "holy 
maid's"  confession,  it  availed  her  nothing; 
for  in  the  session  of  parliament  which  met 
in  January,  1534,  she  and  her  ecclesiastical 
prompters  were  attainted  of  high  treason,  and 
adjudged  to  suffer  death  as  traitors.  Fisher, 
bishop  of  Rochester,  and  others,  were  attain 
ted  of  misprision,  or  concealment  of  treason, 
for  which  they  were  adjudged  to  forfeiture 

*  Letter  to  Cromwell,  probably  written  in  the 
end  of  1532. 

t  Of  whom  some  were  afterwards  executed. 
G 


74 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


and  imprisonment  during  the  King's  plea 
sure.*  The  "holy  maid,"  with  her  spiritual 
guides,  suffered  death  at  Tyburn  on  the  21st 
of  April,  she  confirming  her  former  confes 
sion,  but  laying  her  crime  to  the  charge  of 
her  companions,  if  we  may  implicitly  believe 
the  historians  of  the  victorious  party. t 

Fisher  and  his  supposed  accomplices  in 
misprision  remained  in  prison  according  to 
their  attainder.  Of  More  the  statute  makes 
no  mention;  but  it  contains  a  provision, 
which,  when  it  is  combined  with  other  cir 
cumstances  to  be  presently  related,  appears 
to  have  been  added  to  the  bill  for  .the  pur 
pose  of  providing  for  his  safety.  By  this 
provision,  the  King's  majesty,  at  the  humble 
-suit  of  his  well  beloved  wife  Queen  Anne, 
pardons  all  persons  not  expressly  by  name 
attainted  by  the  statute,  for  all  misprision 
and  concealments  relating  to  the  false  arid 
feigned  miracles  and  prophecies  of  Elizabeth 
Barton,  on  or  before  the  20th  day  of  October, 
1533.  Now  we  are  told  by  Roper,£  •'  that 
Sir  Thomas  More's  name  was  originally  in 
serted  in  the  bill,"  the  King  supposing  that 
this  bill  would  "to  Sir  Thomas  More  be  so 
troublous  and  terrible,  that  it  would  force 
him  to  relent  and  condescend  to  his  request ; 
wherein  his  grace  was  much  deceived." 
More  was  personally  to  have  been  received 
to  make  answer  in  his  own  defence  :  but  the 
King,  not  liking  that,  sent  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  the  Chancellor,  the  Duke  of  Nor 
folk,  arid  Cromwell,  to  attempt  his  conver 
sion.  Audley  reminded  More  of  the  King's 
special  favour  and  many  benefits :  More  ad 
mitted  them ;  but  modestly  added,  that  his 
highness  had  most  graciously  declared  that 
on  this  matter  he  should  be  molested  no 
more.  When  in  the  end  they  saw  that  no 
persuasion  could  move  him.  they  then  said, 
cc  that  the  King's  highness  had  given  them 
in  commandment,  if  they  could  by  no  gen 
tleness  win  him,  in  the  King's  name  with 
ingratitude  to  charge  him,  that  never  was 
servant  to  his  master  so  villainous, §  nor  sub 
ject  to  his  prince  so  traitorous  as  he."  They 
even  reproached  him  for  having  either  writ 
ten  in  the  name  of  his  master,  or  betrayed 
his  sovereign  into  writing,  the  book  against 
Luther,  which  had  so  deeply  pledged  Henry 
to  the  support  of  Papal  pretensions.  To 
these  upbraidings  he  calmly  answered : — 
"  The  terrors  are  arguments  for  children, 
and  not  for  me.  As  to  the  fact,  the  King 
knoweth,  that  after  the  book  was  finished  by 
his  highness's  appointment,  or  the  consent  of 
the  maker,  I  was  only  a  sorter  out  and  placer 
of  the  principal  matters  therein  contained." 

*  25  H.  viii.  c.  12. 

t  Such  as  Hall  and  Holinshed.          t  p.  62. 

$  Like  a  slave  or  a  villain.  The  word  in  the 
tnouth  of  these  gentlemen  appears  to  have  been 
in  a  state  of  transition,  about  the  middle  point  be 
tween  the  original  sense  of  "  like  a  slave,"  and 
its  modern  acceptation  of  mean  or  malignant  of 
fenders.  What  proof  is  not  supplied  by  this  single 
fact  in  the  history  of  the  language  of  the  masters, 
of  their  conviction,  that  the  slavery  maintained  by 
them  doomed  the  slaves  to  depravity  ! 


!  He  added,  that  he  had  warned  the  King  of 
1  the  prudence  of  "  touching  the  pope's  au 
thority  more  slenderly,  and  that  he  had  re 
minded  Henry  of  the  statutes  of  premunire," 
whereby  ^  a  good  part  of  the  pope's  pastoral 
care  was  pared  away;"  and  that  impetuous 
monarch  had  answered,  '-We  are  so  much 
bounden  unto  the  See  of  Rome,  that  we  can 
not  do  too  much  honour  unto  it."  On  More's 
return  to  Chelsea  from  his  interview  with 
these  lords,  Roper  said  to  him : — "  I  hope  all 
is  well,  since  you  are  so  merry  ?" — "  It  is  so, 
indeed."  said  More,  "I  thank  God."— -Are 
you,  then,  out  of  the  parliament  bill?"  said 
Roper. — "  By  my  troth.  I  never  remembered 
it ;  but,"  said  More,  "  I  will  tell  thee  why  I 
was  so  merry;  because  I  had  given  the  devil  a 
foul  fall,  and  that  with  those  lords  I  had  gone 
so  far,  as  without  great  shame  I  can  never 
go  back  again."  This  frank  avowal  of  the 
power  of  temptation,  and  this  simple  joy  at 
having  at  the  hazard  of  life  escaped  from 
the  farther  seductions  of  the  court,  bestows 
a  greatness  on  these  few  and  familiar  words 
which  scarcely  belongs  to  any  other  of  the 
sayings  of  man. 

Henry,  incensed  at  the  failure  of  wheedling 
and  threatening  measures,  broke  out  into  vio 
lent  declarations  of  his  resolution  to  include 
More  in  the  attainder,  and  said  that  he 
should  be  personally  present  to  insure  the 
passing  of  the  bill.  Lord  Audley  and  his 
colleagues  on  their  knees  besought  their 
master  to  forbear,  lest  by  an  overthrow  in 
his  own  presence,  he  might  be  contemned  by 
his  own  subjects,  and  dishonoured  through 
out  Christendom  for  ever ; — adding,  that  they 
doubted  not  that  they  should  find  a  more 
meet  occasion  "to  serve  his  turn  ;"  for  that 
in  this  case  of  the  nun  he  was  so  clearly  in 
nocent,  that  men  deemed  him  far  worthier 
of  praise  than  of  reproof.  Henry  was  com 
pelled  to  yield.*  Such  was  the  power  of 
defenceless  virtue  over  the  slender  remains 
of  independence  among  slavish  peers,  and 
over  the  lingering  remnants  of  common  hu 
manity  which  might  still  be  mingled  with  a 
cooler  policy  in  the  bosoms  of  subservient 
politicians.  One  of  the  worst  of  that  race, 
Thomas  Cromwell,  on  meeting  Roper  in  the 
Parliament  House  next  day  after  the  King 
assented  to  the  prayer  of  his  ministers,  told 
him  to  tell  More  that  he  was  put  out  of  the 
bill.  Roper  sent  a  messenger  to  Margaret 
Roper,  who  hastened  to  her  beloved  father 
with  the  tidings.  More  answered  her,  with 
his  usual  gaiety  and  fondness,  "  In  faith, 
Megg,  what  is  put  off  is  not  given  up."t 


*  The  House  of  Lords  addressed  the  King, 
praying  him  to  declare  whether  it  would  be  agree 
able  to  his  pleasure  that  Sir  Thomas  More  and 
others  should  not  be  heard  in  their  own  defence 
before  "the  lords  in  the  royal  senate  called  the 
Stere  Chamber."  Nothing  more  appears  on  the 
Journals  relating  to  this  matter.  Lords'  Journals, 
6th  March,  1533.  The  Journals  prove  the  narra 
tive  of  Roper,  from  which  the  text  is  composed, 
to  be  as  accurate  as  it  is  beautiful. 

t  He  spoke  to  her  in  his  conversational  Latin,— 
"  Quod  differtur  non  aufertur." 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


Soon  after,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  said  to  him, 
— "  By  the  mass !  Master  More,  it  is  peril 
ous  striving  with  princes:  the  anger  of  a 
prince  brings  death." — "  Is  that  all,  my  lord  1 
then  the  difference  between  you  and  me  is 
but  this, — that  I  shall  die  to-day,  and  you  to 
morrow."  No  life  in  Plutarch  is  more  full 
•of  happy  sayings  and  striking  retorts  than 
that  of  More:  but  the  terseness  and  liveli 
ness  of  his  are  justly  overlooked  in  the 
contemplation  of  that  union  of  perfect  sim 
plicity  with  moral  grandeur,  which,  perhaps, 
no  other  human  being  has  so  uniformly 
reached. 

By  a  tyrannical  edict,  miscalled  "a  law," 
in  the  same  session  of  1533-4,  it  was  made 
high  treason,  after  the  1st  of  May,  1534,  by 
writing,  print,  deed  or  act,  to  do  or  to  pro 
cure,  or  cause  to  be  done  or  procured,  any 
thing  to  the  prejudice,  slander,  disturbance, 
or  derogation  of  the  King's  lawful  matrimony 
with  Queen  Anne.  If  the  same  offences 
should  be  committed  by  words,  they  were 
to  be  only  misprision.  The  same  act  en 
joined  all  persons  to  take  an  oath  to  main 
tain  its  whole  contents  ;  and  an  obstinate  re 
fusal  to  make  oath  was  subjected  to  the 
penalties  of  misprision.  No  form  of  oath 
was  enacted,  but  on  the  30th  of  March,* 
1534.  which  was  the  day  of  closing  the  ses 
sion, 'the  Chancellor  Audley,  when  the  com 
mons  were  at  the  bar,  but  when  they  could 
neither  deliberate  nor  assent,  read  the  King's 
letters  patent,  containing  one,  and  appointing 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Chancel 
lor,  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  to  be 
commissioners  for  administering  it. 

More  was  summoned  to  appear  before 
these  commissioners  at  Lambeth,  on  Mon 
day  the  13th  of  April.  On  other  occasions 
he  had  used,  at  his  departure  from  his  wife 
and  children,  whom  he  tenderly  loved,  to 
have  them  brought  to  his  boat,  and  there  to 
kiss  them,  and  bid  them  all  farewell.  At 
this  time  he  would  suffer  none  of  them  to 
follow  him  forth  of  the  gate,  but  pulled  the 
wicket  after  him,  and  shut  them  all  from 
him,  and  with  Roper  and  four  servants  took 
boat  towards  Lambeth.  He  sat  for  a  while; 
but  at  last,  his  mind  being  lightened  and  re 
lieved  by  those  high  principles  to  which  with 
him  every  low  consideration  yielded,  whis 
pered  :— "  Son  Roper !  I  thank  our  Lord,  the 
field  is  won." — "As  I  conjectured,"  says 
Roper,  "  it  was  for  that  his  love  to  God  con 
quered  his  carnal  affections."  What  follows 
is  from  an  account  of  his  conduct  during  the 
subsequent  examination  at  Lambeth  sent  to 
his  darling  child,  Margaret  Roper.  After 
having  read  the  statute  and  the  form  of  the 
oath,  he  declared  his  readiness  to  swear  that 
he  would  maintain  and  defend  the  order  of 
succession  to  the  crown  as  established  by 
parliament.  He  disclaimed  all  censure  of 
those  who  had  imposed,  or  on  those  who  had 
taken,  the  oath,  but  declared  it  to  be  impos 
sible  that  he  could  swear  to  the  whole  con- 


*  Lords'  Journals,  vol.  i.  p.  82. 


tents  of  it,  without  offending  against  his  own 
conscience;  adding,  that  if  they  doubted 
whether  his  refusal  proceeded  from  pure 
scruple  of  conscience  or  from  his  own  phan 
tasies,  he  was  willing  to  satisfy  their  doubts 
by  oath.  The  commissioners  urged  that  he 
was  the  first  who  refused  it ;  they  showed 
him  the  subscriptions  of  all  the  lords  and 
commons  who  had  sworn;  and  they  held 
out  the  King's  sure  displeasure  against  him 
should  he  be  the  single  recusant.  When  he 
was  called  on  a  second  time,  they  charged 
him  with  obstinacy  for  not  mentioning  any 
special  part  of  the  oath  which  wounded  his 
conscience.  He  answered,  that  if  he  were 
to  open  his  reasons  for  refusal  farther,  he 
should  exasperate  the  King  still  more:  he 
offered,  however,  to  assign  them  if  the  lords 
would  procure  the  King's  assurance  that  the 
avowal  of  the  grounds  of  his  defence  should 
not  be  considered  as  offensive  to  the  King, 
nor  prove  dangerous  to  himself.  The  com 
missioners  answered  that  such  assurances 
would  be  no  defence  against  a  legal  charge  : 
he  offered,  however,  to  trust  himself  to  the 
King's  honour.  Cranmer  took  some  advan 
tage  of  More's  candour,  urging  that,  as  he 
had  disclaimed  all  blame  of  those  who  had 
sworn,  it  was  evident  that  he  thought  it  only 
doubtful  whether  the  oath  was  unlawful ; 
and  desired  him  to  consider  whether  the  ob 
ligation  to  obey  the  King  was  not  absolutely 
certain.  More  was  struck  with  the  subtilty 
of  this  reasoning,  which  took  him  by  sur 
prise, — but  not  convinced  of  its  solidity: 
notwithstanding  his  surprise,  he  seems  to 
have  almost  touched  upon  the  true  answer, 
that  as  the  oath  contained  a  profession  of 
opinion, — such,  for  example,  as  the  lawful 
ness  of  the  King's  marriage,  on  which  men 
might  differ, — it  might  be  declined  by  some 
and  taken  by  others  with  equal  honesty. 
Cromwell,  whom  More  believed  to  favour 
him.  loudly  swore  that  he  would  rather  see 
his  only  son  had  lost  his  head  than  that  More 
had  thus  refused  the  oath ;  he  it  was  who 
bore  the  answer  to  the  King,  the  Chancellor 
Audley  distinctly  enjoining  him  to  state  very 
clearly  More's  willingness  to  swear  to  the 
succession.  "Surely,"  said  More,  "as  to 
swearing  to  the  succession,  I  see  no  peril." 
Cromwell  was  not  a  good  man ;  but  the  gen 
tle  virtue  of  More  subdued  even  the  bad. 
To  his  own  house  More  never  more  returned, 
being  on  the  same  day  committed  to  the 
custody  of  the  Abbot  of  Westminster,  in 
which  he  continued  four  days ;  and  at  the 
end  of  that  time,  on  Friday  the  17th,  he  was 
conveyed  to  the  Tower.* 


*  Roper  tells  us  that  the  King,  who  had  intended 
to  desist  from  his  importunities,  was  exasperated 
by  Queen  Anne's  clamour  to  tender  the  oath  at 
Lambeth;  but  he  detested  that  unhappy  lady, 
whose  marriage  was  the  occasion  of  More's  ruin: 
and  though  Roper  was  an  unimpeachable  witness 
relating  to  Sir  Thomas'  conversation,  he  is  of  less 
weight  as  to  what  passed  in  the  interior  of  the 
pajace.  The  ministers  might  have  told  such  a 
story  to  excuse  themselves  to  Roper :  Anne  could 
have  had  no  opportunity  of  contradiction. 


76 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  ses 
sion,  which  began  on  the  3d  of  November 
folio  wing,*  an  act  was  passed  which  ratified, 
and  professed  to  recite,  the  form  of  oath  pro 
mulgated  on  the  day  of  the  prorogation  :  and 
enacted  that  the  oath  therein  recited  should 
be  reputed  to  be  the  very  oath  intended  by  the 
former  act  ;t  though  there  were,  in  fact,  some 
substantial  and  important  interpolations  in 
the  latter  act: — such  as  the  words  "most 
dear  and  entirely  beloved,  lawful  wife.  Queen 
Anne,"  which  tended  to  render  that  form 
still  less  acceptable  than  before,  to  the  scru 
pulous  consciences  of  More  and  Fisher.  Be 
fore  the  end  of  the  same  session  two  statutes! 
were  passed  attainting  More  and  Fisher  of 
misprision  of  treason,  and  specifying  the  pun 
ishment  to  be  imprisonment  of  body  and  loss 
of  goods.  By  that  which  relates  to  More, 
the  King's  grants  of  land  to  him  in  1523  and 

1525  are  resumed ;  it  is  also  therein  recited  whereof  I  have  of  pure  necessity,  for  respect 
that  he  refused  the  oath  since  the  1st  of  May  unto  myne  own  soul,  so  often  given  you  so 
of  1534,  with  an  intent  to  sow  sedition  ;  and  |  precise  an  answer  before.  The  matters  that 


during  his  confinement.  A  short  note  writ 
ten  to  her  a  little  while  after  his  conmit- 
ment,  with  a  coal  (his  only  pen  and  ink) 
begins,  "Mine  own  good  daughter,'7  and 
is  closed  in  the  following  fond  and  pious 
words: — "Written  Avith  a  coal,  by  your  ten 
der  loving  father,  who  in  his  poor  prayers 
forgetteth  none  of  you,  nor  your  babes,  nor 
your  good  husband,  nor  your  father's  shrewd 
wife  neither."  Shortly  afier,  mistaking  the 
sense  of  a  letter  from  her,  which  he  thought 
advised  him  to  compliance,  he  wrote  a  rebuke 
of  her  supposed  purpose  with  the  utmost 
vehemence  of  affection,  and  the  deepest  re 
gard  to  her  judgment ! — "I  hear  many  terri 
ble  things  towards  me  j  but  they  all  never 
touched  me,  never  so  near,  nor  were  they  so 
grievous  unto  me  as  to  see  you,  my  well  be 
loved  child,  in  such  a  piteous  and  vehement 


manner,  labour  to  persuade  me 


thing 


he  is  reproached  for  having  demeaned  him 
self  in  other  respects  ungratefully  and  un 
kindly  to  the  King,  his  benefactor. 

That  this  statement  of  the  legislative  mea 
sures  which  preceded  it  is  necessary  to  a 
consideration  of  the  legality  of  More's  trial, 
which  must  be  owned  to  be  a  part  of  its  jus 
tice,  will  appear  in  its  proper  place.  In  the 
mean  time,  the  few  preparatory  incidents 
which  occurred  during  thirteen  months'  im 
prisonment,  must  be  briefly  related.  His 
wife  Alice,  though  an  excellent  housewife, 
yet  in  her  visits  to  the  Tower  handled  his 
misfortunes  and  his  scruples  too  roughly. 
u  Like  an  ignorant,  and  somewhat  worldly, 
woman,  she  bluntly  said  to  him, — 'How  can 
a  man  taken  for  wise,  like  you,  play  the  fool 
in  this  close  filthy  prison,  when  you  might 
be  abroad  at  your  liberty,  if  you  would  but 
do  as  the  bishops  have  done  V  "  She  en 
larged  on  his  fair  house  at  Chelsea — "his 
library,  gallery,  garden,  and  orchard,  together 
with  the  company  of  his  wife  and  children." 
He  bore  with  kindness  in  its  most  unpleasing 
form,  and  answered  her  cheerfully  after  his 
manner,  which  was  to  blend  religious  feeling 
with  quaintness  and  liveliness  : — "Is  not  this 
house  as  nigh  heaven  as  mine  own'?"  She 
answered  him  in  what  then  appears  to  have 
been  a  homely  exclamation  of  contempt,§ 
"  Tilly  voile,  titty  valk."\\  He  treated  her 
harsh  language  as  a  wholesome  exercise  for 
his  patience,  and  replied  wTith  equal  mild 
ness,  though  with  more  gravity,  "Why  should 
I  joy  in  my  gay  house,  when,  if  I  should  rise 
from  the  grave  in  seven  years,  I  should  not 
fail  to  find  some  one  there  who  would  bid 
me  to  go  out  of  doors,  for  it  was  none  of 
mine?"  It  was  not  thus  that  his  Margaret 
Roper  conversed  or  corresponded  with  him 

*  26  H.  VIII.  c.  2. 

t25  Id.  c.  22.  $  9.     Compare  Lords'  Journals, 
vol.  i.  p.  82. 

t  26  H.  VIII.  c.  22,  23. 

$  Roper,  p.  78. 

II  Nares'  Glossary,  London,  1822. 


nove  my  conscience  I  have  sundry  times 
shown  you,  that  I  will  disclose  them  to  no 
one."*  Margaret's  reply  was  worthy  of 
lerself :  she  acquiesces  in  his  "faithful  and 
delectable  letter,  the  faithful  messenger  of 
tiis  virtuous  mind,"  and  almost  rejoices  in 
his  victory  over  all  earthborn  cares: — con 
cluding  thus: — "Your  own  most  loving obe- 
lient  daughter  and  bedeswoman,t  Margaret 
Roper,  who  desireth  above  all  worldly  things 
to  be  in  John  Wood'si  stede  to  do  you  some 
ervice."  After  some  time  pity  prevailed  so 
tar  that  she  obtained  the  King's  licence  to 
resort  to  her  father  in  the  Tower.  On  her 
first  visit,  after  gratefully  performing  their 
accustomed  devotions,  his  first  care  was  to 
soothe  her  afflicted  heart  by  the  assurance 
that  he  saw  no  cause  to  reckon  himself  in 
worse  case  there  than  in  his  own  house.  On 
another  occasion  he  asked  her  how  Queen 
Anne  did?  "In  faith,  father,"  said  she, 


•never  better." — "'Never 


better,  Megg!" 


quoth  he  •  "alas  !  Megg,  it  pitieth  me  to  re 
member  into  what  misery,  poor  soul,  she 
shall  shortly  come."  Various  attempts  con 
tinued  still  to  be  made  to  cajole  him  ;  partly, 
perhaps,  with  the  hope  that  his  intercourse 
with  the  beloved  Margaret  might  have  soft 
ened  him.  Cromwell  told  lurn  that  the  King 
was  still  his  good  master,  and  did  not  wish 
to  press  his  conscience.  The  lords  commis 
sioners  went  twice  to  the  Tower  to  tender 
the  oath  to  him :  but  neither  he  nor  Fisher 
would  advance  farther  than  their  original 
declaration  of  perfect  willingness  to  maintain 
the  settlement  of  the  crown,  which,  being  a 
matter  purely  political,  was  within  the  un 
disputed  competence  of  parliament.  They 
refused  to  include  in  their  oath  any  other 
matter  on  account  of  scruples  of  conscience, 
which  they  forbore  to  particularise,  lest  they 
might  thereby  furnish  their  enemies  with  a 


*  English  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  1430. 
t  His  waiting-man,  Ibid.  p.  1431.    Bedesman 
— one  who  prays  for  another. 
i  Roper,  p.  72. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


77 


pretext  for  representing  their  defence  as  a 
new  crime.  A  statement  of  their  real  ground 
of  objection, — that  it  would  be  insincere  in 
them  to  declare  upon  oath,  that  they  be 
lieved  the  King's  marriage  with  Anne  to  be 
lawful, —  might,  in  defending  themselves 
against  a  charge  of  misprision  of  treason, 
have  exposed  them  to  the  penalties  of  high 
treason. 

Two  difficulties  occurred  in  reconciling 
the  destruction  of  the  victim  with  any  form 
or  colour  of  law.  The  first  of  them  consisted 
in  the  circumstance  that  the  naked  act  of 
refusing  the  oath  was,  eveh  by  the  Jate 
statute,  punishable  only  as  a  misprision ;  and 
though  concealment  of  treason  was  never 
expressly  declared  to  be  only  a  misprision 
till  the  statute  to  that  effect  was  passed  un 
der  Philip  and  Mary,* — chiefly  perhaps  oc 
casioned  by  the  case  of  More, — yet  it  seemed 
strange  thus  to  prosecute  him  for  the  refusal, 
as  an  act  of  treason,  after  it  had  been  posi 
tively  made  punishable  as  a  misprision  by  a 
general  statute,  and  after  a  special  act  of 
attainder  for  misprision  had  been  passed 
against  him.  Both  these  enactments  were, 
on  the  supposition  of  the  refusal  being  in 
dictable  for  treason,  absolutely  useless,  and 
such  as  tended  to  make  More  believe  that 
he  was  safe  as  long  as  he  remained  silent. 
The  second  has  been  already  intimated,  that 
he  had  yet  said  nothing  which  could  be  tor 
tured  into  a  semblance  of  those  acts  deroga 
tory  to  the  King's  marriage,  which  had  been 
made  treason.  To  conquer  this  last  diffi 
culty,  Sir  Robin  Rich,  the  solicitor-general, 
undertook  the  infamous  task  of  betraying 
More  into  some  declaration,  in  a  confidential 
conversation,  and  under  pretext  of  familiar 
friendship,  which  might  be  pretended  to  be 
treasonable.  What  the  success  of  this  flagi 
tious  attempt  was,  the  reader  will  see  in  the 
account  of  More's  trial.  It  appears  from  a 
letter  of  Margaret  Roper,  apparently  written 
sometime  in  the  winter,  that  his  persecutors 
now  tried  another  expedient  for  vanquishing 
his  constancy,  by  restraining  him  from  at 
tending  church;  and  she  adds,  "from  the 
company  of  my  good  mother  and  his  poor 
children."!  More,  in  his  answer,  expresses 
his  wonted  affection  in  very  familiar,  but  in 
most  significant  language: — "If  I  were  to 
declare  in  writing  how  much  pleasure  your 
daughterly  loving  letters  gave  me,  a  peck  of 
coals  would  not  suffice  to  make  the  pens." 
So  confident  was  he  of  his  innocence,  and  so 
safe  did  he  deem  himself  on  the  side  of  law, 
that  "he  believed  some  new  causeless  sus 
picion,  founded  upon  some  secret  sinister  in 
formation,"  had  risen  up  against  him.t 

On  the  2d  or  3d  of  May,  1535,  More  in 
formed  his  dear  daughter  of  a  visit  from 
Cromwell,  attended  by  the  attorney  and  so 
licitor-general,  and  certain  civilians,  at  which 
Cromwell  had  urged  to  him  the  statute  which 

*  1  &  2  Phil,  and  Mar.  c.  10. 

t  English  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  1446. 

*  Ibid.  p.  1447. 


made  the  King  head  of  the  Church,  and  re 
quired  an  answer  on  that  subject ;  and  that 
he  had  replied: — "I  am  the  King's  true 
faithful  subject,  and  daily  bedesman  :  I  say 
no  harm,  and  do  no  harm  :  and  if  this  be  not 
enough  to  keep  a  man  alive,  in  good  faith  I 
long  not  to  live."  This  ineffectual  attempt 
was  followed  by  another  visit  from  Cranmer, 
the  Chancellor,  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  the  Earl 
of  Wiltshire,  and  Cromwell,  who,  after  much 
argument,  tendered  an  oath,  by  which  he 
was  to  promise  to  make  answers  to  questions 
which  they  might  put  ;*  and  on  his  decisive 
refusal,  Cromwell  gave  him  to  understand 
that,  agreeably  to  the  language  at  the  former 
conference,  "his  grace  would  follow  the 
course  of  his  laws  towards  such  as  he  should 
find  obstinate."  Cranmer,  who  too  generally 
complied  with  evil  counsels,  but  nearly  al 
ways  laboured  to  prevent  their  execution, 
wrote  a  persuasive  letter  to  Cromwell,  ear 
nestly  praying  the  King  to  be  content  with 
More  and  Fisher's  proffered  engagement  to 
maintain  the  succession,  which  would  ren 
der  the  whole  nation  unanimous  on  the  prac 
tical  part  of  that  great  subject. 

On  the  6th  of  the  same  month,  almost  im 
mediately  after  the  defeat  of  every  attempt 
to  practise  on  his  firmness,  More  was  brought 
to  trial  at  Westminster;  and  it  will  scarcely 
be  doubted,  that  no  such  culprit  stood  at  any 
European  bar  for  a  thousand  years.  It  is 
rather  from  caution  than  from  necessity  that 
the  ages  of  Roman  domination  are  excluded 
from  the  comparison.  It  does  not  seem  that 
in  any  moral  respect  Socrates  himself  could 
claim  a  superiority.  It  is  lamentable  that 
the  records  of  the  proceedings  against  such 
a  man  should  be  scanty.  We  do  not  cer 
tainly  know  the  specific  offence  of  which  he 
was  convicted.  There  does  not  seem,  how 
ever,  to  be  much  doubt  that  the  prosecution 
was  under  the  act  "for  the  establishment 
of  the  king's  succession,"  passed  in  the  ses 
sion  of  1533-4,t  which  made  it  high  treason 
"to  do  anything  to  the  prejudice,  slander; 
disturbance,  or  derogation  of  the  lawful  mar 
riage"  between  Henry  and  Anne.  Almost 
any  act,  done  or  declined,  might  be  forced 
within  the  undefined  limits  of  such  vague 
terms.  In  this  case  the  prosecutors  proba 
bly  represented  his  refusal  to  answer  certain 
questions  which,  according  to  them,  must 
have  related  to  the  marriage,  his  observa 
tions  at  his  last  examination,  and  especially 
his. conversation  with  Rich,  as  overt  acts  of 
that  treason,  inasmuch  as  it  must  have  been 
known  by  him  that  his  conduct  on  these  oc 
casions  tended  to  create  a  general  doubt  of 
the  legitimacy  of  the  marriage. 

To  the  first  alleged  instance  of  his  resist 
ance  to  the  King,  which  consisted  in  his 
original  judgment  against  the  marriage,  he 
answered  in  a  manner  which  rendered  reply 
impossible  ;  "  that  it  could  never  be  treason 
for  one  of  the  King's  advisers  to  give  him 


*  English  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  1452. 
t  25  H.  VIII.  c.  22. 
G2 


78 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


honest  advice."  On  the  like  refusal  respect 
ing  the  King's  headship  of  the  Church,  he 
answered  that  "no  man  could  be  punished 
for  silence."  The  attorney-general  said,  that 
the  prisoner's  silence  was ''malicious:" — 
More  justly  answered,  that  "he  had  a  right 
to  be  silent  where  his  language  was  likely 
to  be'  injuriously  misconstrued."  Respect 
ing  his  letters  to  Bishop  Fisher,  they  were 
burnt,  and  no  evidence  was  offered  of  their 
contents,  which  he  solemnly  declared  to  have 
no  relation  to  the  charges.  And  as  to  the 
last  charge,  that  he  had  called  "the  Act  of  Set 
tlement  "a  two-edged  sword,  which  would 
destroy  his  soul  if  he  complied  with  it,  and 
his  body  if  he  refused,"  it  was  answered  by 
him,  that  "  he  supposed  the  reason  of  his 
refusal  to  be  equally  good,  whether  the 
question  led  to  an  offence  against  his  con 
science,  or  to  the  necessity  of  criminating 
himself." 

Cromwell  had  before  told  him,  that  though 
he  was  suffering  perpetual  imprisonment  for 
the  misprision,  that  punishment  did  not  re 
lease  him  from  his  allegiance,  and  that  he 
was  amenable  to  the  law  for  treason ; — over 
looking  the  essential  circumstances,  that  the 
facts  laid  as  treason  were  the  same  on  which 
the  attainder  for  misprision  was  founded. 
Even  if  this  were  not  a  strictly  maintainable 
objection  in  technical  law,  it  certainly  show 
ed  the  flagrant  injustice  of  the  whole  pro 
ceeding. 

The  evidence,  however,  of  any  such  strong 
circumstances  attendant  on  the  refusal  as 
could  raise  it  into  an  act  of  treason  must 
have  seemed  defective;  for  the  prosecutors 
were  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  examining 
Rich,  one  of  their  own  number,  to  prove  cir 
cumstances  of  which  he  could  have  had  no 
knowledge,  without  the  foulest  treachery  on 
his  part.  He  said,  that  he  had  gone  to  More 
as  a  friend,  and  had  asked  him,  if  an  act  of 
parliament  had  made  him,  Rich,  king,  would 
not  he.  More,  acknowledge  him.  More  had 
said,  "Yes,  sir,  that  I  would?"— "If  they 
declared  me  pope,  would  you  acknowledge 
me  V — "  In  the  first  case.  I  have  no  doubt 
about  temporal  governments;  but  suppose 
the  parliament  should  make  a  law  that  God 
should  not  be  God,  would  you  then,  Mr. 
Rich,  say  that  God  should  not  be  God  ?"— 
"No,"  says  Rich,  "'no  parliament  could 
make  such  a  law."  Rich  went  on  to  swear, 
that  More  had  added,  "No  more  could  the 
parliament  make  the  King  the  supreme  head 
of  the  Church."  More  denied  the  latter 
part  of  Rich's  evidence  altogether ;  which  is, 
indeed,  inconsistent  with  the  whole  tenor 
of  his  language :  he  was  then  compelled  lo 
expose  the  profligacy  of  Rich's  character. 
"I  am,"  he  said,  "more  sorry  for  your  per 
jury,  than  for  mine  own  peril.  Neither  I,  nor 
any  man,  ever  took  you  to  be  a  person  of 
such  credit  as  I  could  communicate  with  on 
such  matters.  We  dwelt  near  in  one  parish, 
and  you  were  always  esteemed  very  light  of 
your  tongue,  and  not  of  any  commendable 
fame.  Can  it  be  likely  lo  your  lordships  that 


I  should  so  unadvisedly  overshoot  myself,  as 
to  trust  Mr.  Rich  with  what  I  have  concealed 
from  the  King,  or  any  of  his  noble  and  grave 
counsellors?"'  The  credit  of  Rich  was  so 
deeply  wounded,  that  he  was  compelled  to 
call  Sir  Richard  Southwell  and  Mr.  Palmer, 
who  were  present  at  the  conversation,  to 
prop  his  tottering  evidence.  They  made  a 
paltry  excuse,  by  alleging  that  they  were  so 
occupied  in  removing  More's  books,  that 
they  did  not  listen  to"  the  words  of  this  ex 
traordinary  conversation. 

The  jury,*  in  spite  of  all  these  circum 
stances,  returned  a  verdict  of  "guilty." 
Chancellor  Audley,  who  was  at  the  heart  of 
the  commission,  of  which  Spelman  and  Fitz- 
herbert,  eminent  lawyers,  were  members, 
was  about  to  pronounce  judgment,  when  he 
was  interrupted  by  More,  who  claimed  the 
usual  privilege  of  being  heard  to  show  that 
judgment  should  not  be  passed.  More  urged, 
that  he  had  so  much  ground  for  his  scruples 
as  at  least  to  exempt  his  refusal  from  the 
imputation  of  disaffection,  or  of  what  the 
law  deems  to  be  malice.  The  chancellor 
asked  him  once  more  how  his  scruples  could 
balance  the  weight  of  the  parliament,  peo 
ple,  and  Church  of  England  ? — a  topic  which 
had  been  used  against  him  at  every  inter 
view  and  conference  since  he  was  brought 
prisoner  to  Lambeth.  The  appeal  to  weight 
of  authority  influencing  Conscience  was.  how 
ever,  singularly  unfortunate.  More  answer 
ed,  as  he  had  always  done,  "Nine  out  of  ten 
of  Christians  now  in  the  world  think  with, 
me ;  nearly  all  the  learned  doctors  and  holy- 
fathers  who  are  already  dead,  agree  with 
me ;  and  therefore  I  think  myself  not  bound 
to  conform  rny  conscience  to  the  councell  of 
one  realm  against  the  general  consent  of  all 
Christendom."  Chief  Justice  Fitzjames  con 
curred  in  the  sufficiency  of  the  indictment ; 
which,  after  the  verdict  of  the  jury,  was  the 
only  matter  before  the  court. 

The  chancellor  then  pronounced  the  sa 
vage  sentence  which  the  law  then  directed 
in  cases  of  treason.  More,  having  no  longer 
any  measures  to  keep,  openly  declared,  that 
after  seven  years' study,  "he  could  find  no 
colour  for  holding  that  a  layman  could  be 
head  of  the  Church."  The  commissioners 
once  more  offered  him  a  favourable  audience 
for  any  matter  which  he  had  to  propose. — 
"More  have  I  not  to  say,  my  lords,"  he  re 
plied,  "but  that  as  St.  Paul  held  the  clothes 
of  those  who  stoned  Stephen  to  death,  and 
as  they  are  both  now  saints  in  heaven,  and 
shall  continue  there  friends  for  ever;  so  I 
verily  trust,  and  shall  therefore  right  heartily 
pray,  that  though  your  lordships  have  now 
here  on  earth  been  judges  to  my  condemna 
tion,  we  may,  nevertheless,  hereafter  cheer- 


*  Sir  T.  Palmer,  Sir  T.  Bent,  G.  LOVP!!,  es 
quire.  Thomas  Burbage,  esquire,  and  G.  Cham 
ber,  Edward  Stoekmore,  William  Brown,  Jasper 
Leake.  Thomas  Bellington,  John  Parnell,  Ri 
chard  Bellamy,  and  G.  Stoakes,  gentlemen,  were 
the  jury. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE. 


fully  meet  in  heaven,  in  everlasting  salva 
tion."* 

Sir  W.  Kingston,  "his  very  dear  friend," 
constable  of  the  Tower,  as,  with  tears  run 
ning  down  his  cheeks,  he  conducted  him 
from  Westminster,  condoled  with  his  prison 
er,  who  endeavoured  to  assuage  the  sorrow 
of  his  friend  by  the  consolations  of  religion. 
The  same  gentleman  said  afterwards  to 
Roper, — "  I  was  ashamed  of  myself  when  I 
found  my  heart  so  feeble,  and  his  so  strong." 
Margaret  Roper,  his  good  angel,  watched  for 
his  landing  at  the  Tower  wharf.  "After  his 
blessing  upon  her  knees  reverently  received, 
without  care  of  herself,  pressing  in  the  midst 
of  the  throng,  and  the  guards  that  were  about 
him  with  halberts  and  bills,  she  hastily  ran 
to  him,  and  openly,  in  sight  of  them  all,  em 
braced  and  kissed  him.  He  gave  her  again 
his  fatherly  blessing.  After  separation  she, 
all  ravished  with  the  entire  love  of  her  dear 
father,  suddenly  turned  back  again,  ran  to 
him  as  before,  took  him  about  the  neck,  and 
divers  times  kissed  him  most  lovingly, — a 
sight  which  made  many  of  the  beholders 
weep  and  mourn. "t  Thus  tender  was  the 
heart  of  the  admirable  woman  who  had  at 
the  same  time  the  greatness  of  soul  to 
strengthen  her  father's  fortitude,  by  disclaim 
ing  the  advice  for  which  he,  having  mistaken 
her  meaning,  had  meekly  rebuked  her, — to 
prefer  life  to  right. 

On  the  14th  of  June.  More  was  once  more 
examined  by  four  civilians  in  the  Tower. 
"He  was  asked,  first,  whether  he  would 
obey  the  King  as  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  of  England  on  earth  immediately 
under  Christ  ?  to  which  he  said,  that  he  could 
make  no  answer:  secondly,  whether  he 
would  consent  to  the  King's  marriage  with 
Queen  Anne,  and  affirm  the  marriage  with 
the  lady  Catharine  to  have  been  unlawful  1 
to  which  he  answered  that  he  did  never 
speak  nor  meddle  against  the  same:  and, 
thirdly,  whether  he  was  not  bound  to  answer 
the  said  question,  and  to  recognise  the  head 
ship  as  aforesaid  1  to  which  he  said,  that  he 
could  make  no  answer."!  It  is  evident  that 
these  interrogatories,  into  which  some  terms 
peculiarly  objectionable  to  More  were  now 
for  the  first  time  inserted,  were  contrived 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  reducing  the  illustri 
ous  victim  to  trie  option  of  uttering  a  lie,  or 
of  suffering  death.  The  conspirators  against 
him  might,  perhaps,  have  had  a  faint  idea 
that  they  had  at  length  broken  his  spirit  ; 
and  if  he  persisted,  they  might  have  hoped 
that  he  could  be  represented  as  bringing  de 
struction  on  himself  by  his  own  obstinacy. 
Such,  however,  was  his  calm  and  well-order 
ed  mind,  that  he  said  and  did  nothing  to  pro 
voke  his  fate.  Had  he  given  affirmative 
answers,  he  would  have  sworn  falsely :  he 
was  the  martyr  of  veracity;  he  perished 
only  because  he  was  sincere. 

On  Monday,  the  5th  of  July,  he  wrote  a 
farewell  letter  to  Margaret  Roper,  with  his 

*  Roper,  p.  90.     t  Ibid.  p.  90.     J  Ibid.  p.  92. 


usual  materials  of  coal.  It  contained  bless 
ings  on  all  his  children  byname,  with  a  kind 
remembrance  even  to  one  of  Margaret's 
maids.  Adverting  to  their  last  interview, 
on  the  quay,  he  says, — ;'I  never  liked  your 
manner  towards  me  better  than  when  you 
kissed  me  last;  for  I  love  when  daughterly 
love  and  dear  charity  have  no  leisure  to  look 
to  worldly  courtesy." 

Early  the  next  morning  Sir  Thomas  Pope, 
"his  singular  good  friend,"  came  to  him 
with  a  message  from  the  King  and  council, 
to  say  that  he  should  die  before  nine  o'clock 
of  the  same  morning.  "The  King's  plea 
sure,"  said  Pope,  "is  that  you  shall  not  use 
many  words." — "I  did  purpose,"  answered 
More,  "  to  have  spoken  somewhat,  but  I 
will  conform  myself  to  the  King's  command 
ment,  and  I  beseech  you  to  obtain  from  him 
that  my  daughter  Margaret  may  be  present 
at  my  burial." — "The  King  is  already  con 
tent  that  your  wife,  children,  and  other 
friends  shall  be  present  thereat."  The  lieu 
tenant  brought  him  to  the  scaffold,  which 
was  so  weak  that  it  was  ready  to  fall ;  on 
which  he  said,  merrily,  "  Master  lieutenant,. 
I  pray  you  see  me  safe  up,  and  for  my  com 
ing  down  let  me  shift  for  myself."  When 
he  laid  his  head  on  the  block  he  desired  the 
executioner  to  wait  till  he  had  removed  his 
beard,  "for  that  had  never  offended  his- 
highness," — ere  the  axe  fell. 

He  has  been  censured  by  some  for  such 
levities  at  the  moment  of  death.  These  are 
censorious  cavils,  which  would  not  be  wor 
thy  of  an  allusion  if  they  had  not  occasioned 
some  sentences  of  as  noble  reflection,  and 
beautiful  composition,  as  the  English  lan 
guage  contains.  "  The  innocent  mirth,  which 
had  been  so  conspicuous  in  his  life,  did  not 
forsake  him  to  the  last.  His  death  was  of  a 
piece  with  his  life;  there  was  nothing  in  it 
new,  forced,  or  affected.  He  did  not  look 
upon  the  severing  his  head  from  his  body  as 
a  circumstance  which  ought  to  produce  any 
change  in  the  disposition  of  his  mind;  and 
as  he  died  in  a  fixed  and  settled  hope  of  im 
mortality,  he  thought  any  unusual  degree  of 
sorrow  and  concern  improper."* 

According  to  the  barbarous  practice  of 
laws  which  vainly  struggle  to  carry  their 
cruelty  beyond  the  grave,  the  head  of  Sir 
Thomas  More  was  placed  on  London  bridge. 
His  darling  daughter,  Margaret,  had  the 
courage  to  procure  it  to  be  taken  down,  that 
she  might  exercise  her  affection  by  continu 
ing  to  look  on  a  relic  so  dear;  and  carrying 
her  love  beyond  the  grave,  she  desired  that 
it  might  be  buried  with  her  when  she  died.t 
The  remains  of  this  precious  relic  are  said 
to  have  been  since  observed,  lying  on  what 
had  once  been  her  bosom.  The"  male  de 
scendants  of  this  admirable  woman  appear 
to  have  been  soon  extinct :  her  descendants 
through  females  are  probably  numerous.! 


*  Spectator,  No.  349. 

tSite  survived  her  father  about  nine  years. 
\  One  of  them,  Mr.  James  Hinton  Baverstock, 
inserted  his  noble   pedigree  from   Margaret,  in 


80 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


She  resembled  her  father  in  mind,  in  man 
ner,  in  the  features  and  expression  of  her 
countenance,  and  in  her  form  and  gait.  Her 
learning  was  celebrated  throughout  Christen 
dom.  It  is  seldom  that  literature  wears  a 
more  agreeable  aspect  than  when  it  becomes 
a  bond  of  union  between  such  a  father  and 
such  a  daughter. 

Sir  Thomas  More's  eldest  son.  John,  mar 
ried  Anne  Cresacre,  the  heiress  of  an  estate, 
still  held  by  his  posterity  through  females, 
at  Barnborough,  near  Doncaster,*  where  the 
mansion  of  the  Mores  still  subsists.  The  last 
male  desendant  was  Thomas  More,  a  Jesuit, 
who  was  principal  of  the  college  of  Jesuits 
at  Bruges,  and  died  at  Bath  in  1795,  having 
survived  his  famous  order,  and,  according  to 
the  appearances  of  that  time,  his  ancient  re 
ligion; — as  if  the  family  of  More  were  one 
of  the  many  ties  which  may  be  traced, 
through  the  interval  of  two  centuries  and 
a  half,,  between  the  revolutions  of  religion 
-arid  those  of  government. 

The  letters  and  narratives  of  Erasmus  dif 
fused  the  story  of  his  friend's  fate  through 
out  Europe.  Cardinal  Pole  bewailed  it  with 
elegance  and  feeling.  It  filled  Italy,  then 
the  most  cultivated  portion  of  Europe,  with 
horror.  Paulo  Jovio  called  Henry  "a  Phala- 
ris,"  though  we  shall  in  vain  look  in  the  story 
of  Phalaris,  or  of  any  other  real  or  legendary 
tyrant,  for  a  victim  worthy  of  being  compared 
to  More.  The  English  ministers  throughout 
Europe  were  regarded  with  averted  eyes  as 
the  agents  of  a  monster.  At  Venice,  Henry, 
after  this  deed,  was  deemed  capable  of  any 
crimes :  he  was  believed  there  to  have  mur 
dered  Catharine,  and  to  be  about  to  murder 
his  daughter  Mary.t  The  Catholic  zeal  of 
§pain,  and  the  resentment  of  the  Spanish 
people  against  the  oppression  of  Catharine, 
quickened  their  sympathy  with  More,  and 
aggravated  their  detestation  of  Henry.  Ma 
son,  the  envoy  at  Valladolid,  thought  every 
pure  Latin  phrase  too  weak  for  More,  and 
describes  him  by  one  as  contrary  to  the 
rules  of  that  language  as  "thrice  greatest"! 
would  be  to  those  of  ours.  When  intelli 
gence  of  his  death  was  brought  to  the  Em 
peror  Charles  V.,  he  sent  for  Sir  T.  Elliot. 
the  English  ambassador,  and  said  to  him, 
"  My  lord  ambassador,  we  understand  that 
the  king  your  master  has  put  his  wise  coun 
sellor  Sir  Thomas  More  to  death."  Elliot, 
abashed,  made  answer  that  he  understood 
nothing  thereof.  "Well,"  said  the  Emperor, 
"  it  is  too  true ;  and  this  we  will  say,  that,  if 
we  had  been  master  of  such  a  servant,  we 
should  rather  have  lost  the  best  city  in  our 
dominions  than  have  lost  such  a  worthy 
counsellor:"— "which  matter,"  says  Roper, 
in  the  concluding  words  of  his  beautiful 
narrative,  "  was  by  Sir  T.  Elliot  told  to  my- 


1819,  in  a  copy  of  More's  English  Works,  at  this 
moment  before  me. 

*  Hunter's  South  Yorkshire,  vol.i.  pp.  374,  375. 

t  Ellis'  Original  Letters,  2d  series,  lett.  cxvii. 

JIbid.  lett.  ex.     "  Ter  raaximus  ille  Morus." 


self,  my  wife,  to  Mr.  Clement  and  his  wife, 
and  to  Mr.  Heywood  and  his  wife."* 

Of  all  men  nearly  perfect,  Sir  Thomas 
More  had,  perhaps,  the  clearest  marks  of  in 
dividual  character/  His  peculiarities,  though 
distinguishing  him  from  all  others,  were  yet 
withheld  from  growing  into  moral  faults. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  of  him  that  he  was 
unaffected,  that  he  was  natural,  that  he  was 
simple ;  so  the  larger  part  of  truly  great  men 
have  been.  But  there  is  something  home 
spun  in  More  which  is  common  to  him  with 
scarcely  any  other,  and  which  gives  to  all 
his  faculties  and  qualities  the  appearance  of 
being  the  native  growth  of  the  soil.  The 
homeliness  of  his  pleasantry  purifies  it  from 
show.  He  walks  on  the  scaffold  clad  only 
in  his  household  goodness.  The  unrefined 
benignity  with  which  he  ruled  his  patri 
archal  dwelling  at  Chelsea  enabled  him  to 
look  on  the  axe  without  being  disturbed  by 
feeling  hatred  for  the  tyrant.  This  quality 
bound  together  his  genius  and  learning,  his 
eloquence  and  fame,  with  his  homely  and 
daily  duties. — bestowing  a  genuineness  on 
all  his  good  qualities,  a  dignity  on  the  most 
ordinary  offices  of  life,  and  an  accessible  fa 
miliarity  on  the  virtues  of  a  hero  and  a  mar 
tyr,  which  silences  every  suspicion  that  his 
excellencies  were  magnified.  He  thus  sim 
ply  performed  great  acts,  and  uttered  great 
thoughts,  because  they  were  familiar  to  his 
great  soul.  The  charm  of  this  inborn  and 
homebred  character  seems  as  if  it  would 
have  been  taken  off  by  polish.  It  is  this 
household  character  which  relieves  our  no 
tion  of  him  from  vagueness,  and  divests  per 
fection  of  that  generality  and  coldness  to 
which  the  attempt  to  paint  a  perfect  man  is 
so  liable. 

It  will  naturally,  and  very  strongly,  excite 
the  regret  of  the  good  in  every  age,  that  the 
life  of  this  best  of  men  should  have  been  in 
the  power  of  one  who  has  been  rarely  sur 
passed  in  wickedness.  But  the  execrable 
Henry  was  the  means  of  drawing  forth  the 
magnanimity,  the  fortitude,  and  the  meek 
ness  of  More.  Had  Henry  been  a  just  and 
merciful  monarch,  we  should  not  have  known 
the  degree  of  excellence  to  which  human 
nature  is  capable  of  ascending.  Catholics 
ought  to  see  in  More,  that  mildness  and  can 
dour  are  the  true  ornaments  of  all  modes  of 
faith.  Protestants  ought  to  be  taught  hu 
mility  and  charity  from  this  instance  of  the 
wisest  and  best  of  men  falling  into,  what  they 
deem,  the  most  fatal  errors.  All  men,  in  the 
fierce  contests  of  contending  factions,  should, 
from  such  an  example,  learn  the  wisdom  to 
fear  lest  in  their  most  hated  antagonist  they 
may  strike  down  a  Sir  Thomas  More :  for 
assuredly  virtue  is  not  so  narrow  as  to  be 
confined  to  any  party ;  and  we  have  in  the 


*  Instead  of  Heywood,  perhaps  we  ought  to 
read  "  Heron?"  In  that  case  the  three  daughters 
of  Sir  Thomas  More  would  be  present:  Mrs. 
Roper  was  the  eldest,  Mrs.  Clement  the  second, 
and  Cecilia  Heron  the  youngest. 


LIFE  OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE, 


81 


case  of  More  a  signal  example  that  the  near 
est  approach  to  perfect  excellence  does  not 
exempt  men  from  mistakes  which  we  may 
justly  deem  mischievous.  It  is  a  pregnant 


proof,  that  we  should  beware  of  hating  men 
for  their  opinions,  or  of  adopting  their  doc 
trines  because  we  love  and  venerate  their 
virtues. 


APPENDIX. 


A. 

SOME  particulars  in  the  life  of  Sir  Thomas  More 
I  am  obliged  to  leave  to  more  fortunate  inquirers. 
They  are,  indeed,  very  minute ;  but  they  may  ap 
pear  to  others  worthy  of  being  ascertained,  as  they 
appeared  to  me,  from  their  connection  with  the 
life  of  a  wise  and  good  man. 

The  records  of  the  Privy  Council  are  preserved 
only  since  1540,  so  that  we  do  not  exactly  know 
the  date  of  his  admission  into  that  body.  The 
time  when  he  was  knighted  (then  a  matter  of  some 
moment)  is  not  known.  As  the  whole  of  his  life 
passed  during  the  great  chasm  in  writs  for  elec 
tion,  and  returns  of  members  of  parliament,  from 
1477  to  1542,  the  places  for  which  he  sat,  and  the 
year  of  his  early  opposition  to  a  subsidy,  are  un 
ascertained  ; — notwithstanding  the  obliging  exer 
tion  of  the  gentlemen  employed  in  the  repositories 
at  the  Tower,  and  in  the  Rolls'  chapel.  We 
know  that  he  was  speaker  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons  in  1523  and  1524.*  Browne  Willis  owns 
his  inability  to  fix  the  place  which  he  represented  ;t 
but  he  conjectured  it  to  have  been  "  either  Mid 
dlesex,  where  he  resided,  or  Lancaster,  of  which 
duchy  he  was  chancellor."  But  that  laborious 
and  useful  writer  would  not  have  mentioned  the 
latter  branch  of  his  alternative,  nor  probably  the 
former,  if  he  had  known  that  More  was  not  Chan 
cellor  of  the  Duchy  till  two  years  after  his  speaker- 
ship. 

B. 

An  anecdote  in  M ore's  chancellorship  is  con 
nected  with  an  English  phrase,  of  which  the  origin 
is  not  quite  satisfactorily  explained.  An  attorney 
in  his  court,  named  Tubb,  gave  an  account  in 
court  of  a  cause  in  which  he  was  concerned,  which 
the  Chancellor  (who  with  all  his  gentleness  loved 
a  joke)  thought  so  rambling  and  incoherent,  that 
he  said  at  the  end  of  Tubb's  speech,  "  This  is  a 
tale  of  a  tub  ;"  plainly  showing  that  the  phrase 
was  then  familiarly  known.  The  learned  Mr. 
Douce  has  informed  a  friend  of  mine,  that  in  Se 
bastian  Munster's  Cosmography,  there  is  a  cut  of 
a  ship,  to  which  a  whale  was  coming  too  close  for 
her  safety,  and  of  the  sailors  throwing  a  tub  to  the 
whale,  evidently  to  play  with.  The  practice  of 
throwing  a  tub  or  barrel  to  a  large  fish,  to  divert  the 
animal  from  gambols  dangerous  to  a  vessel,  is  also 
mentioned  in  an  old  prose  translation  of  The  Ship 
of  Fools.  These  passages  satisfactorily  explain 
the  common  phrase  of  throwing  a  tub  to  a  whale  ; 
but  they  do  not  account  for  leaving  out  the  whale, 
and  introducing  the  new  word  "  tale."  The 
transition  from  the  first  phrase  to  the  second  is  a 
considerable  stride.  It  is  not,  at  least,  directly 
explained  by  Mr.  Douce's  citations ;  and  no  ex 
planation  of  it  has  hitherto  occurred  which  can  be 
supported  by  proof.  It  may  be  thought  probable 
that,  in  process  of  time,  some  nautical  wag  com 
pared  a  rambling  story,  which  he  suspected  of 
being  lengthened  and  confused,  in  order  to  turn 
his  thoughts  from  a  direction  not  convenient  to  the 


*  Rolls  of  Parliament  in  Lords'  Journals,  vol.  i. 
f  Notitia  Parliamentaria,  vol.  iii.  p.  112. 
11 


story-teller,  with  the  tub  which  he  and  his  ship 
mates  were  wont  to  throw  out  to  divert  the  whale 
from  striking  the  bark,  and  perhaps  said,  "  This 
tale  is,  like  our  tub  to  the  whale."  The  com 
parison  might  have  become  popular  ;  and  it  might 
gradually  have  been  shortened  into  "a  tale  of  a 
tub." 

C. 

EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  RECORDS  OF  THE  CITY 
OF  LONDON  RELATING  TO  THE  APPOINTMENT 

OF  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  TO  BE  UNDER-SHERIFF 
OF  LONDON,  AND  SOME  APPOINTMENTS  OF  HIS 
IMMEDIATE  PREDECESSORS  AND  OF  HIS  SUC 
CESSOR. 

(A.  D.  1496.    27th  September.) 

"Commune  consilium  tentum  die^Martij 

Vicesimo  Septimo^  die  Septembr  Anno 

Regni  Regis  Henr  Septimi  duo  decimo. 

"In  isto   Comun    Consilio    Thomas   Sail  et 

Thomas  Marowe  confirmati  sunt  in  Subvic  Civi- 

tati :  London  p  anno  sequent,  &c." 

(1497.) 

"  Comune  Consiliu  tent  die  Lune  xxv10  die 

SepT  anno  Regni  Regs  Hen?  vii.  xiij°. 
"  Isto  die  Thomas  Marowe  et  Ed"  Dudley  con- 
firmat  sunt  in  Sub  Vic  Sit'  London  p  anno  sequ." 

(1498  &  1501.) 

Similar  entries  of  the  confirmation  of  Thomas 
Marowe  and  Edward  Dudley  are  made  in  the 
14th,  15th,  16th,  and  17th  Henry  VII.,  and  at  a 
court  of  aldermen,  held  on  the 

(1502.) 

17th  Nov.  18  Henry  7.  the  following  entry 

appears^: — 

"Ad  hanc  CuF  Thomas  Marowe  uns  sub  vice- 
comitu  sponte  resignat  offim  suu." 

And  at  a  Common  Council  held  on  the 

same  day,  is  entered — 

"In  isto  Communi  Consilio  Radus  adye  Gen- 
tilman  elect  est  in  unu  Subvic"  Ciyitats  London 
loco  Thome  Marwe  Gentilman  qui  illud  officiu 
sponte  resignavit,  capieni  feoct  consueT." 

"  Coe  Consiliu  tent  die  Martis  iij°  die  Sep- 
tembris  anno  Regni  Reg8  Henrici  Oc- 
tavi  Secundo. 

"  Eodm  die  Thorns  More  Gent  elect  est  in  unu 
Subvic"  Civitats  London  loc  RicT  Broke  Gent  qui 
nup  elect  fuit  in  Recordator  London." 

"  Martis  viij  die  Maii  6th  Henry  8. 

"  Court  of  Aldermen. 

"Yt  ys  agreed  that  Thomas  More  Gent  oon 
of  Undersheryfes  of  London  which  shall  go  ov 
the  Kings  AmbasseTin  to  fflaunders  shall  occupie 
his  Rowme  and  office  by  his  sufficient  Depute 
untyll  his  cumyng  home  ageyn" 

"  Martis  xj  die  Marcii  7  Henry  VHP* 
"  Court  of  Aldermen. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


"  Ye  shall  sweare  that  ye  shall  kepe  the  Secrets 
of  this  Courts  and  not  to  disclose  eny  thing  ther 
spoken  for  the  coen  vvelthe  of  this  citie  that  myght 
hurt  eny  psone  or  brother  of  the  seyd  courte  onles 
yt  be  spoken  to  his  brothr  or  to  other  which  in  his 
conscience  and  discrecon  shall  thynk  yt  to  be  for 
the  coen  welthe  of  this  citie. 

So  help  you  God." 

"  Jovis  xiij  die  Marcii  7  Henry  8. 

"  Court  of  Aldermen. 

"Itm  ad  ista  Cur  Thomas  More  and  Wills 
Shelley  Subvice09  Cit8  London  jur  sunt  ad  articlm 
supdcra  spect  xj  die  marcii." 


"  Veuis  23  July,  10  Henry  8. 
Court  of  Aldermen. 

^'  Ad  istam  Cu?  Thomas  More  Gent  un  Sub- 
vic"Cits  in  Co  nip  in  Pulletr  London  libe  et  sponte 
Sur?^et  resign  officrii  pdcm  in  manu  Maioris  et 
Aldror." 

"  Coie  Consiliu  tent  die  Venis  xxiij  die 
Julii  anno  regni  regis  Henrici  Ociavi  de- 
cimo." 

"  Isto  die  Johes  Pakyngton  Gent  admissus  est 
in  unu  subvic  Ciyitats  London  loco  Thome  More 
qui  spont  et  libe  resignavit  Officiu  illud  in  Man 
Maioris  aldr5r  et  Cols  consilii.  Et  jur  est  &c." 


A  REFUTATION  OF  THE  CLAIM  ON  BEHALF 

OF 

KING  CHARLES  I. 


TO  THE  AUTHORSHIP  OF 


THE    EIK{1N 


A  SUCCESSION  of  problems  or  puzzles  in  the 
literary  and  political  history  of  modem  times 
has  occasionally  occupied  some  ingenious 
writers,  and  amused  many  idle  readers. 
Those  who  think  nothing  useful  which  does 
not  yield  some  palpable  and  direct  advan 
tage,  have,  indeed,  scornfully  rejected  such 
inquiries  as  frivolous  and  useless.  But  their 
disdain  has  not  repressed  such  discussions : 
and  it  is  fortunate  that  it  has  not  done  so. 
Amusement  is  itself  an  advantage.  The 
vigour  which  the  understanding  derives  from 
exercise  on  every  subject  is  a  great  advan 
tage.  If  there  is  to  be  any  utility  in  history, 
the  latter  must  be  accurate, — which  it  never 
will  be,  unless  there  be  a  solicitude  to  ascer 
tain  the  truth  even  of  its  minutest  parts. 
History  is  read  with  pleasure,  and  with  moral 
effect,  only  as  far  as  it  engages  our  feelings 
in  the  merit  or  demerit,  in  the  fame  or  for 
tune,  of  historical  personages.  The  breath 
less  anxiety  with  which  the  obscure  and  con 
flicting  evidence  on  a  trial  at  law  is  watched 
by  the  bystander  is  but  a  variety  of  the  same 
feeling  which  prompts  the  reader  to  examine 
the  proofs  against  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots, 
with  as  deep  an  interest  as  if  she  were  alive, 
and  were  now  on  her  trial.  And  it  is  wisely 
ordered  that  it  should  be  so  :  for  our  condi 
tion  would  not,  upon  the  whole,  be  bettered 


*  Contributed  to  the  Edinburgh  Review  (vol. 
xliv.  p.  1.)  as  a  review  of  "  Who  wrote  EU.LV 
Batr/x/K/i  ?"  by  Chris'opher  Wordsworth,  D.  D., 
Master  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  London, 
18-24.— ED. 


by  our  feeling  less  strongly  about  each 
other's  concerns. 

The  question  "Who  wrote  Icon  Basilike  ?" 
seemed  more  than  once  to  be  finally  deter 
mined.  Before  the  publication  of  the  pri 
vate  letters  of  Bishop  Gauden,  the  majority 
of  historical  inquirers  had  pronounced  it 
spurious;  and  the  only  writers  of  great 
acuteness  who  maintained  its  genuineness — 
Warburton  and  Hume  —  spoke  in  a  tone 
which  rather  indicated  an  anxious  desire  that 
others  should  believe,  than  a  firm  belief  in 
their  own  minds.  It  is  perhaps  the  only 
matter  on  which  the  former  ever  expressed 
himself  with  diffidence ;  and  the  case  must 
indeed  have  seemed  doubtful,  which  com 
pelled  the  most  dogmatical  and  arrogant  of 
disputants  to  adopt  a  language  almost  scep 
tical.  The  successive  publications  of  those 
letters  in  Maty's  Review,  in  the  third  volume 
of  the  Clarendon  Papers,  and  lastly,  but 
most  decisively,  by  Mr.  Todd,  seemed  to 
have  closed  the  dispute. 

The  main  questions  on  which  the  whole 
dispute  hinges  are,  Whether  the  acts  and 
words  of  Lord  Clarendon,  of  Lord  Bristol,  of 
Bishop  Morley,  of  Charles  II. ,  and  James  II., 
do  not  amount  to  a  distinct  acknowledgment 
of  Gauden's  authorship?  and,  Whether  an 
admission  of  that  claim  by  these  persons  be 
not  a  conclusive  evidence  of  its  truth  ?  If 
these  questions  can  be  answered  affirma 
tively,  the  other  parts  of  the  case  will  not 
require  very  long  consideration. 

The  Icon  Basilike  was  intended  to  pro 
duce  a  favourable  effect  during  the  Kina's- 


ICON  BASILIKE. 


83 


trial ',  but  its  publication  was  retarded  till 
some  days  after  his  death,  by  the  jealous 
and  rigorous  precautions  of  the  ruling  powers. 
The  impression  made  on  the  public  by  a 
work  which  purported  to  convey  the  pious 
and  eloquent  language  of  a  dying  King, 
could  not  fail  to  be  very  considerable ;  and, 
though  its  genuineness  was  from  the  begin 
ning  doubted  or  disbelieved  by  some,*  it 
would  have  been  wonderful  and  unnatural, 
if  unbounded  faith  in  it  had  not  become  one 
of  the  fundamental  articles  of  a  Royalist's 
creed. f  Though  much  stress,  therefore,  is 
laid  by  Dr.  Wordsworth  on  passages  in  anony 
mous  pamphlets  published  before  the  Re 
storation,  we  can  regard  these  as  really  no 
more  than  instances  of  the  belief  which 
must  then  have  only  prevailed  among  that 
great  majority  of  Royalists  who  had  no  pe 
culiar  reasons  for  doubt.  Opinion,  even 
when  it  was  impartial,  of  the  genuineness 
of  a  writing  given  before  its  authenticity 
was  seriously  questioned,  and  when  the  at 
tention  of  those  who  gave  the  opinion  was 
not  strongly  drawn  to  the  subject,  must  be 
classed  in  the  lowest  species  of  historical 
evidence.  One  witness  who  bears  testimony 
to  a  forgery,  when  the  edge  of  his  discern 
ment  is  sharpened  by  an  existing  dispute, 
outweighs  many  whose  language  only  indi 
cates  a  passive  acquiescence  in  the  unex- 
amined  sentiments  of  their  own  party.  It  is 
obvious,  indeed,  that  such  testimonies  must 
be  of  exceedingly  little  value ;  for  every  im 
posture,  in  any  degree  successful,  must  be 
able  to  appeal  to  them,  Without  them,  no 
question  on  such  a  subject  could  ever  be 
raised  ;  since  it  would  be  idle  to  expose  the 
spuriousness  of  what  no  one  appeared  to 
think  authentic. 

Dr.  Gauden»  a  divine  of  considerable  ta 
lents,  but  of*a  temporizing  and  interested 
character,  was,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil 
War,  chaplain  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  a 
Presbyterian  leader.  In  November  1640, 
after  the  close  imprisonment  of  Lord  Straf- 
ford,  he  preached  a  sermon  before  the  House 
of  Commons,  so  agreeable  to  that  assembly, 
that  it  is  said  they  presented  him  with  a 
silver  tankard,— a'  token  of  their  esteem 
which  (if  the  story  be  true)  may  seem  to  be 
the  stronger  for  its  singularity  and  unseemli 
ness,  t  This  discourse  seems  to  have  con 
tained  a  warm  invective  against  the  eccle 
siastical  policy  of  the  Court;  and  it  was 
preached  not  only  at  a  most  critical  time, 
but  on  the  solemn  occasion  of  the  sacrament 
being  first  taken  by  the  whole  House.  As  a 
reward  for  so  conspicuous  a  service  to  the 
Parliamentary  cause,  he  soon  after  received 

*  Milton,  Goodwyn.  Lilly,  &c. 

t  See  Wagstaffe's  Vindication  of  King  Charles, 
pp.  77—79.  London,  1711. 

t  The  Journals  sny  nothing  of  the  tankard, 
which  was  prohably  the  gift  of  some  zealous  mem 
bers,  but  hear,  "  That  the  thanks  of  this  house 
be  given  to  Mr.  Gaudy  and  Mr.  Morley  for  their 
sermons  last  Sunday,  and  that  they  be  desired,  if 
they  please,  to  print  the  same."  Vol.  ii.  p.  40. 


the  valuable  living  of  Bocking  in  Essex, 
which  he  held  through  all  the  succeeding 
changes  of  government, — forbearing,  of  ne 
cessity,  to  use  the  Liturgy,  and  complying 
with  all  the  conditions  which  the  law  then 
required  from,  the  beneficed  clergy.  It  has 
been  disputed  whether  he  took  the  Cove 
nant,  though  his  own  evasive  answers  imply 
that  he  had :  but  it  is  certain  that  he  pub 
lished  a  Protest*  against  the  trial  of  the 
King  in  1648,  though  that  never  could  have 
pretended  to  the  same  merit  with  the  solemn 
Declaration  of  the  whole  Presbyterian  clergy 
of  London  against  the  same  proceeding, 
which,  however,  did  not  save  them  at  the 
Restoration. 

At  the  moment  of  the  Restoration  of 
Charles  II.,  he  appears,  therefore,  to  have 
had  as  little  public  claim  on  the  favour  of 
that  prince  as  any  clergyman  who  had  con 
formed  to  the  ecclesiastical  principles  of  the 
Parliament  and  the  Protectorate;  and  he 
was,  accordingly,  long  after  called  by  a 
zealous  Royalist  "the  false  Apostate!"! 
Bishoprics  were  indeed  offered  to  Baxter, 
who  refused,  and  to  Reynolds,  who  accepted, 
a  mitre ;  but  if  they  had  not  been,  as  they 
were,  men  venerable  for  every  virtue,  they 
were  the  acknowledged  leaders  of  the  Pres 
byterians,  whose  example  might  have  much 
effect  in  disposing  that  powerful  body  to  con 
formity.  No  such  benefit  could  be  hoped 
from  the  preferment  of  Gauden:  and  that  his 
public  character  must  have  rendered  him 
rather  the  object  of  disfavour  than  of  patron 
age  to  the  Court  at  this  critical  and  jealous 
period,  will  be  obvious  to  those  who  are 
conversant  with  one  small,  but  not  insignifi 
cant  circumstance.  The  Presbyterian  party 
is  well  known  to  have  predominated  in  the 
Convention  Parliament,  especially  when  it 
first  assembled  ;  and  it  was  the  policy  of  the 
whole  assembly  to  give  a  Presbyterian,  or 
moderate  and  mediatorial  colour,  to  their 
collective  proceedings.  On  the  25th  April 
1660,  they  chose  Mr.  Calamy,  Dr.  Gauden, 
and  Mr.  Baxter,  to  preach  before  them,  on 
the  fast  which  they  then  appointed  to  be 
held, — thus  placing  Gauden  between  two 
eminent  divines  of  the  Presbyterian  persua 
sion,  on  an  occasion  when  they  appear  stu 
diously  to  have  avoided  the  appointment  of 
an  Episcopalian.  It  is  evident  that  Gauden 
was  then  thought  nearer  in  principle  to  Bax 
ter  than  to  Juxon.  He  was  sufficiently  a 
Presbyterian  in  party  to  make  him  no  favour 
ite  with  the  Court :  yet  he  was  not  so  deci 
ded  a  Presbyterian  in  opinion  as  to  have  the 
influence  among  his  brethren  which  could 
make  him  worth  so  high  a  price  as  a  mitre. 
They  who  dispute  his  claim  to  be  the  writer 
of  the  Icon,  will  be  the  last  to  ascribe  his 
preferment  to  transcendent  abilities:  he  is 
not  mentioned  as  having  ever  shown  kind 
ness  to  Royalists;  there  is  no  trace  of  his 
correspondence  with  the  exiled  Court;  he 

*  The  Religious  and  Loyal  Protestation  of  John 
Gauden,  &.c.     London,  1648. 
t  Kennet,  Register,  p.  773. 


84 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


contributed  nothing  to  the  recall  of  the  King ; 
nor  indeed  had  he  the  power  of  performing 
such  atoning  services. 

Let  ihe  reader  then  suppose  himself  to 
be  acquainted  only  with  the  above  circum 
stances,  and  let  him  pause  to  consider  whe 
ther,  in  the  summer  of  1660,  there  could  be 
many  clergymen  of  the  Established  Church 
who  had  fewer  and  more  scanty  pretensions 
to  a  bishopric  than  Gauden :  yet  he  was 
appointed  Bishop  of  Exeter  on  the  3d  of 
November  following.  He  received,  in  a  few 
months,  20,OOOL  in  fines  for  the  renewal  of 
leases  ;*  and  yet  he  had  scarcely  arrived  at 
his  epispocal  palace  when,  on  the  21st  of 
December,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor  Clarendon,t  bitterly  complaining 
of  the  "distress."  "  infelicity,"  and  "  horror'7 
of  such  a  bishopric! — "a  hard  fate  which" 
(he  reminds  the  Chancellor)  "  he  had  before 

deprecated." "I  make  this  complaint," 

(he  adds,)  "to  your  Lordship,  because  you 
chiefly  put  me  on  this  adventure.  Your 
Lordship  commanded  mee  to  trust  in  your 
favour  for  an  honourable  maintenance  and 
some  such  additional  support  as  might  sup 
ply  the  defects  of  the  bishopric."  *  *  * 
"Nor  am  I  so  unconscious  to  the  service  I  have 
done  to  the  Church  and  to  his  Majesty's  family, 
as  to  beare  with  patience  such  a  mine  most  un 
deservedly  put  upon  mee.  Are  these  the  effects 
of  his  liberall  expressions,  who  told  mee  I 
might  have  what  I  would  desire  ?  *  *  * 
Yf  your  Lordship  will  not  concern  yourselfe 
in  my  affaire,  I  must  make  my  last  complaint 
to  the  King."  In  five  days  after  (26th  De 
cember  1660)  he  wrote  another  long  letter, 
less  angry  and  more  melancholy,  to  the 
same  great  person,  which  contains  the  fol 
lowing  remarkable  sentence  : — "Dr.  Morly 
once  offered  mee  my  option,  upon  account  of 
some  service  which  he  thought  I  had  done  ex 
traordinary  for  the  Church  and  the  Royall 
Family,  of  which  he  told  mee  your  Lordship 
was  informed.  This  made  mee  modestly 
secure  of  your  Lordship's  favour  j  though  I 
found  your  Lordship  would  never  owne  your 
consciousnes  to  mee,  as  if  it  would  have  given 
mee  too  much  confidence  of  a  proportionable 
expectation.  *  *  *  I  knew  your  Lord 
ship  knew  my  service  and  merit  to  be  no 
way  inferior  to  the  best  of  your  friends,  or 
enemyes.^l 

In  these  two  letters, — more  covertly  in  the 
first,  more  openly  in  the  second, — Gauden 
apprises  Lord  Clarendon,  that  Dr.  Morly 
(who  was  Clarendon's  most  intimate  friend) 
had  acknowledged  some  extraordinary  service 
done  by  Gauden  to  the  Royal  Family,  which 
had  been  made  known  to  the  Chancellor : 
though  that  nobleman  had  avoided  a  direct 
acknowledgment  of  it  to  the  bishop  before 
he  left  London.  Gauden  appears  soon  after 
to  have  written  to  Sir  E.Nicholas,  Secretary 
of  State,  a  letter  of  so  peculiar  a  character 

*  Biographia  Britannica,  article  "  Gauden." 
t  Wordsworth,  Documentary  Supplement,  p.  9. 
t  Ibid.  pp.  11—13. 


as  to  have  been  read  by  the  King  •  for  an 
answer  was  sent  to  him  by  Nicholas,  dated 
on  the  19th  January  1661,  in  which  the  fol 
lowing  sentence  deserves  attention  : — "  As 
for  your  owne  particular,  he  desires  you  not 
to  be  discouraged  at  the  poverty  of  your 
bishoprick  at  present ;  and  if  that  answer 
not  the  expectation  of  what  was  promised 
you,  His  Majesty  will  take  you  so  particularly 
into  his  care,  that  he  bids  me  assure  you,  that 
you  shall  have  no  cause  to  remember  Booking"* 
These  remarkable  words  by  no  means  imply 
that  Gauden  did  not  then  believe  that  the 
nature  of  his  "extraordinary  service"  had 
been  before  known  to  the  King.  They  evi 
dently  show  his  letter  to  have  consisted  of 
a  complaint  of  the  poverty  of  his  bishopric, 
with  an  intelligible  allusion  to  this  service, 
probably  expressed  with  more  caution  and 
reserve  than  in  his  addresses  to  the  Chan 
cellor.  What  was  really  then  first  made 
known  to  the  King  was  not  his  merits,  but 
his  poverty.  On  the  21st  January,  the  im 
portunate  prelate  again  addressed  to  Claren 
don  a  letter,  explicitly  stating  the  nature  of 
his  services,  probably  rendered  necessary 
in  his  opinion  by  the  continued  silence  of 
Clarendon,  who  did  not  answer  his  applica 
tions  till  the  13th  March.  From  this  letter 
the  following  extract  is  inserted  : — 

"All  I  desire  is  an  augment  of  500Z.  per  annum, 
yt  if  cannot  bee  at  present  had  in  a  commendam  ; 
yet  possible  the  King's  favor  to  me  will  not  grudg 
mee  this  pension  out  of  the  first  fruits  and  tenths 
of  this  diocesse  ;  till  I  bee  removed  or  otherwayes 
provided  for  :  Nor  will  yr  Lordship  startle  at  this 
motion,  or  wave  the  presenting  of  it  to  hys  Ma- 

J'esty,  yf  you  please  to  consider  the  pretensions 
may  have  beyond  any  of  my  calling,  not  as  to 
merit,  but  duty  performed  to  the  Royall  Family. 
True,  I  once  presumed  yr  Lordship  had  fully 
known  that  arcavam,  forsoe  DrffjVIorley  told  mee, 
at  the  King's  first  cdming ;  when  he  assured 
rnee  the  greatnes  of  that  service  was  such,  that 
I  might  have  any  preferment  I  desired.  This 
consciousnes '  of  your  Lordship  (as  I  supposed) 
and  Dr.  Morley,  made  mee  confident  my  affaires 
would  bee  carried  on  to  some  proportion  of  what 
I  had  done,  and  he  thought  deserved.  Hence 
my  silence  of  it  to  your  Lordship  :  as  to  the  King 
and  Duke  of  York,  whom  before  I  came  away 
I  acquainted  with  it,  when  I  saw  myself  not  so 
much  considered  in  my  present  disposition  as  I 
did  hope  I  should  have  beene,  what  trace  their 
Royall  goodnes  hath  of  it  is  best  expressed  by 
themselves  ;  nor  do  I  doubt  but  I  shall,  by  your 
Lordship's  favor,  find  the  fruits  as  to  somthing 
extraordinary,  since  the  service  was  soe :  not  as 
to  what  was  known  to  the  world  under  my  name, 
in  order  to  vindicate  the  Crowne  and  the  Church, 
but  what  goes  under  the  late  blessed  King's  name, 
'  the  elx^v  or  portraiture  of  hys  Majesty  in  hys 
solitudes  and  sufferings.'  This  book  and  figure 
was  wholy  and  only  my  invention,  making  and 
designe  ;  in  order  to  vindicate  the  King's  wisdome, 
honor  and  piety.  My  wife  indeed  was  conscious 
to  it,  and  had  an  hand  in  disguising  the  letters  of 
that  copy  which  I  sent  to  the  King  in  the  ile  of 
Wight,  by  favor  of  the  late  Marquise  of  Hartford, 
which  was  delivered  to  the  King  by  the  now 
Bishop  of  Winchester  :t  hys  Majesty  graciously 
accepted,  owned,  and  adopted  it  as  hys  sense  and 

*  Wordsworth,  Documentary  Supplement,  p.  14. 
t  Duppa. 


ICON  BASILIC. 


85 


genius;  not  only  with  great  approbation,  but  ad 
miration.  Hee  kept  it  with  hym  ;  and  though 
hys  cruel  murtherers  went  on  to  perfect  hys  mar- 
tyrdome,  yet  God  preserved  and  prospered  this 
book  to  revive  hys  honor,  and  redeeme  hys  Ma 
jesty's  name  from  that  grave  of  contempt  and 
abhorrence  or  infamy,  in  which  they  aymed  to 
bury  hym.  When  it  came  out,  just  upon  the 
King's  death ;  Good  God  !  what  shame,  rage  and 
despite,  filled  hys  murtherers  !  What  comfort 
hys  friends  !  How  many  enemyes  did  it  convert ! 
How  many  hearts  did  it  mollify  and  melt  !  What 
devotions  it  raysed  to  hys  posterity,  as  children  of 
such  a  father !  What  preparations  it  made  in  all 
men's  minds  for  this  happy  restauration,  and  which 
I  hope  shall  not  prove  my  affliction  !  In  a  word, 
it  was  an  army,  and  did  vanquish  more  than  any 
sword  could.  My  Lord,  every  good  subject  con 
ceived  hopes  of  restauration  ;  meditated  reveng 
and  separation.  Your  Lordship  and  all  good  sub 
jects  with  hys  Majesty  enjoy  the  recall  and  now 
ripe  fruites  of  that  plant.  O  let  not  mee  wither ! 
who  was  the  author,  and  ventured  wife,  children, 
estate,  liberty,  life,  and  all  but  my  soule,  in  so 
great  an  achievement,  which  hath  filled  England 
and  all  the  world  with  the  glory  of  it.  I  did  lately 
present  my  fayth  in  it  to  the  Duke  of  York,  and 
by  hym  to  the  King ;  both  of  them  were  pleased 
to  give  mee  credit,  and  owne  it  as  a  rare  service 
in  those  horrors  of  times.  True,  I  played  this 
best  card  in  my  hand  something  too  late  ;  else  I 
might  have  sped  as  well  as  Dr.  Reynolds  and 
some  others ;  but  I  did  not  lay  it  as  a  ground  of 
ambition,  nor  use  it  as  a  ladder.  Thinking  my 
self  e  secure  in  the  just  valew  of  Dr.  Morely,  who 
1  was  sure  faiew  it,  and  told  mee  your  Lordship 
did  soe  too  ;*  who,  I  believe,  intended  mee  som- 
thing  at  least  competent,  though  lesse  convenient, 
in  this  preferment.  All  that  I  desire  is,  that  your 
Lordship  would  make  that  good,  which  I  think 
you  designed  ;  and  which  I  am  confident  the 
King  will  not  deny  mee,  agreeable  to  hys  royall 
munificence,  which  promiseth  extraordinary  re 
wards  to  extraordinary  services  :  Certainly  this 
service  is  such,  for  the  matter,  manner,  timing 
and  efficacy,  as  was  never  exceeded,  nor  will 
ever  be  equalled,  yf  I  may  credit  the  judgment 
of  the  best  and  wisest  men  that  have  read  it ;  and 
I  know  your  Lordship,  who  is  soe  great  a  master 
of  wisdome  and  eloquence,  cannot  but  esteeme 
the  author  of  that  peice  ;  and  accordingly,  make 
mee  to  see  those  effects  which  may  assure  mee 
that  my  loyalty,  paines,  care,  hazard  and  silence, 
are  accepted  by  the  King  and  Royall  Family,  to 
which  your  Lordship's  is  now  grafted." 

The  Bishop  wrote  three  letters  more  to 
Clarendon,— on  the  25th  January,  20th  Feb 
ruary,  and  6th  of  March  respectively,  to 
which  on  the  13th  of  the  last  month  the 
Chancellor  sent  a  reply  containing  the  fol 
lowing  sentence  :—  The  particular  which  you 
often  renewed,  I  do  confesse  was  imparted  to 
wief  under  secrecy,  and  of  which  I  did  not  take 
myself  to  be  at  liberty  to  take  notice  ;  and  truly 
when  it  ceases  to  be  a  secret^  I  know  nobody 
will  be  gladd  of  it  but  Mr.  Milton ;  I  have 
wry  often  wished  I  had  never  been  trusted 
with  it. 

It  is  proper  here  to  remark,  that  all  the 
letters  of  Gauden  are  still  extant,  endorsed 

*  Tt  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  this  and  the  like 
passages,  that  Gauden  doubted  the  previous  com 
munication  of  Morley  to  Clarendon :  he  uses 
such  language  as  a  reproach  to  the  Chancellor 
for  his  silence. 

t  Evidently  by  Morley. 


by  Lord  Clarendon,  or  by  his  eldest  son.  In 
the  course  of  three  months,  then,  it  appears 
that  Gauden,  with  unusual  importunity  and 
confidence,  with  complaints  which  were  dis 
guised  reproaches,  and  sometimes  with  an 
approach  to  menaces,  asserted  his  claim  to 
be  richly  rewarded,  as  the  author  of  the  Icon. 
He  affirms  that  it  was  sent  to  the  King  by  the 
Duke  of  Somerset,  who  died  about  a  month 
before  his  first  letter,  and  delivered  to  his 
Majesty  by  Dr.  Duppa,  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
who  was  still  alive.  He  adds,  that  he  had  ac 
quainted  Charles  II.  with  the  secret  through 
the  Duke  of  York,  that  Morley,  then  Bishop 
of  Worcester,  had  informed  Clarendon  of  it; 
and  that  Morley  himself  had  declared  the 
value  of  the  service  to  be  such,  as  to  entitle 
Gauden  to  choose  his  own  preferment.  Gau 
den  thus  enabled  Clarendon  to  convict  him 
of  falsehood, — if  his  tale  was  untrue. — in 
three  or  four  circumstances,  differing  indeed 
in  their  importance*  as  to  the  main  question, 
but  equally  material  to  his  own  veracity.  A 
single  word  from  Duppa  would  have  over 
whelmed  him  with  infamy.  How  easy  was 
it  for  the  Chancellor  to  ascertain  whether 
the  information  had  been  given  to  the  King 
and  his  brother!  Morley  was  his  bosom- 
friend,  and  the  spiritual  director  of  his  daugh 
ter,  Anne  Duchess  of  York.  How  many  other 
persons  might  have  been  quietly  sounded  by 
the  numerous  confidential  agents  of  a  great 
minister,  on  a  transaction  which  had  occur 
red  only  twelve  years  before !  To  suppose 
that  a  statesman,  then  at  the  zenith  of  his 
greatness,  could  not  discover  the  truth  on 
this  subject,  without  a  noise  like  that  of  a 
judicial  inquiry,  would  betray  a  singular 
ignorance  of  affairs.  Did  Clarendon  relin 
quish,  without  a  struggle,  his  belief  in  a 
book,  which  had  doubtless  touched  his  feel 
ings  when  he  read  it  as  the  work  of  his  Royal 
Master?  Even  curiosity  might  have  led 
Charles  II.,  when  receiving  the  blessing  of 
Duppa  on  his  deathbed,  to  ask  him  a  short 
confidential  question.  To  how  many  chances 
of  detection  did  Gauden  expose  himself? 
How  nearly  impossible  is  it  that  the  King, 
the  Duke,  the  Chancellor,  and  Morley  should 
have  abstained  from  the  safest  means  of  in 
quiry,  and,  in  opposition  to  their  former  opi 
nions  and  prejudices,  yielded  at  once  to 
Gauden's  assertion. 

The  previous  belief  of  the  Royalist  party 
in  the  Icon  very  much  magnifies  the  im 
probability  of  such  suppositions.  The  truth 
might  have  been  discovered  by  the  parties 
appealed  to,  and  conveyed  to  the  audacious 
pretender,  without  any  scandal.  There  was 
no  need  of  any  public  exposure :  a  private 
intimation  of  the  falsehood  of  one  material 
circumstance  must  have  silenced  Gauden. 
But  what,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  answer  of 
Lord  Clarendon'?  Let  any  reader  consider 
the  above  cited  sentence  of  his  letter,  and 
determine  for  himself  whether  it  does  not 
express  such  an  unhesitating  assent  to  the 
claim  as  could  only  have  flowed  from  in 
quiry  and  evidence.  By  confessing  that  the 
H 


86 


*     MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


secret  was  imparted  to  him,  he  admits  the 
other  material  part  of  Gauden's  statement, 
that  the  information  came  through  Morley. 
Gauden,  if  his  story  was  true,  chose  the  per 
sons  to  whom  he  imparted  it  bolh  prudently 
and  fairly.  He  dealt  with  it  as  a  secret  of 
which  the  disclosure  would  injure  the  Royal 
cause ;  and  he  therefore  confined  his  com 
munications  to  the  King's  sons  and  the  Chan 
cellor,  who  could  not  be  indisposed  to  his 
cause  by  it,  and  whose  knowledge  of  it  was 
necessary  to  justify  his  own  legitimate  claims. 
Had  it  been  false,  no  choice  could  have  been 
more  unfortunate.  He  appealed  to  those  who, 
for  aught  he  knew,  might  have  in  their  pos 
session  the  means  of  instantly  demonstrating 
that  he  was  guilty  of  a  falsehood  so  impru 
dent  and  perilous,  that  nothing  parallel  to  it 
has  ever  been  hazarded  by  a  man  of  sound 
mind.  How  could  Gauden  know  that  the 
King  did  not  possess  his  father's  MS.,  and 
that  Royston  the  printer  was  not  ready  to 
prove  that  he  had  received  it  from  Charles  I.. 
through  hands  totally  unconnected  with  Gau 
den  ?  How  great  must  have  been  the  risk  if 
we  suppose,  with  Dr.  Wordsworth,  and  Mr. 
Wagstaffe,  that  more  than  one  copy  of  the 
MS.  existed,  and  that  parts  of  it  had  been 
seen  by  many  !  It  is  without  any  reason  that 
Dr.  Wordsworth  and  others  represent  the 
secrecy  of  Gauden's  communications  to  Cla 
rendon  as  a  circumstance  of  suspicion:  for 
he  was  surely  bound,  by  that  sinister  honour 
which  prevails  in  the  least  moral  confedera 
cies,  to  make  no  needless  disclosures  on  this 
delicate  subject. 

Clarendon's  letter  is  a  declaration  that  he 
was  converted  from  his  former  opinion  about 
the  author  of  the  Icon  :  that  of  Sir  E.  Nicho 
las  is  a  declaration  to  the  same  purport  on 
his  own  part,  and  on  that  of  the  King.  The 
confession  of  Clarendon  is  more  important, 
from  being  apparently  wrung  from  him,  after 
the  lapse  of  a  considerable  time ;  in  the  for 
mer  part  of  which  he  evaded  acknowledg 
ment  in  conversation,  while  in  the  latter  part 
he  incurred  the  blame  of  incivility,  by  de 
laying  to  answer  letters, — making  his  ad 
mission  at  last  in  the  hurried  manner  of  an 
unwilling  witness.  The  decisive  words,  how 
ever,  were  at  length  extorted  from  him, 
l(  When  it  ceases  to  be  a  secret,  I  know  nobody 
will  be  glad  of  it,  but  Mr.  Milton.''''  Wagstaffe 
argues  this  question  as  if  Gauden's  letters 
•were  to  be  considered  as  a  man's  assertions 
in  his  own  cause ;  without  appearing  ever  to 
have  observed  that  they  are  not  offered  as 
proof  of  the  facts  which  they  affirm,  but  as 
a  claim  which  circumstances  show  to  have 
been  recognized  by  the  adverse  party. 

The  course  of  another  year  did  not  abate 
the  solicitations  of  Gauden.  In  the  end  of 
1661  and  beginning  of  1662,  the  infirmities 
of  Duppa  promised  a  speedy  vacancy  in  the 
great  bishopric  of  Winchester,  to  which 
Gauden  did  not  fail  to  urge  his  pretensions 
with  undiminished  confidence,  in  a  letter  to 
the  Chancellor  (28th  December),  in  a  letter  to 
the  Duke  of  York  (17th  January),  and  in  a 
memorial  to  the  King,  without  a  date,  but 


written  on  the  same  occasion.  The  two  let 
ters  allude  to  the  particulars  of  former  com 
munications.  The  memorial,  as  the  nature 
of  such  a  paper  required,  is  fuller  and  more 
minute:  it  is  expressly  founded  on  "a  pri 
vate  service,"  for  the  reality  of  which  it 
again  appeals  to  the  declarations  of  Mor 
ley,  to  the  evidence  of  Duppa,  ("who," 
says  Gauden,  "encouraged  me  in  that  great 
work,")  still  alive,  and  visited  on  his  sick 
bed  by  the  King,  and  to  the  testimony  of 
the  Duke  of  Somerset.*  It  also  shows  that 
Gauden  had  applied  to  the  King  for  Win 
chester  as  soon  as  it  should  become  vacant, 
about  or  before  the  time  of  his  appointment 
to  Exeter. 

On  the  19th  of  March,  1662.  Gauden  was 
complimented  at  Court  as  the  author  of  the 
Icon,  by  George  Digby,  second  Earl  of  Bris 
tol,  a  nobleman  of  fine  genius  and  brilliant 
accomplishments,  but  remarkable  for  his  in 
constancy  in  political  and  religious  opinion. 
The  bond  of  connection  between  them  seems 
to  have  been  their  common  principles  of 
toleration,  which  Bristol  was  solicitous  to  ob 
tain  for  the  Catholics,  whom  he  had  secretly 
joined,  and  which  Gauden  was  willing  to 
grant,  not  only  to  the  Old  Nonconformists, 
but  to  the  more  obnoxious  Quakers.  On  the 
day  following  Gauden  writes  a  letter,  in 
which  it  is  supposed  that  "the  Grand  Arca 
num"  had  been  disclosed  to  Bristol  "by  the 
King  or  the  Royal  Duke."  In  six  days  after 
he  writes  again,  on  the  death  of  Duppa,  to 
urge  his  claim  to  Winchester.  This  third 
letter  is  more  important.  He  observes,  with 
justice,  that  he  could  not  expect  "any  extra 
ordinary  instance  of  his  Majesty's  favour  on 
account  of  his  signal  service  only,  because 
that  might  put  the  world  on  a  dangerous 
curiosity,  if  he  had  been  in  other  respects 
unconspicuous ;"  but  he  adds,  in  effect,  that 
his  public  services  would  be  a  sufficient  rea 
son  or  pretext  for  the  great  preferment  to 
which  he  aspired.  He  appeals  to  a  new  wit 
ness  on  the  subject  of  the  Icon. — Dr.  Shel- 


*  Doc.  Sup.  p.  30.  We  have  no  positive  proof 
that  these  two  letters  were  sent,  or  the  memorial 
delivered.  It  seems  (Ibid.  p.  27)  that  there  are 
marks  of  the  letters  having  been  sealed  and  broken 
open  ;  and  it  is  said  to  be  singular  that  such  letters 
should  be  found  among  the  papers  of  him  who 
wrote  them.  But  as  the  early  history  of  these 
papers  is  unknown,  it  is  impossible  to  expect  an 
explanation  of  every  fact.  A  collector  might  have 
found  them  elsewhere,  and  added  them  to  the 
Gauden  papers.  An  anxious  writer  might  have 
broken  open  two  important  letters,  in  which  he 
was  fearful  that  some  expression  was  indiscreet, 
and  afterwards  sent  corrected  duplicates,  without 
material  variation.  Gauden  might  have  received 
information  respecting  the  disposal  of  Winchester 
and  Worcester,  or  about  the  state  of  parties  at 
Court,  before  the  letters  were  dispatched,  which 
would  render  them  then  unseasonable.  What  is 
evident  is,  that  they  were  written  with  an  inten 
tion  to  send  them, — that  they  coincide  with  his 
previous  statements, — and  that  the  determination 
not  to  send  them  wan  not  occasioned  by  any  doithtt 
entertained  by  the  Chancellor  of  his  veracity  ;  for 
such  doubts  would  have  prevented  his  preferment  to 
the  bishopric  of  Worcester, — one  of  the  most  CO* 
veted  dignities  of  the  Church, 


ICON  BASILIKE. 


87 


don,  then  Bishop  of  London; — thus,  once 
more,  if  his  story  were  untrue,  almost  wan 
tonly  adding  to  the  chance  of  easy,  immedi 
ate,  and  private  detection.  His  danger  would 
have,  indeed,  been  already  enhanced  by  the 
disclosure  of  the  secret  to  Lord  Bristol,  who 
was  very  intimately  acquainted  with  Charles 
I.,  and  among  whose  good  qualities  discretion 
and  circumspection  cannot  be  numbered.  The 
belief  of  Bristol  must  also  be  considered  as 
a  proof  that  Gauden  continued  to  be  believed 
by  the  King  and  the  Duke,  from  whom.  Bris 
tol's  information  proceeded.  A  friendly  cor 
respondence,  between  the  Bishop  and  the 
Earl,  continued  till  near  the  death  of  the  for 
mer,  in  the  autumn  of  1662. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  Chancellor  gave  a 
still  more  decisive  proof  of  his  continued  con 
viction  of  the  justice  of  Gauden's  pretensions, 
by  his  translation  in  May  to  Worcester.    The 
Chancellor's    personal    ascendant  over  the 
King  was  perhaps  already  somewhat  impair 
ed  ;  but  his  power  was  still  unshaken  ;  and 
he  was  assuredly  the  effective  as  well  as 
formal  adviser  of  the  Crown  on  ecclesiastical 
promotions.     It  would  be  the  grossest  injus 
tice  to  the  memory  of  Lord  Clarendon  to  be 
lieve,  that   if,  after  two  years'  opportunity 
for  inquiry,  any  serious  doubts  of  Gauden's 
veracity  had  remained  in  his  mind,  he  would 
have  still  farther  honoured  and  exalted  the 
contriver  of  a  falsehood,  devised  for  merce 
nary  purposes,  to  rob  an  unhappy  and  belov 
ed  Sovereign  of  that  power  which,  by  his. 
writings,  he  still  exercised  over  the  generous 
feelings  of  men.     It  cannot  be  doubted,  and 
ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  that  a  false  claim 
to  the  Icon  is  a  crime  of  a  far  deeper  dye 
than  the  publication  of  it  under  the  false  ap 
pearance  of  a  work  of  the  King.    To  publish 
such  a  book  in  order  to  save  the  King's  life, 
was  an  offence,  attended  by  circumstances 
of  much  extenuation,  in  one  who  believed, 
or  perhaps  knew,  that  it  substantially  con 
tained  the  King's  sentiments,  and  who  deep 
ly  deprecated  the  proceedings  of  the  army 
and  of  the  remnant  of  the  House  of  Commons 
against  him.    But  to  usurp  the  reputation  of 
the  work  so  long  after  the  death  of  the  Royal 
Author,  for  sheer  lucre,  is  an  act  of  baseness 
perhaps  without  a  parallel.     That  Clarendon 
should  wish  to  leave  the  more  venial  decep 
tion  undisturbed,  and  even  shrink  from  such 
refusals  as  might  lead  to  its  discovery,  is  not 
far  beyond  the  limits  which  good  men  may 
overstep  in  very  diffiult  situations:  but  that 
he  should  have  rewarded  the  most  odious  of 
impostors  by  a  second  bishopric,  would  place 
him  far  lower  than  a  just  adversary  would 
desire.    If  these  considerations  seem  of  such 
moment  at  this  distant  time,  what  must  have 
been  their  force  in  the  years  1660  and  1662,  in 
the  minds  of  Clarendon,  and  Somerset,  anc 
Duppa,  and  Morley,  and  Sheldon  !    It  woulc 
have  been  easy  to  avoid  the  elevation  of  Gau 
den  to  Worcester:  he  had  himself  opened  the 
way  for  offering  him  a  pension ;  and  the  Chan 
cellor  might  have  answered  almost  in  Gau 
den's  own  words,  that   farther  prefermen 
might  lead  to  perilous  inquiry.   Clarendon,  in 


662,  must  either  have  doubted  who  was  the 
luthor  of  the  Icon,  or  believed  the  claim  of 
Jauden,  or  adhered  to  his  original  opinion, 
f  he  believed  it  to  be  the  work  of  the  King, 
le  could  not  have  been  so  unfaithful  to  his 
nemory  as  to  raise  such  an  impostor  to  a 
second  bishopric :  if  he  believed  it  to  be  the 
>roduction  of  Gauden,  he  might  have  thought 
t  an  excusable  policy  to  recompense  a  pious 
'raud,  and  to  silence  the  possessor  of  a  dan 
gerous  secret :  if  he  had  doubts,  they  would 
lave  prompted  him  to  investigation,  which, 
conducted  by  him,  and  relating  to  transac- 
ions  so  recent,  must  have  terminated  in  cer- 
ain  knowledge. 

Charles  II.  is  well  known,  at  the  famous 
conference  between  the  Episcopalians  and 
r*resbyterians,  when  the  Icon  was  quoted  as 
lis  father's,  to  have  said,  "All  that  is  in  that 
30ok  is  not  gospel."  Knowing,  as  we  now 
do,  that  Gauden's  claim  was  preferred  to  him 
n  1660,  this  answer  must  be  understood  to 
lave  been  a  familiar  way  of  expressing  his 
scepticfsm  about  its  authenticity.  In  this 
view  of  it,  it  coincides  with  his  declaration 
o  Lord  Anglesea  twelve  years  after ;  and  it 
s  natural  indeed  to  suppose,  that  his  opinion 
was  that  of  those  whom  he  then  most  trusted 
on  such  matters,  of  whom  Clarendon  was 
certainly  one.  To  suppose,  with  some  late 
writers,  that  he  arid  his  brother  looked  with 
avourand  pleasure  on  an  attempt  to  weaken 
he  general  interest  in  the  character  of  their 
ather,  merely  because  the  Icon  is  friendly 
uO  the  Church  of  England,  is  a  wranton  act 
of  injustice  to  them.  Charles  II.  was  neither 
a  bigot,  nor  without  regard  to  his  kindred ; 
he  family  affections  of  James  were  his  best 
qualities, — though  by  a  peculiar  perverse- 
ness  of  fortune,  they  proved  the  source  of 
his  sharpest  pangs. 

But  to  return  to  Lord  Clarendon,  who  sur 
vived  Gauden  twelve  years,  and  w'ho,  almost 
to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  was  employed  in 
the  composition  of  an  historical  work,  origi 
nally  undertaken  at  the  desire  of  Charles  I., 
and  avowed,  with  honest  partiality  to  be 
destined  for  the  vindication  of  his  character 
and  cause.  This  great  work,  not  intended 
for  publication  in  the  age  of  the  writer,  was 
not  actually  published  till  thirty  years  after 
his  death,  and  even  then  riot  without  the 
suppression  of  important  passages,  which  it 
seems  the  public  was  not  yet  likely  to  re 
ceive  in  a  proper  temper.  Now.  neither  in 
the  original  edition,  nor  in  any  of 'the  recent 
ly  restored  passages,*  is  there  any  allusion 
to  the  supposed  work  of  the  King.  No  rea 
son  of  temporary  policy  can  account  for 
this  extraordinary  silence.  However  the 
statesman  might  be  excused  for  the  mo 
mentary  sacrifice  of  truth  to  quiet,  the  histo 
rian  could  have  no  temptation  to  make  the 
sacrifice  perpetual.  Had  he  believed  that 
his  Royal  Master  was  the  writer  of  the 
only  book  ever  written  by  a  dying  monarch 
on  his  own  misfortunes,  it  would  have  been 
unjust  as  an  historian,  treacherous  as  a 


In  the  Oxford  Edition  of  1826. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


friend,  and  unfeeling  as  a  man,  to  have  pas 
sed  over  in  silence  such  a  memorable  and 
affecting  circumstance.  Merely  as  a  fact, 
his  narrative  was  defective  -without  it.  But 
it  was  a  fact  of  a  very  touching  and  interest 
ing  nature,  on  which  his  genius  would  have 
expatiated  with  affectionate  delight.  No 
later  historian  of  the  Royal  party  has  failed 
to  dwell  on  it.  How  should  he  then  whom 
it  must  have  most  affected  be  silent,  unless 
his  pen  had  been  stopped  by  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth  1  He  had  even  personal  induce 
ments  to  explain  it,  at  least  in  those  more 
private  memoirs  of  his  administration;  which 
form  part  of  what  is  called  his  -'Life."  Had 
he  believed  in  the  genuineness  of  the  Icon, 
it  would  have  been  natural  for  him  in  these 
memoirs  to  have  reconciled  that  belief  with 
the  successive  preferments  of  the  impostor. 
He  had  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  claims 
of  Gauden  would  one  day  reach  the  public ; 
he  had  himself,  in  his  remarkable  letter  of 
March  13th,  1661,  spoken  of  such  a  disclo 
sure  as  likely.  This  very  acknowledgment 
contained  in  that  letter,  which  he  knew  to 
be  in  the  possession  of  Gauden's  family,  in 
creased  the  probability.  It  was  scarcely 
possible  that  such  papers  should  for  ever 
elude  the  search  of  curiosity,  of  historical 
justice,  or  of  party  spirit.  But  besides  these 
probabilities,  Clarendon,  a  few  months  be 
fore  his  death,  "  had  learned  that  ill  people  en 
deavoured  to  persuade  the  King  that  his  father 
was  not  the  author  of  the  book  that  goes  by  his 
name."  This  information  was  conveyed  to 
him  from  Bishop  Morley  through  Lord  Corn- 
bury,  who  went  to  visit  his  father  in  France 
in  May  1674.  On  hearing  these  words. 
Clarendon  exclaimed,  "'GoodlSod !  I  thought 
the  Marquis  of  Hertford  had  satisfied  the  King 
in  that  matter.'*  By  this  message  Clarendon 
was  therefore  warned,  that  the  claim  of 
Gauden  was  on  its  way  to  the  public, — that 
it  was  already  assented  to  by  the  Royal 
Family  themselves,  and  was  likely  at  last  to 
appear  with  the  support  of  the  most  formida 
ble  authorities.  What  could  he  now  con 
clude  but  that,  if  undetected  and  unrefuted, 
or,  still  more,  if  uncontradicted  in  a  history 
destined  to  vindicate  the  King,  the  claim 
would  be  considered  by  posterity  as  estab 
lished  by  his  silence  ?  Clarendon's  language 
on  this  occasion  also  strengthens  very  much 
another  part  of  the  evidence  ;  for  it  proves, 
beyond  all  doubt,  that  the  authorship  of  the 
Icon  had  been  discussed  by  the  King  with  the 
Duke  of  Somerset  before  that  nobleman's  death 
in  October  1660, — a  fact  nearly  conclusive 
of  the  whole  question.  Had  the  Duke  as 
sured  the  King  that  his  father  was  the  au 
thor,  what  a  conclusive  answer  was  ready  to 
Gauden,  who  asserted  that  the  first  had  been 
the  bearer  of  the  manuscript  of  the  Icon  from 
Gauden  to  Charles  I. !  As  there  had  been 


*  The  first  letter  of  the  second  Earl  of  Claren 
don  to  Wagstaffe  in  1694,  about  twenty  years 
after  the  event,  has  not,  as  far  as  we  know,  been 
published.  We  know  only  the  extracts  in  Wag 
staffe.  The  second  letter  written  in  1699  is  printed 
entire  in  Wagstaffe's  Defence,  p.  37. 


such  a  communication  between  the  King  and 
the  Duke  of  Somerset,  it  is  altogether  incredi 
ble  that  Clarendon  should  not  have  recurred 
to  the  same  pure  source  of  information. 
The  only  admissible  meaning  of  Clarendon's 
words  is,  that  "Lord  Hertford  (afterwards 
Duke  of  Somerset)  had  satisfied  the  King^  of 
the  impropriety  of  speaking  on  the  subject. 
We  must  otherwise  suppose  that  the  King 
and  Clarendon  had  been  "  satisfied,"  or  per 
fectly  convinced,  that  Charles  was  the  writer 
of  the  Icon; — a  supposition  which  would 
convert  the  silence  of  the  Chancellor  and 
the  levity  of  the  Monarch  into  heinous  of 
fences.  The  message  of  Morley  to  Claren 
don  demonstrates  that  they  had  previous 
conversation  on  the  subject.  The  answer 
shows  that  both  parties  knew  of  information 
having  been  given  by  Somerset  to  the  King, 
before  Gauden's  nominatidh  to  Exeter :  but 
Gauden  had  at  that  time  appealed,  in  his 
letters,  both  to  Morley  and  Somerset  as  his 
witness.  That  Clarendon  therefore  knew  all 
that  Morley  and  Somerset  could  tell,  is  no 
longer  matter  of  inference,  but  is  established 
by  the  positive  testimony  of  the  two  survi 
vors  in  1674.  Wagstaffe  did  not  perceive 
the  consequences  of  the  letter  which  he  pub 
lished,  because  he  had  not  seen  the  whole 
correspondence  of  Gauden.  But  it  is  much 
less  easy  to  understand,  how  those  who  have 
compared  the  letters  of  Gauden  with  the 
messages  between  Clarendon  and  Morley, 
should  not  have  discovered  the  irresistible 
inference  which  arises  from  the  comparison. 

The  silence  of  Lord  Clarendon,  as  an  his 
torian,  is  the  strongest  moral  evidence  that 
he  believed  the  pretensions  of  Bishop  Gau 
den  :  and  his  opinion  on  the  question  must 
be  held  to  include  the  testimony  in  point  of 
fact,  and  the  judgment  in  point  of  opinion, 
of  all  those  men  whom  he  had  easy  opportu 
nities  and  strong  inducements  to  consult.  It 
may  be  added,  that  however  Henry  Earl 
of  Clarendon  chose  to  express  himself,  (his 
language  is  not  free  from  an  air  of  mental 
reservation),  neither  he  nor  his  brother  Lord 
Rochester,  when  they  published  their  father's 
history  in  1702,  thought  fit,  in  their  preface,, 
to  attempt  any  explanation  of  his  silence 
respecting  the  Icon,  though  their  attention 
must  have  been  called  to  that  subject  by  the 
controversy  respecting  it  which  had  been 
carried  on  a  few  years  before  with  great  zeal 
and  activity.  Their  silence  becomes  the 
more  remarkable,  from'  the  strong  interest 
taken  by  Lord  Clarendon  in  the  controversy. 
He  wrote  two  letters  on  it  to  Wagstaffe,  in 
1694  and  1699;  he  was  one  of  the  few  per 
sons  present  at  the  select  consecration  of 
Wagstaffe  as  a  nonjuring  bishop,  in  1693  :  yet 
there  is  no  allusion  to  the  Icon  in  the  preface 
to  his  father's  history,  published  in  1702. 

It  cannot  be  pretended  that  the  final  silence 
of  Clarendon  is  agreeable  to  the  rigorous  rules 
of  historical  morality:  it  is  no  doubt  an  in 
firmity  which  impairs  his  credit  as  an  histo 
rian.  But  it  is  a  light  and  venial  fault  com 
pared  with  that  which  must  be  laid  to  his 
charge,  if  we  suppose3  that;  with  a  conviction 


ICON  BASILIKE. 


of  the  genuineness  of  the  Icon,  and  with  such 
testimony  in  support  of  it  as  the  evidence 
of  Somerset  and  Morley, — to  say  nothing  of 
others, — he  should  not  have  made  a  single 
effort,  in  a  work  destined  for  posterity,  to 
guard  from  the  hands  of  the  impostor  'the 
most  sacred  property  of  his  unfortunate  mas 
ter,  The  partiality  of  Clarendon  to  Charles  I. 
has  never  been  severely  blamed ;  his  silence 
in  his  history,  if  he  believed  Gauden,  would 
only  be  a  new  instance  of  that  partiality :  but 
the  same  silence,  if  he  believed  the  King  to 
be  the  author,  would  be  fatal  to  his  character 
as  an  historian  arid  a  man. 

The  knowledge  of  Gauden's  secret  was 
obtained  by  Clarendon  as  a  minister;  and  he 
might  deem  his  duty  with  respect  to  secrets 
of  state  still  to  be  so  far  in  force,  as  at  least 
to  excuse  him  from  disturbing  one  of  the 
favourite  opinions  of  his  party,  and  for  not 
disclosing  what  he  thought  could  gratify  none 
but  regicides  and  agitators.  Even  this  ex 
cuse,  on  the  opposite  supposition,  he  wanted. 
That  Charles  was  the  author  of  the  Icon 
(if  true)  was  no  state  secret,  but  the  preva 
lent  and  public  opinion.  He  might  have 
collected  full  proofs  of  its  truth,  in  private 
conversation  with  his  friends.  He  had  only 
to  state  such  proof,  and  to  lament  the  neces 
sity  which  made  him  once  act  as  if  the  truth 
were  otherwise,  rather  than  excite  a  contro 
versy  with  an  unprincipled  enemy,  danger 
ous  to  a  new  government,  and  injurious  to 
the  interests  of  monarchy.  His  mere  testi 
mony  would  have  done  infinitely  more  for 
the  King's  authorship,  than  all  the  volumes 
which  have  been  written  to  .maintain  it : — 
even  that  testimony  is  withheld.  If  the 
Icon  be  Gauden's,  the  silence  of  Clarendon 
is  a  vice  to  which  he  had  strong  temptations : 
if  it  be  the  King's,  it  is  a  crime  without  a 
motive.  Those  who  are  willing  to  ascribe 
the  lesser  fault  to  the  historian,  must  deter 
mine  against  the  authenticity  of  the  Icon. 

That  good  men,  of  whom  Lord  Clarendon 
was  one,  were,  at  the  period  of  the  Restora 
tion,  ready  to  use  expedients  of  very  dubious 
morality  to  conceal  secrets  dangerous  to  the 
Royal  cause,  will  appear  from  a  fact,  which 
seems  to  have  escaped  the  notice  of  the 
general  historians  of  England.  It  is  uncer 
tain,  and  not  worth  inquiring,  when  Charles 
II.  threw  over  his  doubts  and  vices  that  slight 
and  thin  vesture  of  Catholicism,  which  he 
drew  a  little  closer  round  him  at  the  sight 
of  death  :*  but  we  know  with  certainty,  that, 
in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1659,  the  Duke 
of  Ormonde  accidentally  discovered  the  con 
version,  by  finding  him  on  his  knees  at  mass 
in  a  church  at  Brussels.  Ormonde,  after  it 
was  more  satisfactorily  proved  to  'him,  by 
communication  with  Henry  Bennett  and 
Lord  Bristol.!  imparted  the  secret  in  Eng 
land  to  Clarendon  and  Southampton,  who 
agreed  with  him  in  the  necessity  of  prevent 
ing  the  enemies  of  monarchy,  or  the  friends 

*  His  formal  reconciliation  probably  took  place 
at  Cologne  in  1658,  under  the  direction  of  Dr. 
Peter  Talbot,  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Armagh. 

t  Carte,  Life  of  Ormonde,  vol.  ii.  pp.  254-^256. 


of  Popery,  from  promulgating  this  fatal  se 
cret.  Accordingly,  the  "  Act  for  the  better 
security  of  his  Majesty's  person  and  govern 
ment^*  provided,  that  to  affirm  the  King  to 
be  a  Papist,  should  be  punishable  by  "  dis 
ability  to  hold  any  office  or  promotion,  civilr 
military,  or  ecclesiastical,  besides  being  lia 
ble  to  such  other  punishments  as  by  common 
or  statute  law  might  be  inflicted." 

As  soon  as  we  take  our  stand  on  the 
ground,  that  the  acquiescence  of  all  the 
Royalists  in  the  council  and  court  of  Charles 
II.,  and  the  final  silence  of  Clarendon  in  his 
history,  on  a  matter  so  much  within  his  pro 
vince,  and  so  interesting  to  his  feelings,  are 
irreconcilable  with  the  supposition,  that  they 
believed  the  Icon  to  be  the  work  of  the  KingT 
all  the  other  circumstances  on  both  sides  not 
only  dwindle  into  insignificance,  but  assume 
a  different  colour.  Thus,  the  general  credit 
of  the  book  among  Royalists  before  the  Re 
storation  serves  to  show,  that  the  evidence 
which  changed  the  opinion  of  Clarendon  and 
his  friends  must  have  been  very  strong. — 
probably  far  stronger  than  what  we  now  pos 
sess;  the  firmer  we  suppose  the  previous 
conviction  to  have  been,  the  more  probable 
it  becomes,  that  the  proofs  then  discovered 
were  of  a  more  direct  nature  than  those 
which  remain.  Let  it  be  very  especially 
observed,  that  those  who  decided  the  ques 
tion  practically  in  1660  were  within  twelve 
years  of  the  fact ;  while  fifty  years  had  pas 
sed  before  the  greater  part  of  the  traditional 
and  hearsay,  stories,  ranged  on  the  opposite 
side,  were  brought  together  by  Wagstaffe. 

Let  us  consider,  for  example,  the  effect  of 
the  proceedings  of  1660,  upon  the  evidence 
of  the  witnesses  who  speak  of  the  Icon  as 
having  been  actually  taken  from  the  King  at 
Naseby,  and  afterwards  restored  to  him  by 
the  conquerors.  Two  of  the  best  known  are 
the  Earl  of  Manchester  and  Mr.  Prynne. 
Eales,  a  physician  at  Welwyn  in  Hertford 
shire,  certifies,  in  1699,  that  some  years  be 
fore  the  Restoration  (i.  e.  about  1656),  he 
heard  Lord  Manchester  declare,  that  the 
MS.  of  the  Icon  was  taken  at  Naseby,  and 
that  he  had  seen  it  in  the  King's  own  hand.t 
Jones,  at  the  distance  of  fifty  years,  says 
that  he  had  heard  from  Colonel  Stroud  that 
Stroud  had  heard  from  Prynne  in  1649,  that 
he,  by  order  of  Parliament,  had  read  the 
MS.  of  the  Icon  taken  at  Naseby. J  Now  it 
is  certain  that  Manchester  was  taken  into 
favour,  and  Prynne  was  patronised  at  the 
Restoration.  If  this  were  so,  how  came 
matters,  of  which  they  spoke  so  publicly,  to 
remain  unknown  to  Clarendon  and  South 
ampton?  Had  the  MS.  Icon  been  intrusted 
to  Prynne  by  Parliament,  or  even  by  a  com 
mittee,  its  existence  must  have  been  known 
to  a  body  mnch  too  large  to  allow  the  sup 
position  of  secrecy.  The  application  of  the 
same  remark  disposes  of  the  mob  of  second 
hand  witnesses.  The  very  number  of  the 
witnesses  increases  the  incredibility  that 


*  13  Car.  2.  st.  1. 

t  "  Who  wrote,"  &c.  p.  93.    Wagstaffe's  Vin,< 
dication,  p.  19.  t  Ibid,  p.  80. 

H2 


90 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


their  testimony  could  have  escaped  notice 
in  1660.  Huntingdon,  a  Major  in  Cromwell's 
regiment,  who  abandoned  the  Parliamentary 
cause,  is  a  more  direct  witness.  In  the  year 
1679.  he  informed  Dugdale  that  he  had  pro 
cured  the  MS.  Icon  taken  at  Nast'by  to  be 
restored  to  the  King  at  Hampton,— •! hat  it 
was  written  by  Sir  E.  Walker,  but  interlined 
by  the  King,  who  wrote  all  'the  devotions. 
In  1681,  Dugdale  published  The  Short  View, 
in  which  is  the  same  story,  with  the  varia 
tion,  "that  it  was  written  with  ihe  King's 
own  hand ;:; — a  statement  which,  in  the 
summary  language  of  a  general  narrative, 
can  hardly  be  said  to  vary  materially  from 
the  former.  Now,  Major  Huntingdon  had 
particularly  attracted  the  notice  of  Claren 
don :  he  is  mentioned  in  the  history  with 
commendation.*  He  tendered  his  services 
to  the  King  before  the  Restoration  ;f  and, 
what  is  most  important  of  all  to  our  present 
purpose,  his  testimony  regarding  the  con 
duct  of  Berkeley  and  Ashburnham.  in  the 
journey  from  Hampton  Court,  is  expressly 
mentioned  by  the  historian  as  being,  in 
1660,  thought  worthy  of  being  weighed  even 
against  that  of  Somerset  and  Southampton.} 
When  we  thus  trace  a  direct  communication 
between  him  and  the  minister,  and  when  we 
remember  that  it  took  place  at  the  very  time 
of  the  claim  of  Gauden,  and  that  it  related 
to  events  contemporary  with  the  supposed 
recovery  of  the  Icon,  it  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  ask,  whether  Clarendon  would  riot  have 
sounded  him  on  that  subject,  and  whether 
Huntingdon  would  not  then  have  boasted 
of  such  a  personal  service  to  the  late  King. 
It  would  be  contrary  to  common  sense  not 
to  presume  that  something  then  passed  on 
that  subject,  and  that,  if  Huntingdon's  ac 
count  at  that  time  coincided  with  his  sub 
sequent  story,  it  could  not  have  been  re 
jected,  unless  it  was  outweighed  by  contrary 
evidence. §  He  must  have  been  thought 
either  a  deceiver  or  deceived :  for  the  more 
candid  of  these  suppositions  there  was  abun 
dant  scope.  It  is  known  that  one  MS.  (not 
the  Icon)  written  by  Sir  Edward  Walker 
and  corrected  by  the  King,  was  taken  with 
the  King's  correspondence  at  Naseby,  and 
restored  to  him  by  Fairfax  through  an  offi 
cer  at  Hampton  Court. II  This  was  an  ac 
count  of  the  military  transactions  in  the 
Civil  War,  written  by  Walker,  and  published 
in  his  Historical  Discourses  long  after.  It 
was  natural  that  the  King  shouldTbe  pleased 
at  the  recovery  of  this  manuscript,  which  he 

*  Vol.  v.  p.  484.  t  Ibid.  vol.  vii.  p.  432. 

t  Ibid.  vol.  v.  p.  495. 

§  Dr.  Wordsworfh  admits,  that  if  Clarendon 
had  consulted  Duppa,  Juxon,  Sheldon,  Morley, 
Kendal,  Barwick,  Legge,  Herbert,  &c.  &,c.  ;  nay, 
if  he  had  consulted  only  Morley  alone,  he  must 
have  been  satisfied, — (Dr.  Wordsworth,  of  course, 
says  for  the  King.)  Now,  ir  is  certain,  from  the 
message  of  Morley  to  Clarendon  in  1674,  that  pre 
vious  discussion  had  laken  place  between  them. 
Does  not  this  single  fact  decide  the  question  on 
Dr.  Wordsworth's  own  admission  ? 

II  Clarendon,  vol.  v.  p.  476 ;  and  Warbur ton's 
note. 


soon  after  sent  from  Hampton  Court  to  Lord 
Clarendon  in  Jersey,  as  a  "contribution" 
towards  his  H, story.  How  easily  Hunting 
don,  an  old  suldier  little  versed  in  manu 
scripts,  might,  thirty  years  afterwards,  have 
confounded  these  memorials  with  the  Icon! 
A  lew  prayers  in  the  King's  handwriting 
might  hiive  formed  a  part  of  the  papers  re 
stored.  So  slight  and  probable  are  the  only 
suppositions  necessary  to  save  the  veracity 
of  Huntingdon,  and  to  destroy  the  value  of 
his  evidence. 

Sir  Thomas  Herbert,  who  wrote  his  Me 
moirs  thirty  years  after  the  event,  in  the 
seventy-third  year  of  his  age,  when,  as  he 
told  Antony  Wood,  "  he  was  grown  old,  and 
not  in  such  a  capacity  as  he  could  wish  to 
publish  it,"  found  a  copy  of  the  Icon  among 
the  books  which  Charles  I.  left  to  him,  arid 
thought  "the  handwriting  was  the  King's." 
Sir  Philip  Warwick  states  Herbert's  testi 
mony  (probably  from  a  conversation  more 
full  than  the  Memoirs)  to  be,  that  ahe  saw 
the  MS.  in  the  King's  hand,  as  he  believes  j 
but  it  was  in  a  running  character,  and  not  in 
that  which  the  King  usually  wrote.''*  Now, 
more  than  one  copy  of  the  Icon  might  have 
been  sent  to  Charles;  they  might  have  been 
written  with  some  resemblances  to  his  hand 
writing;  but  assuredly  the  original  MS.  would 
not  have  been  loosely  left  to  Herbert,  while 
works  on  general  subjects  were  bequeathed 
to  the  King's  children.  It  is  equally  certain 
that  this  was  not  the  MS.  from  which  the 
Icon  was  published  a  few  days  afterwards; 
and.  above  all,  it  is  clear  that  information 
from  Herbert!  would  naturally  be  sought, 
and  would  have  been  easily  procured,  in 
1660.  The  ministers  of  that  time  perhaps 
examined  the  MS.;  or  if  it  could  not  be 
produced,  they  might  have  asked  why  it 
was  not  preserved, — a  question  to  which,  on 
the  supposition  of  its  being  written  by  the 
King,  it  seems  now  impossible  to  imagine 
a  satisfactory  answer.  The  same  observa 
tions  are  applicable  to  the  story  of  Levett.  a 
page,  who  said  that  he  had  seen  the  King 
writing  the  Icon,  and  had  read  several  chap 
ters  of  it, — but  more  forcibly,  from  his  being 
less  likely  to  be  intrusted,  and  more  liable  to 
confusion  and  misrecollection; — to  say  no 
thing  of  our  ignorance  of  his  character  for  ve- 
racify,  and  of  the  interval  of  forty-two  years 
which  had  passed  before  his  attestation  on 
this  subject. 

The  Naseby  copy  being  the  only  fragment 
of  positive  evidence  in  support  of  the  King's 
authorship,  one  more  observation  on  it  may 
be  excused.  If  the  Parliamentary  leaders 
thought  the  Icon  so  dangerous  to  their  cause, 
and  so  likely  to  make  an  impression  favour 
able  to  the  King,  how  came  they  to  restore 
it  so  easily  to  it's  author,  whom  they  had 


*  Memoirs,  p.  69.  How  much  this  coincides 
with  Gauden's  account,  that  his  wife  had  dis 
guised  the  writing  of  the  copy  sent  to  the  Isle  of 
Wight. 

t  He  was  made  a  baronet  at  the  Restoration, 
for  his  personal  services  to  Charles  I. 


ICON  BASILIKE. 


deeply  injured  by  the  publication  of  his  pri 
vate  letters'?  The  advocates  of  the  King 
charge  this  publication  on  them,  as  an  act  of 
gross  indel.cacvj  and  at  the  same  time  ascribe 
to  them,  in  the  restoration  of  the  Icon,  a 
singular  instance  of  somewhat  wanton  gene 
rosity. 

It  may  be  a  question  whether  lawyers  are 
justified  in  altogether  rejecting  hearsay  evi 
dence;  but  it  never  can  be  supposed,  in  its 
best  state,  to  be  other  than  secondary.  When 
it  passes  through  many  hands, — when  it  is 
given  after  a  Jong  time, — when  it  is  to  be 
found  almost  solely  in  one  party, — when  it 
relates  to  a  subject  which  deeply  interests 
their  feelings,  we  may  confidently  place  it 
at  the  very  bottom  of  the  scale ;  and  without 
being  able  either  to  disprove  many  particular 
stories,  or  to  ascertain  the  proportion  in  which 
each  of  them  is  influenced  by  unconscious 
exaggeration,  inflamed  zeal,  intentional  false 
hood,  inaccurate  observation,  confused  re 
collection,  or  eager  credulity,  we  may  safely 
treat  the  far  greater  part  as  the  natural  pro 
duce  of  these  grand  causes  of  human  delu 
sion.  Among  the  evidence  first  collected  by 
Wagstaffe,  one  story  fortunately  refers  to 
authorities  still  in  our  possession.  Hearne, 
a  servant  of  Sir  Philip  Warwick,  declared 
that  he  had  heard  his  master  and  one  Oudart 
often  say  that  they  had  transcribed  the  Icon 
from  a  copy  in  Charles'  handwriting.*  Sir 
Philip  Warwick  (who  is  thus  said  to  have 
copied  the  Icon  from  the  King's  MS.)  has 
himself  positively  told  us,  "I  cannot  say  I 
know  that  he  wrote  the  Icon  which  goes  under 
his  name  ;t  arid  Oudart  was  secretary  to  Sir 
Edward  Nicholas,  whose  letter  to  Gauden, 
virtually  acknowledging  his  claim,  has  been 
already  quoted  ! 

Two  persons  appear  to  have  been  privy  to 
the  composition  of  the  Icon  by  Gauden, — 
his  wife,  and  Walker  his  curate.  Mrs.  Gau 
den,  immediately  after  her  husband's  death, 
applied  to  Lord  Bristol  for  favour,  on  the 
ground  of  her  knowledge  of  the  secret ;  ad 
ding,  that  the  bishop  was  prevented  only  by 
death  from  writing  to  him, — surely  to  the 
same  effect.  Nine  years  afterwards  she  sent 
to  one  of  her  sons  the  papers  on  this  subject, 
to  be  used  "  if  there  be  a  good  occasion  to 
make  it  manifest,"  among  which  was  an 
epitome  "  drawn  out  by  the  hand  of  him  that 
did  hope  to  have  made  a  fortune  by  it."J 
This  is  followed  by  her  narrative  of  the  whole 
transactions,  on  which  two  short  remarks 
•will  suffice.  It  coincides  with  Gauden's  let 
ters,  in  the  most  material  particulars,  in  ap 
peals  to  the  same  eminent  persons  said  to  be 
privy  to  the  secret,  who  might  and  must  have 
been  consulted  after  such  appeal :  it  proves 
also  her  firm  persuasion  that  her  husband 
had  been  ungratefully  requited,  and  that  her 
family  had  still  pretensions  founded  on  his 
services,  which  these  papers  might  one  day 
enable  them  to  assert  with  more  effect. 

Walker,  the  curate,  tells  us  that  he  had  a 


*  Who  wrote,  &c.  p.  138.      t  Memoirs,  p.  68. 
t  Doc.  Sup.  pp.  42,  48. 


hand  in  the  business  all  along.  He  wrote 
his  book,  it  is  true,  forty-five  years  after  the 
events:  but  this  circumstance,  which  so 
deeply  affects  the  testimony  of  men  who 
speak  of  words  spoken  in  conversation,  and 
reaching  them  through  three  or  four  hands, 
rather  explains  the  inaccuracies,  than  lessens 
the  substantial  weight,  of  one  who  speaks 
of  his  own  acts,  on  the  most,  and  perhaps 
only,  remarkable  occasion  of  his  life.  There 
are  two  facts  in  Walker's  account  which 
seem  to  be  decisive; — namely,  that  Gauden 
told  him,  about  the  time  of  the  fabrication, 
that  the  MS.  was  sent  by  the  Duke  of  So 
merset  to  the  King,  and  that  two  chapters  of 
it  were  added  by  Bishop  Duppa.  To  both 
these  witnesses  Gauden  appealed  at  the  Re 
storation,  and  Mrs.  Gauden  after  his  death. 
These  communications  were  somewhat  in 
discreet;  but,  if  false,  what  temptation  had 
Gauden  at  that  time  to  invent  them,  and  to 
communicate  them  to  his  curate?  They 
were  new  means  of  detecting  his  imposture. 
But  the  declaration  of  Gauden,  that  the  book 
and  figure  was  wholly  and  solely  my  "in 
vention,  making,  and  design,"  is  quoted  with 
premature  triumph,  as  if  it  were  incompati 
ble  with  the  composition  of  two  chapters  by 
Duppa;* — as  if  the  contribution  of  a  few 
pages  to  a  volume  could  affect  the  authorship 
of  the  man  who  had  planned  the  whole,  and 
executed  all  the  rest.  That  he  mentioned 
the  particular  contribution  of  Duppa  at  the 
time  to  Walker,  and  only  appealed  in  general 
to  the  same  prelate  in  his  applications  to 
Clarendon  and  the  King,  is  a  variation,  but 
no  inconsistency. 

Walker  early  represented  the  coincidence 
of  some  peculiar  phrases  in  the  devotions  of 
the  Icon  with  Gauden's  phraseology,  as  an 
important  fact  in  the  case.  That  argument 
has  recently  been  presented  with  much  more 
force  by  Mr.  Todd,  whose  catalogues  of  co 
incidences  between  the  Icon  and  the  avowed 
writings  of  Gauden  is  certainly  entitled  to 
serious  consideration.!  They  are  not  all  of 
equal  importance,  but  some  of  the  phrases 
are  certainly  very  peculiar.  It  seems  very 
unlikely  that  Charles  should  have  copied  pe 
culiar  phrases  from  the  not  very  conspicuous 
writings  of  Gauden's  early  life;  and  it  is 
almost  equally  improbable  that  Gauden,  in 
his  later  writings,  when  he  is  said  to  have 
been  eager  to  ^reap  the  fruits  of  his  impos- 
ture,  should  not  have  carefully  shunned  those 
modes  of  expression  which  were  peculiar  to 
the  Icon.  To  the  list  of  Mr.  Todd,  a  very 
curious  addition  has  been  made  by  Mr.  Ben 
jamin  Bright,  a  discerning  and  liberal  col 
lector,  from  a  manuscript  volume  of  prayers 
by  Gauden, J  which  is  of  more  value  than 
the  other  coincidences,  inasmuch  as  it  cor 
roborates  the  testimony  of  Walker,  who  said 
that  he  "  met  with  expressions  in  the  devo 
tional  parts  of  the  Icon  very  frequently  used 


*  Who  wrote,  &c.  p.  156. 
t  Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  pp, 
51—76. 
t  Ibid.    Appendix,  No.  1. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


by  Dr.  Gauden  in  his  prayers!"  Without 
laying  great  stress  on  these  resemblances, 
they  are  certainly  of  more  weight  than  the 
general  arguments  founded  either  on  the  in 
feriority  of  Gauden's  talents,  (which  Dr. 
Wordsworth  candidly  abandons,)  or  on  the 
impure  and  unostentatious  character  of  his 
style,  which  have  little  weight,  unless  we 
suppose  him  to  have  had  no  power  of  vary 
ing  his  manner  when  speaking  in  the  person 
of  another  man. 

Conclusions  from  internal  evidence  have 
so  often  been  contradicted  by  experience, 
that  prudent  inquirers  seldom  rely  on  them 
when  there  are  any  other  means  of  forming 
a  judgment.  But  in  such  cases  as  the  pre 
sent,  internal  evidence  does  not  so  much  de 
pend  on  the  discussion  of  words,  or  the  dis 
section  of  sentences,  as  on  the  impression 
made  by  the  whole  composition,  on  minds 
long  accustomed  to  estimate  and  compare 
the  writings  of  different  men  in  various  cir 
cumstances.  A  single  individual  can  do 
little  more  than  describe  that  impression ; 
and  he  must  leave  it  to  be  determined  by 
experience,  how  far  it  agrees  with  the  im 
pressions  made  on  the  minds  of  the  majority 
of  other  men  of  similar  qualifications.  To 
us  it  seems,  as  it  did  to  Archbishop  Herring, 
that  the  Icon  is  greatly  more  like  the  work 
of  a  priest  than  a  king.  It  has  more  of  dis 
sertation  than  effusion.  It  has  more  regular 
division  and  systematic  order  than  agree 
with  the  habits  of  the  King.  The  choice 
and  arrangement  of  words  show  a  degree  of 
care  and  neatness  which  are  seldom  attained 
but  by  a  practised  writer.  The  views  of 
men  and  affairs,  too,  are  rather  those  of  a 
bystander  than  an  actor.  They  are  chiefly 
reflections,  sometimes  in  themselves  obvious, 
but  often  ingeniously  turned,  such  as  the 
surface  of  events  would  suggest  to  a  specta- 
tator  not  too  deeply  interested.  It  betrays 
none  of  those  strong  feelings  which  the  most 
vigilant  regard  to  gravity  and  dignity  could 
not  have  uniformly  banished  from  the  com 
position  of  an  actor  and  a  sufferer.  It  has 
no  allusion  to  facts  not  accessible  to  any 
moderately  informed  man;  though  the  King 
must  have*  (sometimes  rightly)  thought  that 
his  superior  knowledge  of  affairs  would  en 
able  him  to  correct  vulgar  mistakes.  If  it 
be  really  the  private  effusion  of  a  man's 
thoughts  on  himself  arid  his  own  affairs,  it 
would  be  the  only  writing  of  that  sort  in  the 
world  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  select  a 
trace  of  peculiarities  and  weaknesses, — of 
partialities  and  dislikes, — of  secret  opinions, 
—of  favourite  idioms,  and  habitual  familiari 
ties  of  expression :  every  thing  is  impersonal. 
The  book  consists  entirely  of  generalities; 
while  real  writings  of  this  sort  never  fail  to 
be  characterised  by  those  minute  and  cir 
cumstantial  touches,  which  parties  deeply 
interested  cannot,  if  they  would,  avoid.  It 
is  also  very  observable,  that  the  Icon  dwells 
little  on  facts,  where  a  mistake  might  so 
easily  betray  its  not  being  the  King's,  and 
expatiates  in  reasoning  and  reflection,  of 


which  it  is  impossible  to  try  the  genuineness 
by  any  palpable  test.  The  absence  of  every 
allusion  to  those  secreis  of  which  it  would 
be  very  hard  for  the  King  himself  wholly  to 
conceal  his  knowledge,  seems,  indeed,  to 
indicate  the  hand  of  a  writer  who  was  afraid 
of  venturing  on  ground  where  his  ignorance 
might  expose  him  to  irretrievable  blunders. 
Perhaps  also  the  want  of  all  the  smaller 
strokes  of  character  betrays  a  timid  and  fal 
tering  forger,  who,  though  he  ventured  to 
commit  a  pious  fraud,  shrunk  from  an  irreve 
rent  imitation  of  the  Royal  feelings,  and  was 
willing,  after  the  great  purpose  was  served, 
so  to  soften  the  imposture,  as  to  leave  his 
retreat  open,  and  to  retain  the  means,  in 
case  of  positive  detection,  of  representing 
the  book  to  have  been  published  as  what 
might  be  put  into  the  King's  mouth,  rather 
than  as  what  was  actually  spoken  by  him. 

The  section  which  relates  to  the  civil  war 
in  Ireland  not  only  exemplifies  the  above  re 
marks,  but  closely  connects  the  question 
respecting  the  Icon  with  the  character  of 
Charles  for  sincerity.  It  certainly  was  not 
more  unlawful  for  him  to  seek  the  aid  of  the 
Irish  Catholics,  than  it  was  for  his  opponents 
to  call  in  the  succour  of  the  Scotch  Presby 
terians.  The  Parliament  procured  the  as 
sistance  of  the  Scotch  army,  by  the  imposi 
tion  of  the  Covenant  in  England;  and  the 
King  might,  on  the  like  principle,  purchase 
the  help  of  the  Irish,  by  promising  to  tole 
rate,  and  even  establish,  the  Catholic  religion 
in  Ireland.  Warburton  justly  observes,  that 
the  King  was  free  from  blame  in  his  negotia 
tions  with  the  Irish,  "as  a  politician,  and 
king,  and  governor  of  his  people ;  but  the 
necessity  of  his  affairs  obliging  him  at  the 
same  time  to  play  the  Protestant  saint  and 
confessor,  there  was  found  much  disagree 
ment  between  his  professions  and  declara 
tions,  and  actions  in  this  matter."*  As  long 
as  the  disagreement  was  confined  to  official 
declarations  and  to  acts  of  state,  it  must  be 
owned  that  it  is  extenuated  by  the  practice 
of  politicians,  and  by  the  consideration,  that 
the  concealment  of  negotiations,  which  is  a 
lawful  end.  can  very  often  be  obtained  by 
no  other  means  than  a  disavowal  of  them. 
The  rigid  moralist  may  regret  this  excuse, 
though  it  be  founded  on  that  high  public 
convenience  to  which  Warburton  gives  the 
name  of  "necessity."  But  all  mankind  will 
allow,  that  the  express  or  implied  denial  of 
real  negotiations  in  a  private  work, — a  pic 
ture  of  the  writer's  mind,  professing  to  come 
from  the  Man  and  not  from  the  King,  mixed 
with  solemn  appeals  and  fervid  prayers  to 
the  Deity,  is  a  far  blacker  and  more  aggra 
vated  instance  of  insincerity.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  an  act  of  judicious  regard  to  the 
memory  of  Charles  to  ascribe  to  him  the 
composition  of  the  twelfth  section  of  the 
Icon.  The  impression  manifestly  aimed  at 
in  that  section  is.  that  the  imputation  of  a 
private  connexion  with  the  Irish  revolters 


*  Clarendon,  vol.  vii.  p.  591. 


ICON  BASILIKE. 


93 


was  a  mere  calumny;  and  in  the  only  para 
graph  which  approaches  to  particulars,  it 
expressly  confines  his  intercourse  with  them 
to  the  negotiation  for  a  tirrie  through  Or 
monde,  and  declares  that  his  only  object 
was  to  save  "  the  poor  Protestants  of  Ireland 
from  their  desperate  enemies."  In  the  sec 
tion  which  relates  to  the  publication  of  his 
letters,  when  the  Parliament  had  explicitly 
charged  him  with  clandestine  negotiations, 
nothing  is  added  on  the  subject.  The  gene 
ral  protestations  of  innocence,  not  very  spe 
cifically  applied  even  to  the  first  instigation 
of  the  revolt,  are  left  in  that  indefinite  state 
in  which  the  careless  reader  may  be  led  to 
apply  them  to  all  subsequent  transactions, 
which  are  skilfully, — not  to  say  artfully, — 
passed  over  in  ..silence.  Now  it  is  certain 
that  the  Earl  of  Glamorgan,  a  Catholic  him 
self,  was  authorised  by  Charles  to  negotiate 
with  the  Catholics  in  1645,  independently 
of  Ormonde,  and  with  powers,  into  the  na 
ture  of  which  the  Lord  Lieutenant  thought 
himself  bound  not  curiously  to  pry.  It  is, 
also,  certain  that,  in  the  spring  of  that  year, 
Glamorgan  concluded  a  secret  treaty  with 
the  Catholic  assembly  at  Kilkenny,  by  which, 
— besides  the  repeal  of  penalties  or  disabili 
ties, — all  the  churches  and  Church  property 
in  Ireland  occupied  by  the  Catholics  since 
the  revolt,  were  continued  and  secured  to 
them  ;*  while  they,  on  their  parts,  engaged 
to  send  ten  thousand  troops  to.  the  King's  as 
sistance  in  England.  Some  correspondence 
on  this  subject  was  captured  at  sea,  and 
some  was  seized  in  Ireland :  both  portions 
were  immediately  published  by  the  Parlia 
ment,  which  compelled  the  King  to  imprison 
and  disavow  Glamorgan.!  It  is  clear  that 
these  were  measures  of  policy,  merely  in 
tended  to  conceal  the  truth  :J  and  the  King, 
if  he  was  the  writer  of  the  Icon,  must  have 
deliberately  left  on  the  minds  of  the  readers 
of  that  book  an  opinion,  of  his  connexion 
with  the  Irish  Catholics,  which  he  knew  to 
be  false.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  to  be  ob 
served,  that  Gauden  could  not  have  known 
the  secret  of  the  Irish  negotiations,  and  that 
he  would  naturally  avoid  a  subject  of  which 
he  was  ignorant,  and  confine  himself  to  a 
general  disavowal  of  the  instigation  of  the 
revolt.  The  silence  of  the  Icon  on  this  sub- 


*  Birch,  Inquiry,  p.  68.  The  King's  warrant, 
on  12th  March,  1645,  gives  Glamorgan  power 
"  to  treat  with  the  Roman  Catholics  upon  neces 
sity,  wherein  our  Lieutenant  cannot  so  well  be 
seen" — p.  20. 

t  Harleian  Miscellany,  vol.  iv.  p.  494. 

t  See  a  curious  letter  published  by  Leland  (His 
tory  of  Ireland,  book  v.  chap.  7),  which  clearly 
proves  that  the  blindness  of  Ormonde  was  volun 
tary,  and  that  he  was  either  trusted  with  the  se 
cret,  or  discovered  it ;  and  that  the  imprisonment 
of  Glamorgan  was,  what  the  Parliament  called  it, 
"a  colourable  commitment."  Leland  is  one  of 
those  writers  who  deserve  more  reputation  than 
they  enjoy  :  he  is  not  only  an  elegant  writer,  but, 
considering  his  time  and  country,  singularly  can 
did,  unprejudiced,  and  independent. 


ject,  if  written  by  Gauden,  would  be  neither 
more  wonderful  nor  more  blamable  than 
that  of  Clarendon,  who.  though  he  was  of 
necessity  acquainted  with  the  negotiations 
of  Glamorgan,  does  not  suffer  an  allusion  to 
the  true  state  of  them  to  escape  him,  either 
in  the  History,  or  in  that  apology  for  Or 
monde's  administration,  which  he  calls  "  A 
Short  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland."  Let  it 
not  be  said,  either  by  Charles'  mistaken 
friends,  or  by  his  undistinguishing  enemies, 
that  he  incurs  the  same  blame  for  suffering 
an  omission  calculated  to  deceive  to  remain 
in  the  Icon  of  Gauden,  as  if  he  had  himself 
written  the  book.  If  the  manuscript  were 
sent  to  him  by  Gauden  in  September  1648, 
he  may  have  intended  to  direct  an  explana 
tion  of  the  Irish  negotiations  to  be  inserted 
in  it ; — he  may  not  have  finally  determined 
on  the  immediate  publication.  At  all  events, 
it  wrould  be  cruel  to  require  that  he  should 
have  critically  examined,  and  deliberately 
weighed,  every  part  of  a  manuscript,  which 
he  could  only  occasionally  snatch  a  moment 
to  read  in  secret  during  the  last  four  months 
of  his  life.  In  this  troubled  and  dfirk  period, 
divided  between  great  negotiations,  violent 
removals,  and  preparations  for  asserting  his 
dignity, — if  he  could  not  preserve  his  life, — 
justice,  as  much  as  generosity  requires  that 
we  should  not  hold  him  responsible  for  a 
negative  offence,  however  important,  in  a 
manuscript  which  he  had  then  only  read. 
But  if  he  was  the  author,  none  of  these  ex 
tenuations  have  any  place :  he  must  then 
have  composed  the  work  several  years  be 
fore  his  death ;  he  was  likely  to  have  fre 
quently  examined  it;  he  doubtless  read  it 
with  fresh  attention,  after  it  was  restored  to 
him  at  Hampton  Court ;  and  he  afterwards 
added  several  chapters  to  it.  On  that  sup 
position,  the  fraudulent  omission  must  have 
been  a  contrivance  "  aforethought"  carried 
on  for  years,  persisted  in  at  the  approach  of 
death,  and  left,  as  the  dying  declaration  of 
a  pious  monarch,  in  a  state  calculated  to  im 
pose  a  falsehood  upon  posterity.* 


*  After  sketching  the  above,  we  have  been  con 
vinced,  by  a  reperusalof  the  note  of  Mr.  Laing  on 
this  subject  (History  of  Scotland,  vol.  iii.  p.  565), 
that  if  he  had  employed  his  great  abilities  as  much 
in  unfolding  facts  as  in  ascertaining^ them,  nothing 
could  have  been  written  for  the  Icon,  or  ought  to 
have  been  written  against  it,  since  that  decisive 
note.  His  merit,  as  a  critical  inquirer  into  history, 
an  enlightened  collector  of  materials,  and  a  saga 
cious  judge  of  evidence,  has  never  been  surpassed. 
If  any  man  believes  the  innocence  of  Queen  Mary, 
after  an  impartial  and  dispassionate  perusal  of  Mr. 
Laing's  examination  of  her  case,  the  state  of  such 
a  man's  mind  would  be  a  subject  worthy  of  much 
consideration  by  a  philosophical  observer  ol  hu 
man  nature.  In  spite  of  his  ardent  love  of  liberty, 
no  man  has  yet  presumed  to  charge  him  with  the 
slightest  sacrifice  of  historical  integrity  to  his  zeal. 
That  he  never  perfectly  attained  the  art  of  full, 
clear,  and  easy  narrative  was  owing  to  the  pecu 
liar  style  of  those  writers  who  were  popular  in  his 
youth,  and  may  be  mentioned  as  a  remarkable 
instance  of  the  disproportion  of  particular  talents 
to  a  general  vigour  of  mind. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


DISSERTATION 

ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF 

ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY, 


CHIEFLY  DURING  THE 


SEVENTEENTH    AND    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURIES. 


[ORIGINALLY  PREFIXED  TO  THE  SEVENTH  EDITION  OK  THE  ENCYCLOPEDIA  BRITANNICA.! 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  inadequacy  of  the  words  of  ordinary 
language  for  the  purposes  of  Philosophy,  is 
an  ancient  and  frequent  complaint ;  of  which 
the  justness  will  be  felt  by  all  who  consider 
the  state  to  which  some  of  the  most  import 
ant  arts  would  be  reduced,  if  the  coarse  tools 
of  the  common  labourer  were  the  only  in 
struments  to  be  employed  in  the  most  deli 
cate  operations  of  manual  expertness.  The 
watchmaker,  the  optician,  and  the  surgeon, 
are  provided  with  instruments  which  are 
fitted,  by  careful  ingenuity,  to  second  their 
skill;  the  philosopher  alone  is  doomed  to  use 
the  rudest  tools  for  the  most  refined  purposes. 
He  must  reason  in  words  of  which  the  loose 
ness  and  vagueness  are  suitable,  and  even 
agreeable,  in  the  usual  intercourse  of  life, 
but  which  are  almost  as  remote  from  the 
extreme  exactness  and  precision  required, 
not  only  in  the  conveyance,  but  in  the  search 
of  truth,  as  the  hammer  and  the  axe  would 
be  unfit  for  the  finest  exertions  of  skilful 
handiwork  :  for  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  that 
he  must  himself  think  in  these  gross  words 
as  unavoidably  as  he  uses  them  in  speaking 
to  others.  He  is  in  this  respect  in  a  worse 
condition  than  an  astronomer  who  looked  at 
the  heavens  only  with  the  naked  eye,  whose 
limited  and  partial  observation,  however  it 
might  lead  to  error,  might  not  directly,  arid 
would  not  necessarily,  deceive.  He  might 
be  more  justly  compared  to  an  arithmetician 
compelled  to  employ  numerals  not  only  cum 
brous,  but  used  so  irregularly  to  denote  dif 
ferent  quantities,  that  they  not  only  often 
deceive  others,  but  himself. 

The  natural  philosopher  and  mathemati 
cian  have  in  some  degree  the  privilege  of 
framing  their  own  terms  of  art ;  though  that 
liberty  is  daily  narrowed  by  the  happy  dif 
fusion  of  these  great  branches  of  knowledge, 
which  daily  mixes  their  language  with  the 
general  vocabulary  of  educated  men.  The 
cultivator  of  mental  and  moral  philosophy 
can  seldom  do  more  than  mend  the  faults 


j  of  his  words  by  definition  ; — a  necessary, 
|  but  very  inadequate  expedient,  and  one  in 
I  a  great  measure  defeated  in  practice  by  the 
j  unavoidably  more  frequent  recurrence  of  the 
|  terms  in  their  vague,  than  in  their  definite 
!  acceptation.     The  mind,  to  which  such  de 
finition  is  faintly,  and  but  occasionally,  pre 
sent,  naturally  suffers,  in  the  ordinary  state 
of  attention,  the  scientific  meaning  to  disap 
pear  from  remembrance,  and  insensibly  as 
cribes  to  the  word  a  great  part,  if  not  the 
whole,  of  that  popular  sense  which  is  so  very 
much  more  familiar  even  to  the  most  vete 
ran  speculator.     The  obstacles  which  stood 
j  in  the  way  of  Lucretius  and  Cicero,  when 
j  they  began  to  translate  the  subtile  philoso- 
j  phy  of  Greece  into  their  narrow  and  barren 
j  tongue,  are  always  felt  by  the  philosopher 
when  he  struggles  to  express,  with  the  neces 
sary  discrimination,  his  abstruse  reasonings 
I  in  words  which,  though  those  of  his  own  lan- 
i  gnage,  he  must  take  from  the  mouths  of 
i  those  to  whom   his  distinctions  would  be 
j  without  meaning. 

The  moral  philosopher  is  in  this  respect 
subject  to  peculiar  difficulties.  His  state 
ments  and  reasonings  often  call  for  nicer  dis 
criminations  of  language  than  those  which 
are  necessary  in  describing  or  discussing  the 
[purely  intellectual  part  of  human  nature; 
but  his  freedom  in  the  choice  of  words  is 
more  circumscribed.  As  he  treats  of  mat 
ters  on  which  all  men  are  disposed  to  form  a 
judgment,  he  can  as  rarely  hazard  glaring 
innovations  in  diction, — at  least  in  an  adult 
and  mature  language  like  ours, — as  the  ora 
tor  or  the  poet.  If  he  deviates  from  com 
mon  use,  he  must  atone  for  his  deviation  by 
hiding  it,  and  can  only  give  a  new  sense  to 
an  old  word  by  so  skilful  a  position  of  it  as 
to  render  the  new  meaning  so  quickly  un 
derstood  that  its  novelty  is  scarcely  per 
ceived.  Add  to  this,  that  in  those  most 
difficult  inquiries  for  which  the  utmost  cool 
ness  is  not  more  than  sufficient,  he  is  often 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


95 


forced  to  use  terms  commonly  connected 
with  warm  feeling,  with  high  praise,  with 
severe  reproach ; — which  excite  the  passions 
of  his  readers  when  he  most  needs  their 
calm  attention  and  the  undisturbed  exer 
cise  of  their  impartial  judgment.  There  is 
scarcely  a  neutral  term  left  in  Ethics  ;  so 
quickly  are  such  expressions  enlisted  on  the 
side  of  Praise  or  Blame,  by  rhe  address  of 
contending  passions.  A  true  philosopher 
must  not  even  desire  that  men  should  less 
love  Virtue,  or  hate  Vice,  in  order  to  fit  them 
for  a  more  unprejudiced  judgment  on  his 
speculations. 

There  are,  perhaps,  not  many  occasions 
where  the  penury  and  laxity  of  language  are 
more  felt  than  in  entering  on  the  history  of 
sciences  where  the  first  measure  must  be  to 
mark  out  the  boundary  of  the  whole  subject 
with  some  distinctness.  But  no  exactness 
in  these  important  operations  can  be  ap 
proached  without  a  new  division  of  human 
knowledge,  adapted  to  the  present  stage  of 
its  progress,  arid  a  reformation  of  all  those 
barbarous,  pedantic,  unmeaning,  and  (what 
is  worse)  wrong-meaning  names' which  con 
tinue  to  be  applied  to  the  greater  part  of  its 
branches.  Instances  are  needless  where 
nearly  all  the  appellations  are  faulty.  The 
term  "Metaphysics"  affords  a  specimen  of 
all  the  faults  which  the  name  of  a  science 
can  combine.  To  those  who  know  only 
their  own  language,  it  must,  at  their  entrance 
on  the  study,  convey  no  meaning:  it  points 
their  attention  to  nothing.  If  they  examine 
the  language  in  which  its  parts  are  signifi 
cant,  they  will  be  misled  into  the  pernicious 
error  of  believing  that  it  seeks  something 
more  than  the  interpretation  of  nature.  It  is 
only  by  examining  the  history  of  ancient 
philosophy  that  the  probable  origin  of  this 
name  will  be  found,  in  its  application,  as  the 
running  title  of  several  essays  of  Aristotle, 
placed  in  a  collection  of  the  manuscripts  of 
that  great  philosopher,  after  his  treatise  on 
Physics.  It  has  the  greater  fault  of  an  un 
steady  and  fluctuating  signification  ; — deno 
ting  one  class  of  objects  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  another  in  the  eighteenth;— 
even  in  the  nineteenth  not  quite  of  the  same 
import  in  the  mouth  of  a  German,  as  in  that 
of  a  French  or  English  philosopher;  to  say 
nothing  of  the  farther  objection  that  it  con 
tinues  to  be  a  badge  of  undue  pretension 
among  some  of  the  followers  of  the  science, 
while  it  has  become  a  name  of  reproach  and 
derision  among  those  who  altogether  decry 
it.  The  modern  name  of  the  very  modern 
science  called  "  Political  Economy,"  though 
deliberately  bestowed  on  it  by  its  most  emi 
nent  teachers,  is  perhaps  a  still  more  notable 
sample  of  the  like  faults.  It  might  lead  the 
ignorant  to  confine  it  to  retrenchment  in  na 
tional  expenditure;  and  a  consideration  of 
its  etymology  alone  would  lead  us  into  the 
more  mischievous  error  of  believing  it  to 
teach,  that  national  wealth  is  best  promoted 
by  the  contrivance  and  interference  of  law 
givers,  in  opposition  to  its  surest  doctrine. 


and  the  one  which  it  most  justly  boasts  of 
having  discovered  and  enforced. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  an  exhaustive  analy 
sis  of  human  knowledge,  and  a  consequent 
division  of  it  into  parts  corresponding  to  all 
the  classes  of  objects  to  which  it  relates: — a 
representation  of  that  vast  edifice,  contain 
ing  a  picture  of  what  is  finished,  a  sketch  of 
what  is  building,  and  even  a  conjectural  out 
line  of  what,  though  required  by  complete 
ness  and  convenience,  as  well  as  symmetry, 
is  yet  altogether  untouched.  A  system  of 
names  might  also  be  imagined  derived  from 
a  few  roots,  indicating  the  objects  of  each 
part,  and  showing  the  relation  of  the  parts  to 
each  other.  An  order  and  a  language  some 
what  resembling  those  by  which  the  objects 
of  the  sciences  of  Botany  and  Chemistry 
have,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  been  ar 
ranged  and  denoted,  are  doubtless  capable  of 
application  to  the  sciences  generally.,  when 
considered  as  parts  of  the  system  of  know 
ledge.  The  attempts,  however,  which  have 
hitherto  been  made  to  accomplish  that  ana 
lytical  division  of  knowledge  which  must 
necessarily  precede  a  new  nomenclature  of 
the  sciences,  have  required  so  prodigious  a 
superiority  of  genius  in  the  single  instance 
of  approach  to  success  by  Bacon,  as  to  dis 
courage  rivalship  nearly  as  much  as  the  fre 
quent  examples  of  failure  in  subsequent 
times  could  do.  The  nomenclature  itself  is 
attended  with  great  difficulties,  not  indeed 
in  its  conception,  but  in  its  adoption  and  use 
fulness.  In  the  Continental  languages  to  the 
south  of  the  Rhine,  the  practice  of  deriving 
the  names  of  science  from  the  Greek  must 
be  continued ;  which  would  render  the  new 
names  for  a  while  unintelligible  to  the  ma 
jority  of  men.  Even  if  successful  in  Ger 
many,  where  a  flexible  and  fertile  language 
affords  unbounded  liberty  of  derivation  and 
composition  from  native  roots  or  elements, 
and  where  the  newly  derived  and  com 
pounded  words  would  thus  be  as  clear  to  the 
mind,  and  almost  as  little  startling  to  the  ear 
of  every  man,  as  the  oldest  terms  in  the 
language,  yet  the  whole  nomenclature  would 
be  unintelligible  to  other  nations.  But,  the 
intercommunity  of  the  technical  terms  of 
science  in  Europe  having  been  so  far  broken 
down  by  the  Germans,  the  influence  of  their 
literature  and  philosophy  is  so  rapidly  in 
creasing  in  the  greater  part  of  the  Continent, 
that  though  a  revolution  in  scientific  nomen 
clature  be  probably  yet  far  distant,  the  foun 
dation  of  it  may  be  considered  as  already 
prepared. 

Although  so  great  an  undertaking  must  be 
reserved  for  a  second  Bacon  and  a  fu'ure 
generation,  it  is  necessary  for  the  historian 
of  any  branch  of  knowledge  to  introduce  his 
work  by  some  account  of  the  limits  ard  con 
tents  of  the  sciences  of  which  he  is  about  to 
trace  the  progress;  and  though  it  will  be 
found  impossible  to  trace  throughout  this 
treatise  a  distinct  line  of  demarcation,  yet  a 
general  and  imperfect  sketch  of  the  bounda 
ries  of  the  whole,  and  of  the  pa  its,  of  our 


96 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


present  subject;  may  be  a  considerable  help 
to  the  reader,  as  it  has  been  a  useful  guide 
to  the  writer. 

There  is  no  distribution  of  the  parts  of 
knowledge  more  ancient  than  that  of  them 
into  the  physical  and  moral  sciences,  which 
seems  liable  to  no  other  objection  than  that 
it  does  not  exhaust  the  subject.  Even  this 
division,  however,  cannot  be  safely  employed, 
without  warning  the  reader  that  no  science 
is  entirely  insulated,  and  that  the  principles 
of  one  are  often  only  the  conclusions  and  re 
sults  of  another.  Every  branch  of  know 
ledge  has  its  root  in  the  theory  of  the  Under 
standing,  from  which  even  me  mathemati 
cian  must  learn  what  can  be  known  of  his 
magnitude  and  his  numbers;  moral  science 
is  founded  on  that  other, — hitherto  unnamed, 
— part  of  the  philosophy  of  human  nature 
(to  be  constantly  and  vigilantly  distinguished 
from  intellectual  philosophy),  which  contem 
plates  the  laws  of  sensibility,  of  emotion,  of 
desire  and  aversion,  of  pleasure  and  pain,  of 
happiness  and  misery :  and  on  which  arise 
the  august  and  sacred  landmarks  that  stand 
conspicuous  along  the  frontier  between 
Right  and  Wrong. 

But  however  multiplied  the  connections  of 
the  moral  and  physical  sciences  are,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  draw  a  general  distinction  be 
tween  them.  The  purpose  of  the  physical 
sciences  throughout  all  their  provinces,  is  to 
answer  the  question  What  is  ?  They  consist 
only  of  facts  arranged  according  to  their  like 
ness,  and  expressed  by  general  names  given 
to  every  class  of  similar  facts.  The  purpose 
of  the  moral  sciences  is  to  answer  the  ques 
tion  What  ought  to  be  ?  They  aim  at  ascer 
taining  the  rules  which  ought  to  govern  vo 
luntary  action,  and  to  which  those  habitual 
dispositions  of  mind  which  are  the  source  of 
voluntary  actions  ought  to  be  adapted. 

It  is  obvious  that  "will,"  "action,"  "  habit," 
"disposition,"  are  terms  denoting  facts  in 
human  nature,  and  that  an  explanation  of 
them  must  be  sought  in  mental  philosophy, 
which,  if  knowledge  be  divided  into  physi 
cal  and  moral,  must  be  placed  among  physi 
cal  sciences,  though  it  essentially  differs 
from  them  all  in  having  for  its  chief  object 
those  laws  of  thought  which  alone  render 
any  other  sort  of  knowledge  possible.  But 
it  is  equally  certain  that  the  word  "ought" 
introduces  the  mind  into  a  new  region,  to 
which  nothing  physical  corresponds.  How 
ever  philosophers  may  deal  with  this  most 
important  of  words,  it  is  instantly  understood 
by  all  who  do  not  attempt  to  define  it.  No 
civilized  speech,  perhaps  no  human  lan 
guage,  is  without  correspondent  terms.  It 
would  be  as  reasonable  to  deny  that  "space" 
and  "greenness"  are  significant  words,  as  to 
affirm  that  "ought,"  "right,"  "duty,  "  "vir 
tue,"  are  sounds  without  meaning.  It  would 
be  fatal  to  an  ethical  theory  that  it  did  not 
explain  them,  and  that  it  did  not  comprehend 
all  the  conceptions  and  emotions  which  they 
call  up.  There  never  yet  was  a  theory 
which  did  not  attempt  such  an  explanation. 


SECTION  I. 

PRELIMINARY   OBSERVATIONS. 

THERE  is  no  man  who,  in  a  case  where 
he  was  a  calm  bystander,  would  not  look 
with  more  satisfaction  on  acts  of  kindness 
than  on  acts  of  cruelty.  No  man,  after  the 
first  excitement  of  his  mind  has  subsided, 
ever  whispered  to  himself  with  self-appro 
bation  and  secret  joy  that  he  had  been  guilty 
of  cruelty  or  baseness.  Every  criminal  is 
strongly  impelled  to  hide  these  qualities  of 
his  actions  frorru  himself,  as  he  would  do 
from  others,  by  clothing  his  conduct  in  some 
disguise  of  duty,  or  of  necessity.  There  is 
no  tribe  so  rude  as  to  be  without  a  faint 
perception  of  a  difference  between  Right 
and  Wrong.  There  is  no  subject  on  which 
men  of  all  ages  and  nations  coincide  in  so 
many  points  as  in  the  general  rules  of  con 
duct,  and  in  the  qualities  of  the  human 
character  which  deserve  esteem.  Even  the 
grossest  deviations  from  the  general  consent 
will  appear,  on  close  examination,  to  be  not 
so  much  corruptions  of  moral  feeling,  as 
ignorance  of  facts  ;  or  errors  with  respect  to 
the  consequences  of  action;  or  cases  in 
which  the  dissentient  party  is  inconsistent 
with  other  parts  of  his  own  principles,  which 
destroys  the  value  of  his  dissent ;  or  where 
each  dissident  is  condemned  by  all  the  other 
dissidents,  which  immeasurably  augments 
the  majority  against  him.  In  the  first  three 
cases  he  may  be  convinced  by  argument  that 
his  moral  judgment  should  be  changed  on 
principles  which  he  recognises  as  just ;  and 
he  can  seldom,  if  ever,  be  condemned  at 
the  same  time  by  the  body  of  mankind  who 
agree  in  their  moral  systems,  and  by  those 
who  on  some  other  points  dissent  from  that 
general  code,  without  being  also  convicted 
of  error  by  inconsistency  with  himself.  The 
tribes  who  expose  new-born  infants,  condemn 
those  who  abandon  their  decrepit  parents  to 
destruction :  those  who  betray  and  murder 
strangers,  are  condemned  by  the  rules  of 
faith  and  humanity  which  they  acknowledge 
in  their  intercourse  with  their  countrymen. 
Mr.  Hume,  in  a  dialogue  in  which  he  inge 
niously  magnifies  the  moral  heresies  of  two 
nations  so  polished  as  the  Athenians  and  the 
French,  has  very  satisfactorily  resolved  his 
own  difficulties: — "In  how  many  circum 
stances  would  an  Athenian  and  a  French 
man  of  merit  certainly  resemble  each  other  ! 
— Humanity,  fidelity,  truth,  justice,  courage, 
temperance,  constancy,  dignity  of  mind." 
"  The  principles  upon  which  men  reason  in 
Morals  are  always  the  same,  though  the 
conclusions  which  they  draw  are  often  very 
different."*  He  might  have  added,  that 
almost  every  deviation  which  he  imputes  to 
each  nation  is  at  variance  with  some  of  the 
virtues  justly  esteemed  by  both,  and  that 


*  Philosophical  Works,  (Edinb.  1826,)  vol.  iv. 
pp.  420,  422. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


the  reciprocal  condemnation  of  each  other's 
errors  which  appears  in  his  statement  en 
titles  us,  on  these  points,  to  strike  out  the 
suffrages  of  both  when  collecting  the  general 
judgment  of  mankind.  If  we  bear  in  mind 
that  the  question  relates  to  the  coincidence 
of  all  men  in  considering  the  same  qualities 
as  virtues,  and  not  to  the  preference  of  one 
class  of  virtues  by  some,  and  of  a  different 
class  by  others,  the  exceptions  from  the 
agreement  of  mankind,  in  their  system  of 
practical  morality,  will  be  reduced  to  abso 
lute  insignificance;  and  we  shall  learn  to 
view  them  as  no  more  affecting  the  harmony 
of  our  moral  faculties,  than  the  resemblance 
of  our  limbs  and  features  is  affected  by  mon 
strous  conformations,  or  by  the  unfortunate 
effects  of  accident  and  disease  in  a  very  few 
individuals.* 

It  is  very  remarkable,  however,  that 
though  all  men  agree  that  there  are  acts 
which  ought  to  be  done,  and  acts  which 
ought  not  to  be  done  ;  though  the  far  greater 
part  of  mankind  agree  in  their  list  of  virtues 
and  duties,  of  vices  and  crimes ;  and  though 
the  whole  race,  as  it  advances  in  other  im 
provements,  is  as  evidently  tending  towards 
the  moral  system  of  the  most  civilized  na 
tions,  as  children  in  their  growth  tend  to  the 
opinions,  as  much  as  to  the  experience  and 
strength,  of  adults ;  yet  there  are  no  questions 
in  the  circle  of  inquiry  to  which  answers 
more  various  have  been  given  than — How 
men  have  thus  come  to  agree  in  the  l  Rule 
of  Life  V  Whence  arises  their  general  reve 
rence  for  it  ?  and,  What  is  meant  by  affirm 
ing  that  it  ought  to  be  inviolably  observed  ? 
It  is  singular,  that  where  we  are  most  nearly 
agreed  respecting  rules,  we  should  perhaps 
most  widely  differ  as  to  the  causes  of  our 
agreement,  and  as  to  the  reasons  which  justify 
us  for  adhering  to  it.  The  discussion  of  these 
subjects  composes  what  is  usually  called 
the  "  Theory  of  Morals"  in  a  sense  not  in 
all  respects  coincident  with  what  is  usually 
considered  as  theory  in  other  sciences. 
When  we  investigate  the  causes  of  our  moral 
agreement,  the  term  "theory"'  retains  its 


*  "  On  convient  le  plus  souvent  de  ces  instincts 
de  la  conscience.  La  plus  grande  et  la  plus  saine 
partie  du  genre  humain  leur  rend  temoignage. 
Les  Orientaux,  et  les  Grecs,  et  les  Remains  con- 
viennent  en  cela ;  et  il  faudroit  eire  aussi  abruti 
que  les  sauvages  Americains  pour  approuver  leurs 
coutumes,  pleines  d'une  cruaute  qui  passe  meme 
celle  des  betes.  Cependant  ces  memes  sauvages 
sentent  bien  ce  que  c'est  que  la  justice  en  d'autres 
occasions  ;  et  quoique  il  n'y  ait  point  de  mauvaise 
pratique  peut-etre  qui  ne  soil  autorisee  quelque 
part,  il  y  en  a  peu  pourtant  qui  ne  soient  con- 
damnees  le  plus  souvent,  et  par  la  plus  grande 
partie  des  hommes." — Leibnitz,  (Euvres  Philo- 
sophiques,  (Amst.  et  Leipz.  1765,  4to.)  p.  49. 
There  are  some  admirable  observations  on  this 
subject  in  Hartley,  especially  in  the  development 
of  the  49th  Proposition  : — "  The  rule  of  life  drawn 
from  the  practice  and  opinions  of  mankind  corrects 
and  improves  itself  perpetually,  till  at  last  it  de 
termines  entirely  for  virtue,  and  excludes  all  kinds 
.and  degrees  of  vice." — Observations  on  Man, 
vol.  ii.  p.  214. 

13 


ordinary  scientific  sense ;  but  when  we  en 
deavour  to  ascertain  the  reasons  of  it;  we 
rather  employ  the  term  as  importing  the 
theory  of  the  rules  of  an  art.  In  the  first 
case,  'theory'  denotes,  as  usual,  the  most 
general  laws  to  which  certain  facts  can  be 
reduced;  whereas  in  the  second,  it  points  out 
the  efficacy  of  the  observance,  in  practice, 
of  certain  rules,  for  producing  the  effects 
intended  to  be  produced  in  the  art.  These 
reasons  also  may  be  reduced  under  the  ge 
neral  sense  by  stating  the  question  relating 
to  them  thus : — What  are  the  causes  why 
the  observance  of  certain  rules  enables  us 
to  execute  certain  purposes  ?  An  account  of 
the  various  answers  attempted  to  be  made 
to  these  inquiries,  properly  forms  the  history 
of  Ethics. 

The  attentive  reader  may  already  per 
ceive,  that  these  momentous  inquiries  relate 
to  at  least  two  perfectly  distinct  subjects: — 

1.  The   nature  of   the   distinction  between 
Right  and  Wrong   in   human   conduct,  and 

2.  The  nature  of  those  feelings  with  which 
Right  and  Wrong  are  contemplated  by  hu 
man  beings.     The   latter  constitutes  what 
has  been  called  the  c  Theory  of  Moral  Sen 
timents  ;'  the  former  consists  in  an  investiga 
tion  into  the  criterion  of  Morality  in  action. 
Other  most  important  questions  arise  in  this 
province  :  but  the  two  problems  which  have 
been  just  stated,  and  the  essential  distinction 
between  them,  must  be  clearly  apprehended 
by  all  who  are  desirous  of  understanding 
the  controversies  which  have  prevailed  on 
ethical    subjects.      The  discrimination   has 
seldom  been  made  by  moral  philosophers  j 
the   difference   between  the  two   problems 
has  never  been  uniformly  observed  by  any 
of  them :  and  it  will  appear,  in  the  sequel, 
that  they  have  been  not   rarely  altogether 
confounded  by  very  eminent   men,    to  the 
destruction  of  all  just  conception  and  of  all 
correct   reasoning  in    this  most   important, 
and,  perhaps,  most  difficult,  of  sciences. 

It  may  therefore  be  allowable  to  deviate 
so  far  from  historical  order,  as  to  illustrate 
the  nature,  and  to  prove  the  importance,  of 
the  distinction,  by  an  example  of  the  ef 
fects  of  neglecting  it,  taken  from  the  recent 
works  of  justly  celebrated  writers ;  in  which 
they  discuss  questions  much  agitated  in  the 

E resent   age,   and   therefore    probably  now 
imiliar  to   most   readers  of  this   Disserta 
tion. 

Dr.  Paley  represents  the  principle  of  a 
Moral  Sense  as  being  opposed  to  that  of  utili 
ty.*  Now,  it  is  evident  that  this  represen 
tation  is  founded  on  a  confusion  of  the  two 
questions  which  have  been  started  above. 
That  we  are  endued  with  a  Moral  Sense,  or, 
in  other  words,  a  faculty  which  immediately 
approves  what  is  right,  and  condemns  what 
is  wrong,  is  only  a  statement  of  the  feelings 
with  which  we  contemplate  actions.  But 


*  Principles  of  Moral  and  Political  Philoso 
phy.  Compare  book  i.  chap.  v.  with  book  u. 
chap.  vi. 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


to  affirm  that  right  actions  are  those  which 
conduce  to  the  well-being  of  mankind,  is  a 
proposition  concerning  the  outward  effects 
by  which  right  actions  themselves  may  be 
recognised.  As  these  affirmations  relate  to 
different  subjects,  they  cannot  be  opposed  to 
each  other,  any  more  than  the  solidity  of 
earth  is  inconsistent  with  the  fluidity  of 
water ;  and  a  very  little  reflection  will  show 
it  to  be  easily  conceivable  that  they  may  be 
both  true.  Man  may  be  so  constituted  as 
instantaneously  to  approve  certain  actions 
without  any  reference  to  their  consequences ; 
and  yet  Reason  may  nevertheless  discover, 
that  a  tendency  to  produce  general  happiness 
is  the  essential  characteristic  of  such  actions. 
Mr.  Bentham  also  contrasts  the  principle  of 
Utility  with  that  of  Sympathy,  of  which  he 
considers  the  Moral  Sense  as  being  one  of 
the  forms. *  It  is  needless  to  repeat,  that 
propositions  which  affirm,  or  deny,  anything 
of  different  subjects,  cannot  contradict  each 
other.  As  these  celebrated  persons  have 
thus  inferred  or  implied  the  non-existence  of 
a  Moral  Sense,  from  their  opinion  that  the 
morality  of  actions  depends  upon  their  use 
fulness,  so  other  philosophers  of  equal  name 
have  concluded,  that  the  utility  of  actions 
cannot  be  the  criterion  of  their  morality,  be 
cause  a  perception  of  that  utility  appears  to 
them  to  form  a  faint  and  inconsiderable  part 
of  our  Moral  Sentiments, — if  indeed  it  be  at 
all  discoverable  in  them.t  These  errors  are 
the  more  remarkable,  because  the  like  con 
fusion  of  perceptions  with  their  objects,  of 
emotions  with  their  causes,  or  even  the  omis 
sion  to  mark  the  distinctions,  would  in  every 
other  subject  be  felt  to  be  a  most  serious 
fault  in  philosophizing.  If,  for  instance,  an 
element  were  discovered  to  be  common  to 
all  bodies  which  our  taste  perceives  to  be 
sweet,  and  to  be  found  in  no  other  bodies,  it 
is  apparent  that  this  discovery,  perhaps  im 
portant  in  other  respects,  would  neither 
affect  our  perception  of  sweetness,  nor  the 
pleasure  which  attends  it.  Both  would  con 
tinue  to  be  what  they  have  been  since  the 
existence  of  mankind.  Every  proposition 
concerning  that  element  would  relate  to 
sweet  bodies,  and  belong  to  the  science  of 
Chemistry ;  while  every  proposition  respect 
ing  the  perception  or  pleasure  of  sweetness 
would  relate  either  to  the  body  or  mind 
of  man,  and  accordingly  belong  either  to  the 
science  of  Physiology,  or  to  that  of  Mental 
Philosophy.  During  the  many  ages  which 
passed  before  the  analysis  of  the  sun's  beams 
had  proved  them  to  be  compounded  of  differ 
ent  colours,  white  objects  were  seen,  and 
their  whiteness  was  sometimes  felt  to  be 
beautiful,  in  the  very  same  manner  as  since 


*  Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morality  and 
Legislation,  chap.  ii. 

t  Smith,  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,  part  iv. 
Even  Hume,  in  the  third  book  of  his  Treatise  of 
Human  Nature,  the  most  precise,  perhaps,  of  his 
philosophical  writings,  uses  the  following  as  the 
title  of  one  of  the  sections :  "  Moral  Distinctions, 
derived  from  a  Moral  Sense,'1 


that  discovery.  The  qualities  of  light  are 
the  object  of  Optics ;  the  nature  of  beauty 
can  be  ascertained  only  by  each  man's  ob 
servation  of  his  own  mind;  the  changes  in 
the  living  frame  which  succeed  the  refrac 
tion  of  light  in  the  eye,  and  precede  mental 
operation,  will,  if  they  are  ever  to  be  known 
by  man,  constitute  a  part  of  Physiology, 
But  no  proposition  relating  to  one  of  these 
orders  of  phenomena  can  contradict  or  sup 
port  a  proposition  concerning  another  order. 
The  analogy  of  this  latter  case  will  justi 
fy  another  preliminary  observation.  In  the 
case  of  the  pleasure  derived  from  beauty, 
the  question  whether  that  pleasure  be  ori 
ginal,  or  derived,  is  of  secondary  importance. 
It  has  been  often  observed  that  the  same 
properties  which  are  admired  as  beautiful  in 
the  horse,  contribute  also  to  his  safety  and 
speed  ]  and  they  who  infer  that  the  admira 
tion  of  beauty  was  originally  founded  on  the 
convenience  of  fleetness  and  firmness,  if  they 
at  the  same  time  hold  that  the  idea  of'useful- 
ness  is  gradually  effaced,  and  that  the  admi 
ration  of  a  certain  shape  at  length  rises  in 
stantaneously,  without  reference  to  any  pur 
pose,  may,  with  perfect  consistency,  regard 
a  sense  of  beauty  as  an  independent  and 
universal  principle  of  human  nature.  The 
laws  of  such  a  feeling  of  beauty  are  dis 
coverable  only  by  self-observation  :  those  of 
the  qualities  which  call  it  forth  are  ascer 
tained  by  examination  of  the  outward  things 
which  are  called  beautiful.  But  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  to  bear  in  mind,  that  he 
who  contemplates  the  beautiful  proportions 
of  a  horse,  as  the  signs  and  proofs  of  security 
or  quickness,  and  has  in  view  these  conveni 
ent  qualities,  is  properly  said  to  prefer  the 
horse  for  his  usefulness,  not  for  his  beauty ; 
though  he  may  choose  him  from  the  same 
outward  appearance  which  pleases  the  ad 
mirer  of  the  beautiful  animal.  He  alone 
who  derives  immediate  pleasure  from  the 
appearance  itself,  without  reflection  on  any 
advantages  which  it  may  promise,  is  truly 
said  to  feel  the  beauty.  The  distinction, 
however,  manifestly  depends,  not  on  the 
origin  of  the  emotion,  but  on  its  object  and 
nature  when  completely  formed.  Many  of 
our  most  important  perceptions  through  the 
eye  are  universally  acknowledged  to  be  ac 
quired  :  but  they  are  as  general  as  the  ori 
ginal  perceptions  of  that  organ ;  they  arise  as 
independently  of  our  will,  and  human  nature 
would  be  quite  as  imperfect  without  them. 
The  case  of  an  adult  who  did  not  immediate 
ly  see  the  different  distances  of  objects  from 
his  eye,  would  be  thought  by  every  one  to 
be  as  great  a  deviation  from  the  ordinary 
state  of  man,  as  if  he  wTere  incapable  of  dis 
tinguishing  the  brightest  sunshine  from  the 
darkest  midnight.  Acquired  perceptions  and 
sentiments  may  therefore  be  termed  natural, 
as  much  as  those  which  are  more  common 
ly  so  called,  if  they  be  as  rarely  found  want 
ing.  Ethical  theories  can  never  be  satisfac 
torily  discussed  by  those  who  do  not  con* 
stantly  bear  in  mind,  that  the  question 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


concerning  the  existence  of  a  moral  faculty 
in  man,  which  immediately  approves  or  dis 
approves,  without  reference  to  any  farther 
object,  is  perfectly  distinct,  on  the  one  hand, 
from  that  which  inquires  into  the  qualities 
of  actions,  thus  approved  or  disapproved.; 
and  on  the  other,  from  an  inquiry  whether 
that  faculty  be  derived  from  other  parts  of 
our  mental  frame,  or  be  itself  one  of  the 
ultimate  constituent  principles  of  human 
nature.  >^ 

//V       0?  T£& 

mi 

SEC: 

RETROSPECT  OF  A.1 

INQUIRIES  concerning  the  nature 
the  first  principles  of  Knowledge,  the  origin 
and  government  of  the  world,  appear  to  have 
been  among  the  earliest  objects  which  em 
ployed  the  understanding  of  civilized  men. 
Fragments  of  such  speculation  are  handed 
down  from  the  legendary  age  of  Greek  phi 
losophy.  In  the  remaining  monuments  of 
that  more  ancient  form  of  civilization  which 
sprung  up  in  Asia,  we  see  clearly  that  the 
Braminical  philosophers,  in  times  perhaps 
before  the  dawn  of  Western  history,  had  run 
round  that  dark  and  little  circle  of  systems 
which  an  unquenchable  thirst  of  knowledge 
has  since  urged  both  the  speculators  of  an 
cient  Greece  and  those  of  Christendom  to 
retrace.  The  wall  of  adamant  which  bounds 
human  inquiry  in  that  direction  has  scarcely 
ever  been  discovered  by  any  adventurer, 
until  he  has  been  roused  by  the  shock  which 
drove  him  back.  It  is  otherwise  with  the 
theory  of  Morals.  No  controversy  seems  to 
have  arisen  regarding  it  in  Greece  till  the 
rise  and  conflict  of  the  Stoical  and  Epicurean 
schools;  and  the  ethical  disputes  of  the 
modern  world  originated  with  the  writings 
of  Hobbes  about  the  middle  of  the  seven 
teenth  century.  Perhaps  the  longer  absti 
nence  from  debate  on  this  subject  may  have 
sprung  from  reverence  for  Morality.  Per 
haps  also,  where  the  world  were  unanimous 
in  their  practical  opinions,  little  need  was 
felt  of  exact  theory.  The  teachers  of  Morals 
were  content  with  partial  or  secondary  prin 
ciples, — with  the  combination  of  principles 
not  always  reconcilable, — even  with  vague 
but  specious  phrases  which  in  any  degree 
explained  or  seemed  to  explain  the  Rules 
of  the  Art  of  Life,  appearing,  as  these  last 
did,  at  once  too  evident  to  need  investiga 
tion,  and  too  venerable  to  be  approached  by 
controversy. 

Perhaps  the  subtile  genius  of  Greece  was 
in  part  withheld  from  indulging  itself  in 
ethical  controversy  by  the  influence  of  So 
crates,  who  was  much  more  a  teacher  of 
virtue  than  even  a  searcher  after  Truth — 

Whom,  well  inspired,  the  oracle  pronounced 
Wisest  of  men. 

It  was  doubtless  because  he  chose  that 
better  part  that  he  was  thus  spoken  of  by 


the  man  whose  commendation  is  glory,  and 
who,  from  the  loftiest  eminence  of  moral 
genius  ever  reached  by  a  mortal,  was  per 
haps  alone  worthy  to  place  a  new  crown  on 
the  brow  of  the  martyr  of  Virtue. 

Aristippus  indeed,  a  wit  and  a  worldling, 
borrowed  nothing  from  the  conversations  of 
Socrates  but  a  few  maxims  for  husbanding 
the  enjoyments  of  sense.  Antisthenes  also, 
a  hearer  but  not  a  follower,  founded  a  school 
rade  and  exaggeration,  which  caused 
aster  to  disown  him  by  the  ingenious 
, — "I  sec  your  vanity  through  your 
:bare  cloak."*  The  modest  doubts  of 
t  sober  of  moralists,  and  his  indispo- 
to  fruitless  abstractions,  were  in  pro 
of  time  employed  as  the  foundation  of 

systematic  scepticism;  —  the  most  pre 
sumptuous,  inapplicable,  and  inconsistent  of 
all  the  results  of  human  meditation.  But 
though  his  lessons  were  thus  distorted  by  the 
perverse  ingenuity  of  some  who  heard  him, 
the  authority  of  his  practical  sense  may  be 
traced  in  the  moral  writings  of  those  most 
celebrated  philosophers  who  were  directly 
or  indirectly  his  disciples. 

Plato,  the  most  famous  of  his  scholars,  the 
most  eloquent  of  Grecian  writers,  and  the 
earliest  moral  philosopher  whose  writings 
have  come  down  to  us,  employed  his  genius 
in  the  composition  of  dialogues,  in  which 
his  master  performed  the  principal  part. 
These  beautiful  conversations  would  have 
lost  their  charm  of  verisimilitude,  of  dra 
matic  vivacity,  and  of  picturesque  represen 
tation  of  character,  if  they  had  been  sub 
jected  to  the  constraint  of  method.  They 
necessarily  presuppose  much  oral  instruction. 
They  frequently  quote,  and  doubtless  oftener 
allude  to,  the  opinions  of  predecessors  and 
contemporaries  whose  works  have  perished, 
and  of  whose  doctrines  only  some  fragments 
are  preserved.  In  these  circumstances,  it 
must  be  difficult  for  the  most  learned  and 
philosophical  of  his  commentators  to  give  a 
just  representation  of  his  doctrines,  even  if 
he  really  framed  or  adopted  a  system.  The 
moral  part  of  his  works  is  more  accessible.! 
The  vein  of  thought  which  runs  through, 
them  is  always  visible.  The  object  is  to  in 
spire  the  love  of  Truth,  of  Wisdom,  of  Beauty, 
especially  of  Goodness — the  highest  Beauty, 
and  of  that  Supreme  and  Eternal  Mind, 
which  contains  all  Truth  and  Wisdom,  all 
Beauty  and  Goodness.  By  the  love  or  de 
lightful  contemplation  and  pursuit  of  these 
transcendent  aims  for  their  own  sake  only, 
he  represented  the  mind  of  man  as  raised 
from  low  and  perishable  objects,  and  pre 
pared  for  those  high  destinies  which  are  ap 
pointed  for  all  those  who  are  capable  of  en 
joying  them.  The  application  to  moral  quali 
ties  of  terms  which  denote  outward  beauty, 
though  by  him  perhaps  carried  to  excess,  is 


*  Diog.  Laert.  lib.  vi.     Lilian,  lib.  ix.  cap.  35. 

t  Heyse,  Init.  Phil.  Plat.  1827  ;— a  hitherto  in 
complete  work  of  great  perspicuity  and  elegance, 
in  which  we  must  excuse  the  partiality  which  be 
longs  to  a  labour  of  love. 


100 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


an  illustrative  metaphor,  as  well  warranted 
by  the  poverty  of  language  as  any  other  em 
ployed  to  signify  the  acts  or  attributes  of 
Mind.*  The  "beautiful"  in  his  language 
denoted  all  that  of  which  the  mere  contem 
plation  is  in  itself  delightful,  without  any 
admixture  of  organic  pleasure,  and  without 
being  regarded  as  the  means  of  attaining  any 
farther  end.  The  feeling  which  belongs  to 
it  he  called  "  love  ;"  a  word  which,  as  com 
prehending  complacency,  benevolence,  and 
affection,  and  reaching  from  the  neighbour 
hood  of  the  senses  to  the  most  sublime  of 
human  thoughts,  is  foreign  to  the  colder  and 
more  exact  language  of  our  philosophy  ;  but 
which,  perhaps,  then  happily  served  to  lure 
both  the  lovers  of  Poetry,  and  the  votaries 
of  Superstition,  to  the  school  of  Truth  and 
Goodness  in  the  groves  of  the  Academy.  He 
enforced  these  lessons  by  an  inexhaustible 
variety  of  just  and  beautiful  illustrations,  — 
sometimes  striking  from  their  familiarity, 
sometimes  subduing  by  their  grandeur  ;  and 
his  works  are  the  storehouse  from  which 
moralists  have  from  age  to  age  borrowed  the 
means  of  rendering  moral  instruction  easier 
and  more  delightful.  Virtue  he  represented 
as  the  harmony  of  the  whole  soul;  —  as  a 
peace  between  all  its  principles  and  desires, 
assigning  to  each  as  much  space  as  they  can 
occupy,  without  encroaching  on  each  other  ; 
—  as  a  state  of  perfect  health,  in  which  every 
function  was  performed  with  ease,  pleasure, 
and  vigour;  —  as  a  well-ordered  common 
wealth,  where  the  obedient  passions  exe 
cuted  with  energy  the  laws  and  commands 
of  Reason.  The  vicious  mind  presented  the 
odious  character,  sometimes  of  discord,  of 
war;  —  sometimes  of  disease;  —  always  of 
passions  warring  with  each  other  in  eternal 
anarchy.  Consistent  with  himself,  and  at 
peace  with  his  fellows,  the  good  man  felt  in 
the  quiet  of  his  conscience  a  foretaste  of  the 
approbation  of  God.  "Oh,  what  ardent  love 
would  virtue  inspire  if  she  could  be  seen." 
""  If  the  heart  of  a  tyrant  could  be  laid  bare, 
we  should  see  how  it  was  cut  and  torn  by 
its  own  evil  passions  and  by  an  avenging 
conscience,  "t 


*  The  most  probable  etymology  of  " 
seems  to  be  from  nditf  to  burn.  What  burns  com 
monly  shines.  "  Schon,"  in  German,  which 
means  beautiful,  is  derived  from  "scheinen,"  to 
shine.  The  word  x«tx6c  was  used  for  right,  so 
early  as  the  Homeric  Poems.  Ix.  xyii.  19.  In  the 
philosophical  age  it  became  a  technical  term,  with 
little  other  remains  of  the  metaphorical  sense  than 
what  the  genius  and  art  of  a  fine  writer  might 
sometimes  rekindle.  "  Honestum"  the  term  by 
which  Cicero  translates  the  "  xaxov,"  being  de 
rived  from  outward  honours,  is  a  less  happy  me 
taphor.  In  our  language,  the  terms,  being  from 
foreign  roots,  contribute  nothing  to  illustrate  the 
progress  of  thought. 

t  Let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that  for  this  terrible 
description,  Socrates,  to  whom  it  is  ascribed  by 
Plato  (riox.  I.)  is  called  "  Praestantissimus  sapieri- 
tiae,"  by  a  writer  of  the  most  masculine  under 
standing,  the  least  subject  to  be  transported  by 
enthusiasm.  —  Tac.  Ann.  lib.  vi.  cap.  6.  "  Qua3 
vulnera!"  says  Cicero,  in  alluding  to  the  same 
passage,—  De  Off.  lib.  iii.  cap.  21. 


Perhaps  in  every  one  of  these  illustrations, 
an  eye  trained  in  the  history  of  Ethics  may 
discover  the  germ  of  the  whole  or  of  a  part 
of  some  subsequent  theory.  But  to  examine 
it  thus  would  not  be  to  look  at  it  with  the 
eye  of  Plato.  His  aim  was  as  practical  as 
that  of  Socrates.  He  employed  every  topic, 
without  regard  to  its  place  in  a  system,  or 
even  always  to  its  argumentative  force,  which 
could  attract  the  small  portion  of  the  com 
munity  then  accessible  to  cultivation  ;  who, 
it  should  not  be  forgotten,  had  no  moral  in 
structor  but  the  Philosopher,  unaided,  if  not 
thwarted,  by  the  reigning  superstition :  for 
Religion  had  not  then,  besides  her  own  dis 
coveries,  brought  down  the  most  awful  and 
the  most  beautiful  forms  of  Moral  Truth  to 
the  humblest  station  in  human  society.* 

Ethics  retained  her  sober  spirit  in  the 
hands  of  his  great  scholar  and  rival  Aristo 
tle,  who,  though  he  certainly  surpassed  all 
men  in  acute  distinction,  in  subtile  argument, 
in  severe  method,  in  the  power  of  analyzing 
what  is  most  compounded,  and  of  reducing 
to  simple  principles  the  most  various  and 
unlike  appearances,  yet  appears  to  be  still 
more  raised  above  his  fellows  by  the  prodi 
gious  faculty  of  laying  aside  these  extraor 
dinary  endowments  whenever  his  present 
purpose  required  it; — as  in  his  History  of 
Animals,  in  his  treatises  on  philosophical  cri 
ticism,  and  in  his  practical  writings,  political 
as  well  as  moral.  Contrasted  as  his  genius 
was  to  that  of  Plato,  not  only  by  its  logical 
and  metaphysical  attributes,  but  by  the  re 
gard  to  experience  and  observation  of  Nature 
which,  in  him  perhaps  alone,  accompanied 
them ;  (though  the  two  may  be  considered 
as  the  original  representatives  of  the  two 
antagonist  tendencies  of  philosophy — that 
which  would  ennoble  man,  and  that  which 
seeks  rather  to  explain  nature;)  yet  opposite 
as  they  are  in  other  respects,  the  master  and 
the  scholar  combine  to  guard  the  Rule  of 
Life  against  the  licentious  irruptions  of  the 
Sophists. 

In  Ethics  alone  their  systems  differed 
more  in  words  than  in  things. t  That  hap- 


*  There  can  hardly  be  a  finer  example  of  Plato's 
practical  morals  than  his  observations  on  the  treat 
ment  of  slaves.  "Genuine  humanity  and  real 
probity,"  says  he,  "are  brought  to  the  test,  by 
the  behaviour  of  a  man  to  slaves,  whom  he  may 
wrong  with  impunity."  A/O^ACC  yap  o  $6<ni  X.AI 
ju.»  7r\a.<T'T<Z?  a-'t£a>v  THV  ef/x.»v.  fjur^v  S\  orrcee  TO  aJincv 
iv  TWTCit  TW  dvQp^Trctv  iv  ok  a-uT^ PJJtov  aJ«s?v, — No//. 
lib.  vi.  cap.  19.  That  Plato  was  considered  as 
the  fountain  of  ancient  morals,  would  be  suffi 
ciently  evident  from  Cicero  alone :  "  Ex  hoc  igitur 
Platonis,  quasi  quodam  sancto  augustoque  fonte, 
nostra  omnis  manabit  oratio."— Tusc.  Qusest. 
lib.  v.  cap.  12.  Perhaps  the  sober  Quintilian 
meant  to  mingle  some  censure  with  the  highest 
praise:  "Plato,  qui  eloquendi  facultate  divina 
quadam  et  Homerica,  multum  supra  prosam  ora- 
tionem  surgit."  De  Inst.  Oral.  lib.  x.  cap.  1. 

t  "  Una  et  consentiensduobus  vpcabulis  philoso 
phic  forma  instituta  est,  Academicorum  et  Peri- 
pateticorum;  qui  rebus  congruentes  nominibus 
differebant."— Cic.  Acad.  £uajst.  lib  i.  cap. 

" 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         101 


piness  consisted  in  virtuous  pleasure,  chiefly 
dependent  on  the  state  of  mind,  but  not  un 
affected  by  outward  agents,  was  the  doctrine 
of  both.  Both  would  with  Socrates  have 
called  happiness  "unrepented  pleasure." 
Neither  distinguished  the  two  elements 
which  they  represented  as  constituting  the 
Supreme  Good  from  each  other ;  partly,  per 
haps,  from  fear  of  appearing  to  separate 
them.  Plato  more  habitually  considered 
happiness  as  the  natural  fruit  of  Virtue  ; 
Aristotle  oftener  viewed  Virtue  as  the  means 
of  attaining  happiness.  The  celebrated  doc 
trine  of  the  Peripatetics,  which  placed  all 
virtues  in  a  medium  between  opposite  vices, 
was  probably  suggested  by  the  Platonic  re 
presentation  of  its  necessity  to  keep  up  har 
mony  between  the  different  parts  of  our  na 
ture.  The  perfection  of  a  compound  machine 
is  attained  where  all  its  parts  have  the  fullest 
scope  for  action.  Where  one  is  so  far  exert 
ed  as  to  repress  others,  there  is  a  vice  of  ex 
cess  :  where  any  one  has  less  activity  than 
it  might  exert  without  disturbing  others, 
there  is  a  vice  of  defect.  The  point  which 
all  reach  without  collision  with  each  other, 
is  the  mediocrity  in  which  the  Peripatetics 
placed  Virtue. 

It  was  not  till  near  a  century  after  the 
death  of  Plato  that  Ethics  became  the  scene 
of  philosophical  contest  between  the  adverse 
schools  of  Epicurus  and  Zeno ;  whose  errors 
afford  an  instructive  example,  that  in  the 
formation  of  a  theory,  partial  truth  is  equi 
valent  to  absolute  falsehood.  As  the  astro 
nomer  who  left  either  the  centripetal  or  the 
centrifugal  force  of  the  planets  out  of  his 
view,  would  err  as  completely  as  he  who 
excluded  both,  so  the  Epicureans  and  Stoics, 
who  each  confined  themselves  to  real  but 
not  exclusive  principles  in  Morals,  departed 
as  widely  from  the  truth  as  if  they  had 
adopted  no  part  of  it.  Every  partial  theory 
is  indeed  directly  false,  inasmuch  as  it  as 
cribes  to  one  or  few  causes  what  is  produced 
by  more.  As  the  extreme  opinions  of  one, 
if  not  of  both,  of  these  schools  have  been 
often  revived  with  variations  and  refine 
ments  in  modern  times,  and  are  still  not 
without  influence  on  ethical  systems,  it  may 
be  allowable  to  make  some  observations  on 
this  earliest  of  moral  controversies. 

"All  other  virtues,"  said  Epicurus,  "grow 
from  prudence,  which  teaches  that  we  can 
not  live  pleasurably  without  living  justly  and 
virtuously,  nor  live  justly  and  virtuously  with 
out  living  pleasurably."*  The  illustration 
of  this  sentence  formed  the  whole  moral  dis 
cipline  of  Epicurus.  To  him  we  owe  the 
general  concurrence  of  reflecting  men  in 
succeeding  times,  in  the  important  truth  that 
men  cannot  be  happy  without  a  virtuous 
frame  of  mind  and  course  of  life  :  a  truth  of 
inestimable  value,  not  peculiar  to  the  Epi- 


TOV  fjttv  Tr^y.x.rinov,  TOV  fi  d-t&wriidv.  x.ttt  TC-J 
Toy  TJ  «9;xcy  ttau  7rcMTtx.ov'  TOU  ft  &to>wn- 
xov,  Toy  rt  PUO-/XCV,  xaii  xtyiMv. — Diog.   Laert.  lib. 
v.  $  28. 
*  Diog.  Laert.  lib.  x.  §  132. 


ureans,  but  placed  by  their  exaggerations 
in  a  stronger  light; — a  truth,  it  must  be  ad 
ded,  of  less  importance  as  a  motive  to  right 
conduct  than  as  completing  Moral  Theory, 
which,  however,  it  is  very  far  from  solely 
constituting.  With  that  truth  the  Epicure 
ans  blended  another  position,  which  indeed 
"s  contained  in  the  first  words  of  the  above 
statement ;  namely,  that  because  Virtue  pro 
motes  happiness,  every  act  of  virtue  must  be 
done  in  order  to  promote  the  happiness  of 
the  agent.  They  and  their  modern  follow 
ers  tacitly  assume,  that  the  latter  position  is 
the  consequence  of  the  former ;  as  if  it  were 
an  inference  from  the  necessity  of  food  to. 
life,  that  the  fear  of  death  should  be  substi 
tuted  for  the  appetite  of  hunger  as  a  motive 
for  eating.  "Friendship,"  says  Epicurus, 
••'  is  to  be  pursued  by  the  wise  man  only  for 
its  usefulness,  but  he  will  begin ;  as  he  sows 
the  field  in  order  to  reap."*  It  is  obvious, 
that  if  these  words  be  confined  to  outward 
benefits,  they  may  be  sometimes  true,  but 
never  can  be  pertinent;  for  outward  acts 
sometimes  show  kindness,  but  never  com 
pose  it.  If  they  be  applied  to  kind  feeling, 
they  would  indeed  be  pertinent,  but  they 
would  be  evidently  and  totally  false :  for  it  is 
most  certain  that  no  man  acquires  an  affec 
tion  merely  from  his  belief  that  it  would  be 
agreeable  or  advantageous  to  feel  it.  Kind 
ness  cannot  indeed  be  pursued  on  account 
of  the  pleasure  which  belongs  to  it ;  for  man 
can  no  more  know  the  pleasure  till  he  has 
felt  the  affection,  than  he  can  form  an  idea 
of  colour  without  the  sense  of  sight.  The 
moral  character  of  Epicurus  was  excellent ; 
no  man  more  enjoyed  the  pleasure,  or  better 
performed  the  duties  of  friendship.  The  let 
ter  of  his  system  was  no  more  indulgent  to 
vice  than  that  of  any  other  moralist.!  Al 
though,  therefore,  he  has  the  merit  of  having 
more  strongly  inculcated  the  connection  of 
Virtue  with  happiness,  perhaps  by  the  faulty 
excess  of  treating  it  as  an  exclusive  princi 
ple  ;  yet  his  doctrine  was  justly  charged  with 
indisposing  the  mind  to  those  exalted  and 
generous  sentiments,  without  which  no  pure, 
elevated,  bold,  generous,  or  tender  virtues 
can  exist. J 

As  Epicurus  represented  the  tendency  of 
Virtue,  which  is  a  most  important  truth  in 
ethical  theory,  as  the  sole  inducement  to 
virtuous  practice ;  so  Zeno,  in  his  disposition 


*  T»y  c/x/rtv  fia  T«C  %f>ua.(. — Diog.  Laert.  lib.  x. 
$  120.  "  Hie  est  locus,"  Gassendi  confesses, 
"  ob  quern  Epicurus  non  parum  vexatur,  quando 
nemo  non  reprehendit,  parari  amicitiam  non  sui, 
sed  utilitatis  gratia" 

t  It  is  due  to  him  to  observe,  that  he  treated 
humanity  towards  slaves,  as  one  of  the^  character 
istics  ^of  a  wise  man.  "Ourt  x.txd<ruv  GJXST*?,  «ASK- 
cruv  fJi'tv  T«,  net}  <ruyyv*L(jt.}tv  T/V)  'i?tiv  T>>  avrwfstiaiv. — 
Diog.  Laert.  lib.  x.  §  118.  It  is  not  unworthy  of 
remark,  that  neither  Plato  nor  Epicurus  thought 
it  necessary  to  abstain  from  these  topics  in  a  city 
full  of  slaves,  many  of  whom  were  men  not  desti 
tute  of  knowledge. 

t  "  Nil  generosum,  nil  magnificum  sapit." — De 
Fin.  lib.  i.  cap.  7. 

I  2 


102 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


towards  the  opposite  extreme,  was  inclined 
to  consider  the  moral  sentiments,  which  are 
the  motives  of  right  conduct,  as  being  the 
sole  principles  of  moral  science.  The  con 
fusion  was  equally  great  in  a  philosophical 
view,  but  that  of  Epicurus  was  more  fatal 
to  interests  of  higher  importance  than  those 
of  Philosophy.  Had  the  Stoics  been  content 
with  affirming  that  Virtue  is  the  source  of 
all  that  part  of  our  happiness  which  depends 
on  ourselves,  they  would  have  taken  a  posi 
tion  from  which  it  would  have  been  impos 
sible  to  drive  them ;  they  would  have  laid 
down  a  principle  of  as  great  comprehension 
in  practice  as  their  wider  pretensions  ;  a 
simple  and  incontrovertible  truth,  beyond 
which  every  thing  is  an  object  of  mere  cu 
riosity  to  man.  Our  information,  however, 
about  the  opinions  of  the  more  celebrated 
Stoics  is  very  scanty.  None  of  their  own 
writings  are  preserved.  We  know  little  of 
them  but  from  Cicero,  the  translator  of  Gre 
cian  philosophy,  and  from  the  Greek  com 
pilers  of  a  later  age  ;  authorities  which  would 
be  imperfect  in  the  history  of  facts,  but  which 
are  of  far  less  value  in  the  history  of  opinions, 
where  a  right  conception  often  depends  upon 
the  minutest  distinctions  between  words. 
We  know  that  Zeno  was  more  simple,  and 
that  Chrysippus,  who  was  accounted  the 
prop  of  the  Stoic  Porch,  abounded  more  in 
subtile  distinction  and  systematic  spirit.* 
His  power  was  attested  as  much  by  the  an 
tagonists  whom  he  called  forth,  as  by  the 
scholars  whom  he  formed.  "Had  there 
been  no  Chrysippus,  there  would  have  been 
no  Carneades,"  was  the  saying  of  the  latter 
philosopher  himself;  as  it  might  have  been 
said  in  the  eighteenth  century,  "Had  there 
been  no  Hume,  there  would  have  been  no 
Kant  arid  no  Reid."  Cleanthes,  when  one 
of  his  followers  would  pay  court  to  him  by 
laying  vices  to  the  charge  of  his  most  for 
midable  opponent,  Arcesilaus  the  academic, 
answered  with  a  justice  and  candour  un 
happily  too  rare,  "  Silence, — do  not  malign 
him ; — though  he  attacks  Virtue  by  his  argu 
ments,  he  confirms  its  authority  by  his  life." 
Arcesilaus,  whether  modestly  or  churlishly, 
replied,  "1  do  not  choose  to  be  flattered." 
Cleanthes,  with  a  superiority  of  repartee,  as 
well  as  charity,  replied,  (~  Is  it  flattery  to  say 
that  you  speak  one  thing  and  do  another?" 
It  would  be  vain  to  expect  that  the  frag 
ments  of  the  professors  who  lectured  in  the 
Stoic  School  for  five  hundred  years,  should 
be  capable  of  being  moulded  into  one  con 
sistent  system;  and  we  see  that  in  Epictetus 
at  least,  the  exaggeration  of  the  sect  was 
lowered  to  the  level  of  Reason,  by  confining 
the  sufficiency  of  Virtue  to  those  cases  only 
where  happiness  is  attainable  by  our  volun- 

"  Chrysippus,  qui  fulcire  putatur  porticum 
Stoicorum." — Acad.  Quaest.  lib.  ii.  cap.  24.  Else 
where  (De  Orat.  lib.  i.  cap.  12— De  Fin.  lib.  iv. 
cap.  3.),  "  Acutissimus,  sed  in  scribendo  exilis  et 
jcjunus,  scripsit  rhetoricam  seu  potius  obmute- 
scendi  artem  ;"— nearly  as  we  should  speak  of  a 
Schoolman. 


tary  acts.  It  ought  to  be  added,  in  extenua 
tion  of  a  noble  error,  that  the  power  of  habit 
and  character  to  struggle  against  outward 
evils  has  been  proved  by  experience  to  be 
in  some  instances  so  prodigious,  that  no  man 
can  presume  to  fix  the  utmost  limit  of  its 
possible  increase. 

The  attempt,  however,  of  the  Stoics  to 
stretch  the  bounds  of  their  system  beyond 
the  limits  of  Nature,  doomed  them  to  fluc 
tuate  between  a  wild  fanaticism  on  the  one 
Hand,  arid,  on  the  other,  concessions  which 
left  their  differences  from  other  philosophers 
purely  verbal.  Many  of  their  doctrines  ap 
pear  to  be  modifications  of  their  original 
opinions,  introduced  as  opposition  became 
more  formidable.  In  this  manner  they  were 
driven  to  the  necessity  of  admitting  that  the 
objects  of  our  desires  and  appetites  are  wor 
thy  of  preference,  though  they  are  denied  to 
be  constituents  of  happiness.  It  was  thus 
that  they  were  obliged  to  invent  a  double 
morality;  one  for  mankind  at  large,  from 
whom  was  expected  no  more  than  the  xa6r]- 
xov, — which  seems  principally  to  have  deno 
ted  acts  of  duty  done  from  inferior  or  mixed 
motives;  and  the  other  (which  they  appear 
to  have  hoped  from  their  ideal  wise  man) 
xatopOufia.,  or  perfect  observance  of  rectitude, 
— which  consisted  only  in  moral  acts  done 
from  mere  reverence  for  Morality,  unaided 
by  any  feelings;  all  which  (without  the  ex 
ception  of  pity)  they  classed  among  the  ene 
mies  of  Reason  and  the  disturbers  of  the 
human  soul.  Thus  did  they  shrink  from 
their  proudest  paradoxes  into  verbal  eva 
sions.  It  is  remarkable  that  men  so  acute 
did  not  perceive  and  acknowledge,  that  if 
pain  were  not  an  evil,  cruelty  would  not  be 
a  vice ;  and  that,  if  patience  were  of  power 
to  render  torture  indifferent,  Virtue  must  ex 
pire  in  the  moment  of  victory.  There  can 
be  no  more  triumph,  when  there  is  no  ene 
my  left  to  conquer.* 

The  influence  of  men's  opinions  on  the 
conduct  of  their  lives  is  checked  and  modi 
fied  by  so  many  causes;  it  so  much  depends 
on  the  strength  of  conviction,  on  its  habitual 
combination  with  feelings,  on  the  concur 
rence  or  resistance  of  interest,  passion,  ex 
ample,  and  sympathy, — that  a  wise  man  is 
not  the  most  forward  in  attempting  to  deter 
mine  the  power  of  its  single  operation  over 
human  actions.  In  the  case  of  an  individual 
it  becomes  altogether  uncertain.  But  when 
the  experiment  is  made  on  a  large  scale, 
when  it  is  long  continued  and  varied  in  its 
circumstances,  and  especially  when  great 
bodies  of  men  are  for  ages  the  subject  of  it, 
we  cannot  reasonably  reject  the  considera 
tion  of  the  inferences  to  which  it  appears  to 
lead.  The  Roman  Patriciate,  trained  in  the 
conquest  and  government  of  the  civilized 
world,  in  spite  of  the  tyrannical  vices  which 
sprung  from  that  training,  were  raised  by 

*  "  Patience,  sovereign  o'er  transmuted  ill." 
But  aa  soon  as  the  ill  was  really  "  transmuted" 
into  good,  it  is  evident  that  there  was  no  longer 
any  scope  left  for  the  exercise  of  patience. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


103 


the  greatness  of  their  objects  to  an  elevation 
of  genius  and  character  unmatched  by  any 
other  aristocracy,  ere  the  period  when,  after 
preserving  their  power  by  a  long  course  of 
wise  compromise  with  the  people,  they  were 
betrayed  by  the  army  and  the  populace  into 
the  hands  of  a  single  tyrant  of  their  own  or 
der — the  most  accomplished  of  usurpers, 
and,  if  Humanity  and  Justice  could  for  a  mo 
ment  be  silenced,  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
of  men.  There  is  no  scene  in  history  so 
memorable  as  that  in  which  Caesar  mastered 
a  nobility  of  which  Lucullus  and  Hortensius, 
Sulpicius  and  Catulus,  Pompey  and  Cicero, 
Brutus  and  Cato  were  members.  This  re 
nowned  body  had  from  the  time  of  Scipio 
sought  the  Greek  philosophy  as  an  amuse 
ment  or  an  ornament.  Some  few,  "  in  thought 
more  elevate,"  caught  the  love  of  Truth,  and 
were  ambitious  of  discovering  a  solid  founda 
tion  for  the  Rule  of  Life.  The  influence  of 
the  Grecian  systems  was  tried,  during  the 
five  centuries  between  Carneades  and  Con- 
stantine,  by  their  effect  on  a  body  of  men  of 
the  utmost  originality,  energy,  and  variety 
of  character,  in  their  successive  positions  of 
rulers  of  the  world,  and  of  slaves  under  the 
best  and  under  the  worst  of  uncontrolled 
masters.  If  we  had  found  this  influence 
perfectly  uniform,  we  should  have  justly 
suspected  our  own  love  of  system  of  having 
in  part  bestowed  that  appearance  on  it.  Had 
there  been  no  trace  of  such  an  influence  dis 
coverable  in  so  great  an  experiment,  we  must 
have  acquiesced  in  the  paradox,  that  opinion 
does  not  at  all  affect  conduct.  The  result  is 
the  more  satisfactory,  because  it  appears  to 
illustrate  general  tendency  without  excluding 
very  remarkable  exceptions.  Though  Cassius 
was  an  Epicurean,  the  true  representative  of 
that  school  was  the  accomplished,  prudent, 
friendly,  good-natured  time-server  Atticus, 
the  pliant  slave  of  every  tyrant,  who  could 
kiss  the  hand  of  Antony,  imbrued  as  it  was 
in  the  blood  of  Cicero.  The  pure  school  of 
Plato  sent  forth  Marcus  Brutus,  the  signal 
humanity  of  whose  life  was  both  necessary 
and  sufficient  to  prove  that  his  daring  breach 
of  venerable  rules  flowed  only  from  that  dire 
necessity  which  left  no  other  means  of  up 
holding  the  most  sacred  principles.  The  Ro 
man  orator,  though  in  speculative  questions 
he  embraced  that  mitigated  doubt  which  al 
lowed  most  ease  and  freedom  to  his  genius, 
yet  in  those  moral  writings  where  his  heart 
was  most  deeply  interested,  followed  the  se 
verest  sect  of  Philosophy,  and  became  almost 
a  Stoic.  If  any  conclusion  may  be  hazard 
ed  from  this  trial  of  systems, — the  greatest 
which  History  has  recorded,  we  must  not  re 
fuse  our  decided,  though  not  undistinguish- 
ing,  preference  to  that  noble  school  which 
preserved  great  souls  untainted  at  the  court 
of  dissolute  and  ferocious  tyrants;  which  ex 
alted  the  slave  of  one  of  Nero's  courtiers  to 
be  a  moral  teacher  of  aftertimes: — which 
for  the  first,  and  hitherto  for  the  only  time, 
breathed  philosophy  and  justice  into  those 
rules  of  law  which  govern  the  ordinary  con 


cerns  of  every  man ;  and  which,  above  all, 
has  contributed,  by  the  examples  of  Marcus 
Portius  Cato  and  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Anto 
ninus,  to  raise  the  dignity  of  our  species,  to 
keep  alive  a  more  ardent  love  of  Virtue,  and 
a  more  awful  sense  of  duty  throughout  all 
generations.* 

The  result  of  this  short  review  of  the  prac 
tical  philosophy  of  Greece  seems  to  be.  that 
though  it  was  rich  in  rules  for  the  conduct 
of  life,  and  in  exhibitions  of  the  beauty  of 
Virtue,  and  though  it  contains  glimpses  of 
just  theory  and  fragments  of  perhaps  every 
moral  truth,  yet  it  did  not  leave  behind  any 
precise  and  coherent  system ;  unless  we  ex 
cept  that  of  Epicurus,  who  purchased  con 
sistency,  method,  and  perspicuity  too  dearly 
by  sacrificing  Truth,  and  by  narrowing  and 
lowering  his  views  of  human  nature,  so  as 
to  enfeeble,  if  not  extinguish,  all  the  vigor 
ous  motives  to  arduous  virtue.  It  is  remark 
able,  that  while  of  the  eight  professors  who 
taught  in  the  Porch;  from  Zeno  to  Posido- 
nius,  every  one  either  softened  or  exaggera 
ted  the  doctrines  of  his  predecessor;  and 
while  the  beautiful  and  reverend  philosophy 
of  Plato  had,  in  his  own  Academy,  degene 
rated  into  a  scepticism  which  did  not  spare 
Morality  itself,  the  system  of  Epicurus  re 
mained  without  change ;  and  his  disciples 
continued  for  ages  to  show  personal  honours 
to  his  memory,  in  a  manner  which  may  seem 
unaccountable  among  those  who  were  taught 
to  measure  propriety  by  a  calculation  of  pal 
pable  and  outward  usefulness.  This  steady 
adherence  is  in  part  doubtless  attributable 
to  the  portion  of  truth  which  the  doctrine 
contains;  in  some  degree  perhaps  to  the 
amiable  and  unboastful  character  of  Epicu 
rus  :  not  a  little,  it  may  be,  to  the  dishonour 
of  deserting  an  unpopular  cause ;  but  pro 
bably  most  of  all  to  that  mental  indolence 
which  disposes  the  mind  to  rest  in  a  simple 
system,  comprehended  at  a  glance,  and  easily 
falling  in,  both  with  ordinary  maxims  of  dis 
cretion,  and  with  the  vulgar  commonplaces 
of  satire  on  human  nature. t  When  all  in 
struction  was  conveyed  by  lectures,  and 
when  one  master  taught  the  whole  circle  of 
the  sciences  in  one  school,  it  was  natural 
that  the  attachment  of  pupils  to  a  professor 
should  be  more  devoted  than  when,  as  in 


*  Of  all  testimonies  to  the  character  of  the  Stoics, 
perhaps  the  most  decisive  is  the  speech  of  the  vile 
sycophant  Capito,  in  the  mock  impeachment  of 
Thrasea  Paetus,  before  a  senate  of  slaves:  "  Ut 
quondam  C.  Cffisarem  et  M.  Catonem,  ita  nunc 
te,  Nero,  et  Thraseam,  avida  discordiarum  civitas 

loquitur Ista  secta  Tuberones  et  Favonios, 

veteri  quoque  reipublicse  ingrata  nomina,  genuit." 
— Tacit.  Ann.  lib.  xvi.  cap.  22.  See  Appendix, 
Note  A. 

t  The  progress  of  commonplace  satire  on  sexes 
or  professions,  and  (he  might  have  added)  on  na 
tions,  has  been  exquisitely  touched  by  Gray  in  his 
Remarks^on  Lydgate  ;  a  fragment  containing  pas 
sages  as  finely  thought  and  written  as  any  in  Eng 
lish  prose.  General  satire  on  mankind  is  still 
more  absurd  ;  for  no  invective  can  be  so  unreasona 
ble  as  that  which  is  founded  on  falling  short  of  an 
ideal  standard. 


104 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


our  times,  he  can  teach  only  a  small  portion 
of  a  Knowledge  spreading  towards  infinity, 
and  even  in  his  own  little  province  finds  a 
rival  in  every  good  writer  who  has  treated 
the  same  subject.  The  superior  attachment 
of  the  Epicureans  to  their  master  is  not  with 
out  some  parallel  among  the  followers  of 
similar  principles  in  our  own  age.  who  have 
also  revived  some  part  of  that  indifference 
to  eloquence  and  poetry  which  may  be  im 
puted  to  the  habit  of  contemplating  all  things 
in.  relation  to  happiness,  and  to  (what  seems 
its  uniform  effect)  the  egregious  miscalcu 
lation  which  leaves  a  multitude  of  mental 
pleasures  out  of  the  account.  It  may  be 
said,  indeed,  that  the  Epicurean  doctrine  has 
continued  with  little  change  to  the  present 
day ;  at  least  it  is  certain  that  no  other  ancient 
doctrine  has  proved  so  capabje  of  being  re 
stored  in  the  same  form  among  the  moderns: 
and  it  may  be  added,  that  Hobbes  and  Gas- 
sendi,  as  well  as  some  of  our  own  contem 
poraries,  are  as  confident  in  their  opinions, 
and.  as  intolerant  of  scepticism,  as  the  old 
Epicureans.  The  resemblance  of  modern  to 
ancient  opinions,  concerning  some  of  those 
questions  upon  which  ethical  controversy 
must  always  hinge,  may  be  a  sufficient  ex 
cuse  for  a  retrospect  of  the  Greek  morals, 
which,  it  is  hoped,  will  simplify  and  shorten 
subsequent  observation  on  those  more  recent 
disputes  which  form  the  proper  subject  of 
this  discourse. 

The  genius  of  Greece  fell  with  Liberty. 
The  Grecian  philosophy  received  its  mortal 
wound  in  the  contests  between  scepticism 
and  dogmatism  which  occupied  the  Schools 
in  the  age  of  Cicero.  The  Sceptics  could  only 
perplex,  and  confute,  and  destroy.  Their  oc 
cupation  was  gone  as  soon  as  they  succeeded. 
They  had  nothing  to  substitute  for  what  they 
overthrew  j  and  they  rendered  their  own  art 
of  no  further  use.  They  were  no  more  than 
venomous  animals,  who  stung  their  victims 
to  death,  but  also  breathed  their  last  into  the 
•wound. 

A  third  age  of  Grecian  literature  indeed 
arose  at  Alexandria,  under  the  Macedonian 
kings  of  Egypt ;  laudably  distinguished  by 
exposition,  criticism,  and  imitation  (some 
times  abused  for  the  purposes  of  literary 
forgery),  and  still  more  honoured  by  some 
learned  and  highly-cultivated  poets,  as  well 
as  by  diligent  cultivators  of  History  and 
Science ;  among  whom  a  few  began,  about 
the  first  preaching  of  Christianity,  to  turn 
their  minds  once  more  to  that  high  Philoso 
phy  which  seeks  for  the  fundamental  prin 
ciples  of  human  knowledge.  Philo,  a  learned 
and  philosophical  Hebrew,  one  of  the  flour 
ishing  colony  of  his  nation  established  in 
that  city,  endeavoured  to  reconcile  the  Pla 
tonic  philosophy  with  the  Mosaic  Law  and 
the  Sacred  Books  of  the  Old  Testament. 
About  the  end  of  the  second  century,  when 
the  Christians,  Hebrews,  Pagans,  and  various 
other  sects  of  semi-  or  pseudo-Christian  Gnos 
tics  appear  to  have  studied  in  the  same 
schools,  the  almost  inevitable  tendency  of 


doctrines,  however  discordant,  in  such  cir 
cumstances  to  amalgamate,  produced  its  full 
effect  under  Ammonius  Saccas,  a  celebrated 
professor,  who,  by  selection  from  the  Greek 
systems,  the  Hebrew  books,  and  the  Oriental 
religions,  and  by  some  concession  to  the  ris 
ing  spirit  of  Christianity,  of  which  the  Gnos 
tics  had  set  the  example,  composed  a  very 
mixed  system,  commonly  designated  as  the 
Eclectic  philosophy.  The  controversies  be 
tween  his  contemporaries  and  followers,  es 
pecially  those  of  Clement  and  Origen,  the 
victorious  champions  of  Christianity,  with 
Plotinus  and  Porphyry,  who  endeavoured  to 
preserve  Paganism  by  clothing  it  in  a  dis 
guise  of  philosophical  Theism,  are,  from  the 
effects  towards  which  they  contributed,  the 
most  memorable  in  the  history  of  human 
opinion.*  But  their  connection  with  modern 
Ethics  is  too  faint  to  warrant  any  observation 
in  this  place,  on  the  imperfect  and  partial 
memorials  of  them  which  have  reached  us. 
The  death  of  Boethius  in  the  West,  and  the 
closing  of  the  Athenian  Schools  by  Justinian, 
may  be  considered  as  the  last  events  in  the 
history  of  ancient  philosophy.! 


SECTION  III. 

RETROSPECT  OF  SCHOLASTIC  ETHICS. 

AN  interval  of  a  thousand  years  elapsed 
between  the  close  of  ancient  and  the  rise  of 
modern  philosophy ;  the  most  unexplored, 
yet  not  the  least  instructive  portion  of  the 
history  of  European  opinion.  In  that  period 
the  sources  of  the  institutions,  the  manners, 
and  the  characteristic  distinctions  of  modern 
nations,  have  been  traced  by  a  series  of 
philosophical  inquirers  from  Montesquieu  to 
Hallam ;  and  there  also,  it  may  be  added, 
more  than  among  the  Ancients,  are  the  well- 
springs  of  our  speculative  doctrines  and  con 
troversies.  Far  from  being  inactive,  the  hu 
man  mind,  during  that  period  of  exaggerated 
darkness,  produced  discoveries  in  Science, 
inventions  in  Art,  and  contrivances  in  Go- 


*  The  change  attempted  by  Julian,  Porphyry, 
and  their  friends,  by  which  Theism  would  have 
become  the  popular  Religion,  may  be  estimated 
by  the  memorable  passage  of  Tacitus  on  the  The 
ism  of  the  Jews.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  obloquy 
and  opprobrium  with  which  he  loads  that  people, 
his  tone  suddenly  rises,  when  he  comes  to  con 
template  them  as  the  only  nation  who  paid  re 
ligious  honours  to  the  Supreme  and  Eternal  Mind 
alone,  and  his  style  swells  at  the  sight  of  so  sub 
lime  and  wonderful  a  scene.  "  Summum  illud  et 
aeternum,  neque  mutabile,  neque  interiturum." 
Hist.  lib.  v.  cap.  5. 

t  The  punishment  of  death  was  inflicted  on 
Pagans  by  a  law  of  Constantius.  "  Volumus 
cunctos  sacrifices  abstinere  :^si  aliquid  hujusmodi 
perpetraverint,  gladio  ultore  sternantur."  Cod. 
Just.  lib.  i.  tit.  xi.  '  de  Paganis.'  From  the  au 
thorities  cited  by  Gibbon,  (nate,  chap,  xi.)  as  well 
as  from  some  research,  it  snould  seem  that  the 
edict  for  the  suppression  of  the  Athenian  schools 
was  not  admitted  into  the  vast  collection  of  laws 
enacted  or  systematized  by  Justinian.. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


105 


vernment,  some  of  which,  perhaps,  were 
rather  favoured  than  hindered  by  the  dis 
orders  of  society,  and  -by  the  twilight  in 
which  men  and  things  were  seen.  Had 
Boethius,  the  last  of  the  ancients,  foreseen, 
that  within  four  centuries  of  his  death,  in  the 
province  of  Britain,  then  a  prey  to  all  the 
horrors  of  barbaric  invasion,  a  chief  of  one 
of  the  fiercest  tribes  of  barbarians*  should 
translate  into  the  jargon  of  his  freebooters 
the  work  on  The  Consolations  of  Philosophy, 
of  which  the  composition  had  soothed  the 
cruel  imprisonment  of  the  philosophic  Roman 
himself,  he  must,  even  amidst  his  sufferings, 
have  derived  some  gratification  from  such 
an  assurance  of  the  recovery  of  mankind 
from  ferocity  and  ignorance.  But  had  he 
been  allowed  to  revisit  the  earth  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  wnth  what  won 
der  and  delight  might  he  have  contemplated 
the  new  and  fairer  order  which  was  begin 
ning  to  disclose  its  beauty,  and  to  promise 
more  than  it  revealed.  He  would  have  seen 
personal  slavery  nearly  extinguished,  and 
women,  first  released  from  Oriental  impri 
sonment  by  the  Greeks,  and  raised  to  a  higher 
dignity  among  the  Romans, t  at  length  fast 
approaching  to  due  equality ; — two  revolu 
tions  the  most  signal  and  beneficial  since  the 
dawn  of  civilization.  He  would  have  seen 
the  discovery  of  gunpowder,  which  for  ever 
guarded  civilized  society  against  barbarians, 
while  it  transferred  military  strength  from 
the  few  to  the  many  ]  of  paper  and  printing, 
which  rendered  a  second  destruction  of  the 
repositories  of  knowledge  impossible,  as  well 
as  opened  a  way  by  which  it  was  to  be 
finally  accessible  to  all  mankind  ;  of  the 
compass,  by  means  of  which  navigation  had 
ascertained  the  form  of  the  planet,  and  laid 
open  a  new  continent,  more  extensive  than 
his  world.  If  he  had  turned  to  civil  institu 
tions,  he  might  have  learned  that  some 
nations  had  preserved  an  ancient,  simple, 
and  seemingly  rude  mode  of  legal  proceed 
ing,  which  threw  into  the  hands  of  the  ma 
jority  of  men  a  far  larger  share  of  judicial 
power,  than  was  enjoyed  by  them  in  any 
ancient  democracy.  He  would  have  seen 
everywhere  the  remains  of  that  principle  of 
representation,  the  glory  of  the  Teutonic 
race,  by  which  popular  government,  an 
ciently  imprisoned  in  cities,  became  capa 
ble  of  being  strengthened  by  its  extension 
over  vast  countries,  to  which  experience 
cannot  even  now  assign  any  limits;  and 
which,  in  times  still  distant,  was  to  exhibit, 
in  the  newly  discovered  Continent,  a  repub- 

*  King  Alfred. 

t  The  steps  of  this  important  progress,  as  far  as 
relates  to  Athens  and  Rome,  are  well  remarked 
upon  by  one  of  the  finest  of  the  Roman  writers. 
"Quern  enim  Romanorum  pudet  uxorem  ducere 
in  convivium  ?  aut  cujus  materfamilias  non  primum 
locum  tenet  asdium,  atque  in  celebritate  versatur  ? 
quod  multo  fit  aliter  in  Graecia  :  nam  neque  in  con 
vivium  adhibetur,  nisi  propinquorum ;  neque  sedet 
nisi  in  interiore  parte  aedium,  quae  Gyn&conitis  ap- 
pellatur,  quo  nemo  accedit,  nisi  propinqua  cogna- 
tione  conjunctus."  Corn.  Nep.  in  Praefat. 
14 


lican  confederacy,  likely  to  surpass  the  Mace 
donian  and  Roman  empires  in  extent,  great 
ness,  and  duration,  but  gloriously  founded  on. 
the  equal  rights,  riot  like  them  on  the  uni 
versal  subjection,  of  mankind.  In  one  re 
spect,  indeed,  he  might  have  lamented  that 
the  race  of  man  had  made  a  really  retrograde 
movement ;  that  they  had  lost  the  liberty  of 
philosophizing;  that  the  open  exercise  of 
their  highest  faculties  was  interdicted.  But 
he  might  also  have  perceived  that  this  giant 
evil  had  received  a  mortal  wound  from  Lu 
ther,  who  in  his  warfare  against  Rome  had 
struck  a  blow  against  all  human  authority, 
and  unconsciously  disclosed  to  mankind  that 
they  were  entitled,  or  rather  bound,  to  form 
and  utter  their  own  opinions,  and  that  most 
certainly  on  whatever  subjects  are  the  most 
deeply  interesting  :  for  although  this  most 
fruitful  of  moral  truths  was  riot  yet  so  re 
leased  from  its  combination  with  the  wars 
and  passions  of  the  age  as  to  assume  a  dis 
tinct  and  visible  form,  its  action  was  already 
discoverable  in  the  divisions  among  the  Re 
formers,  and  in  the  fears  and  struggles  of 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  oppressors.  The 
Council  of  Trent,  and  the  Courts  of  Paris, 
Madrid,  and  Rome,  had  before  that  time  fore 
boded  the  emancipation  of  Reason. 

Though  the  middle  age  be  chiefly  memo 
rable  as  that  in  which  the  foundations  of  a 
new  order  of  society  were  laid,  uniting  the 
stability  of  the  Oriental  system,  without  its 
inflexibility,  to  the  activity  of  the  Hellenic 
civilization,  without  its  disorder  and  incon 
stancy  ;  yet  it  is  not  unworthy  of  notice  by 
us  here,  on  account  of  the  subterranean  cur 
rent  which  flows  through  it,  from  the  specu 
lations  of  ancient  to  those  of  modern  times. 
That  dark  stream  must  be  uncovered  before 
the  history  of  the  European  Understanding 
can  be  thoroughly  comprehended.  It  was 
lawful  for  the  emancipators  of  Reason  in  their 
first  struggles  to  carry  on  mortal  war  against 
the  Schoolmen.  The  necessity  has  long- 
ceased  :  they  are  no  longer  dangerous ;  and 
it  is  now  felt  by  philosophers  that  it  is  time 
to  explore  and  estimate  that  vast  portion  of 
the  history  of  Philosophy  from  which  we 
have  scornfully  turned  our  eyes.*  A  few 
sentences  only  can  be  allotted  to  the  subject 
in  this  place.  In  the  very  depths  of  the  Mid 
dle  Age,  the  darkness  of  Christendom  was 


*  Tennemann,  Geschichte  der  Philosophic. 
Cousin.  Cours  de  Philosophic,  Paris,  1828.  My 
esteem  for  this  last  admirable  writer  encourages 
me  to  say,  that  the  beauty  of  his  diction  has  some 
times  the  same  effect  on  his  thoughts  that  a  sunny- 
haze  produces  on  outward  objects  ;  and  to  submit 
to  his  serious  consideration,  whether  the  allure 
ments  of  Schelling's  system  have  not  betrayed 
him  into  a  too  frequent  forgetfulness  that  princi 
ples,  equally  adapted  to  all  phenomena,  furnish  in 
speculation  no  possible  test  of  their  truth,  and  lead, 
in  practice,  to  total  indifference  and  inactivity  re 
specting  human  affairs.  I  quote  with  pleasure 
an  excellent  observation  from  this  worK  :  "  Le 
moyen  age  n'est  pas  autre  chose  que  la  formation 
penible,  lente  et  sanglante,  de  tous  les  elemens  de 
la  civilisation  moderne  ;  je  dis  la  formation,  et  non 
leur  developpement."  (2nd  Lecture,  p.  27.) 


106 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


faintly  broken  by  a  few  thinly  scattered  lights. 
Even  then,  Moses  Ben  Maimon  taught  philo 
sophy  among  the  persecuted  Hebrews,  whose 
ancient  schools  had  never  perhaps  been 
wholly  interrupted  ;  and  a  series  of  distin 
guished  Mahometans,  among  whom  two  are 
known  to  us  by  the  names  of  Avicenna  and 
Averroes,  translated  the  Peripatetic  writings 
into  their  own  language,  expounded  their 
doctrines  in  no  servile  spirit  to  their  follow 
ers,  and  enabled  the  European  Christians  to 
make  those  versions  of  them  from  Arabic 
into  Latin,  which  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries  gave  birth  to  the  scholastic  philo 
sophy. 

The  Schoolmen  were  properly  theologians, 
who  employed  philosophy  only  to  define  and 
support  that  system  of  Christian  belief  which 
they  arid  their  contemporaries  had  embraced. 
The  founder  of  that  theological  system  was 
Aurelius  Augustinus*  (called  by  us  Augus- 
tin),  bishop  of  Hippo,  in  the  province  of  Af 
rica;  a  man  of  great  genius  and  ardent 
character,  who  adopted,  at  different  periods 
of  his  life,  the  most  various,  but  at  all  times 
the  most  decisive  and  systematic,  as  well  as 
daring  and  extreme  opinions.  This  extra 
ordinary  man  became,  after  some  struggles, 
the  chief  Doctor,  and  for  ages  almost  the 
sole  oracle,  of  the  Latin  church.  It  hap 
pened  by  a  singular  accident,  that  the  School 
men  of  the  twelfth  century,  who  adopted  his 
theology,  instead  of  borrowing  their  defen 
sive  weapons  from  Plato,  the  favourite  of 
their  master,  had  recourse  for  the  exposition 
and  maintenance  of  their  doctrines  to  the 
writings  of  Aristotle,  the  least  pious  of  phi 
losophical  theists.  The  Augustinian  doc 
trines  of  original  sin,  predestination,  and 
grace,  little  known  to  the  earlier  Christian 
writers,  who  appear  indeed  to  have  adopted 
opposite  and  milder  opinions,  were  espoused 
by  Augustin  himself  in  his  old  age ;  when, 
by  a  violent  swing  from  his  youthful  Mani- 
cheism,  which  divided  the  sovereignly  of 
the  world  between  two  adverse  beings,  he 
did  not  shrink,  in  his  pious  solicitude  for 
tracing  the  power  of  God  in  all  events,  from 
presenting  the  most  mysterious  parts  of  the 
moral  government  of  the  Universe,  in  their 
darkest  colours  and  their  sternest  shape,  as 
articles  of  faith,  the  objects  of  the  habitual 
meditation  and  practical  assent  of  mankind. 
The  principles  of  his  rigorous  system,  though 
not  with  all  their  legitimate  consequences, 
were  taught  in  the  schools ;  respectfully  pro- 
mulerated  rather  than  much  inculcated  by 
the  Western  Church  (for  in  the  East  these 
opinions  seem  to  have  been  unknown); 
scarcely  perhaps  distinctly  assented  to 'by 
the  majority  of  the  clergy:  and  seldom 
heard  of  by  laymen  till  the  systematic  ge 
nius  and  fervid  eloquence  of  Calvin  ren 
dered  them  a  popular  creed  in  the  most 
devout  and  moral  portion  of  the  Christian 
world.  Anselm,f  the  Piedmontese  Arch 
bishop  of  Canterbury,  was  the  earliest  re- 


See  Note  B.  t  Born,  1033 ;  died,  1109. 


viver  of  the  Augustinian  opinions.  Aquinas* 
was  their  most  redoubted  champion.  To 
them,  however,  the  latter  joined  others  of  a 
different  spirit.  Faith,  according  to  him, 
was  a  virtue,  not  in  the  sense  in  which  it 
denotes  the  things  believed,  but  in  that  in 
which  it  signifies  the  state  of  mind  which 
leads  to  right  Belief.  Goodness  he  regarded 
as  the  moving  principle  of  the  Divine  Gov 
ernment  ;  Justice,  as  a  modification  of  Good 
ness  ;  and,  with  all  his  zeal  to  magnify  the 
Sovereignity  of  God,  he  yet  taught,  that 
though  God  always  wills  what  is  just,  no 
thing  is  just  solely  because  He  wills  it. 
Scotus,t  the  most  subtile  of  doctors,  recoils 
from  the  Augustinian  rigour,  though  he  ra 
ther  intimates  than  avows  his  doubts.  He 
was  assailed  for  his  tendency  towards  the 
Pelagian  or  Anti-Augustinian  doctrines  by 
many  opponents,  of  whom  the  most  famous 
in  his  own  time  was  Thomas  Bradwardine,J 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  formerly  confes 
sor  of  Edward  III.,  whose  defence  of  Pre 
destination  was  among  the  most  noted  works 
of  that  age.  He  revived  the  principles  of 
the  ancient  philosophers,  who,  from  Plato 
to  Marcus  Aurelius,  taught  that  error  of 
judgment,  being  involuntary,  is  not  the 
proper  subject  of  moral  disapprobation ; 
which  indeed  is  implied  in  Aquinas'  ac 
count  of  Faith. §  But  he  appears  to  have 
been  the  first  whose  language  inclined  to 
wards  that  most  pernicious  of  moral  here 
sies,  which  represents  Morality  to  be  found 
ed  on  Will.ll 

William  of  Ockham,  the  most  justly  cele 
brated  of  English  Schoolmen,  went  so  far 
beyond  this  inclination  of  his  master,  as  to 
affirm,  that  (%'if  God  had  commanded  his 
creatures  to  hate  Himself,  the  hatred  of  God 
would  ever  be  the  duty  of  man;" — a  mon 
strous  hyperbole,  into  which  he  was  perhaps 
betrayed  by  his  denial  of  the  doctrine  of 
general  ideas,  the  pre-existence  of  which  in 
the  Eternal  Intellect  was  commonly  regarded 
as  the  foundation  of  the  immutable  nature  of 
Morality.  This  doctrine  of  Ockham,  which 
by  necessary  implication  refuses  moral  attri 
butes  to  the  Deity,  and  contradicts  the  ex 
istence  of  a  moral  government,  is  practically 


*  Born,  1224  ;  died,  1274.     See  Note  C. 

t  Born  about  1265  ;  died  at  Cologne  (where  his 
grave  is  still  shown)  in  1308.  Whether  he  was 
a  native  of  Dunston  in  Northumberland,  or  of 
Dunse  in  Berwickshire,  or  of  Down  in  Ireland, 
was  a  question  long  and  warmly  contested,  but 
which  seems  to  be  settled  by  his  biographer,  Luke 
Wadding,  who  quotes  a  passage  of  Scotus'  Com 
mentary  on  Aristotle's  Metaphysics,  where  he 
illustrates  his  author  thus:  "As  in  the  defini 
tion  of  St.  Francis,  or  St.  Patrick,  man  is  ne 
cessarily  presupposed."  Scott.  Op.  i.  3.  As  Sco 
tus  was  a  Franciscan,  the  mention  of  St.  Patrick 
seems  to  show  that  he  was  an  Irishman.  See 
Note  D. 

t  Born  about  1290;  died  1349;  the  contempo 
rary  of  Chaucer,  and  probably  a  fellow-student 
of  WiclirTe  and  Roger  Bacon.  His  principal 
work  was  entitled,  '  De  Causa  Dei  contra  Pela- 
gium,  et  de  Virtute  Causarum,  Libri  tres.' 

$  See  Notfe  E.  II  See  Note  F. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.        107 


equivalent  to  atheism.*  As  all  devotional 
feelings  have  moral  qualities  for  their  sole 
object ;  as  no  being  can  inspire  love  or  rever 
ence  otherwise  than  by  those  qualities  which 
are  naturally  amiable  or  venerable,  this  doc 
trine  would,  if  men  were  consistent,  extin 
guish  piety,  or,  in  other  words,  annihilate 
Religion.  Yet  so  astonishing  are  the  contra 
dictions  of  human  nature,  that  this  most  im 
pious  of  all  opinions  probably  originated  in 
a  pious  solicitude  to  magnify  the  Sovereignty 
of  God,  and  to  exalt  His  authority  even  above 
His  own  goodness.  Hence  we  may  under 
stand  its  adoption  by  John  Gerson,  the  oracle 
of  the  Council  of  Constance,  and  the  great 
opponent  of  the  spiritual  monarchy  of  the 
Pope, — a  pious  mystic,  who  placed  religion 
in  devout  feeling. t  In  further  explanation, 
it  may  be  added,  that  Gerson  was  of  the 
sect  of  the  Nominalists,  of  which  Ockham 
was  the  founder,  and  that  he  was  the  more 
ready  to  follow  his  master,  because  they 
both  courageously  maintained  the  indepen 
dence  of  the  State  on  the  Church,  and  the 
authority  of  the  Church  over  the  Pope.  The 
general  opinion  of  the  schools  was,  however, 
that  of  Aquinas,  who,  from  the  native  sound 
ness  of  his  own  understanding,  as  well  as 
from  the  excellent  example  of  Aristotle,  was 
averse  from  all  rash  and  extreme  dogmas  on 
questions  which  had  any  relation,  however 
distant,  to  the  duties  of  life. 

It  is  very  remarkable,  though  hitherto  un 
observed,  that  Aquinas  anticipated  those 
controversies  respecting  perfect  disinterest 
edness  in  the  religious  affections  which  oc 
cupied  the  most  illustrious  members  of  his 
communion}'  four  hundred  years  after  his 
death ;  and  that  he  discussed  the  like  ques 
tion  respecting  the  other  affections  of  human 
nature  with  a  fulness  and  clearness,  an  ex 
actness  of  distinction,  and  a  justness  of 
determination,  scarcely  surpassed  by  the 
most  acute  of  modern  philosophers. §  It 
ought  to  be  added,  that,  according  to  the 
most  natural  and  reasonable  construction  of 
his  words,  he  allowed  to  the  Church  a  con 
trol  only  over  spiritual  concerns,  and  recog 
nised  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  powers  in 
all  temporal  affairs. II 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  the  scho 
lastic  system  was  a  collection  of  dialectical 
subtilties,  contrived  for  the  support  of  the 

*  A  passage  to  this  effect,  from  Ockham,  with 
nearly  the  same  remark,  has,  since  the  text  was 
written,  been  discovered  on  a  reperusal  of  Cud- 
worth's  Immutable  Morality,  p.  10. 

t  "  Remitto  ad  quod  Occam  de  hac  materia  in 
Lib.  Sentent.  dicit,  in  qua  explicatione  si  rudis 
judicetur,  nescio  quid  appellabitur  subtilitas."— De 
Vita  Spirit.  Op.  iii.  14 

t  Bossuet  and  Fenelon. 

$  See  Aquinas. — "  Utrum  Deus  sit  super  omnia 
-diligendus  ex  caritate."— "  Utrum  in  dilectione 
Dei  possit  haberi  respectus  ad  aliquam  merce- 
<Jem."— Opera,  ix.  322,  325.  Some  illustrations 
of  this  memorable  anticipation,  which  has  escaped 
the  research  even  of  the  industrious  Tenneman, 
will  be  found  in  the  Note  G. 

II  See  Note  H. 


corrupted  Christianity  of  that  age,  by  a  suc 
cession  of  divines,  whose  extraordinary  pow 
ers  of  distinction  and  reasoning  were  mor 
bidly  enlarged  in  the  long  meditation  of  the 
Cloister,  by  the  exclusion  of  every  other 
pursuit,  and  the  consequent  palsy  of  every 
other  faculty ; — who  were  cut  off  from  all 
the  materials  on  which  the  mind  can  operate, 
and  doomed  for  ever  to  toil  in  defence  of 
what  they  must  never  dare  to  examine  ; — to 
whom  their  age  and  their  condition  denied 
the  means  of  acquiring  literature,  of  observ 
ing  Nature,  or  of  studying  mankind.  The 
few  in  whom  any  portion  of  imagination  and 
sensibility  survived  this  discipline,  retired 
from  the  noise  of  debate,  to  the  contem 
plation  of  pure  and  beautiful  visions.  They 
were  called  Mystics.  The  greater  part,  dri 
ven  back  on  themselves,  had  no  better  em 
ployment  than  to  weave  cobwebs  out  of  the 
terms  of  art  which  they  had  vainly,  though 
ingeniously,  multiplied.  The  institution  of 
clerical  celibacy,  originating  in  an  enthusi 
astic  pursuit  of  Purity,  promoted  by  a  mis 
take  in  moral  prudence,  which  aimed  at 
raising  religious  teachers  in  the  esteem  of 
their  fellows,  and  at  concentrating  their  whole 
minds  on  professional  duties,  at  last  encour 
aged  by  the  ambitious  policy  of  the  See  of 
Rome,  which  was  desirous  of  detaching 
them  from  all  ties  but  her  own,  had  the 
effect  of  shutting  up  all  the  avenues  which 
Providence  has  opened  for  the  entrance  of 
social  affection  and  virtuous  feeling  into  the 
human  heart.  Though  this  institution  per 
haps  prevented  Knowledge  from  becoming 
once  more  the  exclusive  inheritance  of  a 
sacerdotal  caste  ;  though  the  rise  of  innumer 
able  laymen,  of  the  lowest  condition,  to  the 
highest  dignities  of  the  Church,  was  the 
grand  democratical  principle  of  the  Middle 
Age,  and  one  of  the  most  powerful  agents  in 
impelling  mankind  towards  a  better  order; 
yet  celibacy  must  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  peculiar  infelicities  of  these  secluded 
philosophers;  not  only  as  it  abridged  their 
happiness,  nor  even  solely,  though  chiefly,  as 
it  excluded  them  from  the  school  in  which 
the  heart  is  humanized,  but  also  (an  inferior 
consideration,  but  more  pertinent  to  our  pre 
sent  purpose)  because  the  extinction  of  these 
moral  feelings  was  as  much  a  subtraction 
from  the  moralist's  store  of  facts  and  means 
of  knowledge,  as  the  loss  of  sight  or  of  touch 
could  prove  to  those  of  the  naturalist. 

Neither  let  it  be  thought  that  to  have  been 
destitute  of  Letters  was  to  them  no  more 
than  a  want  of  an  ornament  and  a  curtail 
ment  of  gratification.  Every  poem,  every 
history,  every  oration,  every  picture,  every 
statue,  is  an  experiment  on  human  feeling, 
— the  grand  object  of  investigation  by  the 
moralist.  Every  work  of  genius  in  every 
department  of  ingenious  Art  and  polite  Lite 
rature,  in  proportion  to  the  extent  and  dura 
tion  of  its  sway  over  the  Spirits  of  men,  is 
a  repository  of  ethical  facts,  of  which  the 
moral  philosopher  cannot  be  cleprived  by  his 
own  insensibility,  or  by  the  iniquity  of  the 


108 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


times,  without  being  robbed  of  the  most  pre 
cious  instruments  and  invaluable  materials 
of  his  science.  Moreover,  Letters,  which 
are  closer  to  human  feeling  than  Science  can 
ever  be,  have  another  influence  on  the  sen 
timents  with  which  the  sciences  are  viewed, 
on  the  activity  with  which  they  are  pursued, 
on  the  safety  with  which  they  are  preserved, 
and  even  on  the  mode  and  spirit  in  which 
they  are  cultivated :  they  are  the  channels 
by  which  ethical  science  has  a  constant  in 
tercourse  with  general  feeling.  As  the  arts 
called  useful  maintain  the  popular  honour  of 
physical  knowledg'e,  so  polite  Letters  allure 
the  world  into  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
sciences  of  Mind  and  of  Morals.  Whenever 
the  agreeable  vehicles  of  Literature  do  not 
convey  their  doctrines  to  the  public,  they 
are  liable  to  be  interrupted  by  the  dispersion 
of  a  handful  of  recluse  doctors,  and  the  over 
throw  of  their  barren  and  unlamented  se 
minaries.  Nor  is  this  all :  these  sciences 
themselves  suffer  as  much  when  they  are 
thus  released  from  the  curb  of  common 
sense  and  natural  feeling,  as  the  public  loses 
by  the  want  of  those  aids  to  right  practice 
which  moral  knowledge  in  its  sound  state  is 
qualified  to  afford.  The  necessity  of  being 
intelligible,  at  least  to  all  persons  who  join 
superior  understanding  to  habits  of  reflec 
tion,  and  who  are  themselves  in  constant 
communication  with  the  far  wider  circle  of 
intelligent  and  judicious  men,  which  slowly 
but  surely  forms  general  opinion,  is  the  only 
effectual  check  on  the  natural  proneness  of 
metaphysical  speculations  to  degenerate  into 
gaudy  dreams,  or  a  mere  war  of  words.  The 
disputants  who  are  set  free  from  the  whole 
some  check  of  sense  and  feeling,  generally  car 
ry  their  dogmatism  so  far  as  to  rouse  the  scep 
tic,  who  from  time  to  time  is  provoked  to  look 
into  the  flimsiness  of  their  cobwebs,  and  rush 
es  in  with  his  besom  to  sweep  them,  and  their 
systems,  into  oblivion.  It  is  true,  that  Lite 
rature,  which  thus  draws  forth  Moral  Science 
from  the  schools  into  the  world,  and  recalls 
her  from  thorny  distinctions  to  her  natural 
alliance  with  the  intellect  and  sentiments  of 
mankind,  may,  in  ages  and  nations  other 
wise  situated,  produce  the  contrary  evil  of 
rendering  Ethics  shallow,  declamatory,  and 
inconsistent.  Europe  at  this  moment  affords, 
in  different  countries,  specimens  of  these 
opposite  and  alike-mischievous  extremes. 
But  we  are  now  concerned  only  with  the 
temptations  and  errors  of  the  scholastic  age. 
We  ought  not  so  much  to  wonder  at  the 
mistakes  of  men  so  situated,  as  that  they, 
without  the  restraints  of  the  general  under 
standing,  and  with  the  clogs  of  system  and 
establishment,  should  in  so  many  instances 
have  opened  questions  untouched  by  the 
more  unfettered  Ancients,  and  veins  of  spe 
culation  since  mistakenly  supposed  to  have 
been  first  explored  in  more  modern  times. 
Scarcely  any  metaphysical  controversy  agi 
tated  among  recent  philosophers  was  un 
known  to  the  Schoolmen,  unless  we  except 
that  which  relates  to  Liberty  and  Necessity, 


and  this  would  be  an  exception  of  doubtful 
propriety ;  for  the  disposition  to  it  is  clearly- 
discoverable  in  the  disputes  of  the  Thomists 
and  Scotists  respecting  the  Augustinian  and 
Pelagian  doctrines,*  although  they  were  re 
strained  from  the  avowal  of  legitimate  con 
sequences  on  either  side  by  the  theological 
authority  which  both  parties  acknowledged. 
The  Scotists  steadily  affirmed  the  blameless- 
ness  of  erroneous  opinion  ;  a  principle  which 
is  the  only  effectual  security  for  conscien 
tious  inquiry,  for  mutual  kindness,  arid  for 
public  quiet.  The  controversy  between  the 
Nominalists  and  Realists,  treated  by  some 
modern  writers  as  an  example  of  barbarous 
wrangling,  was  in  truth  an  anticipation  of 
that  modern  dispute  which  still. divides  meta 
physicians, — Whether  the  human  mind  can 
form,  general  ideas,  or  Whether  the  words 
which  are  supposed  to  convey  such  ideas  be 
not  terms,  representing  only  a  number  of 
particular  perceptions'? — questions  so  far 
from  frivolous,  that  they  deeply  concern 
both  the  nature  of  reasoning  and  the  struc 
ture  of  language  •  on  which  Hobbes,  Berkeley, 
Hume,  Stewart,  and  Tooke,  have  followed 
the  Nominalist;  and  Descartes,  Locke,  Reid, 
and  Kant  have,  with  various  modifications 
and  some  inconsistencies,  adopted  the  doc 
trine  of  the  Realists. f  With  the  Schoolmen 
appears  to  have  originated  the  form,  though 
not  the  substance,  of  the  celebrated' maxim, 
which,  whether  true  or  false,  is  pregnant 
with  systems, — "There  is  nothing  in  the 
Understanding  which  was  not  before  in  the 
Senses."  Ockham}:  the  Nominalist  first  de 
nied  the  Peripatetic  doctrine  of  the  exist 
ence  of  certain  species  (since  the  time  of 
Descartes  called  "ideas")  as  the  direct  ob 
jects  of  perception  and  thought,  interposed 
between  the  mind  and  outward  objects  j  the 
modern  opposition  to  which  by  Dr.  Reid  has 
been  supposed  to  justify  the  allotment  of  so 
high  a  station  to  that  respectable  philosopher. 
He  taught  also  that  we  know  nothing  of 
Mind  but  its  acts,  of  which  we  are  conscious. 
More  inclination  towards  an  independent 
philosophy  is  to  be  traced  among  the  School 
men  than  might' be  expected  from  their  cir 
cumstances.  Those  who  follow  two  guides 
will  sometimes  choose  for  themselves,  and 
may  prefer  the  subordinate  one  on  some  oc 
casions.  Aristotle  rivalled  the  Church  j  and 
the  Church  herself  safely  allowed  consider- 


*  See  Note  I. 

t  Locke  speaks  on  this  subject  inconsistently  ; 
Reid  calls  himself  a  conceptualist ;  Kant  uses 
terms  so  different,  that  he  ought  perhaps  to  be 
considered  as  of  neither  party.  Leibnitz,  varying 
in  some  measure  from  the  general  spirit  of  his 
speculations,  warmly  panegyrizes  the  Nominalists: 
"  Secta  Nominalium,  omnium  inter  scholasticos 
profundissima,  et  hodiernaB  reformats  philosoph- 
andi  rationi  congruentissima."— Op.  iv.  59. 

t  "  Maximi  vir  ingenii,  et  eruditionis  pro  illo 
aevo  siimmae,  Wilhelmus  Occam,  Anglus."  Ib.  60. 
The  writings  of  Ockham,  which  are  very  rare,  I 
have  never  seen.  I  owe  my  knowledge  of  them 
to  Tennemann,  who  however  quotes  the  words 
of  Ockham,  and  of  his  disciple  Biel. 


- 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         109 


able  latitude  to  the  philosophical  reasonings 
of  those  who  were  only  heard  or  read  in 
colleges  or  cloisters,  on  condition  that  they 
neither  impugned  her  authority,  nor  dis 
sented  from  her  worship,  nor  departed  from 
the  language  of  her  creeds.  The  Nominalists 
were  a  freethinking  sect,  who,  notwithstand 
ing  their  defence  of  kings  against  the  Court 
of  Rome,  were  persecuted  by  the  civil  power. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Luther  was  a 
Nominalist.*' 

If  not  more  remarkable,  it  is  more  perti 
nent  to  our  purpose,  that  the  ethical  system 
of  the  Schoolmen,  or,  to  speak  more  proper 
ly,  of  Aquinas,  as  the  Moral  Master  of  Chris 
tendom  for  three  centuries,  was  in  its  practi 
cal  part  so  excellent  as  to  leave  little  need 
of  extensive  change,  with  the  inevitable  ex 
ception  of  the  connection  of  his  religious 
opinions  with  his  precepts  and  counsels. 
His  Rule  of  Life  is  neither  lax  nor  impracti 
cable.  His  grounds  of  duty  are  solely  laid 
in  the  nature  of  man,  and  in  the  well-being 
of  society.  Such  an  intruder  as  Subtilty  sel 
dom  strays  into  his  moral  instructions.  With 
a  most  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  Peripa 
tetic  writings,  he  came  near  the  Great  Mas 
ter,  by  abstaining,  in  practical  philosophy, 
from  the  unsuitable  exercise  of  that  faculty 
of  distinction,  in  which  he  would  probably 
have  shown  that  he  was  little  inferior  to 
Aristotle,  if  he  had  been  equally  unrestrained. 
His  very  frequent  coincidence  with  modern 
moralists  is  doubtless  to  be  ascribed  chiefly 
to  the  nature  of  the  subject  ]  but  in  part  also 
to  that  unbroken  succession  of  teachers  and 
writers,  which  preserved  the  observations 
contained  in  what  had  been  long  the  text 
book  of  the  European  Schools,  after  the  books 
themselves  had  been  for  ages  banished  and 
forgotten.  The  praises  bestowed  on  Aquinas 
by  every  one  of  the  few  great  men  who  ap 
pear  to  have  examined  his  writings  since  the 
downfal  of  his  •  power,  among  whom  may 
be  mentioned  Erasmus,  Grotius,  and  Leib 
nitz,  are  chiefly,  though  not  solely,  referable 
to  his  ethical  works. t 

Though  the  Schoolmen  had  thus  anticipa 
ted  many  modern  controversies  of  a  properly 
metaphysical  sort,  they  left  untouched  most 
of  those  questions  of  ethical  theory  which 
were  unknown  to,  or  neglected  by,  the  An 
cients.  They  do  not  appear  to  have  discri- 
jninated  between  the  nature  of  moral  senti 
ments,  and  the  criterion  of  moral  acts:  to 
have  considered  to  what  faculty  of  our  mind 
moral  approbation  is  referable ;  or  to  have 
inquired  whether  our  Moral  Faculty,  what 
ever  it  may  be,  is  implanted  or  acquired. 
Those  who  measure  only  by  palpable  results, 
have  very  consistently  regarded  the  meta 
physical  and  theological  controversies  of  the 
Schools  as  a  mere  waste  of  intellectual 


*  "  In  Martini  Ltnheri  scriptis  prioribus  amor 
Nominalium  satis  elucet,  donee  precedents  tem- 
pore  erga  omnes  monachos  aequaliter  affectus  esse 
coepit."— Leibnitz,  Opp.  iv.  60. 

t  See  especially  the  excellent  Preface  of  Leib 
nitz  to  Nizolius,  §  37.— Ib.  59. 


power.  But  the  contemplation  of  the  athletic 
vigour  and  versatile  skill  manifested  by  the 
European  understanding,  at  the  moment 
when  it  emerged  from  this  tedious  and  rug 
ged  discipline,  leads,  if  not  to  approbation, 
yet  to  more  qualified  censure.  What  might 
have  been  the  result  of  a  different  combina- 
nation  of  circumstances,  is  an  inquiry  which, 
on  a  large  scale,  is  beyond  human  power. 
We  may,  however,  venture  to  say  that  no 
abstract  science,  unconnected  with  Religion, 
is  likely  to  be  respected  in  a  barbarous  age  ; 
and  we  may  be  allowed  to  doubt  whether 
any  knowledge  dependent  directly  on  expe 
rience  and  applicable  to  immediate  practice, 
would  have  so  trained  the  European  mind 
as  to  qualify  it  for  that  series  of  inventions, 
and  discoveries,  and  institutions,  which  be 
gins  with  the  sixteenth  century,  and  of  which 
no  end  can  now  be  foreseen  but  the  extinction 
of  the  race  of  man. 

The  fifteenth  century  was  occupied  by  the 
disputes  of  the  Realists  with  the  Nominalists, 
in  which  the  scholastic  doctrine  expired. 
After  its  close  no  Schoolman  of  note  appear 
ed.  The  sixteenth  may  be  considered  as 
the  age  of  transition  from  the  scholastic  to 
the  modern  philosophy.  The  former,  indeed, 
retained  possession  of  the  Universities,  and 
was  long  after  distinguished  by  all  the  en 
signs  of  authority,  But  the  mines  were  al 
ready  prepared :  the  revolution  in  Opinion 
had  commenced.  The  moral  writings  of  the 
preceding  times  had  generally  been  com 
mentaries  on  that  part  of  the  Summa  Theo 
logies  of  Aquinas  which  relates  to  Ethics. 
Though  these  still  continued  to  be  published, 
yet  the  most  remarkable  moralists  of  the  six 
teenth  century  indicated  the  approach  of 
other  modes  of  thinking,  by  the  adoption  of 
the  more  independent  titles  of  "  Treatises  on 
Justice"  and  "Law."  These  titles  were 
suggested,  and  the  spirit,  contents,  and  style 
of  the  writings  themselves  were  materially 
affected  by  the  improved  cultivation  of  the 
Roman  law,  by  the  renewed  study  of  ancient 
literature,  and  by  the  revival  of  various  sys 
tems  of  Greek  philosophy,  now  studied  in  the 
original,  which  at  once  mitigated  and  rival 
led  the  scholastic  doctors,  and  while  they 
rendered  philosophy  more  free,  re-opened 
its  communications  with  society  and  affairs. 
The  speculative  theology  which  had  arisen 
under  the  French  governments  of  Paris  and 
London  in  the  twelfth  century,  which  flour 
ished  in  the  thirteenth  in  Italy  in  the  hands 
of  Aquinas,  which  was  advanced  in  the 
British  Islands  by  Scotus  and  Ockham  in  the 
fourteenth,  was,  in  the  sixteenth,  with  una 
bated  acuteness,  but  with  a  clearness  and 
elegance  unknown  before  the  restoration  of 
Letters,  cultivated  by  Spain,  in  that  age  the 
most  powerful  and  magnificent  of  the  Euro 
pean  nations. 

Many  of  these  writers  treated  the  law  of 
war  and  the  practice  of  hostilities  in  a  juridi 
cal  form.*  Francis  Victoria,  who  began  to 


*  Many  of  the  separate  dissertations,  on  points  of 
this  nature,  are  contained  in  the  immense  coilec- 
K 


110 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


teach  at  Valladolid  in  1525,  is  said  to  have 
first  expounded  the  doctrines  of  the  Schools 
in  the  language  of  the  age  of  Leo  the  Tenth. 
Dominic  Soto,*  a  Dominican,  the  confessor 
of  Charles  V.,  and  the  oracle  of  the  Council 
of  Trent,  to  whom  that  assembly  were  in 
debted  for  much  of  the  precision  and  even 
elegance  for  which  their  doctrinal  decrees 
are  not  unjustly  commended,  dedicated  his 
Treatise  on  Justice  and  Law  to  Don  Carlos, 
in  terms  of  praise  which,  used  by  a  writer 
who  is  said  to  have  declined  the  high  dig 
nities  of  the  Church,  led  us  to  hope  that  he 
was  unacquainted  with  the  brutish  vices  of 
that  wretched  prince.  It  is  a  concise  and  not 
inelegant  compound  of  the  Scholastic  Ethics, 
which  continued  to  be  of  considerable  au 
thority  for  more  than  a  century. t  Both  he 
and  his  master  Victoria  deserve  to  be  had  in 
everlasting  remembrance,  for  the  part  which 
they  took  on  behalf  of  the  natives  of  America 
and  of  Africa,  against  the  rapacity  and  cruelty 
of  the  Spaniards.  Victoria  pronounced  war 
against  the  Americans  for  their  vices,  or  for 
their  paganism,  to  be  unjust. t  Soto  was  the 
authority  chiefly  consulted  by  Charles  V.,  on 
occasion  of  the  conference  held  before  him 
at  Valladolid,  in  1542,  between  Sepulveda, 
an  advocate  of  the  Spanish  colonists,  and  Las 
Casas,  the  champion  of  the  unhappy  Ameri 
cans,  of  which  the  result  was  a  very  imper 
fect  edict  of  reformation  in  1543.  This, 
though  it  contained  little  more  than  a  recog 
nition  of  the  principle  of  justice,  almost  ex 
cited  a  rebellion  in  Mexico.  Sepulveda,  a 
scholar  and  a  reasoner,  advanced  many  max 
ims  which  were  specious  and  in  themselves 
reasonable,  but  which  practically  tended  to 
defeat  even  the  scanty  and  almost  illusive 
reform  which  ensued.  Las  Casas  was  a 
passionate  missionary,  whose  zeal,  kindled 
by  the  long  and  near  contemplation  of 
cruelty,  prompted  him  to  exaggerations  of 
fact  and  argument  $  yet,  with  all  its  errors, 
it  afforded  the  only  hope  of  preserving  the 


tion  entitled  "  Tractatus  Tractatuum,"  published 
at  Venice  in  1584,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Ro 
man  Sea  There  are  three  De  Bello  ;  one  by  Lu 
pus  of  Segovia,  when  Francis  I.  was  prisoner  in 
Spain ;  another,  more  celebrated,  by  Francis 
Arias,  who,  on  the  llth  June,  1532,  discussed  be 
fore  the  College  of  Cardinals  the  legitimacy  of  a 
war  by  the  Emperor  against  the  Pope.  There 
are  two  De  Pace  ;  and  others  De  Potestate  Re- 
gia,  De  Pcena  Mortis,  &c.  The  most  ancient  and 
scholastic  is  that  of  J.  de  Lignano  of  Milan,  De 
Bello.  The,  above  writers  are  mentioned  in  the 
prolegomena  to  Grotius,  De  Jure  Belli.  Pietro 
Belloni,  Counsellor  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy  (De  Re 
Militari),  treats  his  subject  with  the  minuteness  of 
a  Judge-Advocate,  and  has  more  modern  exam 
ples,  chiefly  Italian,  than  Grotius. 

*  Born,  1494  ;  died,  1560.— Antonii  Bib.  Hisp. 
Nov.  The  opinion  of  the  extent  of  Soto's  know 
ledge  entertained  by  his  contemporaries  is  express 
ed  in  a  jingle,  Qui  scit  Sotum  scit  totum. 

t  See  Note  K. 

\  "  Indis  non  debere  auferri  imperium,  idep  quia 
sunt  peccatores,  vel  ideo  quia  non  sunt  Christiani," 
were  the  words  of  Victoria. 

§  See  Note  L. 


natives  of  America  from  extirpation.  The 
opinion  of  Soto  could  not  fail  to  be  conform 
able  to  his  excellent  principle,  that  u  there 
can  be  no  difference  between  Christians  and 
pagans,  for  the  law  of  nations  is  equal  to  all 
nations."*  To  Soto  belongs  the  signal  hon 
our  of  being  the  first  writer  who  condemned 
the  African  slave-trade.  '-It  is  affirmed,'7 
says  he,  "that  the  unhappy  Ethiopians  are 
by  fraud  or  force  carried  away  and  sold  as 
slaves.  If  this  is  true,  neither  those  who 
have  taken  them,  nor  those  who  purchased 
them,  nor  those  who  hold  them  in  bondage, 
can  ever  have  a  quiet  conscience  till  they 
emancipate  them,  even  if  no  compensation 
should  be  obtained."!  As  the  work  which 
contains  this  memorable  condemnation  of 
man-stealing  and  slavery  was  the  substance 
of  lectures  for  many  years  delivered  at  Sala 
manca,  Philosophy  and  Religion  appear,  by 
the  hand  of  their  faithful  minister,  to  have 
thus  smitten  the  monsters  in  their  earliest  in 
fancy.  It  is  hard  for  any  man  of  the  present 
age  to  conceive  the  praise  which  is  due  to  the 
excellent  monks  who  courageously  asserted 
the  rights  of  those  whom  they  never  saw, 
against  the  prejudices  of  their  order;  the 
supposed  interest  of  their  religion,  the  am 
bition  of  their  government,  the  avarice  and 
pride  of  their  countrymen,  and  the  prevalent 
opinions  of  their  time. 

Francis  Suarez,t  a  Jesuit,  whose  volumi 
nous  works  amount  to  twenty-four  volumes 
in  folio,  closes  the  list  of  writers  of  his  class. 
His  work  on  Laws  and  on  God  the  Lawgiver, 
may  be  added  to  the  above  treatise  of  Soto, 
as  exhibiting  the  most  accessible  and  per 
spicuous  abridgment  of  the  theological  phi 
losophy  in  its  latest  form.  Grotius,  who. 
though  he  was  the  most  upright  and  candid 
of  men,  could  not  have  praised  a  Spanish 
Jesuit  beyond  his  deserts,  calls  tSuarez  the 
most  acute  of  philosophers  and  divines. § 
On  a  practical  matter,  which  may  be  natu 
rally  mentioned  here,  though  in  strict  method 
it  belongs  to  another  subject,  the  merit  of 
Suarez  is  conspicuous.  He  first  saw  that  in 
ternational  law  was  composed  not  only  of 
the  simple  principles  of  justice  applied  to 
the  intercourse  between  states,  but  of  those 
usages,  long  observed  in  that  intercourse 
by  the  European  race,  which  have  since 
been  more  exactly  distinguished  as  the  con 
suetudinary  law  acknowledged  by  the  Chris 
tian  nations  of  Europe  and  America. II  On 


*  "  Neque  discrepantia  (ut  reor)  est  inter  Chris- 
tianos  et  infideles,  quoriiam  jus  gentium  cunctis 
gentibus  aequale  est." 

t  De  Just,  et  Jure,  lib.  iv.  quaest.  ii.  art.  2. 

±  Born,  1538;  died,  1617. 

§  ' '  Tantag  subtilitatis  philosophum  et  theplogum, 
utvix  quemquam  habeat  parem." — Grotii  Epist. 
apud  Anton.  Bib.  Hipp.  Nov. 

II  "  Nunquam  enim  civitates  sunt  sibi  tarn  suffi- 
cientes  quin  indigeant  mutuo  juvamine  et  socie- 
tate,  interdum  ad  majorem  utilitatem,  interdum 
ob  necessitatem  moralem.  Hac  igitnr  ratione  in 
digent  aliquo  jure  quo  dirigantur  et  recte  ordinen- 
tur  in  hoc  genere  societatis.  Et  quamvis  magna 
ex  parte  hoc  fiat  per  rationem  naturalem,  non 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.          in 


this  important  point  his  views  are  more  clear 
than  those  of  his  contemporary  Alberico 
Gentili.*  It  must  even  be  owned,  that  the 
succeeding  intimation  of  the  same  general 
doctrine  by  Grotius  is  somewhat  more  dark. 
— perhaps  from  his  excessive  pursuit  of  con 
cise  diction. t 


SECTION  IV. 

MODERN     ETHICS. 
GR  OTIUS — HOBBES . 

THE  introduction  to  the  great  work  of 
Grotius,i  composed  in  the  first  years  of  his 
exile,  and  published  at  Paris  in  1625,  con 
tains  the  most  clear  and  authentic  statement 
of  the  general  principles  of  Morals  prevalent 
in  Christendom  after  the  close  of  the  Schools, 
and  before  the  writings  of  Hobbes  had  given 
rise  to  those  ethical  controversies  which 
more  peculiarly  belong  to  modern  times. 
That  he  may  lay  down  the  fundamental 
principles  of  Ethics,  he  introduces  Carneades 
on  the  stage  as  denying  altogether  the  reality 
of  moral  distinctions ;  teaching  that  law  and 
morality  are  contrived  by  powerful  men  for 
their  own  interest  j  that  they  vary  in  differ 
ent  countries,  and  change  in  successive  ages  ; 
that  there  can  be  no  natural  law,  since  Na 
ture  leads  men  as  well  as  other  animals  to 
prefer  their  own  interest  to  every  other  ob 
ject  j  that,  therefore,  there  is  either  no  jus 
tice,  or  if  there  be,  it  is  another  name  for  the 
height  of  folly,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  fond  at 
tempt  to  persuade  a  human  being  to  injure 
himself  for  the  unnatural  purpose  of  bene- 
fitting  his  fellow-men. §  To  this  Grotius  an 
swered,  that  even  inferior  animals,  under  the 
powerful,  though  transient,  impulse  of  pa 
rental  love,  prefer  their  young  to  their  own 
safety  or  life ;  that  gleams  of  compassion, 
and,  he  might  have  added,  of  gratitude  and 
indignation,  appear  in  the  human  infant  long 
before  the  age  of  moral  discipline ;  that  man 
at  the  period  of  maturity  is  a  social  animal, 
who  delights  in  the  society  of  his  fellow- 
creatures  for  its  own  sake,  independently  of 
the  help  and  accommodation  which  it  yields ; 
that  he  is  a  reasonable  being,  capable  of 
framing  and  pursuing  general  rules  of  con 
duct,  of  which  he  discerns  that  the  observ 
ance  contributes  to  a  regular,  quiet,  and 
happy  intercourse  between  all  the  members 


tamen  sufficienter  et  immediate  qtioad  omnia, 
ideoque  specialia  jura  poter  ant  usu  earundem  gen 
tium  introduci."  —  De  Leg.,  lib.  ii.  cap.  ii. 

*  Born  in  the  March  of  Ancona,  1550  ;  died  at 
London,  1608. 

t  De  Jur.  Bell,  lib.  i.  cap.  i.  §  14. 

\  Prolegomena.  His  letter  to  Vossius,  of  1st 
August.  1625,  determines  the  exact  period  of  the 
publication  of  this  famous  work.  —  Epist.  74. 

$  The  same  commonplace  paradoxes  were  re 
tailed  by  the  Sophists,  whom  Socrates  is  intro 
duced  as  chastising  in  the  Dialogues  of  Plato. 
They  were  common  enough  to  be  put  by  the 
Historian  into  the  mouth  of  an  ambassador  in  a 
public  speech.  'Avcfy/  31  tvpawut  »  TTOKU  dp^w  *X,oi><ry 
Thucyd.  lib.  vi.  cap.  85'. 


o  n 


of  the  community ;  and  that  from  these  con 
siderations  all  the  precepts  of  Morality,  and 
all  the  commands  and  prohibitions  of  just 
Law,  may  be  derived  by  impartial  Reason. 
"And  these  principles/'  says  the  pious  phi 
losopher,  "  would  have  their  weight,  even  if 
it  were  to  be  granted  (which  could  not  be 
conceded  without  the  highest  impiety)  that 
there  is  no  God,  or  that  He  exercises  no 
moral  government  over  human  affairs."* — 
c<  Natural  law  is  the  dictate  of  right  Reason, 
pronouncing  that  there  is  in  some  actions  a 
moral  obligation,  and  in  other  actions  a 
moral  deformity,  arising  from  their  respect 
ive  suitableness  or  repugnance  to  the  rea 
sonable  and  social  nature ;  and  that  conse 
quently  such  acts  are  either  forbidden  or 
enjoined  by  God,  the  Author  of  Nature. — 
Actions  which  are  the  subject  of  this  exer 
tion  of  Reason,  are  in  themselves  lawful  or 
unlawful,  and  are  therefore,  as  such,  neces 
sarily  commanded  or  prohibited  by  God." 

Such  was  the  state  of  opinion  respecting 
the  first  principles  of  the  moral  sciences, 
when,  after  an  imprisonment  of  a  thousand 
years  in  the  Cloister,  they  began  once  more 
to  hold  intercourse  with  the  general  under 
standing  of  mankind.  It  will  be  seen  in  the 
laxity  and  confusion,  as  well  as  in  the  pru 
dence  and  purity  of  this  exposition,  that 
some  part  of  the  method  and  precision  of 
the  Schools  was  lost  with  their  endless  sub- 
tilties  and  their  barbarous  language.  It  is 
manifest  that  the  latter  paragraph  is  a  pro 
position, — not,  what  it  affects  to  be,  a  defini 
tion;  that  as  a  proposition  it  contains  too 
m^y  terms  very  necessary  to  be  defined; 
that  the  purpose  of  the  excellent  writer  is 
not  so  much  to  lay  down  a  first  principle  of 
Morals,  as  to  exert  his  unmatched  power 
of  saying  much  in  few  words,  in  order  to 
assemble  within  the  smallest  compass  the 
most  weighty  inducements,  and  the  most  ef 
fectual  persuasions  to  well-doing. 

This  was  the  condition  in  which  ethical 
theory  was  found  by  Hobbes,  with  whom  the 
present  Dissertation  should  have  commenced, 
if  it  had  been  possible  to  state  modern  con 
troversies  in  a  satisfactory  manner,  without 


a  retros 
which  tney 


spect  of  the  revolutions  in  Opinion  fi 
they  in  some  measure  flowed. 


rom 


HOBBES. t 


Thomas  Hobbes  of  Malmesbury  may  1 
numbered  among  those  eminent  persons  bo 


*  "  Et  hose  quidem  locum  aliquem  haberent, 
etiamsi  daretur  (quod  sine  summo  scelere  dari  ne- 
quit)  non  esse  Deum,  aut  non  curari  ab  eo  negotia 
humana."— Proleg.  11.  And  in  another  place, 
"  Jus  naturale  est  dictatum  recta?  rationis,  indicans 
actui  alicui,  ex  ejus  convenientia  aut  disconvenien- 
tia  cum  ipsa  natura  rational!  et  sociali,  inesse  mora- 
lem  turpitudinem  aut  necessitatem,  moralem,  ac 
consequenter  ab  auctore  naturae  Deo  talem  actum 
autvetari  aut  pra?cipi."  "  Actus  de  quibus  tale 
exstat  dictatum,  debiti  sunt  aut  illiciti  per  se,  at- 
que  ideo  a  Deo  necessario  pracepti  aut  vetiti  in 
telliguntur."— De  Jur.  Bell.  Jib.  i.  cap.  i.  §  10. 

t  Born,  1588 ;  died  1679. 


112 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


in  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
who  gave  a  new  character  to  European  phi 
losophy,  in  the  succeeding  age.*  He  was 
one  of  the  late  writers  and  late  learners.  It 
was  not  till  he  was  nearly  thirty  that  he  sup 
plied  the  defects  of  his  early  education,  by 
classical  studies  so  successfully  prosecuted, 
that  he  wrote  well  in  the  Latin  then  used  by 
his  scientific  contemporaries  ;  and  made  such 
proficiency  in  Greek  as,  in  his  earliest  work, 
the  Translation  of  Thucydides,  published 
when  he  was  forty,  to  afford  a  specimen  of 
a  version  still  valued  for  its  remarkable  fide 
lity,  though  written  with  a  stiffness  and  con 
straint  very  opposite  to  the  masterly  facility 
-of  his  original  compositions.  It  was  after 
forty  that  he  learned  the  first  rudiments  of 
Geometry  (so  miserably  defective  was  his 
education);  but  yielding  to  the  paradoxical 
disposition  apt  to  infect  those  who  begin  to 
learn  after  the  natural  age  of  commence 
ment,  he  exposed  himself,  by  absurd  contro 
versies  with  the  masters  of  a  Science  which 
looks  down  with  scorn  on  the  sophist.  A 
considerable  portion  of  his  mature  age  was 
passed  on  the  Continent,  where  he  travelled 
as  tutor  to  two  successive  Earls  of  Devon 
shire; — a  family  with  whom  he  seems  to 
have  passed  near  half  a  century  of  his  long 
life.  In  France  his  reputation,  founded  at 
that  time  solely  on  personal  intercourse,  be 
came  so  great,  that  his  observations  on  the 
meditations  of  Descartes  were  published  in 
the  works  of  that  philosopher;  together  with 
those  of  Gassendi  and  Arnauld.t  It  was 
about  his  sixtieth  year  that  he  began  to^aub- 
lish  those  philosophical  writings  which  con 
tain  his  peculiar  opinions; — which  set  the 
understanding  of  Europe  into  general  mo 
tion,  and  stirred  up  controversies  among  me 
taphysicians  and  moralists,  not  even  yet  de 
termined.  At  the  age  of  eighty-seven  he 
had  the  boldness  to  publish  metrical  ver 
sions  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  which  the 
greatness  of  his  name,  and  the  singularity 
of  the  undertaking,  still  render  objects  of  cu 
riosity,  if  not  of  criticism. 

He  owed  his  influence  to  various  causes ; 
at  the  head  of  which  may  be  placed  that  ge 
nius  for  system,  which,  though  it  cramps  the 
growth  of  Kno  wledge,?  perhaps  finally  atones 


*  Bacon,  Descartes,  Hobbes,  and  Grotius.  The 
writings  of  the  first  are  still  as  delightful  and  won 
derful  as  they  ever  were,  and  his  authority  will 
have  no  end.  Descartes  forms  an  era  in  the  his 
tory  of  Metaphysics,  of  Physics,  of  Mathematics. 
The  controversies  excited  by  Grotius  have  long 
ceased,  but  the  powerful  influence  of  his  works 
•will  be  doubted  by  those  only  who  are  unac 
quainted  with  the  disputes  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury. 

t  The  prevalence  of  freethinking  under  Louis 
XIII.,  to  a  far  greater  degree  than  it  was  avowed, 
appears  not  only  from  the  complaints  of  Merserme 
and  of  Grotius,  but  from  the  disclosures  of  Guy 
Patin  ;  who,  in  his  Letters,  describes  his  own  con 
versations  with  Gassendi  and  Naude,  so  as  to 
leave  no  doubt  of  their  opinions. 

t  "Another  error,"  says  the  Master  of  Wisdom, 
"is  the  over-early  and  peremptory  reduction  of 
knowledge  into  arts  and  methods,  from  which 


for  that  mischief,  by  the  zeal  and  activity 
which  it  rouses  among  followers  and  oppo 
nents,  who  discover  truth  by  accident,  when 
in  pursuit  of  weapons  for  their  warfare.  A 
system  which  attempts  a  task  so  hard  as 
that  of  subjecting  vast  provinces  of  human 
knowledge  to  one  or  two  principles,  if  it  pre 
sents  some  striking  instances  of  conformity 
to  superficial  appearances,  is  sure  to  delight 
the  framer,  and,  for  a  time,  to  subdue  and 
captivate  the  student  too  entirely  for  sober 
reflection  and  rigorous  examination.  The 
evil  does  not,  indeed,  very  frequently  recur. 
Perhaps  Aristotle,  Hobbes,  and  Kant,  are  the 
only  persons  who  united  in  the  highest  de 
gree  the  great  faculties  of  comprehension 
and  discrimination  which  compose  the  Genius 
of  System.  Of  the  three,  Aristotle  alone 
could  throw  it  off  where  it  was  glaringly  un 
suitable  ;  and  it  is  deserving  of  observation, 
that  the  reign  of  system  seems,  from  these 
examples,  progressively  to  shorten  in  pro 
portion  as  Reason  is  cultivated  and  Know 
ledge  advances.  But,  in  the  first  instance, 
consistency  passes  for  Truth.  When  prin 
ciples  in  some  instances  have  proved  suffi 
cient  to  give  an  unexpected  explanation  of 
facts,  the  delighted  reader  is  content  to  ac 
cept  as  true  all  other  deductions  from  the 
principles.  Specious  premises  being  assum 
ed  to  be  true,  nothing  more  can  be  required 
than  logical  inference.  Mathematical  forms 
pass  current  as  the  equivalent  of  mathema 
tical  certainty.  The  unwary  admirer  is 
satisfied  with  the  completeness  and  symme 
try  of  the  plan  of  his  house, — unmindful  of 
the  need  of  examining  the  firmness  of  the 
foundation,  and  the  soundness  of  the  mate 
rials.  The  system-maker,  like  the  conque 
ror,  long  dazzles  and  overawes  the  world; 
but  when  their  sway  is  past,  the  vulgar  herd, 
unable  to  measure  their  astonishing  faculties, 
take  revenge  by  trampling  on  fallen  great 
ness. 

The  dogmatism  of  Hobbes  was,  however 
unjustly,  one  of  the  sources  of  his  fame.  The 
founders  of  systems  deliver  their  novelties 
with  the  undoubting  spirit  of  discoverers; 
and  their  followers  are  apt  to  be  dogmatical, 
because  they  can  see  nothing  beyond  their 
own  ground.  It  might  seem  incredible,  if  it 
were  not  established  by  the  experience  of 
all  ages,  that  those  who  differ  most  from  the 
opinions  of  their  fellow-men  are  most  confi 
dent  of  the  truth  of  their  own.  But  it  com 
monly  requires  an  overweening  conceit  of 
the  superiority  of  a  man's  own  judgment,  to 
make  him  espouse  very  singular  notions; 
and  when  he  has  once  embraced  them,  they 
are  endeared  to  him  by  the  hostility  of  those 
whom  he  contemns  as  the  prejudiced  vulgar. 
The  temper  of  Hobbes  must  have  been  ori 
ginally  haughty.  The  advanced  age  at 
which  he  published  his  obnoxious  opinions, 

time  commonly  receives  small  augmentation."— 
Advancement  of  Learning,  book  i.  "  Method," 
says  he,  "carrying  a  show  of  total  and  perfect 
knowledge,  has  a  tendency  to  generate  acquies 
cence."  What  pregnant  words ! 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.          113 


rendered  him  more  impatient  of  the  acrimo 
nious  opposition  which  they  necessarily  pro 
voked  ;  until  at  length  a  strong  sense  of  the 
injustice  of  the  punishment  impending  over 
his  head,  for  the  publication  of  what  he  be 
lieved  to  be  truth,  co-operated  with  the  pee 
vishness  and  timidity  of  his  years,  to  render 
him  the  most  imperious  and  morose  of  dog 
matists.  His  dogmatism  has  indeed  one 
quality  more  offensive  than  that  of  most 
others.  Propositions  the  most  adverse  to  the 
opinions  of  mankind,  and  the  most  abhorrent 
from  their  feelings,  are  introduced  into  the 
course  of  his  argument  with  mathematical 
coldness.  He  presents  them  as  demonstrated 
conclusions,  without  deigning  to  explain  to 
his  fellow-creatures  how  they  all  happened 
to  believe  the  opposite  absurdities,  and  with 
out  even  the  compliment  of  once  observing 
how  widely  his  discoveries  were  at  variance 
with  the  most  ancient  and  universal  judg 
ments  of  the  human  understanding.  The 
same  quality  in  Spinoza  indicates  a  recluse's 
ignorance  of  the  world.  In  Hobbes  it  is  the 
arrogance  of  a  man  who  knows  mankind  and 
despises  them. 

A  permanent  foundation  of  his  fame  re 
mains  in  his  admirable  style,  which  seems 
to  be  the  very  perfection  of  didactic  lan 
guage.  Short,  clear,  precise,  pithy,  his  lan 
guage  never  has  more  than  one  meaning, 
which  it  never  requires  a  second  thought  to 
iind.  By  the  help  of  his  exact  method,  it 
takes  so  firm  a  hold  on  the  mind,  that  it  will 
not  allow  attention  to  slacken.  His  little 
tract  on  Human  Nature  has  scarcely  an  am 
biguous  or  a  needless  word.  He  has  so  great 
a  power  of  always  choosing  the  most  signifi 
cant  term,  that  he  never  is  reduced  to  the 
poor  expedient  of  using  many  in  its  stead. 
He  had  so  thoroughly  studied  the  genius  of 
the  language,  and  knew  so  well  how  to  steer 
between  pedantry  and  vulgarity,  that  two 
centuries  have  not  superannuated  probably 
more  than  a  dozen  of  his  words.  His  ex 
pressions  are  so  luminous,  that  he  is  clear 
without  the  help  of  illustration.  Perhaps  no 
writer  of  any  age  or  nation,  on  subjects  so 
abstruse,  has  manifested  an  equal  power  of 
engraving  his  thoughts  on  the  mind  of  his 
readers.  He  seems  never  to  have  taken  a 
word  for  ornament  or  pleasure ;  and  he  deals 
with  eloquence  and  poetry  as  the  natural 
philosopher  who  explains  the  mechanism  of 
children's  toys,  or  deigns  to  contrive  them. 
Yet  his  style  so  stimulates  attention,  that  it 
never  tires;  and,  to  those  who  are  acquainted 
with  the  subject,  appears  to  have  as  much 
spirit  as  can  be  safely  blended  with  Reason. 
He  compresses  his  thoughts  so  unaffectedly, 
.and  yet  so  tersely,  as  to  produce  occasionally 
maxims  which  excite  the  same  agreeable 
surprise  with  wit,  and  have  become  a  sort 
of  philosophical  proverbs; — the  success  of 
which  he  partly  owed  to  the  suitableness  of 
such  forms  of  expression  to  his  dictatorial 
nature.  His  words  have  such  an  appearance 
of  springing  from  his  thoughts,  as  to  impress 
on  the  reader  a  strong  opinion  of  his  origi- 
15 


nality,  and  indeed  to  prove  that  he  was  not 
conscious  of  borrowing  :  though  conversation 
with  Gassendi  must  have  influenced  his 
mind ;  and  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  his  coin 
cidence  with  Ockham  should  have  been 
purely  accidental,  on  points  so  important  as 
the  denial  of  general  ideas,  the  reference  of 
moral  distinctions  to  superior  power,  and  the 
absolute  thraldom  of  Religion  under  the  civil 
power,  which  he  seems  to  have  thought  ne 
cessary,  to  maintain  that  independence  of 
the  State  on  the  Church  with  which  Ockham 
had  been  contented. 

His  philosophical  writings  might  be  read 
without  reminding  any  one  that  the  author 
was  more  than  an  intellectual  machine.  They 
never  betray  a  feeling  exce'pt  that  insupport 
able  arrogance  which  looks  down  on  his  fel 
low-men  as  a  lower 'species  of  beings  ;  whose 
almost  unanimous  hostility  is  so  far  from 
shaking  the  firmness  of  his  conviction,  or 
even  ruffling  the  calmness  of  his  contempt, 
that  it  appears  too  petty  a  circumstance  to 
require  explanation,  or  even  to  merit  notice. 
Let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that  part  of  his  re 
nown  depends  on  the  application  of  his  ad 
mirable  powers  to  expound  Truth  when  he 
meets  it.  This  great  merit  is  conspicuous 
in  that  part  of  his  treatise  of  Human  Nature 
which  relates  to  the  percipient  and  reasoning 
faculties.  It  is  also  very  remarkable  in 
many  of  his  secondary  principles  on  the  sub 
ject  of  Government  and  Law,  which,  while 
the  first  principles  are  false  and  dangerous, 
are  as  admirable  for  truth  as  for  his  accus 
tomed  and  unrivalled  propriety  of  expres 
sion.*  In  many  of  these  observations  he 
even  shows  a  disposition  to  soften  his  para 
doxes,  and  to  conform  to  the  common  sense 
of  mankind.! 

It  was  with  perfect  truth  observed  by  my 
excellent  friend  Mr.  Stewart,  that  "the  ethi 
cal  principles  of  Hobbes  are  completely  in 
terwoven  with  his  political  system."!  He 
might  have  said,  that  the  whole  of  Hobbes' 
system,  moral,  religious,  and  in  part  philo 
sophical,  depended  on  his  political  scheme ; 
not  indeed  logically,  as  conclusions  depend 
upon  premises,  but  (if  the  word  may  be  ex 
cused)  psychologically,  as  the  formation  of 
one  opinion  may  be  influenced  by  a  disposi 
tion  to  adapt  it  to  others  previously  cherished. 
The  Translation  of  Thucydides,  as  he  him- 


*  See  De  Corpore  Politico,  Part  i.  chap.  ii.  iii. 
iv.  and  Leviathan,  Part  i.  chap.  xiv.  xv.  for  re 
marks  of  this  sort,  full  of  sagacity. 

t  "  The  laws  of  Nature  are  immutable  and  eter 
nal  ;  for  injustice,  ingratitude,  arrogance,  pride, 
iniquity,  acception  of  persons,  and  the  rest,  can 
never  he  made  lawful.  For  it  can  never  be  that 
war  shall  preserve  life,  and  peace  desiroy  it." — 
Leviathan,  Part  i.  chap.  xv. — See  also  Part  ii.  chap, 
xxvi.  xxviii.  on  Laws,  and  on  Punishments. 

\  See  Encyc.  Brit.  i.  42.     T'ne  political  state  of, 
England  is  indeed  said  by  himself  to  have  occa^ 
sioned  his  first  philosophical  publication. 
Nascitur  interea  scelus  execrabile  belli. 

Horreo  spectana, 

Meque  ad  dilectam  confero  Lutetiam, 
Postque  duosannosedo  De  Give  Libelhim, 
K2 


114 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


self  boasts,  \vas  published  to  show  the  evils 
of  popular  government.*  Men  he  repre 
sented  as  being  originally  equal,  and  having 
an  equal  right  to  all  things,  but  as  being 
taught  by  Reason  to  sacrifice  this  right  for 
the  advantages  of  peace,  and  to  submit  to  a 
common  authority,  which  can  preserve  quiet, 
only  by  being  the  sole  depositary  of  force, 
and  must  therefore  be  absolute  and  unlimi 
ted.  The  supreme  authority  cannot  be  suf 
ficient  for  its  purpose,  unless  it  be  wielded 
by  a  single  hand ;  nor  even  then,  unless  his 
absolute  power  extends  over  Religion,  which 
may  prompt  men  to  discord  by  the  fear  of  an 
evil  greater  than  death.  The  perfect  state 
of  a  community,  according  to  him,  is  where 
Law  prescribes  the  religion  and  morality  of 
the  people,  and  where  the  will  of  an  abso 
lute  sovereign  is  the  sole  fountain  of  law. 
Hooker  had  inculcated  the  simple  truth,  that 
"to  live  by  one  man's  will  is  the  cause  of 
many  men's  misery:" — Hobbes  embraced 
the  daring  paradox,  that  to  live  by  one  man's 
will  is  the  only  means  of  all  men's  happi 
ness.  Having  thus  rendered  Religion  the 
slave  of  every  human  tyrant,  it  was  an  una 
voidable  consequence,  that  he  should  be 
disposed  to  lower  her  character,  and  lessen 
her  power  over  men ;  that  he  should  regard 
atheism  as  the  most  effectual  instrument  of 
preventing  rebellion, — at  least  that  species 
of  rebellion  which  prevailed  in  his  time,  and 
had  excited  his  alarms.  The  formidable 
alliance  of  Religion  with  Liberty  haunted 
his  mind,  and  urged  him  to  the  bold  attempt 
of  rooting  out  both  these  mighty  principles ; 
which,  when  combined  with  interests  and 
passions,  when  debased  by  impure  support, 
and  provoked  by  unjust  resistance,  have  in 
deed  the  power  of  fearfully  agitating  society; 
but  which  are,  nevertheless,  in  their  own 
nature,  and  as  far  as  they  are  unmixed  and 
undisturbed,  the  parents  of  Justice,  of  Order, 
of  Peace,  as  well  as  the  sources  of  those 
hopes,  and  of  those  glorious  aspirations  after 
higher  excellence,  which  encourage  and  ex 
alt  the  Soul  in  its  passage  through  misery 
and  depravity.  A  Hobbist  is  the  only  con 
sistent  persecutor;  for  he  alone  considers 
himself  as  bound,  by  whatever  conscience 
he  has  remaining,  to  conform  to  the  religion 
of  the  sovereign.  He  claims  from  others  no 
more  than  he  is  himself  ready  to  yield  to  any 
master  ;t  while  the  religionist  who  perse- 


*  The  conference  between  the  ministers  from 
Athens  and  the  Melean  chiefs,  in  the  5th  book, 
and  the  speech  of  Euphemus  in  the  6th  book  of 
that  historian,  exhibit  an  undisguised  Hobbism, 
which  was  very  dramatically  put  into  the  mouth 
of  Athenian  statesmen  at  a  time  when,  as  we 
learn  from  Plato  and  Aristophanes,  it  was  preach 
ed  by  the  Sophists. 

t  Spinoza  adopted  precisely  the  same  first  prin 
ciple  with  Hobbes,  that  all  men  have  a  natural 
right  to  all  things. — Tract.  Theol.  Pol.  cap.  ii.  $  3. 
He  even  avows  the  absurd  and  detestable  maxim, 
that  states  are  not  bound  to  observe  their  treaties 
longer  than  the  interest  or  danger  which  first 
formed  the  treaties  continues.  But  on  the  inter 
nal  constitution  of  states  he  embraces  opposite 
opinions.  Servitutis  enim,  non  pads,  interest 


cutes  a  member  of  another  communion)  ex 
acts  the  sacrifice  of  conscience  and  sincerity, 
though  professing  that  rather  than  make  it 
himself,  he  is  prepared  to  die. 

REMARKS. 

The  fundamental  errors  on  which  the  ethi 
cal  system  of  Hobbes  is  built  are  not  peculiar 
to  him ;  though  he  has  stated  them  with  a 
bolder  precision,  and  placed  them  in  a  more 
conspicuous  station  in  the  van  of  his  main 
force,  than  any  other  of  those  who  have 
either  frankly  avowed,  or  tacitly  assumed, 
them,  from  the  beginning  of  speculation  to 
the  present  moment.  They  may  be  shortly 
stated  as  follows : 

1.  The  first  arid  most  inveterate  of  these 
errors  is,  that  he  does  not  distinguish  thought 
from  feeling,  or  rather  that  he  in  express 
wrords  confounds  them.  The  mere  perception 
of  an  object,  according  to  him,  differs  from 
the  pleasure  or  pain  which  that  perception 
may  occasion,  no  otherwise  than  as  they 
affect  different  organs  of  the  bodily  frame. 
The  action  of  the  mind  in  perceiving  or  con 
ceiving  an  object  is  precisely  the  same  with 
that  of  feeling  the  agreeable  or  disagreeable.* 
The  necessary  result  of  this  original  confu 
sion  is,  to  extend  the  laws  of  the  intellectual 
part  of  our  nature  over  that  other  part  of  it, 
(hitherto  without  any  adequate  name,)  which 
feels,  and  desires,  and  loves,  and  hopes,  and 
wills.  In  consequence  of  this  long'  confu 
sion,  or  want  of  distinction,  it  has  happened 
that,  while  the  simplest  act  of  the  merely 
intellectual  part  has  many  names  (such  as 
"  sensation,"  "perception,"  "impression," 
&c.),  the  correspondent  act  of  the  other  not 
less  important  portion  of  man  is  not  denoted 
by  a  technical  term  in  philosophical  systems ; 
nor  by  a  convenient  word  in  common  lan 
guage.  "  Sensation"  has  another  more  com- 


omnem  potestatem  ad  unum  transferre. — (Ibid.  cap. 
vi.  §  4.)  Limited  monarchy  he  considers  as  the 
only  tolerable  example  of  that  species  of  govern 
ment.  An  aristocracy  nearly  approaching  to  the 
Dutch  system  during  the  suspension  of  the  Stadt- 
holdership,  he  seems  to  prefer.  He  speaks  favour 
ably  of  democracy,  but  the  chapter  on  that  sub 
ject  is  left  unfinished.  "  Nulla  plane  templa  urbi- 
um  sumptibus  aedificanda,  nee  jura  de  opinionibus 
statuenda.' '  He  was  the  first  republican  atheist  of 
modern  times,  and  probably  the  earliest  irreligious 
opponent  of  an  ecclesiastical  establishment. 

*  This  doctrine  is  explained  in  his  tract  on  Hu 
man  Nature,  c.  vii.  "Conception  is  a  motion  in 
some  internal  substance  of  the  head,  which  pro 
ceeding  to  the  heart,  where  it  helpeth  the  motion 
there,  is  called  pleasure;  when  it  weakeneth  or 
hindereth  the  motion,  it  is  called  pain.'1  The 
same  matter  is  handled  more  cursorily,  agreeably 
to  the  practical  purpose  of  the  work,  in  Leviathan, 
part  i.  chap.  vi.  These  passages  are  here  referred 
to  as  proofs  of  the  statement  in  the  text.  With 
the  materialism  of  it  we  have  here  no  concern. 
If  the  multiplied  suppositions  were  granted,  we 
should  not  advance  one  step  towards  understand 
ing  what  they  profess  to  explain.  The  first  four 
words  are  as  unmeaning  as  if  one  were  to  say 
that  greenness  is  very  loud.  It  is  obvious  that 
many  motions  which  promote  the  motion  of  the 
heart  are  extremely  painful. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.          115 


mon  sense ;  "  Emotion"  is  too  warm  for  a 
generic  term ;  "  Feeling"  has  some  degree 
of  the  same  fault,  besides  its  liability  to  con 
fusion  with  the  sense  of  touch;  "Pleasure" 
and  "Pain"  represent  only  two  properties 
of  this  act,  which  render  its  repetition  the 
object  of  desire  or  aversion; — which  last 
states  of  mind  presuppose  the  act.  Of  these 
words,  "  Emotion"  seems  to  be  the  least 
objectionable,  since  it  has  no  absolute  double 
meaning,  and  does  not  require  so  much  vigi 
lance  in  the  choice  of  the  accompanying 
words  as  would  be  necessary  if  we  were  to 
prefer  "  Feeling;"  which,  however,  being  a 
more  familiar  word,  may,  with  due  caution, 
be  also  sometimes  employed.  Every  man 
who  attends  to  the  state  of  his  own  mind 
will  acknowledge,  that  these  words,  "  Emo 
tion"  and  "  Feeling,"  thus  used,  are  per 
fectly  simple,  and  as  incapable  of  further 
explanation  by  words  as  sight  and  hearing  ; 
which  may,  indeed,  be  rendered  into  syno 
nymous  words,  but  never  can  be  defined  by 
any  more  simple  or  more  clear.  Reflection 
will  in  like  manner  teach  that  perception, 
reasoning,  and  judgment  may  be  conceived 
to  exist  without  being  followed  by  emotion. 
Some  men  hear  music  without  gratification  : 
one  may  distinguish  a  taste  without  being 
pleased  or  displeased  by  it ;  or  at  least  the 
relish  or  disrelish  is  often  so  slight,  without 
lessening  the  distinctness  of  the  sapid  quali 
ties,  that  the  distinction  of  it  from  the  per 
ception  cannot  <be  doubted. 

The  multiplicity  of  errors  which  have  flow 
ed  into  moral  science  from  this  original  con 
fusion  is  very  great.  They  have  spread  over 
many  schools  of  philosophy ;  and  many  of 
them  are  prevalent  to  this  day.  Hence  the 
laws  of  the  Understanding  have  been  ap 
plied  to  the  Affections;  virtuous  feelings 
have  been  considered  as  just  reasonings ; 
evil  passions  have  been  represented  as  mis 
taken  judgments ;  and  it  has  been  laid  down 
as  a  principle,  that  the  Will  always  follows 
the  last  decision  of  the  Practical  Intellect.* 

2.  By  this  great  error,  Hobbes  was  led  to 
represent  all  the  variety  of  the  desires  of 
men,  as  being  only  so  many  instances  of 
objects  deliberately  and  solely  pursued ;  be 
cause  they  were  the  means,  and  at  the  time 
perceived  to  be  so,  of  directly  or  indirectly 
procuring  organic  gratification  to  the  indi 
vidual. t  The  human  passions  are  described 
as  if  they  reasoned  accurately,  deliberated 
coolly,  arid  calculated  exactly.  It  is  assumed 
that,  in  performing  these  operations,  there  is 
and  can  be  no  act  of  life  in  which  a  man  does 
not  bring  distinctly  before  his  eyes  the  plea 
sure  which  is  to  accrue  to  himself  from  the 
act.  From  this  single  and  simple  principle, 
all  human  conduct  may,  according  to  him, 
be  explained  and  even  foretold.  The  true 
laws  of  this  part  of  our  nature  (so  totally 
different  from  those  of  the  percipient  part) 


"  Vpluntas  semper  sequifurultimum  judicium 
intellect  as  practici."— [See  Spinozae  Cog.  Met. 
pars.  ii.  cap.  12.  Ed.] 

t  See  the  passages  before  quoted. 


were,  by  this  grand  mistake,  entirely  with 
drawn  from  notice.  Simple  as  the  observa 
tion  is,  it  seems  to  have  escaped  not  only 
Hobbes,  but  many,  perhaps  most,  philoso 
phers,  that  our  desires  seek  a  great  diversity 
of  objects ;  that  the  attainment  of  these  ob 
jects  is  indeed  followed  by,  or  rather  called 
"  Pleasure ;"  but  that  it  could  not  be  so,  if 
the  objects  had  not  been  previously  desired. 
Many  besides  him  have  really  represented 
self  as  the  ultimate  object  of  every  action  :  but 
none  ever  so  hardily  thrust  forward  the  selfish 
system  in  its  harshest  and  coarsest  shape. 
The  mastery  which  he  shows  over  other 
metaphysical  subjects,  forsakes  him  on  this. 
He  does  not  scruple,  for  the  sake  of  this 
system,  to  distort  facts  of  which  all  men  are 
conscious,  and  to  do  violence  to  the  language 
in  wrhich  the  result  of  their  uniform  expe 
rience  is  conveyed.  "Acknowledgment  of 
power  is  called  Honour."'*  His  explana 
tions  are  frequently  sufficient  confutations  of 
the  doctrine  which  required  them.  "Pity 
is  the  imagination  of  future  calamity  to  our 
selves,  proceeding  from  the  sense  (observa 
tion)  of  another  man's  calamity."  "  Laugh 
ter  is  occasioned  by  sudden  glory  in  our 
eminence,  or  in  comparison  with  the  infirmity 
of  others."  Every  man  who  ever  wept  or 
laughed,  may  determine  whether  this  be  a 
true  account  of  the  state  of  his  mind  on  either 
occasion.  "Love  is  a  conception  of  his 
need  of  the  one  person  desired  ;" —  a  defini 
tion  of  Love,  which,  as  it  excludes  kindness, 
might  perfectly  well  comprehend  the  hun 
ger  of  a  cannibal,  provided  that  it  were  not 
too  ravenous  to  exclude  choice.  "Good 
will,  or  charity,  which  containeth  the  natu 
ral  affection  of  parents  to  their  children,  con 
sists  in  a  man's  conception  that  he  is  able 
not  only  to  accomplish  his  own  desires,  but 
to  assist  other  men  in  theirs:"  from  which 
it  follows,  as  the  pride  of  power  is  felt  in 
destroying  as  well  as  in  saving  men,  that 
cruelty  and  kindness  are  the  same  passion. t 
Such  were  the  expedients  to  which  a  man 
of  the  highest  class  of  understanding  was 
driven,  in  order  to  evade  the  admission  of 
the  simple  and  evident  truth,  that  there  are 
in  our  nature  perfectly  disinterested  pas 
sions,  which  seek  the  well-being  of  others 
as  their  object  and  end,  without  looking  be 
yond  it  to  self,  or  pleasure,  or  happiness.  A 
proposition,  from  which  such  a  man  could 
attempt  to  escape  only  by  such  means,  may 
be  strongly  presumed  to  be  true. 

3.  Hobbes  having  thus  struck  the  affec 
tions  out  of  his  map  of  human  nature,  and 
having  totally  misunderstood  (as  will  appear 


*  Human  Nature,  chap.  viii.  The  ridiculous 
explanation  of  the  admiration  of  personal  beauty, 
"  as  a  sign  of  power  generative,"  shows  the  diffi 
culties  to  which  this  extraordinary  man  was  re 
duced  by  a  false  system. 

t  Ibid.  chap.  ix.  I  forbear  to  quote  the  passage 
on  Platonic  love,  which  immediately  follows  :  but, 
considering  Hobbes'  blameless  and  honourable 
character,  that  passage  is  perhaps  the  most  re 
markable  instance  of  the  shifts  to  which  his  self 
ish  system  reduced  him. 


116 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


in  a  succeeding  part  of  this  Dissertation)  the 
nature  even  of  the  appetites,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  we  should  find  in  it  not  a  trace  of  the 
moral  sentiments.  Moral  Good*  he  consi 
ders  merely  as  consisting  in  the  signs  of  a 
power  to  produce  pleasure ;  and  repentance 
is  no  more  than  regret  at  having  missed  the 
way:  so  that,  according  to  this  system,  a 
disinterested  approbation  of,  and  reverence 
for  Virtue,  are  no  more  possible  than  disin 
terested  affections  towards  our  fellow-crea 
tures.  There  is  no  sense  of  duty,  no  com 
punction  for  our  own  offences,  no  indignation 
against  the  crimes  of  others, — unless  they 
affect  our  own  safety ; — no  secret  cheerful 
ness  shed  over  the  heart  by  the  practice  of 
well-doing.  From  his  philosophical  writings 
it  would  be  impossible  to  conclude  that  there 
are  in  man  a  set  of  emotions,  desires,  and 
aversions,  of  which  the  sole  and  final  objects 
are  the  voluntary  actions  and  habitual  dispo 
sitions  of  himself  and  of  all  other  voluntary 
agents;  which  are  properly  called  "moral 
sentiments;7'  arid  which,  though  they  vary 
more  in  degree,  and  depend  more  on  culti 
vation,  than  some  other  parts  of  human  na 
ture,  are  as  seldom  as  most  of  them  found 
to  be  entirely  wanting. 

4.  A  theory  of  Man  which  comprehends 
in  its  explanations  neither  the  social  affec 
tion  Sj  nor  the  moral   sentiments,  must  be 
owned  to  be  sufficiently  defective.     It  is  a 
consequence,  or  rather  a  modification  of  it, 
that  Hobbes  should  constantly  represent  the 
deliberate  regard  to  personal  advantage,  as 
the  only  possible  motive  of  human  action  ; 
and  that  ke  should  altogether  disdain  to  avail 
himself  of  those  refinements  of  the  selfish 
scheme  which  allow  the  pleasures  of  bene 
volence  and  of  morality,  themselves,  to  be  a 
most  important  part  of  that  interest  which 
reasonable  beings  pursue. 

5.  Lastly,  though  Hobbes  does  in  effect 
acknowledge  the  necessity  of  Morals  to  so 
ciety,  and  the  general  coincidence  of  indivi 
dual  with  public  interest — truths  so  palpable 
that  they  have  never  been  excluded  from 
any  ethical  system,  he  betrays  his  utter  want 
of  moral  sensibility  by  the  coarse  arid  odious 
form  in  which  he  has  presented  the  first  of 
these  great  principles ;  and  his  view  of  both 
leads  him  most  strongly  to  support  that  com 
mon  and  pernicious  error  of  moral  reasoners, 
that  a  perception  of  the  tendency  of  good 
actions  to  preserve  the  being  and  promote 
the  well-being  of  the  community,  and  a  sense 
of   the  dependence  of  our  own  happiness 
upon  the  general  security,  either  are  essen 
tial  constituents  of  our  moral  feelings,  or  are 
ordinarily  mingled  with  the  most  effectual 
motives  to  right  conduct. 

The  court  of  Charles  II.  were  equally 
pleased  with  Hobbes'  poignant  brevity,  and 
his  low  estimate  of  human  motives.  His 
othical  epigrams  became  the  current  coin  of 

*  Which  he  calls  the  "  pulchrum,"  for  want,  as 
he  says,  of  an  English  word  to  express  it. — Levia 
than,  part,  i.  c.  vi. 


profligate  wits.  Sheffield,  Duke  of  Buck 
inghamshire,  who  represented  the  class  still 
more  perfectly  in  his  morals  than  in  his  fa 
culties,  has  expressed  their  opinion  in  verses, 
of  which  one  line  is  good  enough  to  be 
quoted  : 

"  Fame  bears  no  fruit  till  the  vain  planter  dies." 

Dryden  speaks  of  the  "philosopher  and  poet 
(for  such  is  the  condescending  term  employ 
ed)  of  Malmesbury,"  as  resembling  Lucre 
tius  in  haughtiness.  But  Lucretius,  though 
he  held  many  of  the  opinions  of  Hobbes, 
had  the  sensibility  as  well  as  genius  of  a 
poet.  His  dogmatism  is  full  of  enthusiasm ; 
and  his  philosophical  theory  of  society  dis 
covers  occasionally  as  much  tenderness  as 
can  be  shown  without  reference  to  indivi 
duals.  He  was  a  Hobbist  in  only  half  his 
nature. 

The  moral  and  political  system  of  Hobbes 
was  a  palace  of  ice.  transparent,  exactly 
proportioned,  majestic,  admired  by  the  un 
wary  as  a  delightful  dwelling;  but  gradually 
undermined  by  the  central  warmth  of  human 
feeling,  before  it  was  thawed  into  muddy 
water  by  the  sunshine  of  true  Philosophy. 

When  Leibnitz,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  reviewed  the  moral  wri 
ters  of  modern  times,  his  penetrating  eye 
saw  only  two  who  were  capable  of  reducing 
Morals  and  Jurisprudence  to  a  science.  "So 
great  an  enterprise,"  says  he.  "  might  have 
been  executed  by  the  deep-searching  genius 
of  Hobbes,  if  he  had  not  set  out  from  evil 
principles;  or  by  the  judgment  and  learning 
of  the  incomparable  Grotius,  if  his  powers 
had  not  been  scattered  over  many  subjects, 
and  his  mind  distracted  by  the  cares  of  an 
agitated  life."*  Perhaps  in  this  estimate, 
admiration  of  the  various  and  excellent  quali 
ties  of  Grotius  may  have  overrated  his  purely 
philosophical  powers,  great  as  they  unques 
tionably  were.  Certainly  the  failure  of 
Hobbes  was  owing  to  no  inferiority  in  strength 
of  intellect.  Probably  his  fundamental  er 
rors  may  be  imputed,  in  part,  to  the  faintness 
of  his  moral  sensibilities,  insufficient  to  make 
him  familiar  with  those  sentiments  and  affec 
tions  which  can  be  known  only  by  being 
felt; — a  faintness  perfectly  compatible  with 
his  irreproachable  life,  but  which  obstructed, 
and  at  last  obliterated,  the  only  channel 
through  which  the  most  important  materials 
of  ethical  science  enter  into  the  mind. 

Against  Hobbes,  says  Warburton.  the 
whole  Church  militant  took  up  arms.  The 
answers  to  the  Leviathan  would  form  a 
library.  But  the  far  greater  part  would  have 
followed  the  fate  of  all  controversial  pamph 
lets.  Sir  Robert  Filmer  was  jealous  of  any 
rival  theory  of  servitude  :  Harrington  defend 
ed  Liberty,  and  Clarendon  the  Church,  against 

*  "  Et  tale  aliquid  potuisset,  vel  ab  incompara- 
bilis    Grotii  judicio  et  doctrina,  vel  a  profundo 
Hobbii  ingenio  praestari ;  nisi  ilium  multa  distrax- 
issent;  hie  vero  prava  constituisset  principia," 
Leib.  Op.  iv.  pars.  iii.  276. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         117 


a  common  enemy.  His  philosophical  antago 
nists  were,  Cumberland,  Cudworth,  Shaftes- 
bury,  Clarke,  Butler,  and  Hutcheson.  Though 
the  last  four  writers  cannot  be  considered  as 
properly  polemics,  their  labours  were  excited, 
and  their  doctrines  modified,  by  the  stroke 
from  a  vigorous  arm  which  seemed  to  shake 
Ethics  to  its  foundation.  They  lead  us  far 
into  the  eighteenth  century ;  and  their  works, 
occasioned  by  the  doctrines  of  Hobbes, 
sowed  the  seed  of  the  ethical  writings  of 
Hume,  Smith,  Price,  Kant,  and  Stewart;  in 
a  less  degree,  also,  of  those  of  Tucker  and 
Paley : — not  to  mention  Mandeville,  the  buf 
foon  and  sophister  of  the  alehouse,  or  Hel- 
vetius,  an  ingenious  but  flimsy  writer,  the 
low  and  loose  Moralist  of  the  vain;  the  sel 
fish,  and  the  sensual. 


SECTION  V. 

CONTROVERSIES    CONCERNING   THE   MORAL   FA 
CULTIES  AND  THE  SOCIAL  AFFECTIONS. 

CUMBERLAND  —  CUDWORTH  —  CLARKE SHAFTES- 

BURY — BOSSUET — FENELON — LEIBNITZ — MALE- 
BRANCIIE — EDWARDS — BUFFIER. 

DR.  RICHARD  CUMBERLAND,*  raised  to  the 
See  of  Peterborough  after  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  was  the  only  professed  answerer  of 
Hobbes.  His  work  On  the  Laws  of  Nature 
still  retains  a  place  on  the  shelf,  though  not 
often  on  the  desk.  The  philosophical  epi 
grams  of  Hobbes  form  a  contrast  to  the  ver 
bose,  prolix,  and  languid  diction  of  his  an 
swerer.  The  forms  of  scholastic  argument 
serve  more  to  encumber  his  style,  than  to 
insure  his  exactness.  But  he  has  substantial 
merits.  He  justly  observes,  that  all  men 
can  only  be  said  to  have  had  originally  a  right 
to  all  things,  in  a  sense  in  which  "right"  has 
the  same  meaning  with  "  power."  He  shows 
that  Hobbes  is  at  variance  with  himself,  inas 
much  as  the  dictates  of  Right  Reason,  which, 
by  his  own  statement,  teach  men  for  their 
own  safety  to  forego  the  exercise  of  that 
right,  and  which  he  calls  "laws  of  Nature," 
are  coeval  with  it ;  and  that,  mankind  per 
ceive  the  moral  limits  of  their  power  as  clear 
ly  and  as  soon  as  they  are  conscious  of  its 
existence.  He  enlarges  the  intimations  of 
Grotius  on  the  social  feelings,  which  prompt 
men  to  the  pleasures  of  pacific  intercourse,  as 
certainly  as  the  apprehension  of  danger  and 
of  destruction  urges  them  to  avoid  hostility. 
The  fundamental  principle  of  his  system  of 
Ethics  is,  that  '•  the  greatest  benevolence  of 
every  rational  agent  to  all  others  is  the  hap 
piest  state  of  each  individual,  as  well  as  of 
the  whole. "t  The  happiness  accruing  to 
each  man  from  the  observance  and  cultiva 
tion  of  benevolence,  he  considers  as  appended 
to  it  by  the  Supreme  Ruler ;  through  which 

*  Born,  1632;  died,  1718. 

t  De  Leg.  Nat.  chap.  i.  $  12,  first  published  in 
London,  1672,  and  then  so  popular  as  to  be  re 
printed  at  Lubeck  in  1683. 


He  sanctions  it  as  His  law,  and  reveals  it 
to  the  mind  of  every  reasonable  creature. 
From  this  principle  he  deduces  the  rules  of 
Morality,  which  he  calls  the  "laws  of  Na 
ture."  The  surest,  or  rather  the  only  mark 
that  they  are  the  commandments  of  God,  is, 
that  their  observance  promotes  the  happiness 
of  man  :  for  that  reason  alone  could  they  be 
imposed  by  that  Being  whose  essence  is 
Love.  As  our  moral  faculties  must  to  us  be 
the  measure  of  all  moral  excellence,  he  in 
fers  that  the  moral  attributes  of  the  Divinity 
must  in  their  nature  be  only  a  transcendent 
degree  of  those  qualities  which  we  most  ap 
prove,  love,  and  revere,  in  those  moral  agents 
with  whom  we  are  familiar.*  He  had  a  mo 
mentary  glimpse  of  the  possibility  that  some 
human  actions  might  be  performed  with  a 
view  to  the  happiness  of  others,  without  any 
consideration  of  the  pleasure  reflected  back 
on  ourselves. j  But  it  is  too  faint  and  tran 
sient  to  be  worthy  of  observation,  otherwise 
than  as  a  new  proof  how  often  great  truths 
must  flit  before  the  Understanding,  •  before 
they  can  be  firmly  and  finally  held  in  its  grasp. 
His  only  attempt  to  explain  the  nature  of  the 
Moral  Faculty,  is  the  substitution  of  Practi 
cal  Reason  (a  phrase  of  the  Schoolmen,  since 
become  celebrated  from  its  renewal  by  Kant) 
for  Right  Reason:?  and  his  definition  of  the 
first,  as  that  which  points  out  the  ends  and 
means  of  action.  Throughout  his  whole 
reasoning,  he  adheres  to  the  accustomed 
confusion  of  the  equality  which  renders  ac 
tions  virtuous,  with  the  sentiments  excited 
in  us  by  the  contemplation  of  them.  His 
language  on  the  identity  of  general  and  indi 
vidual  interest  is  extremely  vague ;  though 
it  be,  as  he  says,  the  foundation-stone  of  the 
Temple  of  Concord  among  men. 

It  is  little  wonderful  that  Cumberland 
should  not  have  disembroiled  this  ancient 
and  established  confusion,  since  Leibnitz 
himself,  in  a  passage  where  he  reviews  the 
theories  of  Morals  which  had  gone  before 
him,  has  done  his  utmost  to  perpetuate  it. 
"It  is  a  question/'  says  the  latter,  "whether 
the  preservation  of  human  society  be  the  first 
principle  of  the  law  of  Nature.  This  our 
author  denies,  in  opposition  to  GTotius,  who 
laid  down  sociability  to  be  so ; — to  Hobbes, 
who  ascribed  that  character  to  mutual  fear ; 
and  to  Cumberland,  who  held  that  it  was 
mutual  benevolence  ;  which  are  all  three 
only  different  names  for  the  safety  and  wel- 


*  Ibid.  cap.  v.  $  19.  .t  Ibid.  cap.  ii.  $  20. 

t  "  Whoever  determines  his  Judgment  and  his 
Will  by  Right  Reason,  must  agree  with  all  others 
who  judge  according  to  Right  Reason  in  the  same 
matter." — Ibid.  cap.  ii.  §  8.  This  is  in  one  sense 
only  a  particular  instance  of  the  identical  propo 
sition,  that  two  things  which  agree  with  a  third 
thing  must  agree  with  each  other  in  that,  in  which 
they  agree  with  the  third.  But  the  difficulty  en 
tirely  consists  in  the  particular  third  thing  here  in 
trpduced,  namely,  "Right  Reason,"  the  nature 
of  which  not  one  step  is  made  to  explain.  The 
position  is  curious,  as  coinciding  with  "the  uni 
versal  categorical  imperative,"  adopted  as  a  first 
principle  by  Kant. 


118 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


fare  of  society."*  Here  the  great  philoso 
pher  considered  benevolence  or  fear,  two 
feelings  of  the  human  mind,  to  be  the  first 
principles  of  the  law  of  Nature,  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  the  tendency  of  certain  ac 
tions  to  the  well-being  of  the  community 
may  be  so  regarded.  The  confusion,  how 
ever,  was  then  common  to  him  with  many, 
as  it  even  now  is  with  most.  The  compre 
hensive  view  was  his  own.  He  perceived 
the  close  resemblance  of  these  various,  and 
even  conflicting  opinions,  in  that  important 
point  of  view  in  which  they  relate  to  the 
effects  of  moral  and  immoral  actions  on  the 
general  interest.  The  tendency  of  Virtue  to 
preserve  amicable  intercourse  was  enforced 
by  Grotius;  its  tendency  to  prevent  injury 
•was  dwelt  on  by  Hobbes ;  its  tendency  to 
promote  an  interchange  of  benefits  was  in 
culcated  by  Cumberland. 

CUDWORTH.t 

Cud  worth,  one  of  the  eminent  men  educa 
ted  or  promoted  in  the  English  Universities 
during  the  Puritan  rule,  was  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  of  the  Latitudinarian,  or  Ar- 
minian,  party  who  carne  forth  at  the  Resto 
ration,  with  a  love  of  Liberty  imbibed  from 
their  Calvinistic  masters,  as  well  as  from  the 
writings  of  antiquity,  yet  tempered  by  the 
experience  of  their  own  agitated  age ;  and 
with  a  spirit  of  religious  toleration  more  im 
partial  and  mature,  though  less  systematic 
and  professedly  comprehensive,  than  that  of 
the  Independents,  the  first  sect  who  preached 
that  doctrine.  Taught  by  the  errors  of  their 
time,  they  considered  Religion  as  consisting, 
not  in  vain  efforts  to  explain  unsearchable 
mysteries,  but  in  purity  of  heart  exalted  by 
pious  feelings,  manifested  by  virtuous  con 
duct,  t  The  government  of  the  Church  was 
placed  in  their  hands  by  the  Revolution,  and 
their  influence  was  long  felt  among  its  rulers 
and  luminaries.  The  first  generation  of  their 
scholars  turned  their  attention  too  much  from 
the  cultivation  of  the  heart  to  the  mere  go 
vernment  of  outward  action  :  and  in  succeed 
ing  times  the  tolerant  spirit,  not  natural  to  an 

*  Leib.  Op.  pars.  iii.  271.  The  unnamed  work 
which  occasioned  these  remarks  (perhaps  one  of 
Thomasius)  appeared  in  1699.  How  long  after 
this  Leibnitz's  Dissertation  was  written,  does  not 
appear. 

t  Born  1617;  died,  1688. 

t  See  the  the  beautiful  account  of  them  by  Bur- 
net,  (Hist,  of  His  own  Time,  i.  321.  Oxford,  1823) 
who  was  himself  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
this  excellent  body  ;  with  whom  may  be  classed, 
notwithstanding  some  shades  of  doctrinal  differ 
ence,  his  early  master,  Leighton,  Bishop  of  Dun 
blane,  a  beautiful  writer,  and  one  of  the  best  of 
men.  The  earliest  account  of  them  is  in  a  curious 
contemporary  pamphlet,  entitled,  "  An  Account 
of  the  new  Sect  of  Latitude-men  at  Cambridge," 
republished  in  the  collection  of  tracts,  entitled 
"  Phcenix  Britannicus."  Jeremy  Taylor  deserves 
the  highest,  and  perhaps  the  earliest  place  among 
them:  but  Cudworth's  excellent  sermon  before 
the  House  of  Commons  (31st  March  1647)  in  the 
year  of  the  publication  of  Taylor's  Liberty  of  Pro 
phesying,  may  be  compared  even  to  Taylor  in 
charity,  piety,  and  the  most  liberal  toleration. 


establishment,  was  with  difficulty  kept  up 
by  a  government  whose  existence  depended 
on  discouraging  intolerant  pretensions.  No 
sooner  had  the  first  sketch  of  the  Hobbian 
philosophy*  been  privately  circulated  at 
Paris,  than  Cudworth  seized  the  earliest 
opportunity  of  sounding  the  alarm  against 
the  most  justly  odious  of  the  modes  of  think 
ing  which  it  cultivates,  or  forms  of  expression 
which  it  would  introduce  ;t — the  prelude  to 
a  war  which  occupied  the  remaining  forty 
years  of  his  life.  The  Intellectual  System, 
his  great  production,  is  directed  against  the 
atheistical  opinions  of  Hobbes :  it  touches 
ethical  questions  but  occasionally  and  inci 
dentally.  It  is  a  work  of  stupendous  erudi 
tion,  of  much  more  acuteriess  than  at  first 
appears,  of  frequent  mastery  over  diction 
and  illustration  on  subjects  where  it  is  most 
rare  ;  and  it  is  distinguished,  perhaps  beyond 
any  other  volume  of  controversy,  by  that 
best  proof  of  the  deepest  conviction  of  the 
truth  of  a  man's  principles,  a  fearless  state 
ment  of  the  most  formidable  objections  to 
them; — a  fairness  rarely  practised  but  by 
him  who  is  conscious  of  his  power  to  answer 
them.  In  all  his  writings,  it  must  be  own 
ed,  that  his  learning  obscures  his  reasonings, 
and  seems  even  to  repress  his  powerful  in 
tellect.  It  is  an  unfortunate  effect  of  the 
redundant  fulness  of  his  mind,  that  it  over 
flows  in  endless  digressions,  which  break 
the  chain  of  argument,  and  turn  aside  the 
thoughts  of  the  reader  from  the  main  object. 
He  was  educated  before  usage  had  limited 
the  naturalization  of  new  words  from  the 
learned  languages :  before  the  failure  of  those 
great  men,  from  Bacon  to  Milton,  who  labour 
ed  to  follow  a  Latin  order  in  their  sentences, 
and  the  success  of  those  men  of  inferior 
powers,  from  Cowley  to  Addison,  who  were 
content  with  the  order,  as  well  as  the  words, 
of  pure  and  elegant  conversation,  had,  as  it 
were,  by  a  double  series  of  experiments, 
ascertained  that  the  involutions  and  inver 
sions  of  the  ancient  languages  are  seldom 
reconcilable  with  the  genius  of  ours;  and 
that  they  are,  unless  skilfully,  as  well  as 
sparingly  introduced,  at  variance  with  the 
natural  beauties  of  our  prose  composition. 
His  mind  was  more  that  of  an  ancient  than 
of  a  modern  philosopher.  He  often  indulged 
in  that  sort  of  amalgamation  of  fancy  with 
speculation,  the  delight  of  the  Alexandrian 
doctors,  with  whom  he  was  most  familiarly 
conversant;  and  the  Intellectual  System, 
both  in  thought  and  expression,  has  an  old 
and  foreign  air,  not  unlike  a  translation  from 
the  work  of  a  later  Platonist.  Large  ethical 
works  of  this  eminent  writer  are  extant  in 
manuscript  in  the  British  Museum.!  One 

*  De  Give,  1648. 

t  "  Dantur  boni  et  mali  rationes  aeterna?  et  in- 
dispensabiles."  Thesis  for  the  degree  of  B.  D.  at 
Cambridge  in  1664. — Birch's  Life  of  Cudworth, 
prefixed  to  his  edition  of  the  Intellectual  System, 
(Lond.  1743.)  i.  7. 

t  A  curious  account  of  the  history  of  these  MSS. 
by  Dr.  Kippis,  is  to  be  found  in  the  Biographia 
Britannica,  iv.  549. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


119 


rthumous  volume  on  Morals  was  published 
Dr.  Chandler,  Bishop  of  Durham,  entitled 
t(  A  Treatise  concerning  Eternal  and  Immut 
able  Morality."*  But  there  is  the  more  rea 
son  to  regret  (as  far  as  relates  to  the  history 
of  Opinion)  that  the  larger  treatises  are  still 
unpublished,  because  the  above  volume  is 
not  so  much  an  ethical  treatise  as  an  intro 
duction  to  one.  Protagoras  of  old,  and  Hob- 
bes  then  alive,  having  concluded  that  Right 
and  Wrong  were  unreal,  because  they  were 
not  perceived  by  the  senses,  and  because  all 
human  knowledge  consists  only  in  such  per 
ception,  Cudworth  endeavours  to  refute  them, 
by  disproving  that  part  of  their  premises 
which  forms  the  last-stated  proposition.  The 
mind  has  many  conceptions  (poq/iofct)  \vhich 
are  not  cognizable  by  the  senses ;  and  though 
they  are  occasioned  by  sensible  objects,  yet 
they  cannot  be  formed  but  by  a  faculty  su 
perior  to  sense.  The  conceptions  of  Justice 
and  Duty  he  places  among  them.  The  dis 
tinction  of  Right  from  Wrong  is  discerned  by 
Reason ;  and  as  soon  as  these  words  are  de 
fined,  it  becomes  evident  that  it  would  be  a 
contradiction  in  terms  to  affirm  that  any 
power,  human  or  Divine,  could  change  their 
nature ;  or,  in  other  words,  make  the  same 
act  to  be  just  and  unjust  at  the  same  time. 
They  have  existed  eternally  in  the  only  mode 
in  which  truths  can  be  said  to  be  eternal,  in 
the  Eternal  Mind  ;  and  they  are  indestructi 
ble  and  unchangeable  like  that  Supreme  In 
telligence.!  Whatever  judgment  may  be 
formed  of  this  reasoning,  it  is  manifest  that 
it  relates  merely  to  the  philosophy  of  the 
Understanding,  and  does  not  attempt  any 
explanation  of  What  constitutes  the  very 
essence  of  Morality. — its  relation  to  the  Will. 
That  we  perceive  a  distinction  between 
Right  and  Wrong,  as  much  as  between  a  tri 
angle  and  a  square,  is  indeed  true  ;  and  may 
possibly  lead  to  an  explanation  of  the  reason 
why  men  should  adhere  to  the  one  and  avoid 
the  other.  But  it  is  not  that  reason.  A 
command  or  a  precept  is  not  a  proposition  : 
it  cannot  be  said  that  either  is  true  or  false. 
Cudworth,  as  well  as  many  who  succeeded 
him,  confounded  the  mere  apprehension  by 
the  Understanding  that  Right  is  different 
from  Wrong,  with  the  practical  authority  of 
these  important  conceptions,  exercised  over 
voluntary  actions,  in  a  totally  distinct  pro 
vince  of  the  human  soul. 

*  8vo.  Lond.  1731. 

t  "  There  are  many  objects  of  our  mind  which 
we  can  neither  see,  hear,  feel,  smell,  nor  taste, 
and  which  did  never  enter  into  it  by  any  sense  ; 
and  therefore  we  can  have  no  sensible  pictures  or 
ideas  of  them,  drawn  by  the  pencil  of  that  inward 
limner,  or  painter,  which  borrows  all  his  colours 
from  sense,  which  we  call  '  Fancy :'  and  if  we 
reflect  on  our  own  cogitations  of  these  things,  we 
ehall  sensibly  perceive  that  they  are  not  phantasti- 
cal,  but  noematical:  as,  for  example,  justice,  equi 
ty,  duty  and  obligation,  cogitation,  opinion,  intel 
lection,  volition,  memory,  verity,  falsity,  cause, 
effect,  genus,  species,  nullity,  contingency,  pos 
sibility,  impossibility,  and  innumerable  others." 
— Ibid.  140.  We  have  here  an  anticipation  of 
Kant. 


Though  his  life  was  devoted  to  the  asser 
tion  of  Divine  Providence,  and  though  his 
philosophy  was  imbued  with  the  religious 
spirit  of  Platonism,*  yet  he  had  placed  Chris 
tianity  too  purely  in  the  love  of  God  and 
Man  to  be  considered  as  having  much  regard 
for  those  controversies  about  rights  and  opi 
nions  with  which  zealots  disturb  the  world. 
They  represented  him  as  having  fallen  into 
the  same  heresy  with  Milton  and  with 
Clarke  ;t  and  some  of  them  even  charged 
him  with  atheism,  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  he  was  not  afraid  to  state  the  atheistic 
difficulties  in  their  fullest  force.  As  blind 
anger  heaps  inconsistent  accusations  on  each 
other,  they  called  him  at  least  "  an  Arian,  a 
Socinian,  or  a  Deist. "t  The  courtiers  of 
Charles  II.,  who  were  delighted  with  every 
part  of  Hobbes  but  his  integrity,  did  their 
utmost  to  decry  his  antagonist.  They  turned 
the  railing  of  the  bigots  into  a  sarcasm 
against  Religion  ;  as  we  learn  from  him  who 
represented  them  with  unfortunate  fidelity. 
"He  has  raised,"  saysDryden,  "  such  strong; 
objections  against  the  being  of  God,  that 
many  think  he  has  not  answered  them  ;" — 
"  the  common  fate,"  as  Lord  Shaftesbury  tells 
us,  "  of  those  who  dare  to  appear  fair  au 
thors."^  He  had,  indeed,  earned  the  hatred 
of  some  theologians,  better  than  they  could 
know  from  the  writings  published  during  his 
life  ;  for  in  his  posthumous  work  he  classes 
with  the  ancient  atheists  those  of  his  con 
temporaries,  (whom  he  forbears  to  name,) 
who  held  "  that  God  may  command  what  is 
contrary  to  moral  rules ;  that  He  has  no  in 
clination  to  the  good  of  His  creatures ;  that 
He  may  justly  doom  an  innocent  being  to 
eternal  torments;  and  that  whatever  God 
does  will,  for  that  reason  is  just;  because  He 
wills  it."|| 

It  is  an  interesting  incident  in  the  life  of  a 
philosopher,  that  Cudworth's  daughter,  Lady 
Masham,  had  the  honour  to  nurse  the  in 
firmities  and  to  watch  the  last  breath  of  Mr. 
Locke,  who  was  opposed  to  her  father  in 
speculative  philosophy,  but  who  heartily 


£u. — (Motto  affixed  to  the  sermon  above  mention 
ed.) 

t  The  following  doctrine  is  ascribed  to  Cud- 
worth  by  Nelson^  a  man  of  good  understanding 
and  great  worth  :  "  Dr.  Cudworth  maintained  that 
the  Father,  absolutely  speaking,  is  the  only  Su 
preme  God  ;  the  Son  and  Spirit  being  God  only 
by  his  concurrence  with  them,  and  their  subordi 
nation  and  subjection  to  him." — Life  of  Bull,  339. 

t  Turner's  discourse  on  the  Messiah,  335. 

§  Moralists,  part  ii.  §  3.  . 

II  Etern.  and  Immut.  Mor.  11.  He  quotes  Ock- 
ham  as  having  formerly  maintained  the  same  mon 
strous  positions.  To  many,  if  not  to  most  of  these 
opinions  or  expressions,  ancient  and  modern,  re 
servations  are  adjoined,  which  render  them  literally 
reconcilable  with  practical  Morals.  But  the  dan 
gerous  abuse  to  which  the  incautious  language  of 
ethical  theories  is  liable,  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
anecdote  related  in  Plutarch's  Life  of  Alexander, 
of  the  sycophant  Anaxarchas  consoling  that  mon 
arch  for  the  murder  of  Clitus,  by  assuring  him  that 
every  act  of  a  ruler  must  be  just.  Tlav  TO 
8sv  VTTO  vov  KfATovvrof  fixsuov. — Op.  i.  639. 


120 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


agreed  with  him  in  the  love  of  Truth,  Li 
berty,  and  Virtue. 

CLARKE.* 

Connected  with  Cudworth  by  principle, 
though  separated  by  some  interval  of  time, 
was  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke,  a  man  eminent  at 
once  as  a  divine,  a  mathematician,  a  meta 
physical  philosopher,  and  a  philologer;  who, 
as  the  interpreter  of  Homer  and  Caesar,  the 
scholar  of  Newton,  and  the  antagonist  of 
Leibnitz,  approved  himself  not  unworthy  of 
correspondence  with  the  highest  order  of 
human  Spirits.  Roused  by  the  prevalence 
of  the  doctrines  of  Spinoza  and  Hobbes,  he 
endeavoured  to  demonstrate  the  Being  and 
Attributes  of  God,  from  a  few  axioms  and 
definitions,  in  the  manner  of  Geometry.  In 
this  attempt,  with  all  his  powers  of  argu 
ment,  it  must  be  owned  that  he  is  compelled 
sometimes  tacitly  to  assume  what  the  laws 
of  reasoning  required  him  to  prove  ;  and  that, 
on  the  whole,  his  failure  may  be  regarded  as 
a  proof  that  such  a  mode  of  argument  is  be 
yond  the  faculties  of  man. t  Justly  consider 
ing  the  Moral  Attributes  of  the  Deity  as 
what  alone  render  him  the  object  of  Reli 
gion,  and  to  us  constitutes  the  difference  be 
tween  Theism  and  atheism,  he  laboured 
with  the  utmost  zeal  to  place  the  distinc 
tions  of  Right  and  Wrong  on  a  more  solid 
foundation,  and  to  explain  the  conformity  of 
Morality  to  Reason,  in  a  manner  calculated 
to  give  a  precise  and  scientific  signification 
to  that  phraseology  which  all  philosophers 
had,  for  so  many  ages,  been  content  to  em 
ploy,  without  thinking  themselves  obliged  to 
define. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  rarely  successful  ef 
forts  of  the  human  mind,  to  place  me  under 
standing  at  the  point  from  which  a  philoso 
pher  takes  the  views  that  compose  his  sys 
tem.,  to  recollect  constantly  his  purposes,  to 
adopt  for  a  moment  his  previous  opinions  arid 
prepossessions,  to  think  in  his  words  and  to 
see  with  his  eyes; — especially  when  the  wri 
ter  widely  dissents  from  the  system  which 
he  attempts  to  describe,  and  after  a  general 
change  in  the  modes  of  thinking  and  in  the 
use  of  terms.  Every  part  of  the  present  Dis 
sertation  requires  such  an  excuse ;  but  per 
haps  it  may  be  more  necessary  in  a  case  like 
that  of  Clarke,  where  the  alterations  in  both 
respects  have  been  so  insensible,  and  in 
some  respects  appear  so  limited,  that  they 
may  escape  attention,  than  after  those  total 


*  Born,  1675;  died*  1729. 

t  This  admirable  person  had  so  much  candour 
as  in  effect  to  own  his  failure,  and  to  recur  to 
those  other  arguments  in  support  of  this  great 
truth,  which  have  in  all  ages  satisfied  the  most 
elevated  minds.  In  Proposition  viii.  (Being  and 
Attributes  of  God,  47.)  which  affirms  that  the  first 
cause  must  be  "  intelligent"  (wherein,  as  he  truly 
states,  "  lies  the  main  question  between  us  and 
the  atheists"),  he  owns,  that  the  proposition  can 
not  be  demonstrated  strictly  and  properly  a  priori. 
—See  Note  M. 


revolutions  in  doctrine,  where  the  necessity 
of  not  measuring  other  times  by  our  own 
standard  must  be  apparent  to  the  most  un- 
distinguishing. 

The  sum  of  his  moral  doctrine  may  be 
stated  as  follows.  Man  can  conceive  nothing 
without  at  the  same  time  conceiving  its  re 
lations  to  other  things.  He  must  ascribe  the 
same  law  of  perception  to  every  being  to 
whom  he  ascribes  thought.  He  cannot  there 
fore  doubt  that  all  the  relations  of  all  things 
to  all  must  have  always  been  present  to  the 
Eternal  Mind.  The  relations  in  this  sense 
are  eternal,  however  recent  the  things  may 
be  between  whom  they  subsist.  The  whole 
of  these  relations  constitute  Truth:  the 
knowledge  of  them  is  Omniscience.  These 
eternal  different  relations  of  things  involve  a 
consequent  eternal  fitness  or  unfitness  in  the 
application  of  things,  one  to  another ;  with  a 
regard  to  which,  the  will  of  God  always 
chooses,  and  which  ought  likewise  to  deter 
mine  the  wills  of  all  subordinate  rational 
beings.  These  eternal  differences  make  it 
fit  and  reasonable  for  the  creatures  so  to  act ; 
they  cause  it  to  be  their  duty,  or  lay  an  obli 
gation  on  them  so  to  do,  separate  from  the 
will  of  God.*  and  antecedent  to  any  pros 
pect  of  advantage  or  reward.!  Nay,  wilful 
wickedness  is  the  same  absurdity  and  inso 
lence  in  Morals,  as  it  would  be  in  natural 
things  to  pretend  to  alter  the  relations  of 
numbers,  or  to  take  away  the  properties  of 
mathematical  figures.!  "Morality,"  says 
one  of  his  most  ingenious  scholars,  "  is  the 
practice  of  reason. "§ 

Clarke,  like  Cudworth,  considered  such  a 
scheme  as  the  only  security  against  Hobb- 
ism,  and  probably  also  against  the  Calvinistic 
theology,  from  which  they  were  almost  as 
averse.  Not  content,  with  Cumberland,  to 
attack  Hobbes  on  ground  which  was  in  part 
his  own,  they  thought  it  necessary  to  build  on 
entirely  new  foundations.  Clarke  more  espe 
cially,  instead  of  substituting  social  and  ge 
nerous  feeling  for  the  selfish  appetites,  en 
deavoured  to  bestow  on  Morality  the  highest 
dignity,  by  thus  deriving  it  from  Reason.  He 
made  it  more  than  disinterested ;  for  he 
placed  its  seat  in  a  region  where  interest 
never  enters,  and  passion  never  disturbs, 
By  ranking  her  principles  with  the  first 
truths  of  Science,  he  seemed  to  render  them 
pure  and  impartial,  infallible  and  unchange 
able.  It  might  be  excusable  to  regret  the 
failure  of  so  noble  an  attempt,  if  the  indul 
gence  of  such  regrets  did  not  betray  an  un 
worthy  apprehension  that  the  same  excellent 
ends  could  only  be  attained  by  such  frail 

*  "  Those  who  found  all  moral  obligation  an 
the  will  of  God  must  recur  to  the  same  thing, 
only  they  do  not  explain  how  the  nature  and  will 
of  God  is  good  and  just." — Being  and  Attributes 
of  God,  Proposition  xii. 

t  Evidence  of  Natural  and  Revealed  Religion, 
p.  4.  Lond.  1724. 

I  Ibid.  p.  42. 

§  Lowman  on  the  Unity  and  Perfections  of 
God,  p.  29.  Lond.  1737. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         121 


means;  and  that  the  dictates  of  the  most 
severe  reason  would  not  finally  prove  recon 
cilable  with  the  majesty  of  Virtue. 

REMARKS. 

The  adoption  of  mathematical  forms  and 
terras  was;  in  England,  a  prevalent  fashion 
among  writers  on  moral  subjects  during  a 
large  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
ambition  of  mathematical  certainty,  on  mat 
ters  concerning  which  it  is  not  given  to  man 
to  reach  it,  is  a  frailty  from  which  the  dis 
ciple  of  Newton  ought  in  reason  to  have 
been  withheld,  but  to  which  he  was  natu 
rally  tempted  by  the  example  of  his  master. 
Nothing  but  the  extreme  difficulty  of  de 
taching  assent  from  forms  of  expression  to 
which  it  has  been  long  wedded,  can  ex 
plain  the  fact,  that  the  incautious  expressions 
above  cited,  into  which  Clarke  was  hurried 
by  his  moral  sensibility,  did  not  awaken 
him  to  a  sense  of  the  error  into  which  he 
had  fallen.  As  soon  as  he  had  said  that  "a 
wicked  act  was  as  absurd  as  an  attempt  to 
take  away  the  properties  of  a  figure,"  he 
ought  to  have  seen  that  principles  which  led 
logically  to  such  a  conclusion  were  untrue. 
As  it  is  an  impossibility  to  make  three  and 
three  cease  to  be  six,  it  ought,  on  his  princi 
ples,  to  be  impossible  to  do  a  wicked  act.  To 
act  without  regard  to  the  relations  of  things, — 
as  if  a  man  were  to  choose  fire  for  cooling,  or 
ice  for  heating, — would  be  the  part  either 
of  a  lunatic  or  an  idiot.  The  murderer  who 
poisons  by  arsenic,  acts  agreeably  to  his 
knowledge  of  the  power  of  that  substance  to 
kill,  which  is  a  relation  between  two  things; 
as  much  as  the  physician  who  employs  an 
emetic  after  the  poison,  acts  upon  his  belief 
of  the  tendency  of  that  remedy  to  preserve 
life,  which  is  another  relation  between  two 
things.  All  men  who  seek  a  good  or  bad 
end  by  good  or  bad  means,  must  alike  con 
form  their  conduct  to  some  relation  between 
their  actions  as  means  and  their  object  as  an 
end.  All  the  relations  of  inanimate  things  to 
each  other  are  undoubtedly  observed  as  much 
by  the  criminal  as  by  the  man  of  virtue. 

It  is  therefore  singular  that  Dr.  Clarke  suf 
fered  himself  to  be  misled  into  the  repre 
sentation,  that  Virtue  is  a  conformity  with 
the  relations  of  things  universally,  Vice  a 
universal  disregard  of  them,  by  the  certain, 
but  here  insufficient  truth,  that  the  former 
necessarily  implied  a  regard  to  certain  par 
ticular  relations,  which  were  always  disre 
garded  by  those  who  chose  the  latter.  The 
distinction  between  Right  and  Wrong  can, 
therefore,  no  longer  depend  on  relations  as 
such,  but  on  a  particular  class  of  relations. 
And  it  seems  evident  that  no  relations  are  to 
be  considered,  except  those  in  which  a  liv 
ing,  intelligent,  and  voluntary  agent  is  one 
of  the  beings  related.  His  acts  may  relate 
to  a  law,  as  either  observing  or  infringing  it ; 
they  may  relate  to  his  own  moral  sentiments 
and  those  of  his  fellows,  as  they  are  the  ob 
jects  of  approbation  or  disapprobation;  they 
16 


may  relate  to  his  own  welfare,  by  increasing 
or  abating  it ;  they  may  relate  to  the  well- 
being  of  other  sentient  beings,  by  contribu 
ting  to  promote  or  obstruct  it :  but  in  all 
these,  and  in  all  supposable  cases,  the  in 
quiry  of  the  moral  philosopher  must  be,  not 
whether  there  be  a  relation,  but  what'  the 
relation  is ;  whether  it  be  that  of  obedience 
to  law,  or  agreeableness  to  moral  feeling,  or 
suitableness  to  prudence,  or  coincidence  with 
benevolence.  The  term  "relation"  itself,  on 
which  Dr.  Clarke's  system,  rests,  being  com 
mon  to  Right  and  Wrong,  must  be  struck  out 
of  the  reasoning.  He  himself  incidentally 
drops  intimations  which  are  at  variance  with, 
his  system.  "  The  Deity,"  he  tells  us,  "  acts 
according  to  the  eternal  relations  of  things, 
in  order  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  Uni 
verse;"  and  subordinate  moral  agents  ought 
to  be  governed  by  the  same  rules,  "  for  the 
good  of  the  public."*  No  one  can  fail  to  ob 
serve  that  a  new  element  is  here  introduced, 
— the  well-being  of  communities  of  men.  and 
the  general  happiness  of  the  world, — which 
supersedes  the  consideration  of  abstract  re 
lations  and  fitnesses. 

There  are  other  views  of  this  system^ 
however,  of  a  more  general  nature,  and  of 
much  more  importance,  because  they  ex 
tend  in  a  considerable  degree  to  all  systems 
which  found  moral  distinctions  or  sentiments, 
solely  or  ultimately,  upon  Reason.  A  little 
reflection  will  discover  an  extraordinary 
vacuity  in  this  system.  Supposing  it  were  al 
lowed  that  it  satisfactorily  accounts  for  mo 
ral  judgments,  there  is  still  an  important  part 
of  our  moral  sentiments  which  it  passes  by 
without  an  attempt  to  explain  them.  Whence, 
on  this  scheme,  the  pleasure  or  pain  with 
which  we  review  our  own  actions  or  survey 
those  of  others  ?  What  is  the  nature  of  re 
morse  ?  Why  do  we  feel  shame  ?  Whence 
is  indignation  against  injustice  ?  These  are 
surely  no  exercise  of  Reason.  Nor  is  the 
assent  of  Reason  to  any  other  class  of  propo 
sitions  followed  or  accompanied  by  emotions 
of  this  nature,  by  any  approaching  them,  or 
indeed  necessarily  by  any  emotion  at  alL 
It  is  a  fata]  objection  to  a  moral  theory  that 
it  contains  no  means  of  explaining  the  most 
conspicuous,  if  not  the  most  essential,  parts 
of  moral  approbation  and  disapprobation. 

But  to  rise  to  a  more  general  considera 
tion  :  Perception  and  Emotion  are  states  of 
mind  perfectly  distinct,  and  an  emotion  of 
pleasure  or  pain  differs  much  more  from  a 
mere  perception,  than  the  perceptions  of  one 
sense  dp  from  those  of  another.  The  per 
ceptions  of  all  the  senses  have  some  quali 
ties  in  common.  But  an  emotion  has  not 
necessarily  anything  in  common  with  a  per 
ception,  but  that  they  are  both  states  of 
mind.  We  perceive  exactly  the  same  quali 
ties  in  the  taste  of  coffee  when  we  may  dis 
like  it,  as  afterwards  when  we  come  to  like 
it.  In  other  words,  the  perception  remains 
the  same  when  the  sensation  of  pain  i« 

*  Evid.  of  Nat.  and  Rev.  Rel.  p.  4, 
L 


122 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


changed  into  the  opposite  sensation  of  plea 
sure.  The  like  change  may  occur  in  every 
case  where  pleasure  or  pain  (in  such  in 
stances  called  "sensations"),  enter  the  mind 
with  perceptions  through  the  eye  or  the  ear. 
The  prospect  or  the  sound  which  was  dis 
agreeable  may  become  agreeable,  without 
any  alteration  in  our  idea  of  the  objects. 
We  can  easily  imagine  a  percipient  and 
thinking  being  without  a  capacity  of  receiv 
ing  pleasure  or  pain.  Such  a  being  might 
perceive  what  we  do;  if  we  could  conceive 
nim  to  reason,  he  might  reason  justly;  and 
if  he  were  to  judge  at  all,  there  seems  no 
reason  why  he  should  not  judge  truly.  But 
what  could  induce  such  a  being  to  will  or  to 
oc£?  It  seems  evident  that  his  existence 
could  only  be  a  state  of  passive  contempla 
tion.  Reason,  as  Reason,  can  never  be  a 
motive  to  action.  It  is  only  when  we  super- 
add  to  such  a  being  sensibility,  or  the  ca 
pacity  of  emotion  or  sentiment,  or  (what  in 
corporeal  cases  is  called  sensation)  of  desire 
and  aversion,  that  we  introduce  him  into  the 
world  of  action.  We  then  clearly  discern 
that,  when  the  conclusion  of  a  process  of 
reasoning  presents  to  his  mind  an  object  of 
desire,  or  the  means  of  obtaining  it,  a  motive 
of  action  begins  to  operate,  and  Reason  may 
then,  but  not  till  then,  have  a  powerful 
though  indirect  influence  on  conduct.  Let 
any  argument  to  dissuade  a  man  from  im 
morality  be  employed,  and  the  issue  of  it 
will  always  appear  to  be  an  appeal  to  a  feel 
ing.  You  prove  that  drunkenness  will  pro 
bably  ruin  health:  no  position  founded  on 
experience  is  more  certain;  most  persons 
with  whom  you  reason  must  be  as  much 
convinced  of  it  as  you  are.  But  your  hope 
of  success  depends  on  the  drunkard's  fear 
of  ill  health;  arid  he  may  always  silence 
your  argument  by  telling  you  that  he  loves 
wine  more  than  he  dreads  sickness.  You 
speak  in  vain  of  the  infamy  of  an  act  to  one 
who  disregards  the  opinion  of  others,  or  of  its 
imprudence  to  a  man  of  little  feeling  for  his 
own  future  condition.  You  may  truly,  but 
vainly  tell  of  the  pleasures  of  friendship  to 
one  who  has  little  affection.  If  you  display 
the  delights  of  liberality  to  a  miser,  he  may 
always  shut  your  mouth  by  answering,  "The 
spendthrift  may  prefer  such  pleasures;  I 
love  money  more."  If  you  even  appeal  to 
a  man's  conscience,  he  may  answer  you  that 
you  have  clearly  proved  the  immorality  of 
the  act,  and  that  he  himself  knew  it  before; 
but  that  now  when  you  had  renewed  and 
freshened  his  conviction,  he  was  obliged  to 
own  that  his  love  of  Virtue,  even  aided  by 
the  fear  of  dishonour,  remorse,  and  punish"- 
ment,  was  not  so  powerful  as  the  desire 
which  hurried  him  into  vice. 

Nor  is  it  otherwise,  however  confusion  of 
ideas  may  cause  it  to  be  so  deemed,  with 
that  calm  regard  to  the  welfare  of  the  agent, 
to  which  philosophers  have  so  grossly  mis 
applied  the  hardly  intelligible  appellation  of 
f:  self-love."  The  general  tendency  of  right 
conduct  to  permanent  well-being  is  indeed 


one  of  the  most  evident  of  all  truths.  But 
the  success  of  persuasives  or  dissuasives  ad 
dressed  to  it,  must  always  be  directly  pro 
portioned,  not  to  the  clearness  with  which 
the  truth  is  discerned,  but  to  the  strength  of 
the  principle  addressed,  in  the  mind  of  the 
individual,  and  to  the  degree  in  which  he  is 
accustomed  to  keep  an  eye  on  its  dictates. 
A  strange  prejudice  prevails,  which  ascribes 
to  what  is  called  "  self-love"  an  invariable 
superiority  over  all  the  other  motives  of  hu 
man  action.  If  it  were  to  be  called  by  a 
more  fit  name,  such  as  "foresight,"  " pru 
dence,'  •  or,  what  seems  most  exactly  to  de 
scribe  its  nature,  "a  sympathy  with  the 
future  feelings  of  the  agent,"  it  would  ap 
pear  to  every  observer  to  be  one  very  often 
too  languid  and  inactive,  always  of  late  ap 
pearance,  and  sometimes  so  faint  as  to  be 
scarcely  perceptible.  Almost  every  human 
passion  in  its  turn  prevails  over  self-love. 

It  is  thus  apparent  that  the  influence  of 
Reason  on  the  Will  is  indirect,  and  arises 
only  from  its  being  one  of  the  channels  by 
which  the  objects  of  desire  or  aversion  are 
brought  near  to  these  springs  of  voluntary 
action.  It  is  only  one  of  these  channels. 
There  are  many  other  modes  of  presenting 
to  the  mind  the  proper  objects  of  the  emo 
tions  which  it  is  intended  to  excite,  whether 
of  a  calmer  or  of  a  more  active  nature  ;  so  that 
they  may  influence  conduct  more  powerfully 
than  when  they  reach  the  Will  through  the 
channel  of  conviction.  The  distinction  be 
tween  conviction  and  persuasion  would  in 
deed  be  otherwise  without  a  meaning;  to 
teach  the  mind  would  be  the  same  thing  as 
to  move  it ;  and  eloquence  would  be  nothing 
but  logic,  although  the  greater  part  of  the 
power  of  the  former  is  displayed  in  the  di 
rect  excitement  of  feeling; — on  condition, 
indeed  (for  reasons  foreign  to  our  present 
purpose),  that  the  orator  shall  never  appear 
to  give  counsel  inconsistent  with  the  duty  or 
the  lasting  welfare  of  those  whom  he  would 
persuade.  In  like  manner  it  is  to  be  ob 
served,  that  though  reasoning  be  one  of  the 
instruments  of  education,  yet  education  is 
not  a  process  of  reasoning,  but  a  wise  dis 
posal  of  all  the  circumstances  which  influ 
ence  character,  and  of  the  means  of  produ 
cing  those  habitual  dispositions  which  insure 
well-doing,  of  which  reasoning  is  but  one. 
Very  similar  observations  are  applicable  to 
the  great  arts  of  legislation  and  government; 
which  are  here  only  alluded  to  as  forming  a 
strong  illustration  of  the  present  argument. 

The  abused  extension  of  the  term  "  Reason" 
to  the  moral  faculties,  one  of  the  predomi 
nant  errors  of  ancient  and  modern  times,  has 
arisen  from  causes  which  it  is  not  difficult 
to  discover.  Reason  does  in  truth  perform 
a  great  part  in  every  case  of  moral  sentiment. 
To  Reason  often  belong  the  preliminaries  of 
the  act;  to  Reason  altogether  belongs  the 
choice  of  the  means  of  execution.  The  ope 
rations  of  Reason,  in  both  cases,  are  compara 
tively  slow  and  lasting;  they  are  capable  of 
being  distinctly  recalled  by  memory,  The 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


123 


emotion  which  intervenes  between  the  pre 
vious  and  the  succeeding  exertions  of  Reason 
is  often  faint,  generally  transient,  and  scarcely 
ever  capable  of  being  reproduced  by  an  effort 
of  the  mind.  Hence  the  name  of  Reason  is 
applied  to  this  mixed  state  of  mind ;  more 
especially  when  the  feeling,  being  of  a  cold 
and  general  nature,  and  scarcely  ruffling  the 
surface  of  the  soul, — such  as  that  of  prudence 
and  of  ordinary  kindness  and  propriety, — al 
most  passes  unnoticed,  and  is  irretrievably 
forgotten.  Hence  the  mind  is,  in  such  con 
ditions,  said  by  moralists  to  act  from  reason, 
in  contradistinction  to  its  more  excited  and 
disturbed  state,  when  it  is  said  to  act  from 
passion.  The  calmness  of  Reason  gives  to 
the  whole  compound  the  appearance  of  un 
mixed  reason.  The  illusion  is  further  pro 
moted  by  a  mode  of  expression  used  in  most 
languages.  A  man  is  said  to  act  reasonably, 
when  his  conduct  is  such  as  may  be  reason 
ably  expected.  Amidst  the  disorders  of  a 
vicious  mind,  it  is  difficult  to  form  a  reason 
able  conjecture  concerning  future  conduct; 
but  the  quiet  and  well-ordered  state  of  Virtue 
renders  the  probable  acts  of  her  fortunate  vo 
taries  the  object  of  very  rational  expectation. 
As  far  as  it  is  not  presumptuous  to  attempt 
a  distinction  between  modes  of  thinking  for 
eign  to  the  mind  which  makes  the  attempt, 
and  modes  of  expression  scarcely  translat 
able  into  the  only  technical  language  in 
which  that  mind  is  wont  to  think,  it  seems 
that  the  systems  of  Cud  worth  and  Clarke, 
though  they  appear  very  similar,  are  in 
reality  different  in  some  important  points  of 
view.  The  former,  a  Platoriist.  sets  out  from 
those  "Ideas"  (a  word,  in  this  acceptation 
of  it,  which  has  no  corresponding  term  in 
English),  the  eternal  models  of  created  things, 
which,  as  the  Athenian  master  taught,  pre 
existed  in  the  Everlasting  Intellect,  and.  of 
right,  rule  the  will  of  every  inferior  mind. 
The  illustrious  scholar  of  Newton,  with  a 
manner  of  thinking  more  natural  to  his  age 
and  school,  considered  primarily  the  very- 
relations  of  things  themselves; — conceived 
indeed  by  the  Eternal  Mind,  but  which,  if 
such  inadequate  language  may  be  pardoned, 
are  the  law  of  Its  will,  as  well  as  the  model 
of  Its  works.* 

EARL  OF  SHAFTESBURY.t 

Lord  Shaftesbury,  the  author  of  the  Cha 
racteristics,  was  the  grandson  of  Sir  Antony 


*  Mr.  Wollaston's  system,  that  morality  con 
sisted  in  acting  according  to  truth,  seems  to  coin 
cide  with  that  of  Dr.  Clarke.  The  murder  of 
Cicero  by  Popilius  Lenas,  was,  according  to  him, 
a  practical  falsehood;  for  Cicero  had  been  his 
benefactor,  and  Popilius  acted  as  if  that  were  un 
true.  If  the  truth  spoken  of  be  that  gratitude  is 
due  for  benefits,  the  reasoning  is  evidently  a  circle. 
If  any  truth  be  meant,  indifferently,  it  is  plain  that 
the  assassin  acted  in  perfect  conformity  to  several 
certain  truths  ;— such  as  the  malignity  of  Antony, 
the  ingratitude  and  venality  of  Popilius,  and  the 
probable  impunity  of  his  crime,  when  law  was 
suspended,  and  good  men  without  power. 

t  Born,  1671 ;  died,  1713. 


Ashley  Cooper,  created  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, 
one  of  the  master  spirits  of  the  English  na 
tion,  whose  vices,  the  bitter  fruits  of  the  in- 
secu,rity  of  a  troublous  time  succeeded  by 
the  corrupting  habits  of  an  inconstant,  venal, 
and  profligate  court,  have  led  an  ungrateful 
posterity  to  overlook  his  wisdom  and  disin 
terested  perseverance,  in  obtaining  for  his 
country  the  unspeakable  benefits  of  the 
Habeas  Corpus  act.  The  fortune  of  the 
Characteristics  has  been  singular.  For  a 
time  the  work  was  admired  more  undis- 
tinguishingly  than  its  literary  character  war 
rants.  In  the  succeeding  period  it  was  justly 
criticised,  but  too  severely  condemned.  Of 
late,  more  unjustly  than  in  either  of  the  for 
mer  cases,  it  has  been  generally  neglected. 
It  seemed  to  have  the  power  of  changing  the 
temper  of  its  critics.  It  provoked  the  ami 
able  Berkeley  to  a  harshness  equally  un 
wonted  and  unwarranted  •*  while  it  softened 
the  rugged  Warburton  so  far  as  to  dispose 
the  fierce,  yet  not  altogether  ungenerous, 
polemic  to  praise  an  enemy  in  the  very  heat 
of  conflict.! 

Leibnitz,  the  most  celebrated  of  Continental 
philosophers,  warmly  applauded  the  Charac 
teristics,  and,  (what  was  a  more  certain  proof, 
of  admiration)  though  at  an  advanced  age, 
criticised  that  work  minutely. t  Le  Clerc,  who 
had  assisted  the  studies  of  the  author,  contri 
buted  to  spread  its  reputation  by  his  Journal, 
then  the  most  popular  in  Europe.  Locke  is 
said  to  have  aided  in  his  education,  probably 
rather  by  counsel  than  by  tuition.  The  au 
thor  had  indeed  been  driven  from  the  regu 
lar  studies  of  his  country  by  the  insults  with 
which  he  was  loaded  at  Winchester  school, 
when  he  was  only  twelve  years  old,  imme 
diately  after  the  death  of  his  grandfather  ;§ — 


*  See  Minute  Philosopher,  Dialogue  iii.  ;  but 
especially  his  Theory  of  Vision  Vindicated,  Lond. 
1733  (not  republished  in  the  quarto  edition  of  his 
works),  where  this  most  excellent  man  sinks  for 
a  moment  to  the  level  of  a  railing  polemic. 

t  It  is  remarkable  that  the  most  impure  passages 
of  Warburton's  composition  are  those  in  which 
he  lets  loose  his  controversial  zeal,  and  that  he  is 
a  fine  writer  principally  where  he  writes  from  ge 
nerous  feeling.  "  Of  all  the  virtues  which  were 
so  much  in  this  noble  writer's  heart,  and  in  his 
writings,  there  was  not  one  he  more  revered  than 
the  love  of  public  liberty  ....  The  noble  author  of 
the  Characteristics  had  many  excellent  qualities, 
both  as  a  man  and  a  writer :  he  was  temperate, 
chaste,  honest,  and  a  lover  of  his  country.  In 
his  writings  he  has  shown  how  much  he  has  im 
bibed  the  deep  sense,  and  how  naturally  he  could 
copy  the  gracious  manner  of  Plato. — (Dedication 
to  the  Freethinkers,  prefixed  to  the  Divine  Lega 
tion.)  He,  however,  soon  relapses,  but  not  with 
out  excuse  ;  for  he  thought  himself  vindicating  the 
memory  of  Locke. 

t  Op.  iii.  39—56. 

§  [With  regard  to  this  story,  authorised  as  it  is, 
the  Editor  cannot  help,  on  behalf  of  his  own 
"  nursing  mother,"  throwing  out  some  suspicion 
that  the  Chancellor's  politics  must  have  been 
made  use  of  somewhat  as  a  scapegoat ;  else  the 
nature  of  boys  was  at  that  time  more  excitable 
touching  their  schoolmates'  grandfathers  than  it 
is  now.  There  is  a  rule  traditionally  observed  in 
College,  "  that  no  boy  has  a  right  to  think  till  ho 


124 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


a  choice  of  time  which  seemed  not  so  much 
to  indicate  anger  against  the  faults  of  a 
great  man,  as  triumph  over  the  principles 
of  liberty,  which  seemed  at  that  time  to  have 
fallen  for  ever.  He  gave  a  genuine  proof  of 
respect  for  freedom  of  thought,  by  prevent 
ing  the  expulsion,  from  Holland,  of  Bayle, 
(from  whom,; he  differs  in  every  moral,  poli 
tical,  and,  it  may  be  truly  added,  religious 
opinion)  when,  it  must  be  owned,  the  right 
of  asylum  was,  in  strict  justice,  forfeited  by 
the  secret  services  which  the  philosopher 
had  rendered  to  the  enemy  of  Holland  and 
of  Europe.  In  the  small  part  of  his  short 
life  which  premature  infirmities  allowed 
him  to  apply  to  public  affairs,  he  co-operated 
zealously  with  the  friends  of  freedom  ;  but, 
as  became  a  moral  philosopher,  he  supported, 
even  against  them,  a  law  to  allow  those  who 
were  accused  of  treason  to  make  their  de 
fence  by  counsel,  although  the  parties  first 
to  benefit  from  this  act  of  imperfect  justice 
were  persons  conspired  together  to  assassi 
nate  King  William,  and  to  re-enslave  their 
country.  On  that  occasion  it  is  well  known 
with  what  admirable  quickness  he  took  ad 
vantage  of  the  embarrassment  which  seized 
him,  when  he  rose  to  address  the  House  of 
Commons.  "  If  I,"  said  he,"  who  rise  only  to 
give  my  opinion  on  this  bill,  am  so  confounded 
that  I  cannot  say  what  I  intended/ what  must 
the  condition  of  that  man  be,  who,  without 
assistance  is  pleading  for  his  own  life!" 
Lord  Shaftesbury  was  the  friend  of  Lord 
Somers ;  and  the  tribute  paid  to  his  personal 
character  by  Warburton,  who  knew  many  of 
his  contemporaries  and  some  of  his  friends, 
may  be  considered  as  evidence  of  its  excel 
lence. 

His  fine  genius  and  generous  spirit  shine 
through  his  writings  ;  but  their  lustre  is  often 
dimmed  by  peculiarities,  and,  it  must  be  said, 
by  affectations,  which,  originating  in  local, 
temporary,  or  even  personal  circumstances, 
are  particularly  fatal  to  the  permanence  of 
fame.  There  is  often  a  charm  in  the  ego 
tism  of  an  artless  writer,  or  of  an  actor  in 
great  scenes :  but  other  laws  are  imposed  on 
the  literary  artist.  Lord  Shaftsbury,  instead 
of  hiding  himself  behind  his  work,  stands 
forward  with  too  frequent  marks  of  self- 
complacency,  as  a  nobleman  of  polished 
manners,  with  a  mind  adorned  by  the  fine 
arts,  and  instructed  by  ancient  philosophy; 
shrinking  with  a  somewhat  effeminate  fasti 
diousness  from  the  clamour  and  prejudices 
of  the  multitude,  whom  he  neither  deigns  to 
conciliate,  nor  puts  forth  his  strength  to  sub 
due.  The  enmity  of  the  majority  of  church 
men  to  the  government  established  at  the 
Revolution,  was  calculated  to  fill  his  mind 
with  angry  feelings;  which  overflowed  too 
often,  if  not  upon  Christianity  itself,  yet  upon 
representations  of  it,  closely  intertwined  with 
those  religious  feelings  to  which,  in  other 
forms,  his  own  philosophy  ascribes  surpass- 

has  forty  juniors ;'-'  upon  which  rock  the  cock 
boat  of  the  embryo  metaphysician  might  have 
foundered.] 


ing  worth.  His  small,  and  occasional  wri 
tings,  of  which  the  main  fault  is  the  want  of 
an  object  or  a  plan,  have  many  passages  re 
markable  for  the  utmost  beauty  and  harmo 
ny  of  language.  Had  he  imbibed  the  sim 
plicity,  as  well  as  copied  the  expression  and 
cadence,  of  the  greater  ancients,  he  would 
have  done  more  justice  to  his  genius;  and 
his  works,  like  theirs,  would  have  been  pre 
served  by  that  first-mentioned  quality,  with 
out  which  but  a  very  few  writings,  of  what 
ever  mental  power,  have  long  survived  their 
writers.  Grace  belongs  only  to  natural 
movements;  and  Lord  Shaftesbury,  notwith 
standing  the  frequent  beauty  of  his  thoughts 
and  language,  has  rarely  attained  it.  He  is 
unfortunately  prone  to  pleasantry,  which  is 
obstinately  averse  from  constraint,  and  which 
he  had  no  interest  in  raising  to  be  the  test 
of  truth.  His  affectation  of  liveliness  as  a 
man  of  the  world,  tempts  him  sometimes  to 
overstep  the  indistinct  boundaries  which 
separate  familiarity  from  vulgarity.  Of  his 
two  more  considerable  writings,  The  Moral 
ists,  on  which  he  evidently  most  valued  him 
self,  and  which  is  spoken  of  by  Leibnitz  with 
enthusiasm,  is  by  no  means  the  happiest. — 
Yet  perhaps  there  is  scarcely  any  composi 
tion  in  our  language  more  lofty  in  its  moral 
and  religious  sentiments,  and  more  exqui 
sitely  elegant  and  musical  in  its  diction, 
than  the  Platonic  representation  of  the  scale 
of  beauty  and  love,  in  the  speech  to  Pale- 
mon,  near  the  close  of  the  first  part.*  Many 
passages  might  be  quoted,  which  in  some 
measure  justify  the  enthusiasm  of  the  sep 
tuagenarian  geometer.  Yet  it  is  not  to  be 
concealed  that,  as  a  whole,  it  is  heavy  and 
languid.  It  is  a  modern  antique.  The  dia 
logues  of  Plato  are  often  very  lively  repre 
sentations  of  conversations  which  might  take 
place  daily  at  a  great  university,  full,  like 
Athens,  of  rival  professors  and  eager  disci 
ples,  between  men  of  various  character,  and 
great  fame  as  well  as  ability.  Socrates  runs- 
through  them  all.  His  great  abilities,  his 
still  more  venerable  virtues,  his  cruel  fate, 
especially  when  joined  to  his  very  character 
istic  peculiarities, — to  his  grave  humour,  to 
his  homely  sense,  to  his  assumed  humility, 
to  the  honest  slyness  with  which  he  ensnar 
ed  the  Sophists,  and  to  the  intrepidity  with 
which  he  dragged  them  to  justice,  gave  unity 
and  dramatic  interest  to  these  dialogues  as  a 
whole.  But  Lord  Shaftesbury's  dialogue  is 
between  fictitious  personages,  and  in  a  tone 
at  utter  variance  with  English  conversation. 
He  had  great  power  of  thought  and  command 
over  words;  but  he  had  no  talent  for  invent 
ing  character  and  bestowing  life  on  it. 

The  inquiry  concerning  Virtuef  is  nearly 
exempt  from  the  faulty  peculiarities  of  the 
author ;  the  method  is  perfect,  the  reasoning 
just,  the  style  precise  and  clear.  The  writer 
has  no  purpose  but  that  of  honestly  proving 
his  principles;  he  himself  altogether  disap 
pears;  and  he  is  intent  only  on  earnestly  en- 


$3. 


t  Characteristics,  treatise  iv. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         125 


forcing  what  he  truly,  conscientiously,  and 
reasonably  believes.  Hence  the  charm  of 
simplicity  is  revived  in  this  production,  which 
is  unquestionably  entitled  to  a  place  in  the 
first  rank  of  English  tracts  on  moral  philoso- 
sophy.  The  point  in  which  it  becomes  es 
pecially  pertinent  to  the  subject  of  this  Dis 
sertation  is,  that  it  contains  more  intimations 
of  an  original  and  important  nature  on  the 
theory  of  Ethics  than  perhaps  any  preced 
ing  work  of  modem  times.*  It  is  true  that 
they  are  often  but  intimations,  cursory,  and 
appearing  almost  to  be  casual ;  so  that  many 
of  them  have  escaped  the  notice  of  most  rea 
ders,  and  even  writers  on  these  subjects. — 
That  the  consequences  of  some  of  them  are 
even  yet  not  unfolded,  must  be  owned  to  be 
a  proof  that  they  are  inadequately  stated; 
and  may  be  regarded  as  a  presumption  that 
the  author  did  not  closely  examine  the  bear 
ings  of  his  own  positions.  Among  the  most 
important  of  these  suggestions  is,  the  exist 
ence  of  dispositions  in  man,  by  which  he 
takes  pleasure  in  the  well-being  of  others, 
without  any  further  view ; — a  doctrine,  how 
ever,  to  all  the  consequences  of  which  he 
lias  not  been  faithful  in  his  other  writings.? 
Another  is,  that  goodness  consists  in  the  pre 
valence  of  love  for  the  system  of  which  we 
are  a  part,  over  the  passions  pointing  to  our 
individual  welfare , — a  proposition  which 
somewhat  confounds  the  motives  of  right 
acts  with  their  tendency,  and  seems  to  fa- 
'Tour  the  melting  of  all  particular  affections 
into  general  benevolence,  because  the  ten 
dency  of  these  affections  is  to  general  good. 
The  next,  and  certainly  the  most  original,  as 
well  as  important,  is,  that  there  are  certain 
affections  of  the  mind  which,  being  contem 
plated  by  the  mind  itself  through  what  he 
«alls  "  a  reflex  sense,"  become  the  objects 
of  love,  or  the  contrary,  according  to  their 
nature.  So  approved  and  loved,  they  con 
stitute  virtue  or  merit,  as  distinguished  from 
mere  goodness,  of  which  there  are  traces  in 
animals  who  do  not  appear  to  reflect  on  the 
state  of  their  own  minds,  and  who  seem, 
therefore,  destitute  of  what  he  elsewhere 
calls  "a  moral  sense."  These  statements 
are,  it  is  true,  far  too  short  and  vague.  He 
nowhere  inquires  into  the  origin  of  the  reflex 
sense:  what  is  a  much  more  material  defect, 
he  makes  no  attempt  to  ascertain  in  what 
state  of  mind  it  consists.  We  discover  only 


*  I  am  not  without  suspicion  that  I  have  over 
looked  the  claims  of  Dr.  Henry  More,  who,  not 
withstanding  some  uncouthness  of  language, 
seems  to  have  given  the  first  intimations  of  a  dis 
tinct  moral  faculty,  which  he  calls  "  the  Boniform 
Faculty  :''  a  phrase  against  which  an  outcry  would 
now  be  raised  as  German.  Happiness,  according 
to  hinrK  consists'  in  a  constant  satisfaction,  *v  T« 
dyA^^i^t  TH(  4u^«c. — Enchiridion  Ethicum,  lib.  i. 
cap.  ii. 

t  "  It  is  the  height  of  wisdom  no  doubt  to  be 
Tightly  selfish."— Charact.  i.  121.  The  observa 
tion  seems  to  be  taken  from  what  Aristotle  says  of 
^iKAvritt:  ~Tov  /uev  dya.Bc.vfst  p/xavrov  tiveti. — Ethics, 
lib.  ix.  c.  viii.  The  chapter  is  admirable,  and  the 
assertion  of  Aristotle  is  very  capable  of  a  good 
eense. 


by  implication,  and  by  the  use  of  the  term 
"  sense,"  that  he  searches  for  the  fountain  of 
moral  sentiments,  not  in  mere  reason,  where 
Cudworth  and  Clarke  had  vainly  sought 
for  it,  but  in  the  heart,  whence  the  main 
branch  of  them  assuredly  flows.  It  should 
never  be  forgotten,  that  we  owe  to  these 
hints  the  reception,  into  ethical  theory,  of 
a  moral  sense  ;  which,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  its  origin,  or  in  whatever  words 
it  may  be  described,  must  always  retain  its 
place  in  such  theory  as  a  main  principle  of 
our  moral  nature. 

His  demonstration  of  the  utility  of  Virtue 
to  the  individual,  far  surpasses  all  other  at 
tempts  of  the  same  nature  ',  being  founded, 
not  on  a  calculation  of  outward  advantages 
or  inconveniences,  alike  uncertain,  precari 
ous,  and  degrading,  but  on  the.  unshaken 
foundation  of  the  delight,  which  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  social  affection  arid  virtuous 
sentiment ;  on  the  dreadful  agony  inflicted 
by  all  malevolent  passions  upon  every  soul 
that  harbours  the  hellish  inmates;  on  the 
all-important  truth,  that  to  love  is  to  be  hap- 

Ey,  and  to  hate  is  to  be  miserable, — that  af- 
jction  is  its  own  reward,  and  ill-will  its  own 
punishment ;  or,  as  it  has  been  more  simply 
and  more  affectingly,  as  w'ell  as  with  more 
sacred  authority,  taught,  that  "to  give  is 
more  blessed  than  to  receive,"  and  that  to 
love  one  another  is  the  sum  of  all  human 
virtue. 

The  relation  of  Religion  to  Morality,  as 
far  as  it  can  be  discovered  by  human  reason, 
was  never  more  justly  or  more  beautifully 
stated.  If  he  represents  the  mere  hope  of 
reward  and  dread  of  punishment  as  selfish, 
and  therefore  inferior  motives  to  virtue  and 
piety,  he  distinctly  owns  their  efficacy  in  re 
claiming  from  vice,  in  rousing  from  lethargy, 
and  in  guarding  a  feeble  penitence ;  in  all 
which  he  coincides  with  illustrious  and  zea 
lous  Christian  writers.  '-'If  by  the  hope  of 
reward  be  understood  the  love  and  desire  of 
virtuous  enjoyment,  or  of  the  very  practice 
and  exercise  of  virtue  in  another  life ;  an 
expectation  or  hope  of  this  kind  is  so  far 
from  being  derogatory  from  virtue,  that  it  is 
an  evidence  of  our  loving  it  the  more  sin 
cerely  and  for  its  own  sa&e."* 

*  Inquiry,  book  i.  part  -iii.  §  3.  So  Jeremy 
Taylor;  "  He  that  is  grown  in  grace  pursues  vir 
tue  purely  and  simply  for  its  own  interest.  When 
persons  come  to  that  height  of  grace,  and  love 
God  for  himself,  that  is  but  heaven  in  another 
sense." — (Sermon  on  Growth  in  Grace.)  So  be 
fore  him  the  once  celebrated  Mr.  John  Smith  of 
Cambridge:  "The  happiness  which  good  men 
shall  partake  is  not  distinct  from  their  godlike  na 
ture.  Happiness  and  holiness  are  but  two  several 
notions  of  one  thing.  Hell  is  rather  a  nature  than 
a  place,  and  heaven  cannot  be  so  well  defined  by 
any  thing  without  us,  as  by  something  within  us." 
—(Select  Discourses,  2d  edit.  Cambridge,  1673.) 
In  accordance  with  these  old  authorities  is  the 
recent  language  of  a  most  ingenious  as  well  as  be 
nevolent  and  pious  writer.  "  The  holiness  of  hea 
ven  is  still  more  attractive  to  the  Christian  than 
its  happiness.  The  desire  of  doing  that  which  is 
right  for  its  own  sake  is  a  part  of  his  desire  aftei 

L2 


126 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


FENELON.*— BOSSUET.t 

As  the  last  question,  though  strictly  speak 
ing  theological,  is  yet  in  truth  dependent  on 
the  more  general  question,  which  relates  to 
the  reality  of  disinterested  affections  in  hu 
man  nature,  it  seems  not  foreign  from  the 
present  purpose  to  give  a  short  account  of  a 
dispute  on  the  subject  in  France,  between 
two  of  the  most  eminent  persons  of  their 
time ;  namely,  the  controversy  between  Fe- 
nelon  and  Bossuet,  concerning  the  possibi 
lity  of  men  being  influenced  by  the  pure  and 
disinterested  love  of  God.  Never  were  two 
great  men  more  unlike.  Fenelon  in  his 
writings  exhibits  more  of  the  qualities  which 
predispose  to  religious  feelings,  than  any 
other  equally  conspicuous  person:  a  mind 
so  pure  as  steadily  to  contemplate  supreme 
excellence ;  a  heart  capable  of  being  touch 
ed  and  affected  by  the  contemplation;  a 
gentle  and  modest  spirit,  not  elated  by  the 
privilege,  but  seeing  clearer  its  own  want  of 
worth  as  it  came  nearer  to  such  brightness, 
and  disposed  to  treat  with  compassionate 
forbearance  those  errors  in  others,  of  which 
it  felt  a  humbling  consciousness.  Bossuet 
was  rather  a  great  minister  in  the  ecclesias 
tical  commonwealth ;  employing  knowledge, 
eloquence,  argument,  the  energy  of  his  cha 
racter,  the  influence,  and  even  the  authority 
of  his  station,  to  vanquish  opponents,  to  ex 
tirpate  revolters,  and  sometimes  with  a  pa 
trician  firmness,  to  withstand  the  dictatorial 
encroachment  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  on  the 
spiritual  aristocracy  of  France.  Fenelon  had 
been  appointed  tutor  to  the  Duke  of  Bur 
gundy.  He  had  all  the  qualities  which  fit  a 
man  to  be  the  preceptor  of  a  prince,  and 
which  most  disable  him  to  get  or  to  keep 
the  office.  Even  birth,  and  urbanity,  and 
accomplishment,  and  vivacity,  were  an  in 
sufficient  atonement  for  his  genius  and  vir 
tue.  Louis  XIV.  distrusted  so  fine  a  spirit, 
and  appears  to  have  early  suspected,  that  a 
fancy  moved  by  such  benevolence  might 
imagine  examples  for  his  grandson  which  the 
world  would  consider  as  a  satire  on  his  oWn 
reign.  Madame  de  Maintenon,  indeed,  fa 
voured  him  ;  but  he  was  generally  believed 
to  have  forfeited  her  good  graces  by  dis- 


heaven." — (Unconditional  Freeness  of  the  Gospel. 
by  T.  Erskine,  Esq.  Edinb.  1828,  p.  32,  33.) 
See  also  the  Appendix  to  Ward's  Life  of  Henry 
More,  Lond.  1710,  pp.  247—271.  This  account 
of  that  ingenious  and  amiable  philosopher  contains 
an  interesting  view  of  his  opinions,  and  many 
beautiful  passages  of  his  writings,  but  unfortu 
nately  very  few  particulars  of  the  man.  His  let 
ters  on  Disinterested  Piety  (see  the  Appendix  to 
Mr  Ward's  work),  his  boundless  charity,  his 
zeal  for  the  utmost  toleration,  and  his  hope  of 
general  improvement  from  "a  pacific  and  perspi 
cacious  posterity,"  place  him  high  in  the  small 
number  of  true  philosophers  who,  in  their  esti 
mate  of  men,  value  dispositions  more  than  opin 
ions,  and  in  their  search  for  good,  more  often  look 
forward  than  backward. 

*  Born,  1651  ;  died,  1715. 

t  Born,  1627 ;  died,  1704. 


couraging  her  projects  for  at  least  a  nearer 
approach  to  a  seat  on  the  throne.  He  offend 
ed  her  too  by  obeying  her  commands,  in 
ay  ing  before  her  an  account  of  her  faults, 
and  some  of  those  of  her  royal  husband, 
which  was  probably  the  more  painfully  felt 
!br  its  mildness,  justice,  and  refined  obser 
vation.*  An  opportunity  for  driving  such  an 
intruder  from  a  court  presented  itself  some 
what  strangely,  in  the  form  of  a  subtile  con 
troversy  on  one  of  the  most  abstruse  ques 
tions  of  metaphysical  theology.  Molinos,  a 
Spanish  priest,  reviving  and  perhaps  exag 
gerating  the  maxims  of  the  ancient  Mystics, 
bad  recently  taught,  that  Christian  perfection 
consisted  in  the  pure  love  of  God,  without 
hope  of  reward  or  fear  of  punishment.  This 
offence  he  expiated  by  seven  years'  impri 
sonment  in  the  dungeons  of  the  Roman  In 
quisition.  His  opinions  were  embraced  by 
Madame  Guyon,  a  pious  French  lady  of 
strong  feeling  and  active  imagination,  who 
appears  to  have  expressed  them  in  a  hyper 
bolical  language,  not  infrequent  in  devotional 
exercises,  especially  in  those  of  otherwise 
amiable  persons  of  her  sex  and  character. 
In  the  fervour  of  her  zeal,  she  disregarded 
the  usages  of  the  world  and  the  decorum 
imposed  on  females.  She  left  her  family, 
took  a  part  in  public  conferences,  and  as 
sumed  an  independence  scarcely  reconcila 
ble  with  the  more  ordinary  and  more  pleas 
ing  virtues  of  women.  Her  pious  effusions 
were  examined  with  the  rigour  which  might 
be  excusable  if  exercised  on  theological  pro 
positions.  She  was  falsely  charged  by  Har- 
lay,  the  dissolute  Archbishop  of  Paris,  with. 
personal  licentiousness.  For  these  crimes 
she  was  dragged  from  convent  to  convent, 
imprisoned  for  years  in  the  Bastile,  and,  as 
an  act  of  mercy,  confined  during  the  latter 
years  of  her  life  to  a  provincial  town,  as  a 
prison  at  large.  A  piety  thus  pure  and  dis 
interested  could  not  fail  to  please  Fenelon. 
He  published  a  work  in  justification  of  Ma 
dame  Guyon's  character,  and  in  explanation 
of  the  degree  in  which  he  agreed  with  her. 
Bossuet,  the  oracle  and  champion  of  the 
Church,  took  up  arms  against  him.  It  would 
be  painful  to  suppose  that  a  man  of  such 
great  powers  was  actuated  by  mean  jea 
lousy  j  and  it  is  needless.  The  union  of  zeal 
for  opinion  with  the  pride  of  authority,  is 
apt  to  give  sternness  to  the  administration 
of  controversial  bishops;  to  say  nothing  of 
the  haughty  and  inflexible  character  of  Bos 
suet  himself.  He  could  not  brook  the  in 
dependence  of  him  who  was  hitherto  so  do 
cile  a  scholar  and  so  gentle  a  friend.  He  was 
jealous  of  novelties,  and  dreaded  a  fervour 
of  piety  likely  to  be  ungovernable,  and  pro 
ductive  of  movements  of  which  no  man. 
could  foresee  the  issue.  It  must  be  allowed 
that  he  had  reason  to  be  displeased  with  the 
indiscretion  and  turbulence  of  the  innova 
tors,  and  might  apprehend  that,  in  preaching 
motives  to  virtue  and  religion  which  he 


Bausset,  Histoire  de  Fenelon,  i.  252. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


127 


thought  unattainable,  the  coarser  but  surer 
foundations  of  common  morality  might  be 
loosened.  A  controversy  ensued,  in  which 
he  employed  the  utmost  violence  of  polemi 
cal  or  factious  contest.  Fenelon  replied  with 
brilliant  success,  and  submitted  his  book  to 
the  judgment  of  Rome.  After  a  long  exami 
nation,  the  commission  of  ten  Cardinals  ap 
pointed  to  examine  it  were  equally  divided, 
and  he  seemed  in  consequence  about  to  be 
acquitted.  But  Bossuet  had  in  the  mean 
time  easily  gained  Louis  XIV.  Madame  de 
Maintenon  betrayed  Fenelon's  confidential 
correspondence ;  and  he  was  banished  to  his 
diocese,  and  deprived  of  his  pensions  and 
official  apartments  in  the  palace.  Louis 
XIV.  regarded  the  slightest  differences  from 
the  authorities  of  the  French  church  as  re 
bellion  against  himself.  Though  endowed 
with  much  natural  good  sense,  he  was  too 
grossly  ignorant  to  be  made  to  comprehend 
one  of  the  terms  of  the  question  in  dispute. 
He  did  not,  however,  scruple  to  urge  the 
Pope  to  the  condemnation  of  Fenelon.  In 
nocent  XII.  (Pignatelli,)  an  aged  and  pacific 
Pontiff,  was  desirous  of  avoiding  such  harsh 
measures.  He  said  that  "  the  archbishop  of 
Cambray  might  have  erred  from  excess  in 
the  love  of  God,  but  the  bishop  of  Meaux 
had  sinned  by  a  defect  of  the  love  of  his 
neighbour."*  But  he  was  compelled  to  con 
demn  a  series  of  propositions,  of  which  the 
first  was,  "  There  is  an  habitual  state  of  love 
to  God.  which  is  pure  from  every  motive  of 
personal  interest,  and  in  which  neither  the 
fear  of  punishment  nor  the  hope  of  reward 
has  any  part."t  Fenelon  read  the  bull  which 
condemned  him  in  his  own  cathedral,  and 
professed  as  humble  a  submission  as  the 
lowest  of  his  flock.  In  some  of  the  writings 
of  his  advanced  years,  which  have  been  re 
cently  published,  we  observe  with  regret 
that,  when  wearied  out  by  his  exile,  ambi 
tious  to  regain  a  place  at  court  through  the 
Jesuits,  or  prejudiced  against  the  Calvinising 
doctrines  of  the  Jansenists,  the  strongest 
anti-papal  party  among  Catholics,  or  some 
what  detached  from  a  cause  of  which  his 
great  antagonist  had  been  the  victorious 
leader,  he  made  concessions  to  the  absolute 
monarchy  of  Rome,  which  did  not  become  a 
luminary  of  the  Gallican  church.* 

Bossuet,  in  his  writings  on  this  occasion,  be 
sides  tradition  and  authorities,  relied  mainly 
on  the  supposed  principle  of  philosophy,  that 
man  must  desire  his  own  happiness,  and 
cannot  desire  anything  else,  otherwise  than 
as  a  means  towards  it;  which  renders  the 
controversy  an  incident  in  the  history  of 
Ethics.  It  is  immediately  connected  with 
the  preceding  part  of  this  Dissertation,  by 
the  almost  literal  coincidence  between  Bos- 
suet's  foremost  objection  to  the  disinterested 
piety  contended  for  by  Fenelon,  and  the  fun 
damental  position  of  a  very  ingenious  and 
once  noted  divine  of  the  English  church,  in 

*  Bausset,  Histoire  de  Fenelon,  ii.  220,  note, 
t  (Euvres  de  Bossuet,  viii.  308. — (Liege,  1767  ) 
t  De  Summi  Pontificis  Auctoritate  Dissertatio. 


his  attack  on  the  disinterested  affections,  be 
lieved  by  Shaltesbury  to  be  a  part  of  human 
nature.* 


LEIBNITZ.t 

There  is  a  singular  contrast  between  the 
form  of  Leibnitz's  writings  and  the  charac 
ter  of  his  mind.  The  latter  was  systemati 
cal,  even  to  excess.  It  was  the  vice  of  his 
prodigious  intellect,  on  every  subject  of  sci 
ence  where  it  was  not  bound  by  geometrical 
chains,  to  confine  his  view  to  those  most 
general  principles,  so  well  called  by  Bacon 
"merely  notional,"  which  render  it,  indeed, 
easy  to  build  a  system,  but  only  because 
they  may  be  alike  adapted  to  every  state  of 
appearances,  and  become  thereby  really  in 
applicable  to  any.  Though  his  genius  was 
thus  naturally  turned  to  system,  his  writings 
were,  generally,  occasional  and  miscellane 
ous.  The  fragments  of  his  doctrines  are 
scattered  in  reviews ;  or  over  a  voluminous 
literary  correspondence ;  or  in  the  prefaces 
and  introductions  to  those  compilations  to 
which  this  great  philosopher  was  obliged  by 
his  situation  to  descend.  This  defective  and 
disorderly  mode  of  publication  arose  partly 
from  the  conflicts  between  business  and 
study,  inevitable  in  his  course  of  life ;  but 
probably  yet  more  from  the  nature  of  his 
system,  which  while  it  widely  deviates  from 
the  most  general  principles  of  former  philoso 
phers,  is  ready  to  embrace  their  "particular 
doctrines  under  its  own  generalities,  and 
thus  to  reconcile  them  to  each  other,  as  well 
as  to  accommodate  itself  to  popular  or  esta 
blished  opinions,  and  compromise  with  them, 
according  to  his  favourite  and  oft-repeated 
maxim,  "  that  most  received  doctrines  are 
capable  of  a  good  sense  ;"J  by  which  last 
words  our  philosopher  meant  a  sense  recon 
cilable  with  his  own  principles.  Partial  and 
occasional  exhibitions  of  these  principles 

*  "  Haec  est  natura  volantatis  humanas,  ut  et 
beatitudinem,  et  ea  quorum  necessaria  connexio 
cum  beatitudine  clare  intelligitur,  necessario  ap- 
petat. . .  Nullus  est  acius  ad  quern  revera  non  im- 
pellimur  motive  beatitudinis,  explicite  vel  impli 
cit  e;"  meaning  by  the  latter  that  it  may  be  con 
cealed  from  ourselves,  as  he  says,  for  a  short  time, 
by  a  nearer  object. — CEuvres  de  Bossuet,  viii.  80. 
"  The  only  motive  by  which  individuals  can  be 
induced  to  the  practice  of  virtue,  must  be  the  feel 
ing  or  the  prospect  of  private  happiness."-Brown's 
Essays  on  the  Characteristics,  p.  ]59.  Lond. 
1752.  It  must,  however,  be  owned,  that  the  sel 
fishness  of  the  Warburtonian  is  more  rigid  ;  making 
no  provision  for  the  object  of  one's  own  happiness 
slipping  out  of  view  for  a  moment.  It  is  due  to 
the  very  ingenious  author  of  this  forgotten  book 
to  add,  that  it  is  full  of  praise  of  his  adversary, 
which,  though  just,  was  in  the  answerer  generous  ; 
and  that  it  contains  an  assertion  of  the  unbounded 
right  of  public  discussion,  unusual  even  at  the 
tolerant  period  of  its  appearance. 

tBorn,  1646;  died,  1716. 

\  "  Nouveaux  Essais  sur  1'Entendement  Hu- 
main,"  liv.  i.  chap.  ii.  These  Essays,  which 
form  the  greater  part  of  the  publication  entitled 
"  CEuvres  Philosophiques,"  edited  by  Raspe, 
Amst.  et  Leipz.  1765,  are  not  included  in  Dutene' 
edition  of  Leibnitz's  works. 


128 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


suited  better  that  constant  negotiation  with 
opinions,  establishments,  and  prejudices,  to 
•which  extreme  generalities  are  we'll  adapted, 
than'would  have  a  full  and  methodical  state 
ment  of  the  whole  at  once.  It  is  the  lot  of 
every  philosopher  who  attempts  to  make  his 
principles  extremely  flexible,  that  they  be 
come  like  those  tools  which  bend  so  easily 
as  to  penetrate  nothing.  Yet  his  manner  of 
publication  perhaps  led  him  to  those  wide 
intuitions,  as  comprehensive  as  those  of  Ba 
con,  of  which  he  expressed  the  result  as 
briefly  and  pithily  as  Hobbes.  The  frag 
ment  which  contains  his  ethical  principles 
is  the  preface  to  a  collection  of  documents 
illustrative  of  international  law.  published  at 
Hanover  in  1693*  to  which  he  often  referred 
as  his  standard  afterwards,  especially  when 
he  speaks  of  Lord  Shaftesbury,  or  of  the 
controversy  between  the  two  great  theologi- 
.ans  of  France.  "Right,"  says  he,  "is  mo 
ral  power ;  obligation,  moral  necessity.  By 
"  moral"  I  understand  what  with  a  good  man 
prevails  as  much  as  if  it  were  physical.  A 
good  man  is  he  who  loves  all  men  as  far  as 
reason  allows.  Justice  is  the  benevolence 
of  a  wise  man.  To  love  is  to  be  pleased 
with  the  happiness  of  another  j  or,  in  other 
words,  to  convert  the  happiness  of  another 
into  a  part  of  one's  own.  Hence  is  explained 
the  possibility  of  a  disinterested  love.  When 
we  are  pleased  with  the  happiness  of  any 
being,  his* happiness  becomes  one  of  our  en 
joyments.  Wisdom  is  the  science  of  hap 
piness."! 

REMARKS. 

It  is  apparent  from  the  above  passage,  that 
Leibnitz  had  touched  the  truth  on  the  sub 
ject  of  disinterested  affection;  and  that  he 
was  more  near  clinging  to  it  than  any  modern 
philosopher,  except  Lord  Shaftesbury.  It  is 
evident,  however,  from  the  latter  part  of  it, 
that,  like  Shaftesbury,  he  shrunk  from  his 
own  just  conception;  under  the  influence  of 
that  most  ancient  and  far-spread  prejudice 
of  the  schools,  which  assumed  that  such  an 
abstraction  as  "Happiness"  could  be  the 
object  of  love,  and  that  the  desire  of  so  faint, 
distant,  and  refined  an  object,  was  the  first 
principle  of  all  moral  nature,  and  that  of  it 
every  other  desire  was  only  a  modification 
or  a  fruit.  Both  he  and  Shaftesbury,  howr- 
ever,  when  they  relapsed  into  the  selfish 
system,  embraced  it  in  its  most  refined  form  ; 
considering  the  benevolent  affections  as  valu 
able  parts  of  our  own  happiness,  not  in  con 
sequence  of  any  of  their  effects  or  extrinsic 
advantages,  but  of  that  intrinsic  delightful- 
ness  which  was  inherent  in  their  very  es 
sence.  But  Leibnitz  considered  this  refined 
pleasure  as  the  object  in  the  view  of  the  be 
nevolent  man  ;  an  absurdity,  or  rather  a  con 
tradiction,  which,  at  least  in  the  Inquiry 


*  Codex  Juris  Gentium  Diplomaticus. — Hanov 
i695. 
t  See  Note  N 


concerning  Virtue,  Shaftesbury  avoids.  It 
will  be  seen  from  Leibnitz's  limitation,  taken 
together  with  his  definition  of  Wisdom,  that 
he  regarded  the  distinction  of  the  moral  sen 
timents  from  the  social  affections,  and  the 
just  subordination  of  the  latter,  as  entirely 
founded  on  the  tendency  of  general  happi 
ness  to  increase  that  of  the  agent,  not  merely 
as  being  real,  but  as  being  present  to  the 
agent's  mind  when  he  acts.  In  a  subsequent 
passage  he  lowers  his  tone  not  a  little.  "As 
for  the  sacrifice  of  life,  or  the  endurance  of 
the  greatest  pain  for  others,  these  things  are 
rather  generously  enjoined  than  solidly  de 
monstrated  by  philosophers.  For  honour, 
glory,  and  self-congratulation,  to  which  they 
appeal  under  the  name  of  Virtue,  are  indeed 
mental  pleasures,  and  of  a  high  degree,  but 
not  to  all,  nor  outweighing  every  bitterness 
of  suffering ;  since  all  cannot  imagine  them 
with  equal  vivacity,  and  that  power  is  little 
possessed  by  those  whom  neither  education, 
nor  situation,  nor  the  doctrines  of  Religion 
or  Philosophy,  have  taught  to  value  mental 
gratifications."*  He  concludes  very  truly, 
that  Morality  is  completed  by  a  belief  of 
moral  government.  But  the  Inquiry  concern 
ing  Virtue,  had  reached  that  conclusion  by  a 
better  road.  It  entirely  escaped  his  sagacity, 
as  it  has  that  of  nearly  all  other  moralists, 
that  the  coincidence  of  Morality  with  well- 
understood  interest  in  our  outward  actions, 
is  very  far  from  being  the  most  important 
part  of  the  question ;  for  these  actions  flow 
from  habitual  dispositions,  from  affections 
arid  sensibilities,  which  determine  their  na 
ture.  There  may  be,  and  there  are  many 
immoral  acts,  which,  in  the  sense  in  which 
words  are  commonly  used,  are  advantageous 
to  the  actor.  But  the  whole  sagacity  and 
ingenuity  of  the  world  may  be  safely  chal 
lenged  to  point  out  a  case  in  which  virtuous 
dispositions,  habits,  and  feelings,  are  not 
conducive  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  hap 
piness  of  the  individual ;  or  to  maintain  that 
he  is  not  the  happiest,  whose  moral  senti 
ments  and  affections  are  such  as  to  prevent 
the  possibility  of  any  unlawful  advantage 
being  presented  to  his  mind.  It  would  in 
deed  have  been  impossible  to  prove  to  Regu- 
lus  that  it  was  his  interest  to  return  to  a 
death  of  torture  in  Africa.  But  what,  if  the 
proof  had  been  easy  ?  The  most  thorough 
conviction  on  such  a  point  would  not  have 
enabled  him  to  set  this  example,  if  he  had 
not  been  supported  by  his  own  integrity  and 
generosity,  by  love  of  his  country,  and  rever 
ence  for  his  pledged  faith.  What  could  the 
conviction  add  to  that  greatness  of  soul,  and 
to  these  glorious  attributes  ?  With  such  vir 
tues  he  could  not  act  otherwise  than  he  did. 
Would  a  father  affectionately  interested  in  a 
son's  happiness,  of  very  lukewarm  feelings 
of  morality,  but  of  good  sense  enough  to 
wreigh  gratifications  and  sufferings  exactly, 
be  really  desirous  that  his  son  should  have 
these  virtues  in  a  less  degree  than  Regulus, 

*  See  Note  N. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.          129 


merely  because  they  might  expose  him  to 
the  fate  which  Regulus  chose  ?  On  the  cold 
est  calculation  he  would  surely  perceive, 
that  the  high  and  glowing  feelings  of  such  a 
mind  during  life  altogether  throw  into  shade 
a  few  hours  of  agony  in  leaving  it.  And,  if 
he  himself  were  so  unfortunate  that  no  more 
generous  sentiment  arose  in  his  mind  to  si 
lence  such  calculations,  would  it  not  be  a 
reproach  to  his  understanding  not  to  discover, 
that,  though  in  one  case  out  of  millions  such 
a  character  might  lead  a  Regulus  to  torture, 
yet,  in  the  common  course  of  nature,  it  is  the 
source  not  only  of  happiness  in  life,  but  of 
quiet  and  honour  in  death  ?  A  case  so  ex 
treme  as  that  of  Regulus  will  not  perplex  us, 
if  we  bear  in  mind,  that  though  we  cannot 
prove  the  act  of  heroic  virtue  to  be  conducive 
to  the  interest  of  the  hero,  yet  we  may  per 
ceive  at  once,  that  nothing  i-s  so  conducive 
to  his  interest  as  to  have  a  mind  so  formed 
that  it  could  not  shrink  from  it.  but  must 
rather  embrace  it  with  gladness  and  tri 
umph.  Men  of  vigorous  health  are  said 
sometimes  to  suffer  most  in  a  pestilence. 
No  man  was  ever  so  absurd  as  for  that  rea 
son  to  wish  that  he  were  more  infirm.  The 
distemper  might  return  once  in  a  century : 
if  he  were  then  alive,  he  might  escape  it ; 
and  even  if  he  fell,  the  balance  of  advantage 
would  be  in  most  cases  greatly  on  the  side 
of  robust  health.  In  estimating  beforehand 
the  value  of  a  strong  bodily  frame,  a  man  of 
sense  would  throw  the  small  chance  of  a  rare 
and  short  evil  entirely  out  of  the  account.  So 
must  the  coldest  and  most  selfish  moral  cal 
culator,  who,  if  he  be  sagacious  and  exact, 
must  pronounce,  that  the  inconveniences  to 
which  a  man  may  be  sometimes  exposed  by 
a  pure  and  sound  mind,  are  no  reasons  for 
regretting  that  w'e  do  not  escape  them  by 
possessing  minds  more  enfeebled  and  dis 
tempered.  Other  occasions  will  call  our  at 
tention,  in  the  sequel,  to  this  important  part 
of  the  subject ;  but  the  great  name  of  Leib 
nitz  seemed  to  require  that  his  degrading- 
statement  should  not  be  cited  without  warn 
ing  the  reader  against  its  egregious  fallacy. 

MALEBRANCHE.* 

This  ingenious  philosopher  and  beautiful 
writer  is  the  only  celebrated  Cartesian  who 
has  professedly  handled  the  theory  of  Mo- 
rals.t  His  theory  has  in  some  points  of  view 
a  conformity  to  the  doctrine  of  Clarke ;  while 
in  others  it  has  given  occasion  to  his  English 
follower  Norrist  to  say,  that  if  the  Quakers 
understood  their  own  opinion  of  the  illumi 
nation  of  all  men,  they  would  explain  it  on 
the  principles  of  Malebranche.  "  There  is." 
says  he,  "one  parent  virtue,  the  universal 
virtue,  the  virtue  which  renders  us  just  and 

*  Born,  1638;  died,  1715. 

t  Traite  de  Morale.     Rotterdam,  1684. 

t  Author  of  the  Theory  of  the  Ideal  World, 
who  well  copied,  though  he  did  not  equal,  the 
clearness  and  choice  of  expression  which  belonged 
to  his  master. 

17 


perfect,  the  virtue  which  will  one  day  render 
us  happy.  It  is  the  only  virtue.  It  is  the 
love  of  the  universal  order,  as  it  eternally 
existed  in  the  Divine  Reason,  where  every 
created  reason  contemplates  it.  This  order 
is  composed  of  practical  as  well  as  specula 
tive  truth.  Reason  perceives  the  moral  supe 
riority  of  one  being  over  another,  as  immedi 
ately  as  the  equality  of  the  radii  of  the  same 
circle.  The  relative  perfection  of  beings  is 
that  part  of  the  immovable  order  to  which 
men  must  conform  their  minds  and  their 
conduct.  The  love  of  order  is  the  whole 
of  virtue,  and  conformity  to  order  constitutes 
the  morality  of  actions."  It  is  not  difficult 
to  discover,  that  in  spite  of  the  singular  skill 
employed  in  weaving  this  web,  it  answers 
no  other  purpose  than  that  of  hiding  the 
whole  difficulty.  The  love  of  universal  order, 
says  Malebranche,  requires  that  we  should 
value  an  animal  more  than  a  stone,  because 
it  is  more  valuable :  and  love  God  infinitely 
more  than  man,  because  he  is  infinitely 
better.  But  without  presupposing  the  reality 
of  moral  distinctions,  and  the  power  of  moral 
feelings. — the  two  points  to  be  proved,  how 
can  either  of  these  propositions  be  evident, 
or  even  intelligible'?  To  say  that  a  love  of 
the  Eternal  Order  will  produce  the  love  and 
practice  of  every  virtue,  is  an  assertion  un 
tenable,  unless  we  take  Morality  for  granted, 
and  useless,  if  we  do.  In  his  work  on  Mo 
rals,  all  the  incidental  and  secondary  remarks 
are  equally  well  considered  and  well  ex 
pressed.  The  manner  in  which  he  applied 
his  principle  to  the  particulars  of  human 
duty  is  excellent.  He  is  perhaps  the  first 
philosopher  who  has  precisely  laid  down  and 
rigidly  adhered  to  the  great  principle,  that 
Virtue  consists  in  pure  intentions  and  disposi 
tions  of  mind,  without  which,  actions,  how 
ever  conformable  to  rules,  are  not  truly 
moral ; — a  truth  of  the  highest  importance, 
which,  in  the  theological  form,  may  be  said 
to  have  been  the  main  principle  of  the  first 
Protestant  Reformers.  The  ground  of  piety, 
according  to  him,  is  the  conformity  of  the 
attributes  of  God  to  those  moral  qualities 
which  we  irresistibly  Jove  and  revere.* 
"Sovereign  princes,"  says  he,  "have  no 
right  to  use  their  authority  without  reason. 
Even  God  has  no  such  miserable  right. "t 
His  distinction  between  a  religious  society 
and  an  established  church,  and  his  assertion 
of  the  right  of  the  temporal  power  alone  to 
employ  coercion,  are  worthy  of  notice,  as 
instances  in  which  a  Catholic,  at  once  philo 
sophical  and  orthodox,  could  thus  speak,  not 
only  of  the  nature  of  God,  but  of  the  rights 
of  the  Church. 


*  "  II  faut  aimer  1'Etre  infiniment  parfait,  et  non 
pas  un  fantome  epouvantable,  un  Dieu  injuste,  ab- 
solu,  puissant,  mais  sans  bonte  et  sans  sagesse. 
S'il  y  avoit  un  tel  Dieu,  le  vrai  Dieu  nous  de'fen- 
droit  de  1'adorer  et  de  1'aimer.  II  y  a  peut-etre 
plus  de  danger  d'offenser  Dieu  lorsqu'on  lui  don- 
ne  une  forme  si  horrible,  que  de  mepriser  son  fan- 
tome." — Traite  de  Morale,  chap.  viii. 

t  Ibid.  chap.  xxii. 


130 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


JONATHAN  EDWARDS.* 

This  remarkable  man,  the  metaphysician 
of  America,  was  formed  among  the  Calvi- 
nists  of  New  England,  when  their  stern  doc 
trine  retained  its  rigorous  authority  .t  His 
power  of  subtile  argument,  perhaps  unmatch 
ed,  certainly  unsurpassed  among  men,  was 
joined,  as  in  some  of  the  ancient  Mystics, 
Avith  a  character  which  raised  his  piety  to 
fervour.  He  embraced  their  doctrine,  pro 
bably  without  knowing  it  to  be  theirs.  "  True 
religion,"  says  he,  "in  a  great  measure  con 
sists  in  holy  affections.  A  love  of  divine 
things,  for  the  beauty  and  sweetness  of  their 
moral  excellency,  is  the  spring  of  all  holy 
affections."}:  Had  he  suffered  this  noble 
principle  to  take  the  right  road  to  all  its  fair 
consequences,  he  would  have  entirely  con 
curred  with  Plato,  with  Shaftesbury,  and 
Malebranche,  in  devotion  to  "  the  first  good, 
first  perfect,  and  first  fair."  But  he  thought 
it  necessary  afterwards  to  limit  his  doctrine 
to  his  own  persuasion,  by  denying  that  such 
moral  excellence  could  be  discovered  in 
divine  things  by  those  Christians  who  did 
not  take  the  same  view  as  he  did  of  their 
religion.  All  others,  and  some  who  hold  his 
doctrines  with  a  more  enlarged  spirit,  may 
adopt  his  principle  without  any  limitation. 
His  ethical  theory  is  contained  in  his  Disser 
tation  on  the  Nature  of  True  Virtue  ;  and  in 
another,  On  God's  chief  End  in  the  Creation, 
published  in  London  thirty  years  after  his 
death.  True  virtue,  according  to  him,  con 
sists  in  benevolence,  or  love  to  "  being  in 
general,"  which  he  afterwards  limits  to  "in 
telligent  being,"  though  "sentient"  would 
have  involved  a  more  reasonable  limitation. 
This  good-will  is  felt  towards  a  particular 
being,  first  in  proportion  to  his  degree  of  ex 
istence,  (for,  says  he,  "  that  which  is  great 
has  more  existence,  and  is  farther  from  no 
thing,  than  that  which  is  little ;")  and  second 
ly,  in  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  that 
particular  being  feels  benevolence  to  others. 
Thus  God,  having  infinitely  more  existence 
and  benevolence  than  man,  ought  to  be  in 
finitely  more  loved  •  and  for  the  same  reason, 
God  must  love  himself  infinitely  more  than 
he  does  all  other  beings. §  He  can  act  only 
from  regard  to  Himself,  and  His  end  in  crea 
tion  can  only  be  to  manifest  His  whole  na 
ture,  which  is  called  acting  for  His  own  glory. 

As  far  as  Edwards  confines  himself  to 
created  beings,  and  while  his  theory  is  per 
fectly  intelligible,  it  coincides  with  that  of 
universal  benevolence,  hereafter  to  be  con- 


*  Born  in  1703,  at  Windsor  in  Connecticut; 
died  in  1758,  at  Princeton  in  New  Jersey. 

t  See  Note  O. 

t  On  Religions  Affections,  pp.  4,  187. 

§  The  coincidence  of  Malebranche  with  this  part 
of  Edwards,  is  remarkable.  Speaking  of  the 
Supreme  Being,  he  says,  "II  s'aime  invincible- 
ment."  He  adds  another  more  startling  expres 
sion,  "  Certainement  Dieu  ne  pent  agir  que  pour 
lui-meme :  il  n'a  point  d'autre  motif  qiie  son  amour 
propre." — Traite  de  Morale,  chap.  xvii. 


sidered.  The  term  "being"  is  a  mere  en 
cumbrance,  which  serves  indeed  to  give  it  a 
mysterious  outside,  but  brings  with  it  from 
the  schools  nothing  except  their  obscurity. 
He  was  betrayed  into  it,  by  the  cloak  which 
it  threw  over  his  really  unmeaning  assertion 
or  assumption,  that  there  are  degrees  of  ex 
istence  ;  without  which  that  part  of  his  sys 
tem  which  relates  to  the  Deity  would  have 
appeared  to  be  as  baseless  as  it  really  is. 
When  we  try  such  a  phrase  by  applying  it 
to  matters  within  the  sphere  of  our  experi 
ence,  we  see  that  it  means  nothing  but  de 
grees  of  certain  faculties  and  powers.  But 
the  very  application  of  the  term  "  being"  to 
all  things,  shows  that  the  least  perfect  has 
as  much  being  as  the  most  perfect ;  or  rather 
that  there  can  be  no  difference,  so  far  as  that 
word  is  concerned,  between  two  things  to 
which  it  is  alike  applicable.  The  justness 
of  the  compound  proportion  on  which  human 
virtue  is  made  to  depend,  is  capable  of  being 
tried  by  an  easy  test.  If  we  suppose  the 
greatest  of  evil  spirits  to  have  a  hundred 
times  the  bad  passions  of  Marcus  Aurelius, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  hundred  times  his 
faculties,  or,  in  Edwards'  language,  a  hundred 
times  his  quantity  of  "  being,"  it  follows  from 
this  moral  theory,  that  we  ought  to  esteem 
and  love  the  devil  exactly  in  the  same  de 
gree  as  we  esteem  and  love  Marcus  Aurelius. 
The  chief  circumstance  which  justifies  so 
much  being  said  on  the  last  two  writers,  is 
their  concurrence  in  a  point  towards  which 
ethical  philosophy  had  been  slowly  approach 
ing  from  the  time  of  the  controversies  raised 
up  by  Hobbes.  They  both  indicate  the  in 
crease  of  this  tendency,  by  introducing  an 
element  into  their  theory,  foreign  from  those 
cold  systems  of  ethical  abstraction,  with 
which  they  continued  in  other  respects  to 
have  much  in  common.  Malebranche  makes 
virtue  consist  in  the  love  of  "  order."  Ed 
wards  in  the  love  of  "being."  In  this  lan 
guage  we  perceive  a  step  beyond  the  repre 
sentation  of  Clarke,  which  made  it  a  con 
formity  to  the  relations  of  things;  but  a 
step  which  cannot  be  made  without  passing 
into  a  new  province  • — without  confessing,  by 
the  use  of  the  word  "  love,"  that  not  only 
perception  and  reason,  but  emotion  and  sen 
timent,  are  among  the  fundamental  princi 
ples  of  Morals.  They  still,  however,  were 
so  wedded  to  scholastic  prejudice,  as  to 
choose  two  of  the  most  aerial  abstractions 
which  .can  be  introduced  into  argument, — 
"being"  and  "order." — to  be  the  objects  of 
those  strong  active  feelings  which  were  to 
govern  the  human  mind. 

BUFFIER.* 

The  same  stninge  disposition  to  fix  on  ab 
stractions  as  the  objects  of  our  primitive 
feelings,  and  the  end  sought  by  our  warmest 
desires/  manifests  itself  in  the  ingenious 
writer  with  whom  this  part  of  the  Disserta- 


*  Born,  1661 ;  died,  1737. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY, 


tion  closes,  under  a  form  of  less  dignity  than 
that  which  it  assumes  in  the  hands  of  Male- 
branche  and  Clarke.  Buffier,  the  only  Jesuit 
whose  name  has  a  place  in  the  history  of 
abstract  philosophy,  has  no  peculiar  opinions 
which  would  have  required  any  mention  of 
him  as  a  moralist,  were  it  not  for  the  just 
reputation  of  his  Treatise  on  First  Truths, 
with  which  Dr.  Reid  so  remarkably,  though 
unaware  of  its  existence,  coincides,  even  in 
the  misapplication  of  so  practical  a  term  as 
"  common  sense"  to  denote  the  faculty  which 
reqognises  the  truth  of  first  principles.  His 
philosophical  writings*  are  remarkable  for 
that  perfect  clearness  of  expression,  which, 
since  the  great  examples  of  Descartes  and 
Pascal,  has  been  so  generally  diffused,  as  to 
have  become  one  of  the  enviable  peculiari 
ties  of  French  philosophical  style,  and  almost 
of  the  French  language.  His  ethical  doctrine 
is  that  most  commonly  received  among  phi 
losophers,  from  Aristotle  to  Paley  and  Ben- 
tham  :  "  I  desire  to  be  happy ;  but  as  I  live 
with  other  men,  I  cannot  be  happy  without 
consulting  their  happiness:"  a  proposition 
perfectly  true  indeed,  but  far  too  narrow ;  as 
inferring,  that  in  the  most  benevolent  acts  a 
man  must  pursue  only  his  own  interest,  from 
the  fact  that  the  practice  of  benevolence 
does  increase  his  happiness,  and  that  because 
a  virtuous  mind  is  likely  to  be  the  happiest, 
our  observation  of  that  property  of  Virtue  is 
the  cause  of  our  love  and  reverence  for  it. 


SECTION  VI. 

FOUNDATIONS    OF    A    MORE    JUST    THEORY    OF 
ETHICS. 

BUTLER — HUTCHESON — BERKELEY — HUME — SMITH 

PRICE HARTLEY  —  TUCKER  —  PALEY BEN- 

THAM — STEWART — BROWN. 

From  the  beginning  of  ethical  controversy 
to  the  eighteenth  century,  it  thus  appears, 
that  the  care  of  the  individual  for  himself, 
and  his  regard  for  the  things  which  regard 
self,  were  thought  to  form  the  first,  and,  in 
the  opinion  of  most,  the  earliest  of  all  prin 
ciples  which  prompt  men  and  other  animals 
to  activity ;  that  nearly  all  philosophers  re 
garded  the  appetites  and  desires,  which  look 
only  to  self-gratification,  as  modifications  of 
this  primary  principle  of  self-love  ;  and  that 
a  very  numerous  body  considered  even  the 
social  affections  themselves  as  nothing  more 
than  the  produce  of  a  more  latent  and  sub 
tile  operation  of  the  desire  of  interest,  and 
the  pursuit  of  pleasure.  It  is  true  that  they 
often  spoke  otherwise;  but  it  was  rather 
from  the  looseness  and  fluctuation  of  their 
language,  than  from  distrust  in  their  doctrine. 
It  is  true,  also;  that  perhaps  all  represent 
ed  the  gratifications  of  Virtue  as  more  un- 
mingled.  more  secure,  more  frequent,  and 
more  lasting,  than  other  pleasures ;  without 
which  they  could  neither  have  retained  a 

*  Cours  de  Sciences.     Paris,  1732. 


hold  on  the  assent  of  mankind,  BOP 
ciled  the  principles  of  their  systems  withlSwr 
testimony  of  their  hearts.  We  have  »e«r 
how  some  began  to  be  roused  from  a  laarjr 
acquiescence  in  this  ancient  hypothesis,  wy 
the  monstrous  consequences  which  Hob©e« 
had  legitimately  deduced  from  it.  A  few* 
of  pure  minds  and  great  intellect,  laboured 
to  render  Morality  disinterested,  by  tracing' 
it  to  Reason  as  its  source;  without  consider 
ing  that  Reason,  elevated  indeed  far  aboT£ 
interest,  is  also  separated  by  an  impassaW*" 
gulf,  from  feeling,  affection,  and  passion.. 
At  length  it  was  perceived  by  more  ifiam 
one;  that  through  whatever  length  of  reason 
ing  the  mind  may  pass  in  its  advances  Jo- 
wards  action,  there  is  placed  at  the  endot' 
any  avenue  through  which  it  can  advance^ 
some  principle  wholly  unlike  mere  Reassrci; 
— some  emotion  or  sentiment  which  must  TO" 
touched,  before  the  springs  of  Will  and  Acti&m 
can  be  set  in  motion.  Had  Lord  Shaftesbsroj^ 
steadily  adhered  to  his  own  principles, — ha<! 
Leibnitz  not  recoiled  from  his  statement;  tbe 
truth  might  have  been  regarded  as  pro-- 
mulged,  though  not  unfolded.  The  writings 
of  both  prove,  at  least  to  us,  enlightened  as 
we  are  by  what  followed,  that  they  were 
skilful  in  sounding,  and  that  their  lead  Jiad 
touched  the  bottom.  But  it  was  reserved 
for  another  moral  philosopher  to  deterrajaw? 
this  hitherto  unfathomed  depth.* 

BUTLER.t 

Butler,  who  was  the  son  of  a  Presbyterian 
trader,  early  gave  such  promise,  as  to  indtw*? 
his  father  to  fit  him.  by  a  proper  educatiwy 
for  being  a  minister  of  that  persuasion.  Jfe* 
was  educated  at  one  of  their  seminaries  na- 
der  Mr.  Jones  of  Gloucester,  where 
afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  was 
fellow-student.  Though  many  of  the 
senters  had  then  begun  to  relinquish  Ca 
ism,  the  uniform  effect  of  that  doctrine,  a 
disposing  its  adherents  to  metaphysical  spe 
culation,  long  survived  the  opinions 
caused  it,  and  cannot  be  doubted  to  h 
fluenced  the  mind  of  Butler.  When  a 
dent  at  the  academy  at  Gloucester,  he 


*  The  doctrine  of  the  Stoics  is  thus  put  by  Ci 
cero  into  the  mouth  of  Cato :  "  Placet  his,  in^jBsJC,, 
quorum  ratio  mihi  probatur,  simul  atque  naf«3R- 
sit  animal  (hinc  enim  est  ordiendum),  ipsum  siSi 
conciliari  et  commendari  ad  se  conservandum>  «?' 
ad  suum  statum,  et  ad  ea,  quae  conservantia  stssfi 
ejus  status,  diligenda  ;  alienari  autem  ab  mteritfia- 
iisque  rebus  quae  interitum  videanlur  affesjc-,  J«t: 
ita  esse  sic  probant,  quod,  antequam  voluptaa  aisT 
dolor  attigerit,  salutaria  appetant  parvi,  asperners- 
turque  contraria  :  quod  non  fieret,  nisi  statum  SB?- 
um  diligerent,  interitum  timerent :  fieri  an 
non  posset,  ut  appeterent  aliquid,  nisi  sensum 
berent  sui,  eoque  se  et  sua  diligerent.  Ex 
intelligi  debet,  principium  ductum  esse  a  se  c 
gendi  sui." — De  Fin.  lib.  iii.  cap.  v.  We  are  t 
that  diligendo  is  the  reading  of  an  ancient 
Perhaps  the  omission  of  "  a  "  would  be  the  e 
and  most  reasonable  emendation.  The  above  pa» 
sage  is  perhaps  the  fullest  and  plainest  stateswaJT 
of  the  doctrines  prevalent  till  the  time  of  Butfe?, 

tBorn,  1692;  died,  1752. 


132 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


private  letters  to  Dr.  Clarke  on  his  celebrated 
Demonstration,  suggesting  objections  which 
were  really  insuperable,  and  which  are  mark 
ed  by  an  acuteness  which  neither  himself 
nor  any  other  ever  surpassed .  Clarke,  whose 
heart  was  as  well  schooled  as  his  head,  pub 
lished  the  letters,  with  his  own  answers,  in 
the  next  edition  of  his  work,  and.  by  his 
good  offices  with  his  friend  and  follower,  Sir 
Joseph  Jekyll,  obtained  for  the  young  phi 
losopher  an  early  opportunity  of  making  his 
abilities  and  opinions  known,  by  the  appoint 
ment  of  preacher  at  the  Chapel  of  the  Master 
of  the  Rolls.  He  was  afterwards  raised  to 
one  of  the  highest  seats  on  the  episcopal 
bench,  through  the  philosophical  taste  of 
Queen  Caroline,  and  her  influence  over  the 
mind  of  her  husband,  which  continued  long 
after  her  death.  uHe  was  wafted,"  says 
Horace  Walpole,  "to  the  See  of  Durham,  on 
a  cloud  of  Metaphysics."*  Even  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  his  widowhood,  George  II. 
was  desirous  of  inserting  the  name  of  the 
Queen's  metaphysical  favourite  in  the  Re 
gency  Bill  of  1751. 

His  great  work  on  the  Analogy  of  Religion 
to  the  Course  of  Nature,  though  only  a  com 
mentary  on  the  singularly  original  and  preg- 
nent  passage  of  Origen,t  which  is  so  honestly 
prefixed  to  it  as  a  motto,  is,  notwithstanding, 
the  most  original  and  profound  work  extant 
in  any  language  on  the  philosophy  of  religion. 
It  is  entirely  beyond  our  present  scope.  His 
ethical  discussions  are  contained  in  those 
deep  and  sometimes  dark  dissertations  which 
he  preached  at  the  Chapel  of  the  Rolls,  and 
afterwards  published  under  the  name  of 
"Sermons,"  while  he  was  yet  fresh  from  the 
schools,  and  full  of  that  courage  with  which 
youth  often  delights  to  exercise  its  strength 
in  abstract  reasoning,  and  to  push  its  facul 
ties  into  the  recesses  of  abstruse  speculation. 
But  his  youth  was  that  of  a  sober  and  ma 
ture  mind,  early  taught  by  Nature  to  discern 
the  boundaries  of  Knowledge,  and  to  abstain 
from  fruitless  efforts  to  reach  inaccessible 
ground.  In  these  Sermons,!:  he  has  taught 
truths  more  capable  of  being  exactly  dis 
tinguished  from  the  doctrines  of  his  prede 
cessors,  more  satisfactorily  established,  more 
comprehensively  applied  to  particulars,  more 
rationally  connected  with  each  other,  and 
therefore  more  worthy  of  the  name  of  "  dis 
covery,"  than  any  with  which  we  are  ac 
quainted  j — if  we  ought  not,  with  some  hesi 
tation,  to  except  the  first  steps  of  the  Grecian 
phifc>sopriers  towards  a  theory  of  Morals.  It 
is  a  peculiar  hardship,  that  the  extreme  am 
biguity  of  language,  an  obstacle  which  it  is 
one  of  the  chief  merits  of  an  ethical  philoso- 

*  Memoirs  of  Geo.  II.,  i.  129. 

t  "  Ejus  (analogia)  vis  est ;  ut  id  quod  dubium 
est  ad  aliquid  simile  de  quo  non  quseritur,  referat ; 
ut  incerta  certis  probet." 

$  See  Sermons  i.  ii.  iii.  On  Human  Nature ;  v. 
On  Compassion ;  viii.  On  Resentment ;  ix.  On 
Forgiveness;  xi.  and  xii.  On  the  Love  of  Our 
Neighbour ;  and  xiii.  On  the  Love  of  God ;  to 
gether  with  the  excellent  Preface. 


pher  to  vanquish,  is  one  of  the  circumstances 
which  prevent  men  from  seeing  the  justice 
of  applying  to  him  so  ambitious  a  term  as 
•'discoverer."  He  owed  more  to  Lord  Shafles- 
bury  than  to  all  other  writers  besides.  He 
is  just  and  generous  towards  that  philoso 
pher  :  yet,  whoever  carefully  compares  their 
writings,  will  without  difficulty  distinguish 
the  two  builders,  and  the  larger  as  well  as 
more  regular  and  laboured  part  of  the  edifice, 
which  is  the  work  of  Butler. 

Mankind  have  various  principles  of  action  ; 
some  leading  directly  to  the  good  of  the  in 
dividual,  some  immediately  to  the  good  of 
the  community.  But  the  former  are  not  in 
stances  of  self-love,  or  of  any  form  of  it ;  for 
self-love  is  the  desire  of  a  man's  own  hap 
piness,  whereas  the  object  of  an  appetite  or 
passion  is  some  outward  thing.  Self-love 
seeks  things  as  means  of  happiness ;  the  pri 
vate  appetites  seek  things,  not  as  means,  but 
as  ends.  A  man  eats  from  hunger,  and 
drinks  from  thirst ;  and  though  he  knows 
that  these  acts  are  necessary  to  life,  that 
knowledge  is  not  the  motive  of  his  conduct. 
No  gratification  can  indeed  be  imagined 
without  a  previous  desire.  If  all  the  par 
ticular  desires  did  not  exist  independently, 
self-love  would  have  no  object  to  employ 
itself  about ;  for  there  would  in  that  case  be 
no  happiness,  which,  by  the  very  supposi 
tion  of  the  opponents,  is  made  up  of  the 
gratifications  of  various  desires.  No  pur 
suit  could  be  selfish  or  interested,  if  there 
were  not  satisfactions  to  be  gained  by  appe 
tites  which  seek  their  own  outward  objects 
without  regard  to  self.  These  satisfactions 
in  the  mass  compose  what  is  called  a  man's 
interest. 

In  contending,  therefore,  that  the  benevo 
lent  affections  are  disinterested,  no  more  is 
claimed  for  them  than  must  be  granted  to 
mere  animal  appetites  and  to  malevolent 
passions.  Each  of  these  principles  alike 
seeks  its  own  object,  for  the  sake  simply  of 
obtaining  it.  Pleasure  is  the  result  of  the 
attainment,  but  no  separate  part  of  the  aim 
of  the  agent.  The  desire  that  another  per 
son  may  be  gratified,  seeks  that  outward  ob 
ject  alone,  according  to  the  general  course 
of  human  desire.  Resentment  is  as  disinte 
rested  as  gratitude  or  pity,  but  not  more  so. 
Hunger  or  thirst  may  be,  as  much  as  the 
purest  benevolence,  at  variance  with  self- 
love.  A  regard  to  our  own  general  happi 
ness  is  not  a  vice,  but  in  itself  an  excellent 
quality.  It  were  well  if  it  prevailed  more 
generally  over  craving  and  short-sighted  ap 
petites.  The  weakness  of  the  social  affec 
tions,  and  the  strength  of  the  private  desires, 
properly  constitute  selfishness-  a  vice  utterly 
at  variance  with  the  happiness  of  him  who 
harbours  it,  and  as  such,  condemned  by  self- 
love.  There  are  as  few  who  attain  the  great 
est  satisfaction  to  themselves,  as  who  do  the 
greatest  good  to  others.  It  is  absurd  to  say 
with  some,  that  the  pleasure  of  benevolence 
is  selfish  because  it  is  felt  by  self.  Under 
standing  and  reasoning  are  acts  of  self,  for 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY,         133 


no  man  can  think  by  proxy ;  but  no  one  ever 
called  them  selfish.  Why  ?  Evidently  be 
cause  they  do  not  regard  self.  Precisely 
the  same  reason  applies  to  benevolence. 
Such  an  argument  is  a  gross  confusion  of 
"  self,"  as  it  is  a  subject  of  feeling  or  thought, 
with  "  self"  considered  as  the  object  of 
either.  It  is  no  more  just  to  refer  the  pri 
vate  appetites  to  self-love  because  they  com 
monly  promote  happiness,  than  it  would  be 
to  refer  them  to  self-hatred  in  those  frequent 
cases  where  their  gratification  obstructs  it. 

But,  besides  the  private  or  public  desires, 
and  besides  the  calm  regard  to  our  own  gene 
ral  welfare,  there  is  a  principle  in  man,  in 
its  nature  supreme  over  all  others.  This 
natural  supremacy  belongs  to  the  faculty 
which  surveys,  approves,  or  disapproves  the 
several  affections  of  our  minds  and  actions 
of  our  lives.  As  self-love  is  superior  to  the 
private  passions,  so  Conscience  is  superior  to 
the  whole  of  man.  Passion  implies  nothing 
but  an  inclination  to  follow  an  object,  and  in 
that  respect  passions  differ  only  in  force :  but 
no  notion  can  be  formed  of  the  principle  of 
reflection,  or  Conscience,  which  does  not 
comprehend  judgment,  direction,  superin- 
tendency;  authority  over  all  other  princi 
ples  of  action  is  a  constituent  part  of  the 
idea  of  it,  and  cannot  be  separated  from  it. 
Had  it  strength  as  it  has  right,  it  would  govern 
the  world.  The  passions  would  have  their 
power,  but  according  to  their  nature,  which 
is  to  be  subject  to  Conscience.  Hence  we 
may  understand  the  purpose  at  which  the 
ancients,  perhaps  confusedly,  aimed  when 
they  laid  it  down  '•'  that  Virtue  consisted  in 
following  Nature."  It  is  neither  easy,  nor, 
for  the  main  object  of  the  moralist,  import 
ant,  to  render  the  doctrines  of  the  ancients 
by  modern  language.  If  Butler  returns  to 
this  phrase  too  often,  it  was  rather  from  the 
remains  of  undistinguishing  reverence  for 
antiquity,  than  because  he  could  deem  its 
employment  important  to  his  own  opinions. 

The  tie  w^hich  holds  together  Religion  and 
Morality  is,  in  the  system  of  Butler,  some 
what  different  from  the  common  representa 
tions  of  it,  but  not  less  close.  Conscience, 
or  the  faculty  of  approving  or  disapproving, 
necessarily  constitutes  the  bond  of  union. 
Setting  out  from  the  belief  of  Theism,  and 
combining  it,  as  he  had  entitled  himself  to 
do.  with  the  reality  of  Conscience,  he  could 
not  avoid  discovering  that  the  being  who 
possessed  the  highest  moral  qualities,  is  the 
object  of  the  highest  moral  affections.  He 
contemplates  the  Deity  through  the  moral 
nature  of  man.  In  the  case  of  a  being  who 
is  to  be  perfectly  loved,  "  goodness  must  be 
the  simple  actuating  principle  within  him, 
this  being  the  moral  quality  which  is  the 
immediate  object  of  love.''  "The  highest, 
the  adequate  object  of  this  affection,  is  per 
fect  goodness,  which,  therefore,  we  are  to 
love  with  all  our  heart,  with  all  our  soul,  and 
with  all  our  strength."  "  We  should  refer 
ourselves  implicitly  to  him.  and  cast  our 
selves  entirely  upon  him.  The  whole  at- 


;ention  of  life  should  be  to  obey  his  com- 
nands."*  Moral  distinctions  are  thus  pre 
supposed  before  a  step  can  be  made  towards 
Religion :  Virtue  leads  to  piety  ;  God  is  to  be 
"oved,  because  goodness  is  the  object  of  love; 
and  it  is  only  after  the  mind  rises  through 
luman  morality  to  divine  perfection,  that  all 
the  virtues  and  duties  are  seen  to  hang  from 
the  throne  of  God.t 


REMARKS. 

There  do  not  appear  to  be  any  errors  in 
the  ethical  principles  of  Butler :  the  follow 
ing  remarks  are  intended  to  point  out  some 
defects  in  his  scheme.  And  even  that  at 
tempt  is  made  with  the  unfeigned  humility 
of  one  who  rejoices  in  an  opportunity  of 
doing  justice  to  that  part  of  the  writings  of  a 
great  philosopher  which  has  not  been  so 
clearly  understood  nor  so  justly  estimated 
by  the  generality  as  his  other  works. 

1.  It  is  a  considerable  defect,  though  per 
haps  unavoidable  in  a  sermon,  that  he  omits 
all  inquiry  into  the  nature  and  origin  of  the 
private  appetites,  which  first  appear  in  hu 
man  nature.     It  is  implied,  but  it  is  not  ex 
pressed   in   his  reasonings,  that  there  is  a 
time  before  the  child  can  be  called  selfish, 
any  more  than  social,  when  these  appetites 
seem  as  it  were  separately  to  pursue  their 
distinct  objects,  and  that  this  is  long  antece 
dent  to  that  state  of  mind  in  which  their 
gratification  is  regarded  as  forming  the  mass 
called  •'•'happiness."     It  is  hence  that  they 
are  likened  to  instincts  distinct  as  these  lat 
ter  subsequently  become. t 

2.  Butler  shows  admirably  well,  that  un 
less   there  were  principles  of  action   inde 
pendent  of  self,  there  could  be  no  pleasures 
and  no  happiness  for  self-love  to  watch  over. 
A  step  farther  would  have  led  him  to  per 
ceive  that  self-love  is  altogether  a  secondary 
formation,  the  result  of  the  joint  operation  of 
Reason  and  habit  upon  the  primary  princi 
ples.    It  could  not  have  existed  without  pre 
supposing    original    appetites    and    organic 
gratifications.     Had  he  considered  this  part 
of  the  subject,  he  would  have  strengthened 
his  case  by  showing  that  self-love  is  as  truly 
a  derived  principle,  not  only  as  any  of  the 
social  affections. 'but  as  any  of  the  most  con 
fessedly  acquired  passions.    It  would  appear 
clear,  that  as  self-love  is  not  divested  of  its 
self-regarding  character  by  considering  it  as 
acquired,  so  the  social  affections  do  not  lose 
any  part  of  their  disinterested  character,  if 
they  be  considered  as  formed  from  simpler 
elements.    Nothing  would  more  tend  to  root 
out  the  old  prejudice  which  treats  a  regard 


*  Sermon  xiii. — "  On  the  Love  of  God." 
t  "  The  part  in  which  I  think  I  have  done  most 
service  is  that  in  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  slip 
in  a  foundation  under  Butler's  doctrine  of  the  su 
premacy  of  Conscience,  which  he  left  baseless." — 
Sir  James  Mackintosh  to  Professor  Napier. — ED. 
I  The  very  able  work  ascribed  to  Mr.  Hazlitt, 
entitled  "  Essay  on  the  Principles  of  Human  Ac 
tion,"  Lond.  1805,  contains  original  views  on  this 
i  subject. 

M 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ta  self  as  analogous  to  a  self-evident  princi 
ple,  than  the  proof  that  self-love  is  itself 
formed  from  certain  original  elements,  and 
that  a  living  being  long  subsists  before  its 
appearance.* 

3.  It  must  be  owned  that  those  parts  of 
.Butlers  discourses  which  relate  to  the  so 
cial  affections  are  more  satisfactory  than 
those  which  handle  the  question  concerning 
the  moral  sentiments.  It  is  not  that  the  real 
existence  of  the  latter  is  not  as  well  made 
.-out  as  that  of  the  former.  In  both  cases  he 
occupies  the  unassailable  ground  of  an  ap 
peal  to  consciousness.  All  men  (even  the 
worst),  feel  that  they  have  a  conscience  and 
disinterested  affections.  But  he  betrays  a 
sense  of  the  greater  vagueness  of  his  notions 
,  on  this  subject :  he  falters  as  he  approaches 
it.  He  makes  no  attempt  to  determine  in 
what  state  of  mind  the  action  of  Conscience 
..consists.  He  does  not  venture  steadily  to 
.denote  it  by  a  name  •  he  fluctuates  between 
different  appellations,  and  multiplies  the 
metaphors  of  authority  and  command,  with 
out  a  simple  exposition  of  that  mental  opera 
tion  which  these  metaphors  should  only  have 
illustrated.  It  commands  other  principles: 
but  the  question  recurs,  Why,  or  How  ? 

Some  of  his  own  hints  and  some  fainter 
intimations  of  Shaftesbury,  might  have  led 
iim  to  what  appears  to  be  the  true  solution, 
which,  perhaps  from  its  extreme  simplicity, 
kas  escaped  him  and  his  successors.  The 
truth  seems  to  be,  that  the  moral  sentiments 
in  their  mature  state,  are  a  class  of  feelings 
which  have  no  other  object  bi't  the  mental  dis 
positions  leading  to  voluntary  action,  and  the 
voluntary  actions  which  flow  from  these  dis 
positions.  We  are  pleased  with  some  dis 
positions  and  actions,  and  displeased  with 
others,  in  ourselves  and  our  fellows.  We 
desire  to  cultivate  the  dispositions  and  to 
perform  the  actions,  which  we  contemplate 
with  satisfaction.  These  objects,  like  all 
th.ose  of  human  appetite  or  desire,  are  sought 
for  their  own  sake.  The  peculiarity  of  these 
desires  is,  that  their  gratification  requires  the 
use  of  no  means;  nothing  (unless  it  be  a  vo 
lition)  is  interposed  between  the  desire  and 
tke  voluntary  act.  It  is  impossible,  there- 
f6re,  that  these  passions  should  undergo  any 
change  by  transfer  from  being  the  end  to 
•feeing  the  means,  as  is  the  case  with  other 
•practical  principles.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
&GOII  as  they  are  fixed  on  these  ends,  they 
«eannot  regard  any  further  object.  When 
Another  passion  prevails  over  them,  the  end 
*>f  the  moral  faculty  is  converted  into  a 
tneans  of  gratification.  But  volitions  and 
Actions  are  not  themselves  the  end  or  last 
object  in  view,  of  any  other  desire  or  aver 
sion.  Nothing  stands  between  the  moral 
sentiments  and  their  object ;  they  are,  as  it 
were,  in  contact  with  the  Will.  It  is  this 
^ort  of  mental  position,  if  the  expression  may 

*  Compare  this  statement  with  the  Stoical  doc 
trine  explained  by  Cicero  in  the  book  De  Finibus, 
uoted  above,  01  which  it  is  the  direct  opposite. 


be  pardoned,  that  explains  or  seems  to  ex 
plain  those  characteristic  properties  which 
true  philosophers  ascribe  to  them,  and  which 
all  reflecting  men  feel  to  belong  to  them. 
Being  the  only  desires,  aversions,  sentiments, 
or  emotions  which  regard  dispositions  and 
actions,  they  necessarily  extend  to  the  whole 
character  and  conduct.  Among  motives  to 
action,  they  alone  are  justly  considered  as 
universal.  They  may  and  do  stand  between 
any  other  practical  principle  and  its  object, 
while  it  is  absolutely  impossible  that  another 
shall  intercept  their  connexion  with  the  Will. 
Be  it  observed,  that  though  many  passions 
prevail  over  them,  no  other  can  act  beyond 
'ts  own  appointed  and  limited  sphere  ;  and 
hat  such  prevalence  itself,  leaving  the  natu 
ral  order  disturbed  in  no  other  part  of  the 
mind,  is  perceived  to  be  a  disorder,  when 
ever  seen  in  another,  and  felt  to  be  so  by 
the  very  mind  disordered,  when  the  disor 
der  subsides.  Conscience  may  forbid  the 
Will  to  contribute  to  the  gratification  of  a 
desire:  no  desire  ever  forbids  the  Will  to 
obey  Conscience. 

This  result  of  the  peculiar  relation  of  Con 
science  to  the  Will,  justifies  those  metapho 
rical  expressions  which  ascribe  to  it  "  au 
thority"  and  the  right  of  '-universal  com 
mand.''  It  is  immutable ;  for,  by  the  law 
which  regulates  all  feelings,  it  must  rest  on 
action,  which  is  its  object,  and  beyond  which 
it  cannot  look ;  and  as  it  employs  no  means, 
it  never  can  be  transferred  to  nearer  objects, 
in  the  way  in  which  he  who  first  desires  an 
object  as  a  means  of  gratification,  may  come 
to  seek  it  as  his  end.  Another  remarkable 
peculiarity  is  bestowed  on  the  moral  feel 
ings  by  the  nature  of  their  object.  As  the 
objects  of  all  other  desires  are  outward,  the 
r-atisfaction  of  them  may  be  frustrated  by 
outward  causes  :  the  moral  sentiments  may 
always  be  gratified,  because  voluntary  ac 
tions  and  moral  dispositions  spring  from 
within.  No  external  circumstance  affects 
them  ; — hence  their  independence.  As  the 
moral  sentiment  needs  no  means,  and  the 
desire  is  instantaneously  followed  by  the 
volition,  it  seems  to  be  either  that  which 
first  suggests  the  relation  between  command 
and  obedience,  or  at  least  that  which  affords  the 
simplest  instance  of  it.  It  is  therefore  with 
the  most  rigorous  precision  that  authority 
and  universality  are  ascribed  to  them.  Their 
only  unfortunate  property  is  their  too  fre 
quent  weakness  \  but  it  is  apparent  that  it  is 
from  that  circumstance  alone  that  their  fail 
ure  arises.  Thus  considered,  the  language 
of  Butler  concerning  Conscience,  that,  "  had 
it  strength,  as  it  has  right,  it  would  govern 
the  world,"  which  may  seem  to  be  only  an 
effusion  of  generous  feeling,  proves  to  be  a 
just  statement  of  the  nature  and  action  of 
the  highest  of  human  faculties.  The  union 
of  universality,  immutability,  and  independ 
ence,  with  direct  action  on  the  Will,  which 
distinguishes  the  Moral  Sense  from  every 
other  part  of  our  practical  nature,  renders  it 
scarcely  metaphorical  language  to  ascribe  to 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


135 


it  unbounded  sovereignty  and  awful  author 
ity  over  the  whole  of  the  world  within ; — 
shows  that  attributes,  well  denoted  by  terms 
significant  of  command  and  control,  are,  in 
fact,  inseparable  from  it,  or  rather  constitute 
its  very  essence;  and  justifies  those  ancient 
moralists  who  represent  it  as  alone  securing, 
if  not  forming  the  moral  liberty  of  man. 
When  afterwards  the  religious  principle  is 
evolved,  Conscience  is  clothed  with  the  su 
blime  character  of  representing  the  divine 
purity  and  majesty  in  the  human  soul.  Its 
title  is  not  impaired  by  any  number  of 
defeats;  for  every  defeat  necessarily  dis 
poses  the  disinterested  and  dispassionate 
by-stander  to  wish  that  its  force  were 
strengthened :  and  though  it  may  be  doubt 
ed  whether,  consistently  with  the  present 
constitution  of  human  nature,  it  could  be  so 
invigorated  as  to  be  the  only  motive  to  ac 
tion,  yet  every  such  by-stander  rejoices  at 
all  accessions  to  its  force;  and  would  own, 
that  man  becomes  happier,  more  excellent, 
more  estimable,  more  venerable,  in  propor 
tion  as  it  acquires  a  power  of  banishing 
malevolent  passions,  of  strongly  curbing  all 
the  private  appetites,  and  of  influencing 
and  guiding  the  benevolent  affections  them 
selves. 

Let  it  be  carefully  considered  whether  the 
same  observations  could  be  made  with  truth. 
or  with  plausibility,  on  any  other  part  or  ele 
ment  of  the  nature  of  man.  They  are  en 
tirely  independent  of  the  question,  whether 
Conscience  be  an  inherent,  or  an  acquired 
principle.  If  it  be  inherent,  that  circum 
stance  is,  according  to  the  common  modes 
of  thinking,  a  sufficient  proof  of  its  title  to 
veneration.  But  if  provision  be  made  in  the 
constitution  and  circumstances  of  all  men, 
for  uniformly  producing  it,  by  processes  simi 
lar  to  those  which  produce  other  acquired 
sentiments,  may  not  our  reverence  be  aug 
mented  by  admiration  of  that  Supreme  Wis 
dom  which,  in  such  mental  contrivances,  yet 
more  brightly  than  in  the  lower  world  of  mat 
ter,  accomplishes  mighty  purposes  by  instru 
ments  so  simple  ?  Should  these  speculations 
be  thought  to  have  any  solidity  by  those  who 
are  accustomed  to  such  subjects,  it  would  be 
easy  to  unfold  and  apply  them  so  fully,  that 
they  may  be  thoroughly  apprehended  by 
every  intelligent  person. 

4,  The  most  palpable  defect  of  Butler's 
scheme  is,  that  it  affords  no  answer  to  the 
question,  "  What  is  the  distinguishing  quality 
common  to  all  right  actions  V  If  it  were 
answered,  "  Their  criterion  is,  that  they  are 
approved  and  commanded  by  Conscience, 
the  answerer  would  find  that  he  was  involved 
in  a  vicious  circle:  for  Conscience  itself 
could  be  no  otherwise  defined  than  as  the 
faculty  which  approves  and  commands  righ 
actions. 

There  are  few  circumstances  more  re 
markable  than  the  small  number  of  Butler's 
followers  in  Ethics;  and  it  is  perhaps  stil 
more  observable,  that  his  opinions  were  no,. 
w»  much  rejected  as  overlooked.  It  is  an  in 


stance  of  the  importance  of  style.  No  thinker 
so  great  was  ever  so  bad  a  writer.  Indeed, 
the  ingenious  apologies  which  have  been 
lately  attempted  for  this  defect,  amount  to 
no  more  than  that  his  power  of  thought  was 
loo  much  for  his  skill  in  language.  How 
general  must  the  reception  have  been  of 
truths  so  certain  and  momentous  as  those 
contained  in  Butler's  discourses, — with  how 
much  more  clearness  must  they  have  ap 
peared  to  his  own  great  understanding,  if  he 
had  possessed  the  strength  and  distinctness 
with  which  Hobbes  enforces  odious  false 
hood,  or  the  unspeakable  charm  of  that  trans 
parent  diction  which  clothed  the  unfruitful 
paradoxes  of  Berkeley ! 

HUTCHESON.* 

This  ingenious  writer  began  to  try  his  own 
strength  by  private  letters,  written  in  his 
early  youth  to  Dr.  Clarke,  the  metaphysical 
patriarch  of  his  time ;  on  whom  young  phi 
losophers  seem  to  have  considered  them 
selves  as  possessing  a  claim,  which  he  had 
too  much  goodness  to  reject.  His  corres 
pondence  with  Hutcheson  is  lost;  but  we 
may  judge  of  its  spirit  by  his  answers  to 
Butler,  and  by  one  to  Mr.  Henry  Home,t 
afterwards  Lord  Kames,  then  a  young  ad 
venturer  in  the  prevalent  speculations.  Near 
ly  at  the  same  period  with  Butler's  first  pub 
lication^  the  writings  of  Hutcheson  began  to 
show  coincidences  with  him,  indicative  of 
the  tendency  of  moral  theory  to  assume  a 
new  form,  by  virtue  of  an  impulse  received 
from  Shaftesbury,  and  quickened  to  greater 
activity  by  the  adverse  system  of  Clarke. 
Lord  Molesworth,  the  friend  of  Shaftesbury, 
patronised  Hutcheson,  and  even  criticised  his 
manuscript;  and  though  a  Presbyterian,  he 
was  befriended  by  King,  Archbishop  of  Dub 
lin,  himself  a  metaphysician  ;  and  aided  by 
Mr.  Synge,  afterwards  also  a  bishop,  to  whom 
speculations  somewhat  similar  to  his  own 
had  occurred. 

Butler  and  Hutcheson  coincided  in  the  two 
important  positions,  that  disinterested  affec 
tions,  and  a  distinct  moral  faculty,  are  essen 
tial  parts  of  human  nature.  Hutcheson  is  a 
chaste  and  simple  writer,  who  imbibed  the 
opinions,  without  the  literary  faults  of  his 
master,  Shaftesbury.  He  has  a  clearness  of 
expression,  and  fulness  of  illustration,  which 
are  wanting  in  Butler.  But  he  is  inferior  to 
both  these  writers  in  the  appearance  at  least 
of  originality,  and  to  Butler  especially  in  that 

*  Born  in  Ireland,  1694  ;  died  at  Glasgow,  1747. 

t  Woodhouselee's  Life  of  Lord  Kames,  vol.  i. 
Append.  No.  3. 

t  The  first  edition  of  Butler's  Sermons  was 
published  in  1726,  in  which  year  also  appeared  the 
second  edition  of  Hutcheson's  Inquiry  into  Beauty 
and  Virtue.  The  Sermons  had  been  preached 
some  years  before,  though  there  is  no  likelihood 
that  the  contents  could  have  reached  a  young 
teacher  at  Dublin.  The  place  of  Hutcheson's 
birth  is  not  mentioned  in  any  account  known  to 
me.  Ireland  may  be  truly  said  to  be  "  incuriosa. 
suorum." 


136 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


philosophical  courage  which,  when  it  disco 
vers  the  fountains  of  truth  and  falsehood, 
leaves  others  to  follow  the  streams.  He 
states  as  strongly  as  Butler,  that  "the  same 
cause  which  determines  us  to  pursue  hap 
piness  for  ourselves,  determines  us  both  to 
esteem  and  benevolence  on  their  proper  oc 
casions — even  the  very  frame  of  our  na 
ture."*  It  is  in  vain,  as  he  justly  observes, 
for  the  patrons  of  a  refined  selfishness  to  pre 
tend  that  we  pursue  the  happiness  of  others 
for  ihe  sake  of  the  pleasure  which  we  derive 
from  it;  since  it  is  apparent  that  there  could 
be  no  such  pleasure  if  there  had  been  no 
previous  affection.  "Had  we  no  affection 
distinct  from  self-love,  nothing  could  raise  a 
desire  of  the  happiness  of  others,  but  when 
viewed  as  a  mean  of  our  own."f  He  seems 
to  have  been  the  first  who  entertained  just 
notions  of  the  formation  of  the  secondary 
desires,  which  had  been  overlooked  by  But 
ler.  "  There  must  arise,  in  consequence  of 
our  original  desires,  secondary  desires  of 
every  thing  useful  to  gratify  the  primary  de 
sire.  Thus,  as  soon  as  we  apprehend  the 
use  of  wealth,  or  power,  to  gratify  our  origi 
nal  desires,  we  also  desire  them.  From  their 
universality  as  means  arises  the  general  pre 
valence  of  these  desires  of  wealth  and 
power. "t  Proceeding  farther  in  his  zeal 
against  the  selfish  system  than  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury,  who  seems  ultimately  to  rest  the  rea 
sonableness  of  benevolence  on  its  subser 
viency  to  the  happiness  of  the'individual,  he 
represents  the  moral  faculty  to  be.  as  well 
as  self-love  and  benevolence,  a  calm  general 
impulse,  which  may  and  does  impel  a  good 
man  to  sacrifice  not  only  happiness,  but  even 
life  itself,  to  Virtue. 

As  Mr.  Locke  had  spoken  of  "  an  internal 
sensation  ;"  Lord  Shaftesbury  once  or  twice 
of  "  a  reflex  sense,"  and  once  of  "a  moral 
sense  ;"  Hutcheson,  who  had  a  steadier,  if 
not  a  clearer  view  of  the  nature  of  Con 
science  than  Butler,  calls  it  "  a  moral  sense ;" 
a  name  which  quickly  became  popular,  and 
continues  to  be  a  part  of  philosophical  lan 
guage.  By  "sense"  he  understood  a  capa 
city  of  receiving  ideas,  together  with  plea 
sures  and  pains,  from  a  class  of  objects:  the 
term  "  moral"  was  used  to  describe  the  par 
ticular  class  in  question.  It  implied  only 
that  Conscience  was  a  separate  element  in 
our  nature,  and  that  it  was  not  a  state  or  act 
of  the  Understanding.  According  to  him,  it 
also  implied  that  it  was  an  original  and  im 
planted  principle  ;  but  every  other  part  of 
his  theory  might  be  embraced  by  those  who 
hold  it  to  be  derivative. 

The  object  of  moral  approbation,  accord 
ing  to  him,  is  general  benevolence;  and  he 
carries  this  generous  error  so  far  as  to  deny 
that  prudence,  as  long  as  it  regards  ourselves, 
can  be  morally  approved ; — an  assertion  con 
tradicted  by  every  man's  feelings,  and  to 
which  we  owe  the  Dissertation  on  the  Na- 


*  Inquiry,  p.  152. 

t  Essay  on  the  Passions,  p.  17.         t  Ibid.  p.  8. 


ture  of  Virtue,  which  Butler  annexed  to  his 
Analogy.  By  proving  that  all  virtuous  ac 
tions  produce  generaf  good,  he  fancied  that 
he  had  proved  the  necessity  of  regarding  the 
general  good  in  every  act  of  virtue  ;• — an  in 
stance  of  that  confusion  of  the  theory  of 
moral  sentiments  with  the  criterion  of  moral 
actions,  against  which  the  reader  was  warned 
at  the  opening  of  this  Dissertation,  as  fatal 
to  ethical  philosophy.  He  is  chargeable,  like 
Butler,  with  a  vicious  circle,  in  describing 
virtuous  acts  as  those  which  are  approved 
by  the  moral  sense,  while  he  at  the  same 
time  describes  the  moral  sense  as  the  faculty 
which  perceives  and  feels  the  morality  of 
actions. 

Hutcheson  was  the  father  of  the  modern 
school  of  speculative  philosophy  in  Scotland ; 
for  though  in  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Scotch  are  said  to  have  been 
known  throughout  Europe  by  their  unmea 
sured  passion  for  dialectical  subtilties,*  and 
though  this  metaphysical  taste  was  nourish 
ed  by  the  controversies  which  followed  the 
Reformation,  yet  it  languished,  with  every 
other  intellectual  taste  and  talent,  from  the 
Restoration, — first  silenced  by  civil  disorders, 
and  afterwards  repressed  by  an  exemplary, 
but  unlettered  clergy, — till  the  philosophy 
of  Shaftesbury  was  brought  by  Hutcheson 
from  Ireland.  We  are  told  by  the  writer  of 
his  Life  (a  fine  piece  of  philosophical  biogra 
phy)  that  "he  had  a  remarkable  degree  of 
rational  enthusiasm  for  learning,  liberty,  Re 
ligion,  Virtue,  and  human  happiness  ;"t  that 
he  taught  in  public  with  persuasive  elo 
quence;  that  his  instructive  conversation 
was  at  once  lively  arid  modest ;  and  that  he 
united  pure  manners  with  a  kind  disposition. 
What  wonder  that  such  a  man  should  have 
spread  the  love  of  Knowledge  and  Virtue 
around  him,  and  should  have  rekindled  in 
his  adopted  country  a  relish  for  the  sciences 
which  he  cultivated  !  To  him  may  also  be 
ascribed  that  proneness  to  multiply  ultimate 
and  original  principles  in  human  naturer 
which  characterized  the  Scottish  school  till 
the  second  extinction  of  a  passion  for  meta- 


*  The  character  given  of  the  Scotch  by  the  fa 
mous  and  unfortunate  Servetus  (edition  of  Ptole 
my.  1533,)  is  in  many  respects  curious:  "  Gallis 
amicissimi,  Anglorumque  regi  maxime  infest!.**' 
Subita  ingenia,  et  in  ultionem  prona,  ferociaque.**' 
In  bello  fortes  ;  inedire,  vigilise,  algoris  patientissi- 
mi;  decenti  forma  sed  cultu  negligentiori ;  invidi 
natura,  et  caeterorum  mortalium  contemptores; 
ostentant  plus  nimio  nobilitalem  suam,  et  in  summd 
etiam  egestale  suum  genus  ad  regiam  slirpem  re~ 
ferunt  ;  nee  non  dialecticis  argutiis  sibi  Uandi- 
untur."  "  Subita  ingenia"  is  an  expression  equi 
valent  to  the  "  Prrefervidum  Scotorum  ingenium" 
of  Buchanan.  Churchill  almost  agrees  in  words 
with  Servetus : 

"  Whose  lineage  springs 

From  great  and  glorious,  though  forgotten  kings." 
The  strong  antipathy  of  the  late  King  George  III. 
to  what  he  called  "  Scotch  Metaphysics,"  proves 
the  permanency  of  the  last  part  of  the  national 
character. 

t  Life  by  Dr.  Leechman,  prefixed  to  the  Sys 
tem  of  Moral  Philosophy. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


137 


physical  speculation  in  Scotland.  A  careful 
perusal  of  the  writings  of  this  now  little  stu 
died  philosopher  will  satisfy  the  well-quali 
fied  reader,  that  Dr.  Adam  Smith's  ethical 
speculations  are  not  so  unsuggested  as  they 
are  beautiful. 


BERKELEY.* 

This  great  metaphysician  was  so  little  a 
moralist,  that  it  requires  the  attraction  of  his 
name  to  excuse  its  introduction  here.  His 
Theory  of  Vision  contains  a  great  discovery 
in  mental  philosophy.  His  immaterialism 
is  chiefly  valuable  as  a  touchstone  of  meta 
physical  sagacity;  showing  those  to  be  alto 
gether  without  it,  who,  like  Johnson  and 
Beattie.  believed  that  his  speculations  were 
sceptical,  that  they  implied  any  distrust  in 
the  senses,  or  that  they  had  the  smallest 
tendency  to  disturb  reasoning  or  alter  con 
duct.  Ancient  learning,  exact  science,  po 
lished  society,  modern  literature,  and  the 
fine  arts,  contributed  to  adorn  and  enrich  the 
mind  of  this  accomplished  man.  All  his 
contemporaries  agreed  with  the  satirist  in 
ascribing 

"  To  Berkeley  every  virtue  under  heaven. "t 
Adverse  factions  and  hostile  wits  concurred 
only  in  loving,  admiring,  and  contributing  to 
advance  him.  The  severe  sense  of  Swift 
endured  his  visions ;  the  modest  Addison  en 
deavoured  to  reconcile  Clarke  to  his  ambi 
tious  speculations.  His  character  converted 
the  satire  of  Pope  into  fervid  praise ;  even 
the  discerning,  fastidious,  and  turbulent  At- 
terbury  said,  after  an  interview  with  him, 
"  So  much  understanding,  so  much  kno\v- 
ledge,  so  much  innocence,  and  such  humili 
ty,  I  did  not  think  had  been  the  portion  of 
any  but  angels,  till  I  saw  this  gentleman. "f 
Lord  Bathurst  told  me,  that  the  members 
of  the  Scriblerus  Club  being  met  at  his  house 
at  dinner,  they  agreed  to  rally  Berkeley, 
who  was  also  his  guest,  on  his"  scheme  at 
Bermudas.  Berkeley,  having  listened  to 
the  many  lively  things  they  had  to  say,  beg 
ged  to  be  heard  in  his  turn,  and  displayed 
his  plan  with  such  an  astonishing  and  ani 
mating  force  of  eloquence  and  enthusiasm, 
that  they  were  struck  dumb,  and  after  some 
pause,  rose  all  up  together,  with  earnestness 
exclaiming,  'Let  us  set  out  with  him  imme 
diately. '  "§  It  was  when  thus  beloved  and 
celebrated  that  he  conceived,  at  the  age  of 
forty-five,  the  design  of  devoting  his  life  to 
reclaim  and  convert  the  natives  of  North 
America ;  and  he  employed  as  much  influ 
ence  and  solicitation  as  common  rnen  do  for 
their  most  prized  objects,  iu  obtaining  leave 
to  resign  his  dignities  and  revenues,  to  quit 
his  accomplished  and  affectionate  friends, 
and  to  bury  himself  in  what  must  have 
seemed  an  intellectual  desert.  After  four 


*  Born  near  Thomastown,  in    Ireland,  1684  ; 
died  at  Oxford,  1753. 

t  Epilogue  to  Pope's  Satires,  dialogue  2. 
$  Duncombe's  Letters,  pp.  106,  107. 
§  Wharton  on  Pope,  i.  199. 
18 


years'  residence  at  Newport,  in  Rhode  Is 
land,  he  was  compelled,  by  the  refusal  of  go 
vernment  to  furnish  him  with  funds  for  his 
College,  to  forego  his  work  of  heroic,  or  rather 
godlike  benevolence ;  though  not  without 
some  consoling  forethought  of  the  fortune  of 
the  country  where  he  had  sojourned. 

Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way, 

The  first  four  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day, 

TIME'S  NOBLEST  OFFSPRING  IS  ITS  LAST. 

Thus  disappointed  in  his  ambition  of  keep 
ing  a  school  for  savage  children,  at  a  salary 
of  a  hundred  pounds  by  the  year,  he  was  re 
ceived,  on  his  return,  with  open  arms  by  the 
philosophical  queen,  at  whose  metaphysical 
parties  he  made  one  with  Sherlock,  who,  as 
well  as  Smalridge,  was  his  supporter,  and 
withHoadley,  who,  following  Clarke,  was  his 
antagonist.  By  her  influence,  he  was  made 
bishop  of  Cloyne.  It  is  one  of  his  highest 
boasts,  that  though  of  English  extraction,  he 
was  a  true  Irishman,  and  the  first  eminent 
Protestant,  after  the  unhappy  contest  at  the 
Revolution,  who  avowed  his  love  for  all  his 
countrymen.  He  asked,  '-Whether  their 
habitations  and  furniture  were  not  more  sor 
did  than  those  of  the  savage  Americans?"* 
"Whether  a  scheme  for  the  welfare  of  this 
nation  should  not  take  in  the  whole  inhabit 
ants  ?"  and  "  Whether  it  was  a  vain  attempt,, 
to  project  the  flourishing  of  our  Protestant 
gentry,  exclusive  of  the  bulk  of  the  natives  V'\ 
He  proceeds  to  promote  the  reformation  sug 
gested  in  this  pregnant  question  by  a  series 
of  Queries,  intimating  with  the  utmost  skill 
and  address,  every  reason  that  proves  the 
necessity,  and  the  safety,  and  the  wisest 
mode  of  adopting  his  suggestion.  He  con 
tributed,  by  a  truly  Christian  address  to  the 
Roman  Catholics  of  his  diocese,  to  their 
perfect  quiet  during  the  rebellion  of  1745;: 
and  soon  after  published  a  letter  to  the 
clergy  of  that  persuasion,  beseeching  them 
to  inculcate  industry  among  their  flocks, 
for  which  he  received  their  thanks.  He 
tells  them  that  it  was  a  saying  among  the 
negro  slaves,  "if  negro  were  not  negro, 
Irishman  would  be  negro."  It  is  difficult 
to  read  these  proofs  of  benevolence  and 
foresight  without  emotion,  at  the  moment 
when,  after  a  lapse  of  near  a  century,  his 
suggestions  have  been  at  length,  at  the  close 
of  a  struggle  of  twenty-five  years,  adopted, 
by  the  admission  of  the  whole  Irish  nation 
to  the  privileges  of  the  British  constitution.!: 
The,  patriotism  of  Berkeley  was  not,  like 
that  of  Swift,  tainted  by  disappointed  ambi 
tion,  nor  was  it,  like  Swift's,  confined  to  a 
colony  of  English  Protestants.  Perhaps  the 
Querist  contains  more  hints,  then  original, 
and  still  unapplied  in  legislation  and  political 
economy,  than  are  to  be  found  in  any  other 
equal  space.  From  the  writings  of  his  ad 
vanced  years,  when  he  chose  a  medical 
tract§  to  be  the  vehicle  of  his  philosophical 


*  See  his  Querist,  358 ;  published  in  1735. 
t  Ibid.,  255.  t  April,  1829. 

§  Siris,  or  Reflections  on  Tar  Water. 
M  2 


13B 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


rejections,  though  it  cannot  be  said  that  he 
relinquished  his  early  opinions,  it  is  at  least 
apparent  that  his  mind  had  received  a  new 
bent,  and  was  habitually  turned  from  reason 
ing  towards  contemplation.  His  immaterial- 
isrn  indeed  modestly  appears,  but  only  to 
purify  and  elevate  our  thoughts,  and  to  fix 
them  on  Mind,  the  paramount  and  primeval 
principle  of  all  things.  "  Perhaps,"  says  he, 
'-the  truth  about  innate  ideas  may  be.  that 
there  are  properly  no  ideas,  or  passive  objects, 
in  the  mind  but  what  are  derived  from  sense, 
but  that  there  are  also,  besides  these,  her' 
own  acts  and  operations, — such  are  notions;'' 
a  statement  which  seems  once  more  to  admit 
general  conceptions,  and  which  might  have 
served,  as  well  as  the  parallel  passage  of 
Leibnitz,  as  the  basis  of  the  modern  philoso 
phy  of  Germany.  From  these  compositions 
of  his  old  age.  he  appears  then  to  have  recur 
red  with  fondness  to  Plato  and  the  later  Plato- 
nists  j  writers  from  whose  mere  reasonings 
an  intellect  so  acute  could  hardly  hope  for 
an  argumentative  satisfaction  of  all  its  diffi 
culties,  and  whom,  he  probably  rather  studied 
as  a  means  of  inuring  his  mind  to  objects 
beyond  the  "visible  diurnal  sphere,"  and  of 
attaching  it,  through  frequent  meditation,  to 
that  perfect  and  transcendent  goodness  to 
which  his  moral  feelings  always  pointed, 
and  which  they  incessantly  strove  to  grasp. 
His  mind,  enlarging  as  it  rose,  at  length  re 
ceives  every  theist,  however  imperfect  his 
belief,  to  a  communion  in  its  philosophic 
piety.  "  Truth,"  he  beautifully  concludes. 
"  is  the  cry  of  all,  but  the  game  of  a  few! 
Certainly,  where  it  is  the  chief  passion,  it 
does  not  give  way  to  vulgar  cares,  nor  is  it 
contented  with  a  little  ardour  in  the  early 
time  of  life ;  active  perhaps  to  pursue,  but 
not  so  fit  to  weigh  and  revise.  He  that  would 
make  a  real  progress  in  knowledge,  must 
dedicate  his  age  as  well  as  youth,  the  later 
growth  as  well  as  first  fruits,  at  the  altar 
of  Truth."  So  did  Berkeley,  and  such  were 
almost  his  latest  words. 

His  general  principles  of  Ethics  may  be 
shortly  stated  in  his  own  words: — "As  God 
is  a  being  of  infinite  goodness,  His  end  is 
the  good  of  His  creatures.  The  general  well- 
being  of  all  men  of  all  nations,  of  all  ages 
of  the  world,  is  that  which  He  designs  should 
be  procured  by  the  concurring  actions  of 
each  individual."  Having  stated  that  this 
end  can  be  pursued  only  in  one  of  two  ways, 
— either  by  computing  the  consequences  of 
each  action,  or  by  obeying  rules  which  gene 
rally  tend  to  happiness, — and  having  shown 
the  first  to  be  impossible,  he  rightly  infers, 
"  that  the  end  to  which  God  requires  the  con 
currence  of  human  actions,  must  be  carried 
on  by  the  observation  of  certain  determinate 
and  universal  rules,  or  moral  precepts,  which 
in  their  own  nature  have  a  necessary  ten 
dency  to  promote  the  well-being  of  man 
kind,  taking  in  all  nations  and  ages,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  world."*  A 

*  Sermon  in  Trinity  College  chapel,  on  Passive 
Obedience,  1712. 


romance,  of  which  a  journey  to  an  Utopia, 
in  the  centre  of  Africa,  forms  the  chief  part, 
called  "The  Adventures  of  Signer  Gaudentio 
di  Lucca."  has  been  commonly  ascribed  to 
him;  probably  on  no  other  ground  than  its 
union  of  pleasing  invention  with  benevolence 
and  elegance.*  Of  the  exquisite  grace  and 
beauty  of  his  diction,  no  man  accustomed  to 
English  composition  can  need  to  be  informed. 
His  works  are,  beyond  dispute,  the  finest 
models  of  philosophical  style  since  Cicero. 
Perhaps  they  surpass  those  of  the  orator,  in 
the  wonderful  art  by  which  the  fullest  light 
is  thrown  on  the  most  minute  and  evanes 
cent  parts  of  the  most  subtile  of  human 
conceptions.  Perhaps,  also,  he  surpassed 
Cicero  in  the  charm  of  simplicity,  a  quality 
eminently  found  in  Irish  writers  before  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  : — conspicuous 
in  the  masculine  severity  of  Swift,  in  the 
Platonic  fancy  of  Berkeley,  in  the  native 
tenderness  and  elegance  of  Goldsmith,  and 
not  withholding  its  attractions  from  Hutche- 
son  and  Leland,  writers  of  classical  taste, 
though  of  inferior  power.  The  two  Irisn 
philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century  may 
be  said  to  have  co-operated  in  calling  forth 
the  metaphysical  genius  of  Scotland;  for, 
though  Hulcheson  spread  the  taste  for,  and 
furnished  the  principles  of  such  specula 
tions,  yet  Berkeley  undoubtedly  produced  the 
scepticism  of  Hume,  which  stimulated  the 
instinctive  school  to  activity,  and  was  thought 
incapable  of  confutation,  otherwise  than  by 
their  doctrines. 


DAVID  HUME.t 

The  life  of  Mr.  Hume,  written  by  himself, 
is  remarkable  above  most,  if  not  all  writings 
of  that  sort,  for  hitting  the  degree  of  inte 
rest  between  coldness  and  egotism  which 
becomes  a  modest  man  in  speaking  of  his 
private  history.  Few  writers,  whose  opin 
ions  were  so  obnoxious,  have  more  perfectly 
escaped  every  personal  imputation.  Very 
few  men  of  so  calm  a  character  have  been 
so  warmly  beloved.  That  he  approached  to 
the  character  of  a  perfectly  good  and  wise 
man,  is  an  affectionate  exaggeration,  for< 
which  his  friend  Dr.  Smith,  in  the  first  mo 
ments  of  his  sorrow,  may  well  be  excused,  i 
But  such  a  praise  can  never  be  earned  with 
out  passing  through  either  of  the  extremes 
of  fortune, — without  standing  the  test  of 
temptations,  dangers,  and  sacrifices.  It  may 
be  said  with  truth,  that  the  private  character 
of  Mr.  Hume  exhibited  all  the  virtues  which 
a  man  of  reputable  station,  under  a  mild 
government,  in  the  quiet  times  of  a  civilized 
country,  has  often  the  opportunity  to  practise. 
He  showed  no  want  of  the  qualities  which 
fit  men  for  more  severe  trials.  Though 
others  had  warmer  affections,  no  man  was  a 

*  See  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  January,  1777. 
t  Born  at  Edinburgh,  1711  ;  died  there,  1776. 
t  Dr.  Smith's  Letter  to  Mr.  Strahan,  annexed 
to  the  Life  of  Hume. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.        139 


kinder  relation,  a  more  unwearied  friend,  or 
more  free  from  meanness  and  malice.  His 
character  was  so  simple,  that  he  did  not 
even  affect  modesty;  but  neither  his  friend 
ships  nor  his  deportment  were  changed  by  a 
fame  which  filled  all  Europe.  His  good  na 
ture,  his  plain  manners,  and  his  active  kind 
ness,  procured  him  in  Paris  the  enviable 
name  of  "the  good  David^  from  a  society 
not  so  alive  to  goodness,  as  without  reason 
to  place  it  at  the  head  of  the  qualities  of  a 
celebrated  man.*  His  whole  character  is 
faithfully  and  touchingly  represented  in  the 
story  of 'La  Roche,t  where  Mr.  Mackenzie, 
without  concealing  Mr.  Hume's  opinions, 
brings  him  into  contact  with  scenes  of  tender 
piety,  and  yet  preserves  the  interest  inspired 
by  genuine  and  unalloyed,  though  moderated, 
feelings  and  affections.  The  amiable  and 
venerable  patriarch  of  Scottish  literature, — 
opposed,  as  he  was  to  the  opinions  of  the 
philosopher  on  whom  he  has  composed  his 
best  panegyric. — tells  us  that  he  read  his 
manuscript  to  Dr.  Smith,  '•  who  declared  that 
he  did  not  find  a  syllable  to  object  to,  but  ad 
ded,  with  his  characteristic  absence  of  mind, 
that  he  was  surprised  he  had  never  heard 
of  the  anecdote  before. "t  So  lively  was 
the  delineation,  thus  sanctioned  by  the  most 
natural  of  all  testimonies.  Mr.  Macken 
zie  indulges  his  own  religious  feelings  by 
modestly  intimating,  that  Dr.  Smith's  answer 
seemed  to  justify  the  last  words  of  the  tale, 
'•  that  there  were  moments  when  the  philo 
sopher  recalled  to  his  mind  the  venerable 
figure  of  the  good  La  Roche,  and  wished 
that  he  had  never  doubted."  To  those  who 
are  strangers  to  the  seductions  of  paradox, 
to  the  intoxication  of  fame,  and  to  the  be 
witchment  of  prohibited  opinions,  it  must  be 
unaccountable,  that  he  who  revered  bene 
volence  should,  without  apparent  regret, 
cease  to  see  it  on  the  throne  of  the  Universe. 
It  is  a  matter  of  wonder  that  his  habitual 
esteem  for  every  fragment  and  shadow  of 
moral  excellence  should  not  lead  him  to 
envy  those  who  contemplated  its  perfection 
in  that  living  and  paternal  character  which 
gives  it  a  power  over  the  human  heart. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  had  no  experi 
ence  of  the  power  of  opposite  opinions  in  pro 
ducing  irreconcilable  animosities,  we  might 
have  hoped  that  those  who  retained  such 
high  privileges,  would  have  looked  with 
more  compassion  than  dislike  on  a  virtuous 
man  who  had  lost  them.  In  such  cases  it  is 
too  little  remembered,  that  repugnance  to 
hypocrisy  and  impatience  of  long  conceal 
ment,  are  the  qualities  of  the  best  formed 
minds,  and  that,  if  the  publication  of  some 
doctrines  proves  often  painful  and  mischiev 
ous,  the  habitual  suppression  of  opinion  is 
injurious  to  Reason,  and  very  dangerous  to 
sincerity.  Practical  questions  thus  arise,  so 
difficult  and  perplexing  that  their  determi 
nation  generally  depends  on  the  boldness  or 

*  See  Note  P.        t  Mirror,  Nos.  42,  43,  44. 
t  Mackenzie's  Life  of  John  Home,  p.  21. 


timidity  of  the  individual, — on  his  tender 
ness  for  the  feelings  of  the  good,  or  his 
greater  reverence  for  the  free  exercise  of 
reason.  The  time  is  not  yet  come  when  the 
noble  maxim  of  Plato,  "that  every  soul  is 
unwillingly  deprived  of  truth."  will  be  prac 
tically  and'  heartily  applied  by  men  to  the 
honest  opponents  who  differ  from  them  most 
widely. 

It  was  in  his  twenty-seventh  year  that 
Mr.  Hume  published  at  London  the  Treatise 
of  Human  Nature,  the  first  systematic  attack 
on  all  the  principles  of  knowledge  arid  be 
lief,  and  the  most  formidable,  if  universal 
scepticism  could  ever  be  more  than  a  mere 
exercise  of  ingenuity.*  This  memorable 
work  was  reviewed  in  a  Journal  of  that 
time,f  in  a  criticism  not  distinguished  by 
ability,  which  affects  to  represent  the  style 
of  a  very  clear  writer  as  unintelligible, — 
sometimes  from  a  purpose  to  insult,  but 
oftener  from  sheer  dulness, — which  is  unac 
countably  silent  respecting  the  consequences 
of  a  sceptical  system,  but  which  concludes 
with  the  following  prophecy  so  much  at  va 
riance  with  the  general  tone  of  the  article, 
that  it  \vould  seem  to  be  added  by  a  differ 
ent  hand.  '-'It  bears  incontestable  marks 
of  a  great  capacity,  of  a  soaring  genius,  but 
young,  and  not  yet  thoroughly  practised. 
Time  and  use  may  ripen  these  qualities  in  the 
author,  and  we  shall  probably  have  reason 
to  consider  this,  compared  with  his  later 
productions,  in  the  same  light  as  we  view 
the  Juvenile  works  of  Milton  or  the  first 
manner  of  Raphael." 

The  great  speculator  did  not  in  this  work 
amuse  himself,  like  Bayle,  with  dialectical 
exercises,  which  only  inspire  a  disposition 
towards  doubt,  by  showing  in  detail  the  un 
certainty  of  most  opinions.  He  aimed  at 
proving,  not  that  nothing  was  known,  but 
that  nothing  could  be  known, — from  the 
structure  of  the  Understanding  to  demon 
strate  that  we  are  doomed  for  ever  to  dwell 
in  absolute  and  universal  ignorance.  It  is 
true  that  such  a  system  of  universal  scepti 
cism  never  can  be  more  than  an  intellectual 
amusement,  an  exercise  of  subtilty,  of  which 
the  only  use  is  to  check  dogmatism,  but 
which  perhaps  oftener  provokes  and  pro 
duces  that  much  more  common  evil.  As 
those  dictates  of  experience  which  regulate 


*  Sextus,  a  physician  of  the  empirical,  i.  e.  anti- 
theoretical  school,  who  lived  at  Alexandria  in  the 
reign  of  Antoninus  Pius,  has  preserved  the  rea 
sonings  of  the  ancient  Sceptics  as  they  were  to  be 
found  in  their  most  improved  state,  in  the  writings 
of  JEnesidemus,  a  Cretan,  who  was  a  professor 
in  the  same  city,  soon  after  the  reduction  of  Egypt 
into  a  Roman  province.  The  greater  part  of  the 
grounds  of  doubt  are  very  shallow  and  popular : 
there  are,  among  them,  intimations  of  the  argu 
ment  against  a  necessary  connection  of  causes 
with  effects,  afterwards  better  presented  by  Glan- 
ville  in  his  Scepsis  Scientifici. — See  Note  Q. 

t  The  Works  of  the  Learned  for  Nov.  and 
Dec.  1739,  pp.  353—404.  This  review  is  attribu 
ted  by  some  (Chalmer's  Biogr.  Diet.,  voce  Hume'* 
to  Warburton,  but  certainly  without  foundation- 


140 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


conduct  must  be  the  objects  of  belief,  all 
objections  which  attack  them  in  common 
with  the  principles  of  reasoning,  must  be 
utterly  ineffectual.  Whatever  attacks  every 
principle  of  belief  can  destroy  none.  As 
long  as  the  foundations  of  Knowledge  are 
allowed  to  remain  on  the  same  level  (be  it 
called  of  certainty  or  uncertainty),  with  the 
maxims  of  life,  the  whole  system  of  hu 
man  conviction  must  continue  undisturbed. 
When  the  sceptic  boasts  of  having  involved 
the  results  of  experience  and  the  elements 
of  Geometry  in  the  same  ruin  with  the  doc 
trines  of  Religion  and  the  principles  of  Phi 
losophy,  he  may  be  answered,  that  no  dog 
matist  ever  claimed  more  than  the  same 
degree  of  certainty  for  these  various  convic 
tions  and  opinions,  and  that  his  scepticism, 
therefore,  leaves  them  in  the  relative  condi 
tion  in  which  it  found  them.  No  man  knew 
better  or  owned  more  frankly  than  Mr. 
Hume,  that  to  this  answer  there  is  no  seri 
ous  reply.  Universal  scepticism  involves  a 
contradiction  in  terms :  it  is  a  belief  that  there 
can  be  no  belief.  It  is  an  attempt  of  the  mind 
to  act  without  its  structure,  and  by  other 
laws  than  those  to  which  its  nature  has  sub 
jected  its  operations.  To  reason  without 
assenting  to  the  principles  on  which  reason 
ing  is  founded,  is  not  unlike  an  effort  to  feel 
without  nerves,  or  to  move  without  muscles. 
No  man  can  be  allowed  to  be  an  opponent 
in  reasoning,  wTho  does  not  set  out  with  ad 
mitting  all  the  principles,  without  the  admis 
sion  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  reason.* 
It  is  indeed  a  puerile,  nay,  in  the  eye  of 
Wisdom,  a  childish  play,  to  attempt  either 
to  establish  or  to  confute  principles  by  argu 
ment,  which  every  step  of  that  argument 
must  presuppose.  The  only  difference  be 
tween  the  two  cases  is,  that  he  who  tries  to 
prove  them  can  do  so  only  by  first  taking 
them  for  granted,  and  that 'he  who  attempts 
to  impugn  them  falls  at  the  very  first  step 
into  a  contradiction  from  which  he  never 
can  rise. 

It  must,  however,  be  allowed,  that  uni 
versal  scepticism  has  practical  consequences 
of  a  very  mischievous  nature.  This  is  be 
cause  its  universality  is  not  steadily  kept  in 
view,  and  constantly  borne  in  mind.  If  it 
were,  the  above  short  and  plain  remark 
would  be  an  effectual  antidote  to  the  poison, 
But  in  practice,  it  is  an  armoury  from  which 
weapons  are  taken  to  be  employed  against 

*  This  maxim,  which  contains  a  sufficient  an 
swer  to  all  universal  scepticism,  or,  in  other 
words,  fo  all  scepticism  properly  so  called,  is  sig 
nificantly  conveyed  in  the  quaint  title  of  an  old 
and  rare  book,  entitled,  "  Scivi;  sive  Sceptices  et 
Scepticorum  a  Jure  Disputationis  Exclusio,"  by 
Thomas  White,  the  metaphysician  of  the  English 
Catholics  in  modern  times.  "  Fortunately,"  says 
the  illustrious  sceptic  himself,  "since  Reason  is 
incapable  of  dispelling  these  clouds,  Nature  her 
self  suffices  for  that  purpose,  and  cures  me  of  this 
philosophical  delirium." — Treat,  of  Hum.  Nat., 
i.  467  ;  almost  in  the  sublime  and  immortal  words 
of  Pascal:  "  La  Raison  confond  les dogmatistes, 
et  la  Nature  les  sceptiques," 


some  opinions,  while  it  is  hidden  from  notice 
that  the  same  \veapon  would  equally  cut 
down  every  other  conviction.  It  is  thus  that 
Mr.  Hume's  theory  of  causation  is  used  as 
an  answer  to  arguments  for  the  existence  of 
the  Deity,  without  warning  the  reader  that 
it  would  equally  lead  him  not  to  expect  that 
the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow.  It  must  also 
be  added,  that  those  who  are  early  accus 
tomed  to  dispute  first  principles  are  never 
likely  to  acquire,  in  a  sufficient  degree,  that 
earnestness  and  that  sincerity,  that  strong- 
love  of  Truth,  and  that  conscientious  solici 
tude  for  the  formation  of  just  opinions,  which 
are  not  the  least  virtues  of  men,  but  of  which 
the  cultivation  is  the  more  especial  duty  of 
all  who  call  themselves  philosophers.* 

It  is  not  an  uninteresting  fact  that  Mr. 
Hume,  having  been  introduced  by  Lord 
Kames  (then  Mr.  Henry  Home)  to  Dr /Butler, 
sent  a  copy  of  his  Treatise  to  that  philoso 
pher  at  the  moment  of  his  preferment  to  the 
bishopric  of  Durham  ;  and  that  the  perusal  of 
it  did  not  deter  the  philosophic  prelate  from 
"  everywhere  recommending  Mr.  Hume's 
Moral  arid  Political  Essays,"t  published  two 
years  afterwards: — essays  which  it  would 
indeed  have  been  unworthy  of  such  a  man 
not  to  have  liberally  commended  j  for  they, 
and  those  which  followed  them,  whatever 
may  be  thought  of  the  contents  of  some  of 
them,  must  be  ever  regarded  as  the  best 
models  in  any  language,  of  the  short  but  full, 
of  the  clear  and  agreeable,  though  deep  dis 
cussion  of  difficult  questions. 

Mr.  Hume  considered  his  Inquiry  concern 
ing  the  Principles  of  Morals  as  the  best  of 
his  writings.  It  is  very  creditable  to  his 
character,  that  he  should  have  looked  back 
with  most  complacency  on  a  tract  the  least 
distinguished  by  originality,  and  the  least 
tainted  by  paradox,  among  his  philosophical 
works;  but  deserving  of  all  commendation 
for  the  elegant  perspicuity  of  the  style,  and 
the  novelty  of  illustration  and  inference  with 
which  he  unfolded  to  general  readers  a  doc 
trine  too  simple,  too  certain,  and  too  im 
portant,  to  remain  till  his  time  undiscovered 
among  philosophers.  His  diction  has,  indeed, 
neither  the  grace  of  Berkeley,  nor  the  strength 
of  Hobbes  ;  but  it  is  without  the  verbosity  of 
the  former,  or  the  rugged  sternness  of  the 
latter.  His  manner  is  more  lively,  more  easy, 
more  ingratiating,  and,  if  the  word  may  be  so 
applied,  more  amusing,  than  that  of  any  other 
metaphysical  writer. t  He  knew  himself  too 


*  It  would  be  an  act  of  injustice  to  those  readers 
who  are  not  acquainted  with  that  valuable  volume 
entitled,  "  Essays  on  the  Formation  of  Opinions," 
not  to  refer  them  to  it  as  enforcing  that  neglected 
part  of  morality.  To  it  may  be  added,  a  masterly 
article  in  the  Westminster  Review,  vi.  1,  occa 
sioned  by  the  Essays. 

t  Woodhouselee's  Life  of  Kames,  i.  86.  104. 

t  These  commendations  are  so  far  from  being 
at  variance  with  the  remarks  of  the  late  most  inge 
nious  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  on  Mr.  Hume's  "  mode 
of  writing,"  (Inquiry  into  the  Relation  of  Cause 
and  Effect,  3d  ed.  p.  327,)  that  they  may  rather 
be  regarded  as  descriptive  of  those  excellencies  of 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         141 


well  to  be,  as  Dr.  Johnson  asserted,  an  imi 
tator  of  Voltaire ;  who,  as  it  were,  embodied 
in  his  own  person  all  the  wit  and  quickness 
and  versatile  ingenuity  of  a  people  which 
surpasses  other  nations  in  these  brilliant 
qualities.  If  he  must  be  supposed  to  have 
had  an  eye  on  any  French  writer,  it  would 
be  a  more  plausible  guess,  that  he  some 
times  copied,  with  a  temperate  hand,  the 
unexpected  thoughts  and  familiar  expres 
sions  of  Fontenelle.  Though  he  carefully 
weeded  his  writings  in  their  successive  edi 
tions,  yet  they  still  contain  Scotticisms  and 
Gallicisms  enough  to  employ  the  successors 
of  such  critics  as  those  who  exulted  over  the 
Patavinity  of  the  Roman  historian.  His  own 
great  and  modest  mind  would  have  been 
satisfied  with  the  praise  which  cannot  be 
withheld  from  him,  that  there  is  no  writer  in 
our  language  who,  through  long  works,  is 
more  agreeable  ;  and  it  is  no  derogation  from 
him,  that,  as  a  Scotsman,  he  did  not  reach 
those  native  and  secret  beauties,  character- 
istical  of  a  language,  which  are  never  at 
tained,  in  elaborate  composition,  but  by  a 
very  small  number  of  those  who  familiarly 
•converse  in  it  from  infancy.  The  Inquiry  af 
fords  perhaps  the  best  specimen  of  his  style. 
In  substance,  its  chief  merit  is  the  proof, 
from  an  abundant  enumeration  of  particulars, 
that  all  the  qualities  and  actions  of  the  mind 
which  are  generally  approved  by  mankind 
agree  in  the  circumstance  of  being  useful  to 
society.  In  the  proof  (scarcely  necessary), 
that  benevolent  affections  and  actions  have 
that  tendency,  he  asserts  the  real  existence 
of  these  affections  with  unusual  warmth; 
and  he  well  abridges  some  of  the  most  forci 
ble  arguments  of  Butler,*  whom  it  is  re 
markable  that  he  does  not  mention.  To  show 
the  importance  of  his  principle,  he  very  un 
necessarily  distinguishes  the  comprehensive 
duty  of  justice  from  other  parts  of  Morality, 
as  an  artificial  virtue,  for  which  our  respect 
is  solely  derived  from  notions  of  utility.  If 
all  things  were  in  such  plenty  that  there 
could  never  be  a  want,  or  if  men  were  so 
benevolent  as  to  provide  for  the  wants  of 
others  as  much  as  for  their  own,  there  would, 
says  he,  in  neither  case  be  any  justice,  be 
cause  there  would  be  no  need  for  it.  But  it 
is  evident  that  the  same  reasoning  is  applica 
ble  to  every  good  affection  and  right  action. 
None  of  them  could  exist  if  there  were  no 
scope  for  their  exercise.  If  there  were  no  suf 
fering,  there  could  be  no  pity  and  no  relief; 
if  there  were  no  offences,  there  could  be  no 
placability :  if  there  were  no  crimes,  there 
could  be  no  mercy.  Temperance,  prudence, 
patience,  magnanimity,  are  qualties  of  which 
the  value  depends  on  the  evils  by  which  they 
are  respectively  exercised.! 

which  the  excess  produced  the  faults  of  Mr.  Hume, 
as  a  mere  searcher  and  teacher,  justly,  though  per 
haps  severely,  animadverted  on  by  Dr.  Brown. 

*  Inquiry,  §  ii-  part,  i.,  especially  the  concluding 
paragraphs  ;  those  which  precede  being  more  his 
•own. 

t  "  Si  nobis,  cum  ex  hac  vita  migraverimus,  in 


With  regard  to  purity  of  manners,  it  must 
be  owned  that  Mr.  Hume,  though  he  con 
troverts  no  rule,  yet  treats  vice  with  too  much 
indulgence.  It  was  his  general  disposition 
to  distrust  those  virtues  which  are  liable  to 
exaggeration,  and  may  be  easily  counter 
feited.  The  ascetic  pursuit  of  purity,  and 
hypocritical  pretences  to  patriotism,  had  too 
much  withdrawn  the  respect  of  his  equally 
calm  and  sincere  nature  from  these  excellent 
virtues ;  more  especially  as  severity  in  both 
these  respects  was  often  at  apparent  variance 
with  affection,  which  can  neither  be  long 
assumed,  nor  ever  overvalued.  Yet  it  was 
singular  that  he  who,  in  his  essay  on  Poly 
gamy  and  Divorce,*  had  so  well  shown  the 
connection  of  domestic  ties  with  the  outward 
order  of  society,  should  not  have  perceived 
their  deeper  and  closer  relation  to  all  the 
social  feelings  of  human  nature.  It  cannot 
be  enough  regretted,  that,  in  an  inquiry  writ 
ten  with  a  very  moral  purpose,  his  habit  of 
making  truth  attractive,  by  throwing  over 
her  the  dress  of  paradox,  should  have  given 
him  for  a  moment  the  appearance  of  weigh 
ing  the  mere  amusements  of  society  and 
conversation  against  domestic  fidelity,  which 
is  the  preserver  of  domestic  affection,  the 
source  of  parental  fondness  and  filial  regard, 
and,  indirectly,  of  all  the  kindness  which 
exists  between  human  beings.  That  fami 
lies  are  schools  where  the  infant  heart  learns 
to  love,  and  that  pure  manners  are  the  cement 
which  alone  holds  these  schools  together,  are 
truths  so  certain,  that  it  is  wonderful  he 
should  not  have  betrayed  a  stronger  sense 
of  their  importance.  No  one  could  so  well 
have  proved  that  all  the  virtues  of  that  class, 
in  their  various  orders  and  degrees,  minister 
to  the  benevolent  affections;  and  that  every 
act  which  separates  the  senses  from  the 
affections  tends,  in  some  degree,  to  deprive 
kindness  of  its  natural  auxiliary,  and  to  les 
sen  its  prevalence  in  the  world.  It  did  not 
require  his  sagacity  to  discover  that  the 
gentlest  and  tenderest  feelings  flourish  only 
under  the  stern  guardianship  of  these  se 
vere  virtues.  Perhaps  his  philosophy  was 


beatorum  insulis,  ut  fabulae  ferunt,  immortale 
aevum  degere  liceret,  quid  opus  esset  elpquentia, 
cum  judicia  nulla  fierent  ?  aut  ipsis  etiam  virtutibus  ? 
Nee  enim  fortitudine  indigeremus,  nullo  proposito 
aut  labore  aut  periculo  ;  necjustitia,  cum  esset  nihil 
quod  appeteretur  alieni ;  nee  temperantia,  quse  re- 
geret  eas  quas  nullae  essent  libidines  :  ne  prudentia 
quidem  egeremus,  nullo  proposito  delectu  bono- 
rum  et  malorum.  Una  igitur  essemus  bead  cog- 
nitione  rerum  et  scientia." — Frag.  Cic.  Hortens. 
apud  Augustine  de  Trinitate.  Cicero  is  more  ex 
tensive,  and  therefore  more  consistent  than  Hume  ; 
but  his  enumeration  errs  both  by  excess  and  de 
fect.  He  supposes  Knowledge  to  render  beings 
happy  in  this  imaginary  state,  without  stooping  to 
inquire  how.  He  omits  a  virtue  which  might  well 
exist  in  it,  though  we  cannot  conceive  its  forma 
tion  in  such  a  state — the  delight  in  each  other's 
well-being  ;  and  he  omits  a  conceivable  though 
unknown  vice,  that  of  unmixed  ill-will,  which 
would  render  such  a  state  a  hell  to  the  wretch  who 
harboured  the  malevolence. 
*  Essays  and  Treatises,  vol.  i. 


142 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


loosened,  though  his  life  was  uncorrupted, 
by  that  universal  and  undistinguishing  pro 
fligacy  which  prevailed  on  the  Continent, 
from  the  regency  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  to 
the  French  Revolution;  the  most  dissolute 
period  of  European  history,  at  least  since  the 
Roman  emperors.*  At  Rome,  indeed,  the 
connection  of  licentiousness  with  cruelty, 
which,  though  scarcely  traceable  in  indi 
viduals,  is  generally  very  observable  in  large 
masses,  bore  a  fearful  testimony  to  the  value 
of  austere  purity.  The  alliance  of  these  re 
mote  vices  seemed  to  be  broken  in  the  time 
of  Mr.  Hume.  Pleasure,  in  a  more  improved 
state  of  society,  seemed  to  return  to  her  more 
natural  union  with  kindness  and  tenderness, 
as  well  as  with  refinement  and  politeness. 
Had  he  lived  fourteen  years  longer,  however, 
he  would  have  seen,  that  the  virtues  which 
guard  the  natural  seminaries  of  the  affections 
are  their  only  true  and  lasting  friends.  He 
would  also  then  have  seen  (the  demand  of 
well-informed  men  for  the  improvement  of 
civil  institutions, — and  that  of  all  classes 
growing  in  intelligence,  to  be  delivered  from 
a  degrading  inferiority,  and  to  be  admitted 
to  a  share  of  political  power  proportioned  to 
their  new  importance,  having  been  feebly, 
yet  violently  resisted  by  those  ruling  castes 
who  neither  knew  how  to  yield,  nor  how  to 
withstand,)  how  speedily  the  sudden  demoli 
tion  of  the  barriers  (imperfect  as  they  were) 
of  law  and  government,  led  to  popular  ex 
cesses,  desolating  wars,  and  a  military  dic 
tatorship,  which  for  a  long  time  threatened 
to  defeat  the  reformation,  and  to  disappoint 
the  hopes  of  mankind.  This  tremendous 
conflagration  threw  a  fearful  light  on  the 
ferocity  which  lies  hid  under  the  arts  and 
pleasures  of  corrupted  nations ;  as  earth 
quakes  and  volcanoes  disclose  the  rocks 
which  compose  the  deeper  parts  of  our 
planet,  beneath  a  fertile  and  flowery  surface. 
A  part  of  this  dreadful  result  may  be  as 
cribed,  not  improbably,  to  that  relaxation  of 
domestic  ties,  which  is  unhappily  natural 
to  the  populace  of  all  vast  capitals,  and  was 
at  that  time  countenanced  and  aggravated 
by  the  example  of  their  superiors.  Another 
part  doubtless  arose  from  the  barbarising 
power  of  absolute  government,  or,  in  other 
words,  of  injustice  in  high  places.  A  nar 
ration  of  those  events  attests,  as  strongly  as 
Roman 'history,  though  in  a  somewhat  dif 
ferent  manner,  the  humanising  efficacy  of 
the  family  virtues,  by  the  consequences  of 
the  want  of  them  in  the  higher  classes,  whose 
profuse  and  ostentatious  sensuality  inspired 
the  labouring  and  suffering  portion  of  mankind 
with  contempt,  disgust,  envy,  and  hatred. 

The  Inquiry  is  disfigured  by  another  speck 
of  more  frivolous  paradox.  It  consists  in  the 
attempt  to  give  the  name  of  Virtue  to  quali 
ties  of  the  Understanding;  and  it  would  not 
have  deserved  the  single  remark  -about  to  be 
made  on  it,  had  it  been  the  paradox  of  an 
inferior  man.  He  has  altogether  omitted  the 

*  See  Note  R. 


circumstance  on  which  depends  the  differ 
ence  of  our  sentiments  regarding  moral  arid 
intellectual  qualities.  We  admire  intellec 
tual  excellence;  but  we  bestow  no  moral  ap 
probation  on  it.  Such  approbation  has  no 
tendency  directly  to  increase  it,  because  it 
is  not  voluntary.  We  cultivate  our  natural 
disposition  to  esteem  and  love  benevolence 
and  justice,  because  these  moral  sentiments, 
and  the  expression  of  them,  directly  and  ma 
terially  dispose  others,  as  well  as  ourselves, 
to  cultivate  these  two  virtues.  We  cultivate 
a  natural  anger  against  oppression,  which 
guards  ourselves  against  the  practice  of  that 
vice,  and  because  the  manifestation  of  it  de 
ters  others  from  its  exercise.  The  first  rude 
resentment  of  a  child  is  against  every  instru 
ment  of  hurt:  we  confine  it  to  intentional 
hurt,  when  we  are  taught  by  experience  that 
it  prevents  only  that  species  of  hurt ;  arid  at 
last  it  is  still  further  limited  to  wrong  done 
to  ourselves  or  others,  and  in  that  case  be 
comes  a  purely  moral  sentiment.  We  morally 
approve  industry,  desire  of  knowledge,  love 
of  Truth,  and  all  the  habits  by  which  the  Un 
derstanding  is  strengthened  and  rectified,  be 
cause  their  formation  is  subject  to  the  Will  ;* 
but  we  do  not  feel  moral  anger  against  folly 
or  ignorance,  because  they  are  involuntary. 
No  one  but  the  religious  persecutor, — a  mis 
chievous  and  overgrown  child,  wreaks  his 
vengeance  on  involuntary,  inevitable,  com 
pulsory  acts  or  states  of  the  Understanding, 
which  are  no  more  affected  by  blame  than 
the  stone  which  the  foolish  child  beats  for 
hurting  him.  Reasonable  men  apply  to  every 
thing  which  they  wish  to  move,  the  agent 
which  is  capable  of  moving  it: — force  to 
outward  substances,  arguments  to  the  Un 
derstanding,  and  blame,  together  with  all 
other  motives,  whether  moral  or  personal,  to 
the  Will  alone.  It  is  as  absurd  to  entertain 
an  abhorrence  of  intellectual  inferiority  or 
error,  however  extensive  or  mischievous,  as 
it  would  be  to  cherish  a  warm  indignation 
against  earthquakes  or  hurricanes.  It  is 
singular  that  a  philosopher  who  needed  the 
most  liberal  toleration  should,  by  represent 
ing  states  of  the  Understanding  as  moral  or 
immoral,  have  offered  the  most  philosophical 
apology  for  persecution. 

That  general  utility  constitutes  a  uniform 
ground  of  moral  distinctions,  is  a  part  of  Mr. 
Hume's  ethical  theory  which  never  can  be 
impugned,  until  some  example  can  be  .pro 
duced  of  a  virtue  generally  pernicious,  or  of 
a  vice  generally  beneficial.  The  religious 
philosopher  who,  with  Butler,  holds  that  be 
nevolence  must  be  the  actuating  principle  of 
the  Divine  mind,  will,  with  Berkeley,  main 
tain  that  pure  benevolence  can  prescribe  no 
rules  of  human  conduct  but  such  as  are  bene 
ficial  to  men  ;  thus  bestowing  on  the  theory 
of  moral  distinctions  the  certainty  of  demon 
stration  in  the  eyes  of  all  who  believe  in  God. 


*  "In  hac  quaestione  primas  tenet  Voluntas, 
qua.,  ut  ait  Angustinus,  peccatur,  et  recte  vivitur." 
— Erasmus,  Diatribe  adversus  Lutherum. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


143 


The  other  question  of  moral  philosophy 
which  relates  to  the  theory  of  moral  appro 
bation,  has  been  by  no  means  so  distinctly 
and  satisfactorily  handled  by  Mr.  Hume. 
His  general  doctrine  is.  that  an  interest  in  the 
well-being  of  others,  implanted  by  nature, 
which  he  calls  "sympathy"  in  his  Treatise 
of  Human  Nature,  and  much  less  happily 
fc  benevolence"  in  his  subsequent  Inquiry,* 
prompts  us  to  be  pleased  with  all  generally 
beneficial  actions.  In  this  respect  his  doc 
trine  nearly  resembles  that  of  Hutcheson. 
He  does  not  trace  his  principle  through  the 
variety  of  forms  which  our  moral  sentiments 
assume :  there  are  very  important  parts  of 
them,  of  which  it  affords  no  solution.  For 
example,  though  he  truly  represents  our  ap 
probation,  in  others,  of  qualities  useful  to 
the  individual,  as  a  proof  of  benevolence,  he 
makes  no  attempt  to  explain  our  moral  ap 
probation  of  such  virtues  as  temperance  and 
fortitude  in  ourselves.  He  entirely  overlooks 
that  consciousness  of  the  rightful  supremacy 
of  the  Moral  Faculty  over  every  other  princi 
ple  of  human  action,  without  an  explanation 
of  which,  ethical  theory  is  wanting  in  one  of 
its  vital  organs. 

Notwithstanding  these  considerable  de 
fects,  his  proof  from  induction  of  the  bene 
ficial  tendency  of  Virtue,  his  conclusive  argu 
ments  for  human  disinterestedness,  and  his 
decisive  observations  on  the  respective  pro 
vinces  of  Reason  and  Sentiment  in  Morals, 
concur  in  ranking  the  Inquiry  with  the  ethi 
cal  treatises  of  the  highest  merit  in  our  lan 
guage, — with  Shaftesbury's  Inquiry  concern 
ing  Virtue,  Butler's  Sermons,  and  Smith's 
Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments. 

ADAM  SMITH.t 

The  great  name  of  Adam  Smith  rests  upon 
the  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes  of 
the  Wealth  of  Nations ;  perhaps  the  only  book 
which  produced  an  immediate,  general,  and 
irrevocable  change  in  some  of  the  most  im 
portant  parts  of  the  legislation  of  all  civilized 
states.  The  works  of  Grotius,  of  Locke,  and 
of  Montesquieu,  which  bear  a  resemblance 
to  it  in  character,  and  had  no  inconsiderable 
analogy  to  it  in  the  extent  of  their  popular 
influence,  were  productive  only  of  a  general 
amendment,  not  so  conspicuous  in  particular 
instances,  as  discoverable,  after  a  time,  in 
the  improved  condition  of  human  affairs. 
The  work  of  Smith,  as  it  touched  those  mat 
ters  which  may  be  numbered,  and  measured, 
and  weighed,  bore  more  visible  and  palpable 
fruit.  In  a  few  years  it  began  to  alter  laws 
and  treaties,  and  has  made  its  way,  through 
out  the  convulsions  of  revolution  and  con 
quest,  to  a  due  ascendant  over  the  minds  of 
men,  with  far  less  than  the  average  of  those 
obstructions  of  prejudice  and  clamour,  which 
ordinarily  choke  the  channels  through  which 
truth  flows  into  practice.  {  The  most  emi- 

*  Essays  and  Treatises,  vol.  ii. 

t  Born,  1723  ;  died,  1790.     .   J  See  Note  S. 


nent  of  those  who  have  since  cultivated  and 
improved  the  science  will  be  the  foremost  to 
address  their  immortal  master, 

Tenebris  tantis  tarn  clarum  extollere  lumen 

Qui  primus  potuisti,  inlustrans  commoda  vitee, 
Te  sequor  !* 

In  a  science  more  difficult,  because  both 
ascending  to  more  simple  genera]  principles, 
and  running  down  through  more  minute  ap 
plications,  though  the  success  of  Smith  has 
been  less  complete,  his  genius  is  not  less 
conspicuous.  Perhaps  there  is  no  ethical 
work  since  Cicero's  Offices,  of  which  an 
abridgment  enables  the  reader  so  inadequate 
ly  to  estimate  the  merit,  as  the  Theory  of 
Moral  Sentiments.  This  is  not  chiefly  owing 
to  the  beauty  of  diction,  as  in  the  case  of 
Cicero  ;  but  to  the  variety  of  explanations  of 
life  and  manners  which  embellish  the  book 
often  more  than  they  illuminate  the  theory. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  owned 
that,  for  purely  philosophical  purposes,  few 
books  more  need  abridgment;  for  the  most 
careful  reader  frequently  loses  sight  of  prin 
ciples  buried  under  illustrations.  The  natu 
rally  copious  and  flowing  style  of  the  author 
is  generally  redundant ;  and  the  repetition 
of  certain  formularies  of  the  system  is,  in 
the  later  editions,  so  frequent  as  to  be  weari 
some,  and  sometimes  ludicrous.  Perhaps 
Smith  and  Hobbes  may  be  considered  as 
forming  the  two  extremes  of  good  style  in 
our  philosophy;  the  first  of  graceful  fulness 
falling  into  flaccidity;  while  the  masterly 
concision  of  the  second  is  oftener  carried 
forward  into  dictatorial  dryness.  Hume  and 
Berkeley,  though  they  are  nearer  the  ex 
treme  of  abundance,!  are  probably  the  least 
distant  from  perfection. 

That  mankind  are  so  constituted  as  to 
sympathize  with  each  other's  feelings,  and 
to  feel  pleasure  in  the  accordance  of  these 
feelings,  are  the  only  facts  required  by  Dr. 
Smith  :  and  they  certainly  must  be  granted 
to  him.  To  adopt  the  feelings  of  another, 
is  to  approve  them.  When  the  sentiments 
of  another  are  such  as  would  be  excited  in 
us  by  the  same  objects,  we  approve  them  as 
morally  proper.  To  obtain  this  accordance, 
it  becomes  necessary  for  him  who  enjoys, 
or  suffers,  to  lower  the  expression  of  his 
feeling  to  the  point  to  which  the  by-stander 
can  raise  his  fellow-feelings;  on  this  attempt 
are  founded  all  the  high  virtues  of  self-de 
nial  and  self-command :  and  it  is  equally 
necessary  for  the  by-stander  to  raise  his 
sympathy  as  near  as  he  can  to  the  level 
of  the  original  feeling.  In  all  unsocial  pas 
sions,  such  as  anger,  we  have  a  divided 
sympathy  between  him  who  feels  them,  and 
those  who  are  the  objects  of  them.  Hence 
the  propriety  of  extremely  moderating  them. 
Pure  malice  is  always  to  be  concealed  or 


*  Lucret.  lib.  iii. 

t  This  remark  is  chiefly  applicable  to  Hume's 
Essays.  His  Treatise  of  Human  Nature  is  more 
Hobbian  in  its  general  tenor,  though  it  has  Cice 
ronian  passages. 


144 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


disguised,  because  all  sympathy  is  arrayed 
against  it.  In  the  private  passions,  where 
there  is  only  a  simple  sympathy, — that  with 
the  original  passion,  —  the  expression  has 
more  liberty.  The  benevolent  affections, 
where  there  is  a  double  sympathy, — with 
those  who  feel  them,  and  those  who  are  their 
•objects, — are  the  most  agreeable,  and  may 
be  indulged  with  the  least  apprehension  of 
finding  no  echo  in  other  breasts.  Sympathy 
with  the  gratitude  of  those  who  are  benefited 
by  good  actions,  prompts  us  to  consider  them 
as  deserving  of  reward,  and  forms  the  sense 
of  merit :  as  fellow-feeling  with  the  resent 
ment  of  those  who  are  injured  by  crimes 
leads  us  to  look  on  them  as  worthy  of  punish 
ment,  and  constitutes  the  sense  of  demerit. 
These  sentiments  require  not  only  beneficial 
actions,  but  benevolent  motives ;  being  com 
pounded,  in  the  case  of  merit,  of  a  direct 
sympathy  with  the  good  disposition  of  the 
benefactor,  and  an  indirect  sympathy  with 
the  persons  benefited  ;  in  the  opposite  case, 
with  precisely  opposite  sympathies.  He  who 
does  an  act  of  wrong  to  another  to  gratify 
his  own  passions,  must  riot  expect  that  the 
spectators,  who  have  none  of  his  undue  par 
tiality  to  his  own  interest,  will  enter  into  his 
feelings.  In  such  a  case,  he  knows  that  they 
will  pity  the  person  wronged,  and  be  full  of 
indignation  against  him.  When  he  is  cooled, 
he  adopts  the  sentiments  of  others  on  his 
own  crime,  feels  shame  at  the  impropriety 
of  his  former  passion,  pity  for  those  who 
have  suffered  by  him,  and  a  dread  of  punish 
ment  from  general  and  just  resentment. 
Such  are  the  constituent  parts  of  remorse. 

Our  moral  sentiments  respecting  ourselves 
arise  from  those  which  others  feel  concern 
ing  us.  We  feel  a  self-approbation  whenever 
we  believe  that  the  general  feeling  of  man 
kind  coincides  with  that  state  of  mind  in 
which  we  ourselves  were  at  a  given  time. 
*•'  We  suppose  ourselves  the  spectators  of  our 
own  behaviour,  arid  endeavour  to  imagine 
what  effect  it  would  in  this  light  produce  in 
us.';  We  must  view  our  own  conduct  with 
the  eyes  of  others  before  we  can  judge  it. 
The  sense  of  duty  arises  from  putting  our 
selves  in  the  place  of  others,  and  adopting 
their  sentiments  respecting  our  own  conduct. 
In  utter  solitude  there  could  have  been  no 
self-approbation.  The  rules  of  Morality  are 
a  summary  of  those  sentiments;  and  often 
beneficially  stand  in  their  stead  when  the 
self-delusions  of  passion  would  otherwise 
hide  from  us  the  non-conformity  of  our  state 
of  mind  with  that  which,  in  the  circum 
stances,  can  be  entered  into  and  approved  by 
impartial  by-standers.  It  is  hence  that  we 
learn  to  raise  our  mind  above  local  or  tem 
porary  clamour,  and  to  fix  our  eyes  on  the 
surest  indications  of  the  general  and  lasting 
sentiments  of  human  nature.  "When  we 
approve  of  any  character  or  action,  our  sen 
timents  are  derived  from  four  sources:  first, 
we  sympathize  with  the  motives  of  the 
agent;  secondly,  we  enter  into  the  gratitude 
of  those  who  nave  been  benefited  by  his 


actions ;  thirdly,  we  observe  that  his  conduct 
has  been  agreeable  to  the  general  rules  by 
which  those  two  sympathies  generally  act ; 
and.  last  of  all,  when  we  consider  such  ac 
tions  as  forming  part  of  a  system  of  beha 
viour  which  tends  to  promote  the  happiness 
either  of  the  individual  or  of  society,  they 
appear  to  derive  a  beauty  from  this  utility, 
not  unlike  that  which  we  ascribe  to  any 
well-contrived  machine."* 

REMARKS. 

That  Smith  is  the  first  who  has  drawn  the 
attention  of  philosophers  to  one  of  the  most 
curious  and  important  parts  of  human  na 
ture, — who  has  looked  closely  and  steadily 
into  the  workings  of  Sympathy,  its  sudden 
action  and  re-action,  its  instantaneous  con 
flicts  and  its  emotions,  its  minute  play  and 
varied  illusions,  is  sufficient  to  place  him 
high  among  the  cultivators  of  mental  philo 
sophy.  He  is  very  original  in  applications 
and  explanations ;  though,  for  his  principle, 
he  is  somewhat  indebted  to  Butler,  move  to 
Hutcheson,  and  most  of  all  to  Hume.  These 
writers,  except  Hume  in  his  original  work, 
had  derived  sympathy,  or  a  great  part  of  it, 
from  benevolence  :t  Smith,  with  deeper  in 
sight,  inverted  the  order.  The  great  part 
performed  by  various  sympathies  in  moral 
approbation  \vas  first  unfolded  by  him ;  and 
besides  its  intrinsic  importance,  it  strength 
ened  the  proofs  ag-ainst  those  theories  which 
ascribe  that  great  function  to  Reason. — 
Another  great  merit  of  the  theory  of  "  sym 
pathy"  is,  that  it  brings  into  the  strongest 
light  that  most  important  characteristic  of 
the  moral  sentiments  which  consist  in  their 
being  the  only  principles  leading  to  action, 
and  dependent  on  emotion  or  sensibility,  with 
respect  to  the  objects  of  which,  it  is  not  only 
possible  but  natural  for  all  mankind  to  agree. t 

The  main  defects  of  this  theory  seem  to 
be  the  following. 

1.  Though  it  is  not  to  be  condemned  for 
declining  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  our  fel- 
low-feelinc,  which,  being  one  of  the  most 
certain  of  ^all  facts,  might  well  be  assumed 
as  ultimate  in  speculations  of  this  nature,  it 
is  evident  that  the  circumstances  to  which 
some  speculators  ascribe  the  formation  of 
sympathy  at  least  contribute  to  strengthen 
or  impair,  to  contract  or  expand  it.  It  will 
appear,  more  conveniently,  in  the  next  ar 
ticle,  that  the  theory  of  "  sympathy"  has 
suffered  from  the  omission  of  these  circum 
stances.  For  the  present,  it  is  enough  to  ob 
serve  how  much  our  compassion  for  various 


*  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments,  Edinb.  1801,  ii. 
304. 

t  There  is  some  confusion  regarding  this  point 
in  Butler's  first  sermon  on  Compassion. 

t  The  feelings  of  beauty,  grandeur,  and  what 
ever  else  is  comprehended  under  the  name  of 
Taste,  form  no  exception,  for  they  do  not  lead  to 
action,  but  terminate  in  delightful  contemplation  ; 
which  constitutes  the  essential  distinction  between 
them  and  the  moral  sentiments,  to  which,  in  some 
points  of  view,  they  may  doubtless  be  likened. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.          145 


various  races  of  men,  are  proportioned 
resemblance  which  they  bear  to  our 


sorts  of  animals,  and  our  fellow-feeling  with 

to  the 
ourselves, 

to  the  frequency  of  our  intercourse  with 
them,  and  to  other  causes  which,  in  the  opi 
nion  of  some,  afford  evidence  that  sympathy 
itself  is  dependent  on  a  more  general  law. 

2.  Had  Smith  extended  his  view  beyond 
the  mere  play  of  sympathy  itself,  and  taken 
into  account  all  its  preliminaries,  and  ac 
companiments,  and  consequences,  it  seems 
improbable  that  he  would  have  fallen  into 
the  great  error  of  representing  the  sympa 
thies  in  their  primitive  state,  without  under 
going  any  transformation,  as  continuing  ex 
clusively  to  constitute  the  moral  sentiments. 
He  is  not  content  with  teaching  that  they 
are  the  roots  out  of  which  these  sentiments 
grow,  the  stocks  on  which  they  are  grafted, 
the  elements  of  which  they  are  compounded ; 
— doctrines  to  which  nothing  could  be  ob 
jected  but  their  unlimited  extent.  He  tacitly 
assumes,  that  if  a  sympathy  in  the  begin 
ning  caused  or  formed  a  moral  approbation, 
so  it  must  ever  continue  to  do.  He  proceeds 
like  a  geologist  who  should  tell  us  that  the 
body  of  this  planet  had  always  been  in  the 


state  is  a  perplexity  to  the  geologist.  It 
would  perfectly  resemble  the  destruction  of 
qualities,  which  is  the  ordinary  effect  of 
chemical  composition. 

3.  The  same  error  has  involved  him  in 
another  difficulty  perhaps  still  more  fatal. 
The  sympathies  have  nothing  more  of  an 
imperative   character   than  any  other  emo 
tions.     They  attract  or  repel  like  other  feel 
ings,  according  to  their  intensity.     If,  then, 
the  sympathies  continue  in  mature  minds  to 
constitute  the  whole  of  Conscience,  it  be 
comes  utterly  impossible  to  explain  the  cha 
racter  of  command  and  supremacy,  which  is 
attested  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  mankind 
to  belong  to  that  faculty,  and  to  form  its  es 
sential   distinction.      Had   he   adopted   the 
other  representation,  it  would  be  possible  to 
conceive,  perhaps  easy  to  explain,  lhat  Con 
science  should  possess  a  quality  which  be 
longed  to  none  of  its  elements. 

4.  It  is  to  this  representation  that  Smith's 
theory  owes   that  unhappy  appearance   of 
rendering  the  rule  of  our  conduct  dependent 
on  the  notions  and  passions  of  those  who 
surround  us,  of  which  the  utmost  efforts  of 
the  most  refined  ingenuity  have  not  been 


same  state,  shutting  his  eyes  to  transition  i  able  to  divest  it;    This  objection,  or  topic,  is 
states,  and  secondary  formations;  or  like  a   often  ignorantly  urged  •  the  answers  are  fre- 


chemist  who  should  inform  us  that  no  com 
pound  substance  can  possess  new  qualities 
entirely  different  from  those  which  belong 
to  its  materials.  His  acquiescence  in  this 
old  and  still  general  error  is  the  more  re 
markable,  because  Mr.  Hume's  beautiful 
Dissertation  on  the  Passions*  had  just  before 
opened  a  striking  view  of  some  of  the  com 
positions  and  decompositions  which  render 
the  mind  of  a  formed  man  as  different  from 
its  original  state,  as  the  organization  of  a 
complete  animal  is  from  the  condition  of  the 
first  dim  speck  of  vitality.  It  is  from  this 
oversight  (ill  supplied  by  moral  rules. — a 
loose  stone  in  his  building)  that  he  has  ex 
posed  himself  to  objections  founded  on  ex 
perience,  to  which  it  is  impossible  to  attempt 
any  answer.  For  it  is  certain  that  in  many, 
nay  in  most  cases  of  moral  approbation,  the 
adult  man  approves  the  action  or  disposition 
merely  as  right,  and  with  a  distinct  con 
sciousness  that  no  process  of  sympathy  in 
tervenes  between  the  approval  and  its  ob 
ject.  It  is  certain  that  an  unbiassed  person 
would  call  it  moral  approbation,  only  as  far 
as  it  excluded  the  interposition  of  any  reflec 
tion  between  the  conscience  and  the  mental 
state  approved.  Upon  the  supposition  of  an 
unchanged  state  of  our  active  principles,  it 
would  follow  that  sympathy  never  had  any 
share  in  the  greater  part  of  them.  Had  he 
Admitted  the  sympathies  to  be  only  elements 
entering  into  the  formation  of  Conscience, 
their  disappearance,  or  their  appearance  only 
as  auxiliaries,  after  the  mind  is  mature, 
would  have  been  no  more  an  objection  to 
his  system,  than  the  conversion  of  a  sub 
stance  from  a  transitional  to  a  permanent 


*  Essays  and  Treatises,  vol.  ii, 
19 


quently  solid  ;  but  to  most  men  they  must 
always  appear  to  be  an  ingenious  and  intri 
cate  contrivance  of  cycles  and  epicycles, 
which  perplex  the  mind  too  much  to  satisfy 
it,  and  seem  devised  to  evade  difficulties 
which  cannot  be  solved.  All  theories  which 
treat  Conscience  as  built  up  by  circumstances 
inevitably  acting  on  all  human  minds,  are, 
indeed,  liable  to  somewhat  of  the  same  mis 
conception  ;  unless  they  place  in  the  strongest 
light  (what  Smith's  theory  excludes)  the  to 
tal  destruction  of  the  scaffolding,  which  was 
necessary  only  to  the  erection  of  the  build 
ing,  after  the  mind  is  adult  and  mature,  and 
warn  the  hastiest  reader,  that  it  then  rests 
on  its  own  foundation  alone. 

5.  The  constant  reference  of  our  own  dis 
positions  and  actions  to  the  point  of  view 
from  which  they  are  estimated  by  others, 
seems  to  be  rather  an  excellent  expedient 
for  preserving  our  impartiality,  than  a  funda 
mental  principle  of  Ethics.  But  impartiality, 
which  is  no  more  than  a  removal  of  some 
hinderance  to  right  judgment,  supplies  no 
materials  for  its  exercise,  and  no  rule,  or 
even  principle,  for  its  guidance.     It  nearly 
coincides  with'the  Christian  precept  of  u'do* 
ing  unto  others  as  we  would  they  should  do 
unto  us;"  —  an  admirable  practical  maxim, 
but,  as  Leibnitz  has  said  truly,  intended  only 
as  a  correction  of  self-partiality. 

6.  Lastly,  this  ingenious  system  renders 
all  morality  relative,  by  referring  it  to  the 
pleasure  of  an  agreement  of  our   feelings 
with  those  of  others,  —  by  confining   itself 
entirely  to  the  question  of  moral  approba 
tion,  and  by  providing  no  place  for  the  consi 
deration  of  that  quality  which  distinguishes 


quality 
all  ba 


all   good   from  all  bad   actions  ;  —  a  defect 
which  will  appear  in  the  sequel  to  be  more 

N 


146 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


immediately  fatal  to  a  theorist  of  the  senti 
mental,  than  to  one  of  the  intellectual  school 
Smith  shrinks  from  considering  utility  in 
that  light,  as  soon  as  it  presents  itself,  or 
very  strangely  ascribes  its  power  over  our 
moral  feelings  to  admiration  of  the  mere 
f  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  (which  might 
surely  be  as  well  felt  for  the  production  of 
•wide-spread  misery,  by  a  consistent  system 
of  wicked  conduct,) — instead  of  ascribing  it 
to  benevolence,  with  Hutcheson  and  Hume, 
or  to  an  extension  of  that  very  sympathy 
which  is  his  own  first  principle. 

RICHARD   PRICE.* 

About  the  same  time  with  the  celebrated 
work  of  Smith,  but  with  a  popular  reception 
very  different,  Dr.  Richard  Price,  an  excel 
lent  and  eminent  non-conformist  minister, 
published  A  Review  of  the  Principal  Ques 
tions  in  Morals  ;t — an  attempt  to  revive  the 
intellectual  theory  of  moral  obligation,  which 
seemed  to  have  fallen  under  the  attacks  of 
Butler,  Hutcheson,  and  Hume,  and  before 
that  of  Smith.  It  attracted  little  observation 
at  first ;  but  being  afterwards  countenanced 
by  the  Scottish  school,  it  may  seem  tb  de 
serve  some  notice,  at  a  moment  when  the 
kindred  speculations  of  the  German  meta 
physicians  have  effected  an  establishment 
in  France,  and  are  no  longer  unknown  in 
England. 

The  Understanding  itself  is,  according  to 
Price,  an  independent  source  of  simple  ideas. 
"  The  various  kinds  of  agreement  arid  dis 
agreement  between  our  ideas,  spoken  of  by 
Locke,  are  so  many  new  simple  ideas." 
u  This  is  true  of  our  ideas  of  proportion,  of 
our  ideas  of  identity  and  diversity,  existence, 
connection;  cause  and  effect,  power,  possi 
bility,  and  of  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.'1 
"  The  first  relates  to  quantity,  the  last  to 
actions,  the  rest  to  all  things."  "Like  all 
other  simple  ideas,  they  are  undefinable." 

It  is  needless  to  pursue  this  theory  farther, 
till  an  answer  be  given  to  the  observation 
made  before,  that  as  no  perception  or  judg 
ment,  or  other  unmixed  act  of  Understand 
ing,  merely  as  such,  and  without  the  agency 
of  some  intermediate  emotion,  can  affect  the 
Will,  the  account  given  by  Dr.  Price  of  per 
ceptions  or  judgments  respecting  moral  sub 
jects,  does  not  advance  one  step  towards  the 
explanation  of  the  authority  of  Conscience 
over  the  Will,  which  is  the  matter  to  be  ex 
plained.  Indeed,  this  respectable  writer  felt 
the  difficulty  so  much  as  to  allow,  "  that  in 
contemplating  the  acts  of  moral  agents,  we 
have  both  a  perception  of  the  understanding 
and  a  feeling  of  the  heart."  He  even  ad 
mits,  that  it  would  have  been  highly  perni 
cious  to  us  if  our  reason  had  been  left  with 
out  such  support.  But  he  has  not  shown 
how,  on  such  a  supposition,  we  could  have 
acted  on  a  mere  opinion ;  nor  has  he  given 


*  Born,  1723 ;  died,  1791. 
t  The  third  edition  was  published  at  London  in 
1787. 


any  proof  that  what  he  calls  "support"  is 
not,  in  truth,  the  whole  of  what  directly  pro 
duces  the  conformity  of  voluntary  acts  to  Mo 
rality.* 

DAVID  HARTLEY. t 

The  work  of  Dr.  Hartley,  entitled  "  Obser 
vations  on  Man,"J  is  distinguished  by  an  un 
common  union  of  originality  with  modesty, 
in  unfolding  a  simple  and  fruitful  principle 
of  human  nature.  It  is  disfigured  by  the 
absurd  affectation  of  mathematical  forms 
then  prevalent;  and  it  is  encumbered  and 
deformed  by  a  mass  of  physiological  specu 
lations, — groundless,  or  at  best  uncertain, 
and  wholly  foreign  from  its  proper  purpose, 
— which  repel  the  inquirer  into  mental  phi 
losophy  from  its  perusal,  and  lessen  the  re 
spect  of  the  physiologist  for  the  author's 
judgment.  It  is  an  unfortunate  example  of 
the  disposition  predominent  among  undis- 
tinguishing  theorists  to  class  together  all  the 
appearances  which  are  observed  at  the  same 
time,  and  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  each  other.  At  that  period,  chemical 
phenomena  were  referred  to  mechanical 
principles;  vegetable  and  animal  life  were 
subjected  to  mechanical  or  chemical  laws : 
and  while  some  physiologists^  ascribed  the 
vital  functions  of  the  Understanding,  the 
greater  part  of  metaphysicians  were  dispos 
ed,  with  a  grosser  confusion,  to  derive  the 
intellectual  operations  from  bodily  causes. 
The  error  in  the  latter  case,  though  less  im 
mediately  perceptible,  is  deeper  and  more 
fundamental  than  in  the  other ;  since  it  over 
looks  the  primordial  arid  perpetual  distinc 
tion  between  the  being  which  thinks  and  the 
thing  which  is  thought  of, — not  to  be  lost 
sight  of,  by  the  mind's  eye,  even  for  a  twink 
ling,  without  involving  all  nature  in  darkness 
and  confusion.  Hartley  and  Condillac,!!  who, 
much  about  the  same  time,  but  seemingly 
without  any  knowledge  of  each  other's  spe 
culation  s,1"  began  in  a  very  similar  mode  to 

*  The  following  sentences  will  illustrate  the 
text,  and  are  in  truth  applicable  to  all  moral  theo 
ries  on  merely  intellectual  principles:  "Reason 
alone,  did  we  possess  it  in  a  higher  degree,  would 
answer  all  the  ends  of  the  passions.  Thus  there 
would  be  no  need  of  parental  affection,  were  all 
parents  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  reasons 
for  taking  upon  them  the  guidance  and  support  of 
those  whom  Nature  has  placed  under  their  care, 
and  were  they  virtuous  enough  to  be  always  deter 
mined  by  those  reasons." — Review,  p.  121.  A 
very  slight  consideration  will  show,  that  without 
the  last  words  the  preceding  part  would  be  utterly 
false,  and  with  them  it  is  utterly  insignificant. 

t  Born,  1705  ;  died,  1757. 

t  London,  1749. 

§  Among  them  was  G.  E.  Stahl,  born,  1660; 
died,  1734  ; — a  German  physician  and  chemist  of 
deserved  eminence. 

II  Born,  1715;  died,  1780. 

If  Traite  sur  1'Origine  des  Connoi?sances  IIu- 
maines,  1746  ;  Traite  des  Systemes,  1749  ;  Traite 
des  Sensations,  1754.  Foreign  books  were  then 
little  and  slowly  known  in  England.  Hartley's 
reading,  except  on  theology,  seerns  confined  to  the 
physical  and  mathematical  sciences ;  and  his  whole 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


147 


simplify,  but  also  to  mutilate  the  system  of 
Locke,  stopped  short  of  what  is  called  "ma 
terialism,"  which  consummates  the  con 
fusion,  but  touched  the  threshold.  Thither, 
it  must  be  owned,  their  philosophy  pointed, 
and  thither  their  followers  proceeded.  Hart 
ley  and  Bonnet.*  still  more  than  Condillac, 
suffered  themselves,  like  most  of  their  con 
temporaries,  to  overlook  the  important  truth, 
that  all  the  changes  in  the  organs  which  can 
be  likened  to  other  material  phenomena,  are 
nothing  more  than  antecedents  and  prerequi 
sites  of  perception,  bearing  riot  the  faintest 
likeness  to  it, — as  much  outward  in  relation 
to  the  thinking  principle,  as  if  they  occurred 
in  any  other  part  of  matter;  and  that  the 
entire  comprehension  of  those  changes,  if  it 
were  attained,  would  not  bring  us  a  step 
nearer  to  the  nature  of  thought.  They  who 
would  have  been  the  first  to  exclaim  against 
the  mistake  of  a  sound  for  a  colour,  fell  into 
the  more  unspeakable  error  of  confounding 
the  perception  of  objects,  as  outward,  with 
the  consciousness  of  our  own  mental  opera 
tions.  Locke's  doctrine,  that  "reflection" 
was  a  separate  source  of  ideas,  left  room  for 
this  greatest  of  all  distinctions;  though  with 
much  unhappiness  of  expression,  and  with 
no  little  variance  from  the  course  of  his  own 
speculations.  Hartley,  Condillac.  and  Bon 
net,  in  hewing  away  this  seeming  deformity 
from  the  system  of  their  master,  unwittingly 
struck  off  the  part  of  the  building  which, 
however  unsightly,  gave  it  the  power  of 
yielding  some  shelter  and  guard  to  truths,  of 
which  the  exclusion  rendered  it  utterly  un 
tenable.  They  became  consistent  Nominal 
ists  ;  in  reference  to  whose  controversy  Locke 
expresses  himself  with  confusion  and  contra 
diction  :  but  on  this  subject  they  added  no 
thing  to  what  had  been  taught  by  Hobbes 
and  Berkeley.  Both  Hartley  and  Condillact 
have  the  merit  of  having  been  un  seduced  by 
the  temptations  either  of  scepticism,  or  of 
useless  idealism ;  which,even  if  Berkeley  and 
Hume  could  have  been  unknown  to  them, 
must  have  been  within  sight.  Both  agree  in 
referring  all  the  intellectual  operations  to  the 
"'  association  of  ideas,"  and  in  representing 
that  association  as  reducible  to  the  single  law, 
"  that  ideas  which  enter  the  mind  at  the  same 
time,  acquire  a  tendency  to  call  up  each  other, 
which  is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  frequen- 

manner  of  thinking  and  writing  is  so  different  from 
that  of  Condillac,  that  there*  is  not  the  least  reason 
to  suppose  the  work  of  the  one  to  have  been 
known  to  the  other.  The  work  of  Hartley,  as  we 
learn  from  the  sketch  of  his  life  by  his  son,  pre 
fixed  to  the  edition  of  1791,  was  begun  in  1730, 
and  finished  in  1746. 

*  Born,  1720;  died,  1793. 

t  The  following  note  of  Condillac  will  show 
how  much  he  differed  from  Hartley  in  his  mode  of 
considering  the  Newtonian  hypothesis  of  vibra- 
lions,  and  how  far  he  was  in  that  respect  superior  to 
him.  "  Je  suppose  ici  et  ailleurs  que  les  percep 
tions  de  1'ame  ont  .pour  cause  physique  1'ebranle- 
ment  des  fibres  du  cerveau  ;  -non  que  je  regarde 
celte  liypolhese  comme  demontree,  mais  parcequ'elle 
ext  la  plus  commode  pour  expliquer  ma  pensee." — 
CEuvres  de  Condillac,  Paris,  1^98,  i.  60. 


cy  of  their  having  entered  together."  In 
this  important  part  of  their  doctrine  they 
seem,  whether  unconsciously  or  otherwise, 
to  have  only  repeated,  and  very  much  ex 
panded,  the  opinion  of  Hobbes.*  In  its  sim 
plicity  it  is  more  agreeable  than  the  system 
of  Mr.  Hume,  who  admitted  five  independent 
laws  of  association ;  and  it  is  in  comprehen 
sion  far  superior  to  the  views  of  the  same 
subject  by  Mr.  Locke,  whose  ill-chosen  name 
still  retains  its  place  in  our  nomenclature, 
but  who  only  appeals  to  the  principle  as  ex 
plaining  some  fancies  and  whimsies  of  the 
human  mind.  The  capital  fault  of  Hartley 
is  that  of  a  rash  generalization,  which  may 
prove  imperfect,  and  which  is  at  least  pre 
mature.  All  attempts  to  explain  instinct  by 
this  principle  have  hitherto  been  unavailing : 
many  of  the  most  important  processes  of 
reasoning  have  not  hitherto  been  accounted 
for  by  it.t  It  would  appear  by  a  close  ex 
amination,  that  even  this  theory,  simple  as 
it  appears,  presupposes  many  facts  relating  to 
the  mind,  of  which  its  authors  do  not  seem 
to  have  suspected  the  existence.  How  many 
ultimate  facts  of  that  nature,  for  example, 
are  contained  and  involved  in  Aristotle's 
celebrated  comparison  of  the  mind  in  its  first 
state  to  a  sheet  of  unwritten  paper  !  J  The 
texture  of  the  paper,  even  its  colour,  the  sort 
of  instrument  fit  to  act  on  it,  its  capacity  to 
receive  and  to  retain  impressions,  all  its  dif 
ferences,  from  steel  on  the  one  hand  to  water 
on  the  other,  certainly  presuppose  some  facts, 
and  may  imply  many,  without  a  distinct 
statement  of  which,  the  nature  of  writing 
could  not  be  explained  to  a  person  wholly 
ignorant  of  it.  How  many  more,  as  well  as 
greater  laws,  may  be  necessary  to  enable 
mind  to  perceive  outward  objects !  If  the 
power  of  perception  may  be  thus  depend 
ent,  why  may  not  what  is  called  the  "  asso 
ciation  of  ideas,"  the  attraction  between 
thoughts,  the  power  of  one  to  suggest  ano*- 
ther,  be  affected  by  mental  laws  hitherto- 
unexplored,  perhaps  unobserved  "\ 

But,  to  return  from  this  digression  into  the 
intellectual  part  of  man,  it  becomes  proper 
to  say,  that  the  difference  between  Hartley 
and  Condillac,  and  the  immeasurable  supe 
riority  of  the  former,  are  chiefly  to  be  found 
in  the  application  which  Hartley  first  made 
of  the  law  of  association  to  that  other  un 
named  portion  of  our  nature  with  which 
Morality  more  immediately  deals; — that 
which  feels  pain  and  pleasure, — is  influ 
enced  by  appetites  and  loathings,  by  desires 
and  aversions,  by  affections  and  repugnances. 
Condillac's  Treatise  on  Sensation,  published 
five  years  after  the  work  of  Hartley,  repro- 


*  Human  Nature,  chap.  iv.  v.  vi.  For  more 
ancient  statements,  see  Note  T. 

t  {i  Ce  que  les  logiciens  ont  dit  des  raisonne- 
ments  dans  bien  des  volumes,  me  paroit  entiere- 
ment  superflu,  et  de  nul  usage." — Condillac.  i. 
115  ;  an  assertion  of  which  the  gross  absurdity 
will  be  apparent  to  the  readers  of  Dr.  Whateley's 
Treatise  on  Logic,  one  of  the  most  important 
works  of  the  present  age. 

\  See  Note  U. 


148 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


duces  the  doctrine  of  Hobbes,  with  its  root, 
namely,  that  love  and  hope  are  but  trans 
formed  "  sensations/'*  (by  which  he  means 
perceptions  of  the  senses,)  and  its  wide 
spread-  branches,  consisting  in  desires  and 
passions,  which  are  only  modifications  of 
self-love.  "  The  words  'goodness'  and  'beau 
ty,'  "  says  he,  almost  in  the  very  words  of 
Hobbes,  ''express  those  qualities  of  things 
by  which  they  contribute  to  our  pleasure. ;'t 
In  the  whole  of  his  philosophical  works,  we 
find  no  trace  of  any  desire  produced  by  as 
sociation,  of  any  disinterested  principle,  or 
indeed  of  any  distinction  between  the  per 
cipient  and  what,  perhaps,  we  may  venture 
to  call  the  emotive  or  the  pathematic  part  of 
human  nature,  for  the  present,  until  some 
more  convenient  and  agreeable  name  shall 
be  hit  on  by  some  luckier  or  more  skilful 
adventurer. 

To  the  ingenuous,  humble,  and  anxiously 
conscientious  character  of  Hartley  himself, 
we  owe  the  knowledge  that,  about  the  year 
1730,  he  was  informed  that  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Gay  of  Sidney-Sussex  College,  Cambridge, 
then  living  in  the  west  of  England,  asserted 
the  possibility  of  deducing  all  our  intellectual 
pleasures  and  pains  from  association ;  that 
this  led  him  (Hartley)  to  consider  the  power 
of  association ;  and  that  about  that  time  Mr. 
Gay  published  his  sentiments  on  this  matter 
in  a  dissertation  prefixed  to  Bishop  Law's 
Translation  of  King's  Origin  of  Evil.t  No 
writer  deserves  the  praise  of  abundant  fair 
ness  more  than  Hartley  in  this  avowal.  The 
dissertation  of  which  he  speaks  is  mentioned 
by  no  philosopher  but  himself.  It  suggested 
nothing  apparently  to  any  other  reader.  The 
general  texture  of  it  is  that  of  homespun  sel 
fishness.  The  writer  had  the  merit  to  see 
and  to  own  that  Hutcheson  had  established 
as  a  fact  the  reality  of  moral  sentiments  and 
disinterested  affections.  He  blames,  per 
haps  justly,  that  most  ingenious  man,§  for 


*  Condillac,  iii.  21 ;  more  especially  Traite  des 
Sensations,  part  ii.  chap.  vi.     "Its  love  for  out-  | 
ward  objects  is  only  an  effect  of  love  for  itself." 

t  Traite  des  Sensations,  part  iv.  chap.  iii. 

t  Hartley's  preface  to  the  Observations  on  Man. 
The  word  "intellectual"  is  too  narrow.  Even 
"mental"  would  be  of  very  doubtful  propriety. 
The  theory  in  its  full  extent  requires  a  word  such 
as  "inorganic"  (if  no  better  can  be  discovered), 
extending  to  all  gratification,  not  distinctly  referred 
to  some  specific  organ,  or  at  least  to  some  assign 
able  part  of  the  bodily  frame. 

§  It  has  not  been  mentioned  in  its  proper  place, 
that  Hutcheson  appears  nowhere  to  greater  ad 
vantage  than  in  some  letters  on  the  Fable  of  the 
Bees,  published  when  he  was  very  young,  at  Dub 
lin,  with  the  signature  of  "  Hibernicus."  "  Pri 
vate  vices — public  benefits,"  says  he,  "  may  sig 
nify  any  one  of  these  five  distinct  propositions : 
1st.  They  are  in  themselves  public  benefits;  or, 
2d.  They  naturally  produce  public  happiness  ;  or. 
3d.  They  may  be  made  to  produce  it ;  or,  4th. 
They  may  naturally  flow  from  it ;  or,  5th.  At 
least  they  may  probably  flow  from  it  in  our  infirm 
nature.' '  See  a  small  volume  containing  Thoughts 
on  Laughter,  and  Remarks  on  the  Fable  oAhe 
Bees,  Glasgow,  1758,  in  which  these  letters  are 
republished. 


assuming  that  these  sentiments  and  affec 
tions  are  implanted,  and  partake  of  the  na 
ture  of  instincts.  The  object  of  his  disserta 
tion  is  to  reconcile  the  mental  appearances 
described  by  Hutcheson  with  the  first  princi 
ple  of  the  selfish  system,  that  "  the  true  prin 
ciple  of  all  our  actions  is  our  own  happiness." 
Moral  feelings  and  social  affections  are,  ac 
cording  to  him,  "  resolvable  into  reason, 
pointing  out  our  private  happiness;  and 
whenever  this  end  is  not  perceived,  they  are 
to  be  accounted  for  from  the  association  of 
ideas/'  Even  in  the  single  passage  in  which 
he  shows  a  glimpse  of  the  truth,  he  begins 
with  confusion,  advances  with  hesitation,  and 
after  holding  in  his  grasp  for  an  instant  the 
principle  which  sheds  so  strong  a  light  around 
it,  suddenly  drops  it  from  his  hand.  Instead 
of  receiving  the  statements  of  Hutcheson 
(his  silence  relating  to  Butler  is  unaccounta 
ble)  as  enlargements  of  the  science  of  man, 
he  deals  with  them  merely  as  difficulties  to 
be  reconciled  with  the  received  system  of 
universal  selfishness.  In  the  conclusion  of 
his  fourth  section,  he  well  exemplifies  the 
power  of  association  in  forming  the  love  of 
money,  of  fame,  of  power,  &c. ;  but  he  still 
treats  these  effects  of  association  as  aberra 
tions  and  infirmities,  the  fruits  of  our  forget- 
fulness  and  shortsightedness,  and  not  at  all 
as  the  great  process  employed  to  sow  and 
rear  the  most  important  principles  of  a  social 
and  moral  nature. 

This  precious  mine  may  therefore  be  truly 
said  to  have  been  opened  by  Hartley ;  for  he 
who  did  such  superabundant  justice  to  the 
hints  of  Gay,  would  assuredly  not  have 
withheld  the  like  tribute  from  Hutcheson, 
had  he  observed  the  happy  expression  of 
"secondary  passions,"  which  ought  to  have 
led  that  philosopher  himself  farther  than  he 
ventured  to  advance.  The  extraordinary 
value  of  this  part  of  Hartley's  system  has 
been  hidden  by  various  causes,  which  have 
also  enabled  writers,  who  have  borrowed 
from  it,  to  decry  it.  The  influence  of  his 
medical  habits  renders  many  of  his  exam 
ples  displeasing,  and  sometimes  disgusting, 
He  has  none  of  that  knowledge  of  the  world, 
of  that  familiarity  with  Literature,  of  that 
delicate  perception  of  the  beauties  of  Nature 
and  Art,  which  not  only  supply  the  most 
agreeable  illustrations  of  mental  philosophy, 
but  afford  the  most  obvious  and  striking  in 
stances  of  its  happy  application  to  subjects 
generally  interesting.  His  particular  appli 
cations  of  the  general  law  are  often  mistaken, 
and  are  seldom  more  than  brief  notes  and 
hasty  suggestions; — the  germs  of  theories 
which,  while  some  might  adopt  them  with 
out' detection,  others  might  discover  without 
being  aware  that  they  were  anticipated. — 
To  which  it  may  be  added,  that  in  spite  m 
the  imposing  forms  of  Geometry,  the  work 
is  not  really  distinguished  by  good  method, 
or  even  uniform  adherence  to  that  which  had 
been  chosen.  His  style  is  entitled  to  no 
praise  but  that  of  clearness,  and  a  simplicity 
of  diction,  through  which  is  visible  a  sir>gu- 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


149 


lar  simplicity  of  mind.  No  book  perhaps 
exists  which,  with  so  few  of  the  common 
allurements,  comes  at  last  so  much  to  please 
by  the  picture  it  presents  of  the  writer's  cha 
racter, — a  character  which  kept  him  pure 
from  the  pursuit,  often  from  the  conscious 
ness  of  novelty,  and  rendered  him  a  discove 
rer  in  spite  of  his  own  modesty.  In  those 
singular  passages  in  which,  amidst  the  pro 
found  internal  tranquillity  of  all  the  Euro 
pean  nations,  he  foretells  approaching  con 
vulsions,  to  be  followed  by  the  overthrow  of 
states  and  Churches,  his  quiet  and  gentle 
spirit,  elsewhere  almost  ready  to  inculcate 
passive  obedience  for  the  sake  of  peace,  is 
supported  under  its  awful  forebodings  by  the 
hope  of  that  general  progress  in  virtue  and 
happiness  which  he  saw  through  the  prepa 
ratory  confusion.  A  meek  piety,  inclining 
towards  mysticism,  and  sometimes  indulg 
ing  in  visions  which  borrow  a  lustre  from  his 
fervid  benevolence,  was  beautifully,  and  per 
haps  singularly^  blended  in  him  with  zeal 
for  the  most  unbounded  freedom  of  inquiry, 
flowing  both  from  his  own  conscientious  be 
lief  and  his  unmingled  love  of  Truth.  Who 
ever  can  so  far  subdue  his  repugnance  to 
petty  or  secondary  faults  as  to  bestow  a  care 
ful  perusal  on  the  work,  must  be  unfortunate 
if  he  does  not  see,  feel,  and  own,  that  the 
writer  was  a  great  philosopher  and  a  good 
man. 

To  those  who  thus  study  the  work,  it  will 
be  apparent  that  Hartley,  like  other  philoso 
phers,  either  overlooked  or  failed  explicitly 
to  announce  that  distinction  between  per 
ception  and  emotion,  without  which  no  sys 
tem  of  mental  philosophy  is  complete. — 
Hence  arose  the  partial  and  incomplete  view 
of  Truth  conveyed  by  the  use  of  the  phrase 
''association  of  ideas."  If  the  word  " asso 
ciation,"  which  rather  indicates  the  connec 
tion  between  separate  things  than  the  perfect 
combination  and  fusion  which  occur  in  many 
operations  of  the  mind,  must,  notwithstand 
ing  its  inadequacy,  still  be  retained,  the 
phrase  ought  at  least  to  be  "association"  of 
thoughts  with  emotions,  as  well  as  with  each 
other.  With  that  enlargement  an  objection 
to  the  Hartleian  doctrine  would  have  been 
avoided,  and  its  originality,  as  well  as  supe 
riority  over  that  of  Condillac,  would  have 
appeared  indisputable.  The  examples  of 
avarice  and  other  factitious  passions  are  very 
well  chosen  ;  first,  because  few  will  be  found 
to  suppose  that  they  are  original  principles 
of  human  nature;*  secondly,  because  the 
process  by  which  they  are  generated,  being 
subsequent  to  the  age  of  attention  and  recol- 
Jection,  may  be  brought  home  to  the  under 
standing  of  all  men ;  and,  thirdly,  because 

*  A  very  ingenious  man,  Lord  Kames,  whose 
works  had  a  great  effect  in  rousing  the  mind  of 
his  contemporaries  and  countrymen,  has  indeed 
fancied  that  there  is  "  a  hoarding  instinct"  in  man 
and  other  animals.  But  such  conclusions  are  not 
so  much  objects  of  confutation,  as  ludicrous  proofs 
of  the  absurdity  of  the  premises  which  lead  to 
them. 


they  afford  the  most  striking  instance  of  se 
condary  passions,  which  not  only  become  in 
dependent  of  the  primary  principles  from 
which  they  are  derived,  but  hostile  to  them, 
and  so  superior  in  strength  as  to  be  capable 
of  overpowering  their  parents.  As  soon  as 
the  mind  becomes  familiar  with  the  frequent 
case  of  the  man  who  first  pursued  money  to 
purchase  pleasure,  but  at  last,  when  he  be 
comes  a  miser,  loves  his  hoard  better  than 
all  that  it  could  purchase,  and  sacrifices  all 
pleasures  for  its  increase,  we  are  prepared 
to  admit  that,  by  a  like  process,  the  affec 
tions,  when  they  are  fixed  on  the  happiness 
of  others  as  their  ultimate  object,  without 
any  reflection  on  self,  may  not  only  be  per 
fectly  detached  from  self-regard  or  private 
desires,  but  may  subdue  these  and  every 
other  antagonist  passion  which  can  stand  in 
their  way.  As  the  miser  loves  money  for 
its  own  sake,  so  may  the  benevolent  man 
delight  in  the  well-being  of  his  fellows.  His 
good-will  becomes  as  disinterested  as  if  it 
had  been  implanted  and  underived.  The 
like  process  applied  to  what  is  called  "  self- 
love,"  or  the  desire  of  permanent  well-being, 
clearly  explains  the  mode  in  which  that  prin 
ciple  is  gradually  formed  from  the  separate 
appetites,  without  whose  previous  existence 
no  notion  of  well-being  could  be  obtained. — 
In  like  manner,  sympathy,  perhaps  itself  the 
result  of  a  transfer  of  our  own  personal  feel 
ings  by  association  to  other  sentient  beings, 
and  of  a  subsequent  transfer  of  their  feelings 
to  our  own  minds,  engenders  the  various  so 
cial  affections,  which  at  last  generate  in 
most  minds  some  regard  to  the  well-being 
of  our  country,  of  mankind,  of  all  creatures 
capable  of  pleasure.  Rational  Self-love  con 
trols  and  guides  those  far  keener  self-regard 
ing  passions  of  which  it  is  the  child,  in  the 
same  manner  as  general  benevolence  balan 
ces  and  governs  the  variety  of  much  warmer 
social  affections  from  which  it  springs.  It  is 
an  ancient  and  obstinate  error  of  philosophers 
to  represent  these  two  calm  principles  as  be 
ing  the  source  of  the  impelling  passions  and 
affections,  instead  of  being  among  the  last 
results  of  them.  Each  of  them  exercises  a 
sort  of  authority  in  its  sphere;  but  the  do 
minion  of  neither  is  co-existent  with  the 
whole  nature  of  man.  Though  they  have 
the  power  to  quicken  and  check,  they  are 
both  too  feeble  to  impel  ]  and  if  the  primary 
principles  were  extinguished,  they  would 
both  perish  from  want  of  nourishment.  If 
indeed  all  appetites  and  desires  were  de 
stroyed,  no  subject  would  exist  on  which. 
either  of  these  general  principles  could  act. 

The  affections,  desires,  and  emotions, 
having  for  their  ultimate  object  the  disposi 
tions  and  actions  of  voluntary  agents,  which 
alone,  from  the  nature  of  their  object,  are 
co-extensive  with  the  whole  of  our  active 
nature,  are.  according  to  the  same  philoso 
phy,  necessarily  formed  in  every  human 
mind  by  the  transfer  of  feeling  which  is  ef 
fected  by  the  principle  of  Association.  Gra 
titude,  pity;  resentment,  and  shame,  seem  to 

N2 


350 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


be  the  simplest;  the  most  active,  and  the  '  great,  may  be  guarded  against  by  the  terror 
most  uniform  elements  in  their  composition.  ,  of  punishment.  In  the  observation  of  the 
It  is  easy  to  perceive  how  the  complacency  ;  rules  of  justice  consists  duty  ;  breaches  of 
inspired  by  a  benefit  maybe  transferred  to  a  j  them  we  denominate  ^crimes."  An  abhor- 
benefactor;  —  thence  to  all  beneficent  beings  '  rence  of  crimes,  especially  of  those  which 
and  acts.  The  well-chosen  instance  of  the  ;  indicate  the  absence  of  benevolence,  as  well 
nurse  familiarly  exemplifies  the  manner  in  '  as  of  regard  for  justice,  is  strongly  felt;  be- 
which  the  child  transfers  his  complacency  cause  well-framed  penal  laws,  'being  the 
from  the  gratification  of  his  senses  to  the  lasting  declaration  of  the  moral  indignation 
cause  of  it:  and  thus  learns  an  affection  for  i  of  many  generations  of  mankind,  as  long  as 
her  who  is  the  source  of  his  enjoyment.  —  !  they  remain  in  unison  with  the  sentiments 
With  this  simple  process  concur,  in  the  case  ;  of  the  age  and  country  for  which  they  are 
of  a  tender  nurse,  and  far  more  of  a  mother,  i  destined,  exceedingly  strengthen  the  same 
a  thousand  acts  of  relief  and  endearment,  the  <  feeling  in  every  individual  ;  and  this  they  do 
complacency  that  results  from  which  is  fixed  |  wherever  the  laws  do  not  so  much  deviate 
on  the  person  from  whom  they  flow,  and  in  j  from  the  habitual  feelings  of  the  multitude 
some  degree  extended  by  association  to  all  jas  to  produce  a  struggle  between  law  and 
who  resemble  that  person.  So  much  of  the  I  sentiment,  in  which"  it  is  hard  to  say  on 
pleasure  of  early  life  depends  on  others,  that  1  which  side  success  is  most  deplorable.  A 


the  like 

Hence  the  origin 


process  is  almost  constantly  repeated. 
the  oriin  of  benevolence  ma    be  un- 


may 


derstood,  and  the  disposition  to  approve  all 
benevolent,  and  disapprove  all  malevolent 
acts.  Hence  also  the  same  approbation  and 
disapprobation  are  extended  to  all  acts  which 
we  clearly  perceive  to  promote  or  obstruct 
the  happiness  of  men.  When  the  compla 
cency  is  expressed  in  action,  benevolence 
may  be  said  to  be  transformed  into  a  part  of 
Conscience.  The  rise  of  sympathy  may  pro 
bably  be  explained  by  the  process  of  associ 
ation,  which  transfers  the  feelings  of  others 
to  ourselves,  and  ascribes  our  own  feelings  to 
•others, — at  first,  and  in  some  degree  always, 


es- 
it 


man  who  performs  his  duties  may  be 
teemed,  but  is  not  admired ;  bee 
requires  no  more  than  ordinary  virtue  to  act 
well  where  it  is  shameful  and  dangerous  to  do 
otherwise.  The  righteousness  of  those  who 
act  solely  from  such  inferior  motives,  is  little 
better  than  that  "  of  the  Scribes  and  Phari 
sees."  Those  only  are  just  in  the  eye  of  the 
moralist  who  act  justly  from  a  constant  dis 
position  to  render  to  every  man  his  own.* 
Acts  of  kindness,  of  generosity,  of  pity,  of 
placability,  of  humanity,  when  they  are 
long  continued,  can  hardly  fail  mainly  to 
flow  from  the  pure  fountain  of  an  excellent 
nature.  They  are  not  reducible  to  rules; 


in  proportion  as  the  resemblance  of  ourselves  j  and  the  attempt  to  enforce  them  by  punish- 
to  others  is  complete.  The  likeness  in  the  ment  would  destroy  them.  They  are  virtues, 
-outward  signs  of  emotion  is  one  of  the  widest  of  which  the  essence  consists  in  a  good  dis- 
channels  in  this  commerce  of  hearts.  Pity  I  position  of  mind. 

thereby  becomes  one  of  the  grand  sources  of  As  we  gradually  transfer  our  desire  from 
benevolence,  and  perhaps  contributes  more  praise  to  praiseworthiness,  this  principle  also 
largely  than  gratitude  :  it  is  indeed  one  of  i  is  adopted  into  consciousness.  On  the  other 
the  first  motives  to  the  conferring  of  those  hand,  when  we  are  led  by  association  to  feel 
benefits  which  inspire  grateful  affection. —  'a  painful  contempt  for  those  feelings  and 
Sympathy  with  the  sufferer,  therefore,  is  j  actions  of  our  past  self  which  we  despise  in 
also  transformed  into  a  real  sentiment,  di-  j  others,  there  is  developed  in  our  hearts  an- 
rectly  approving  benevolent  actions  and  dis-  |  other  element  of  that  moral  sense.  It  is  a 
positions,  and  more  remotely,  all  actions  that  i  remarkable  instance  of  the  power  of  the 
promote  happiness.  The  anger  of  the  suffer-  i  law  of  Association,  that  the  contempt  or  ab- 
er,  first  against  all  causes  of  pain,  afterwards  i  horrence  which  we  feel  for  the  bad  actions 
against  all  intentional  agents  who  produce  it,  !  of  others  may  be  transferred  by  it,  in  any 
and  finally  against  all  those  in  whom  the  in-  degree  of  strength,  to  our  own  past  actions 
fliction  of  pain  proceeds  from  a  mischievous  of  the  like  kind :  and  as  the  hatred  of  bad 
disposition,  when  it  is  communicated  toothers  j  actions  is  transferred  to  the  agent,  the  same 
by  sympathy,  and  is  so  far  purified  by  gra-  !  transfer  may  occur  in  our  own  case  in  a 
dual  separation  from  selfish  and  individual  i  manner  perfectly  similar  to  that  of  which 
interest  as  to  be  equally  felt  against  all  wrong-  !  we  are  conscious  in  our  feelings  towards  our 


doers, — whether  the  wrong  be  done  against 
-ourselves,  our  friends,  or  our  enemies. — is 
the  root  out  of  which  springs  that  which  is 
commonly  and  well  called  a  "  sense  of  jus 
tice" — the  most  indispensable,  perhaps,  of 
all  the  component  -parts  of  the  moral  facul 


ties. 

This  is  the  main  guard 


against  Wrong. 


It  relates  to  that  portion  of  Morality  where 
many  of  the  outward  acts  are  capable  of 
being  reduced  under  certain  rules,  of  which 
the  violations,  wherever  the  rule  is  suffi 
ciently  precise,  and  the  mischief  sufficiently 


fellow-creatures.  There  are  many  causes 
which  render  it  generally  feebler ;  but  it  is 
perfectly  evident  that  it  requires  no  more 
than  a  sufficient  strength  of  moral  feeling 
to  make  it  equal ;  and  that  the  most  appa 
rently  hyperbolical  language  used  by  peni 


*  "  Justitia  est  constans  et  perpetua  voluntas 
suurn  cuique  tribuendi:"  an  excellent  definition 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Stoical  moralists,  from  whom 
it  is  borrowed,  but  altogether  misplaced  by  the 
Roman  jurists  in  a  body  of  laws  which  deal  only 
with  outward  acts  in  their  relation  to  the  order 
and  interests  of  society. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


151 


tents,  in  describing  their  remorse,  may  be 
justified  by  the  principle  of  Association. 

At  this  step  in  our  progress,  it  is  proper  to 
observe,  that  a  most  important  consideration 
has  escaped  Hartley,  as  well  as  every  other 
philosopher.*  The  language  of  all  mankind 
implies  that  the  Moral  Faculty,  whatever  it 
may  be.  and  from  what  origin  soever  it  may 
spring,  is  intelligibly  and  properly  spoken  of 
as  ONE.  It  is  as  common  in  mind,  as  in 
matter,  for  a  compound  to  have  properties 
not  to  be  found  in  any  of  its  constituent 
parts.  The  truth  of  this  proposition  is  as 
certain  in  the  human  feelings  as  in  any  ma 
terial  combination.  It  is  therefore  easily  to 
be  understood,  that  originally  separate  feel 
ings  may  be  so  perfectly  blended  by  a  pro 
cess  performed  in  each  mind,  that  they  can 
no  longer  be  disjoined  from  each  other,  but 
must  always  co-operate,  and  thus  reach  the 
only  union  which  we  can  conceive.  The 
sentiment  of  moral  approbation,  formed  by 
association  out  of  antecedent  affections,  may 
become  so  perfectly  independent  of  them, 
that  we  are  no  longer  conscious  of  the  means 
by  which  it  was  formed,  and  never  can  in 
practice  repeat,  though  we  may  in  theory 
perceive,  the  process  by  which  it  was  gene 
rated.  It  is  in  that  mature  and  sound  state 
of  our  nature  that  our  emotions  at  the  view 
of  Right  and  Wrong  are  ascribed  to  Con 
science.  But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  do 
these  feelings,  rather  than  others,  run  into 
each  other,  and  constitute  Conscience  ?  The 
answer  seems  to  be  what  has  already  been 
intimated  in  the  observations  on  Butler.  The 
affinity  between  these  feelings  consists  in 
this,  that  while  all  other  feelings  relate  to 
outward  objects,  they  alone  contemplate  ex 
clusively  the  dispositions  and  actions  of  volun 
tary  agents.  When  they  are  completely 
transferred  from  objects,  and  even  persons, 
to  dispositions  and  actions,  they  are  fitted, 
by  the  perfect  coincidence  of  their  aim.  for 
combining  to  form  that  one  faculty  which  is 
directed  only  to  that  aim. 

The  words  "Duty"'  arid  "Virtue,"  and  the 
word  "ought,"  which  most  perfectly  denotes 
duty,  but  is  also  connected  with  Virtue,  in 
every  well-constituted  mind,  in  this  state  be 
come  the  fit  language  of  the  acquired,  per 
haps,  but  universally  and  necessarily  ac 
quired,  faculty  of  Conscience.  Some  account 
of  its  peculiar  nature  has  been  attempted  in 
the  remarks  on  Butler ;  for  a  further  one  a 
fitter  occasion  will  occur  hereafter.  Some 
light  may  however  now  be  thrown  on  the 
subject  by  a  short  statement  of  the  hitherto 
unobserved  distinction  between  the  moral 
sentiments  and  another  class  of  feelings 
with  which  they  have  some  qualities  in 
common.  The  "pleasures"  (so  called)  of 
imagination  appear,  at  least  in  most  cases, 
to  originate  in  association :  but  it  is  not  till 
the  original  cause  of  the  gratification  is  ob 
literated  from  the  mind,  that  they  acquire 
their  proper  character.  Order  and  propor- 

*  See  supra,  section  on  Butler. 


tion  may  be  at  first  chosen  for  their  conve 
nience  :  it  is  not  until  they  are  admired  for 
their  own  sake  that  they  become  objects  of 
taste.  Though  all  the  proportions  for  which 
a  horse  is  valued  may  be  indications  of 
speed,  safety,  strength,  and  health,  it  is  not 
the  less  true  that  they  only  can  be  said  to 
admire  the  animal  for  his  beauty,  who  leave 
such  considerations  out  of  the  account  while 
they  admire.  The  pleasure  of  contempla 
tion  in  these  particulars  of  Nature  and  Art 
becomes  universal  and  immediate,  being 
entirely  detached  from  all  regard  to  indi 
vidual  beings.  It  contemplates  neither  use 
nor  interest.  In  this  important  particular 
the  pleasures  of  imagination  agree  with  the 
moral  sentiments  :  hence  the  application  of 
the  same  language  to  both  in  ancient  and 
modem  times ; — hence  also  it  arises  that  they 
may  contemplate  the  very  same  qualities  and 
objects.  There  is  certainly  much  beauty  in 
the  softer  virtues, — much  grandeur  in  the 
soul  of  a  hero  or  a  martyr :  but  the  essential 
distinction  still  remains;  the  purest  moral 
taste  contemplates  these  qualities  only  with 
quiescent  delight  or  reverence ;  it  has  no 
further  view;  it  points  towards  no  action. 
Conscience,  on  the  contrary,  containing  in  it 
a  pleasure  in  the  prospect  of  doing  right, 
and  an  ardent  desire  to  act  well,  having  for 
its  sole  object  the  dispositions  and  acts  of 
voluntary  agents,  is  not,  like  moral  taste,  sa 
tisfied  with  passive  contemplation,  but  con 
stantly  tends  to  act  on  the  will  and  conduct 
of  the  man.  Moral  taste  may  aid  it,  may 
be  absorbed  into  it,  and  usually  contributes 
its  part  to  the  formation  of  the  moral  faculty; 
but  it  is  distinct  from  that  faculty,  and  may 
be  disproportioned  to  it.  Conscience,  being 
by  its  nature  confined  to  mental  dispositions 
and  voluntary  acts,  is  of  necessity  excluded 
from  the  ordinary  consideration  of  all  things 
antecedent  to  these  dispositions.  The  cir 
cumstances  from  which  such  states  of  mind 
may  arise,  are  most  important  objects  of 
consideration  for  the  Understanding;  but 
they  are  without  the  sphere  of  Conscience, 
which  never  ascends  beyond  the  heart  of 
the  man.  It  is  thus  that  in  the  eye  of  Con 
science  man  becomes  amenable  to  its  autho 
rity  for  all  his  inclinations  as  well  as  deeds; 
that  some  of  them  are  approved,  loved,  and 
revered  ;  and  that  all  the  outward  effects  of 
disesteem,  contempt,  or  moral  anger,  are 
felt  to  be  the  just  lot  of  others. 

But,  to  return  to  Hartley,  from  this  per 
haps  intrusive  statement  of  what  does  not 
properly  belong  to  him :  he  represents  all 
the  social  affections  of  gratitude,  veneration, 
and  love,  inspired  by  the  virtues  of  our  fel 
low-men,  as  capable  of  being  transferred 
by  association  to  the  transcendent  and  un- 
mingled  goodness  of  the  Ruler  of  the  world, 
and  thus  to  give  rise  to  piety,  to  which  he 
gives  the  name  of  "  the  theopathetic  affec 
tion."  This  principle,  like  all  the  former  in 
the  mental  series,  is  gradually  detached  from 
the  trunk  on  which  it  grew :  it  takes  sepa 
rate  root,  and  may  altogether  overshadow 


152 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  parent  stock.  As  such  a  Being  cannot 
be  conceived  without  the  most  perfect  and 
constant  reference  to  His  goodness,  so  piety 
may  not  only  become  a  part  of  Conscience, 
but  its  governing  and  animating  principle. 
which,  after  long  lending  its  own  energy  and 
authority  to  every  other,  is  at  last  described 
by  our  philosopher  as  swallowing  up  all  of 
them  in  order  to  perform  the  same  functions 
more  infallibly. 

In"  every  stage  of  this  progress  we  are 
taught  by  Dr.  Hartley  that  a  new  product 
appears,  which  becomes  perfectly  distinct 
from  the  elements  which  formed  it,  which 
may  be  utterly  dissimilar  to  them,  and  may 
attain  any  degree  of  vigour,  however  superior 
to  theirs.  Thus  the  objects  of  the  private 
desires  disappear  when  we  are  employed 
in  the  pursuit  of  our  lasting  welfare;  that 
which  was  first  sought  only  as  a  means, 
may  come  to  be  pursued  as  an  end,  and  pre 
ferred  to  the  original  end ;  the  good  opinion 
of  our  fellows  becomes  more  valued  than 
the  benefits  for  which  it  was  at  first  courted ; 
a  man  is  ready  to  sacrifice  his  life  for  him 
who  has  shown  generosity,  even  to  others; 
and  persons  otherwise  of  common  character 
are  capable  of  cheerfully  marching  in  a  for 
lorn  hope,  or  of  almost  instinctively  leaping 
into  the  sea  to  save  the  life  of  an  entire 
stranger.  These  last  acts,  often  of  almost 
unconscious  virtue,  so  familiar  to  the  soldier 
and  the  sailor,  so  unaccountable  on  certain 
systems  of  philosophy,  often  occur  without 
a  thought  of  applause  and  reward ; — too 
quickly  for  the  thought  of  the  latter,  too  ob 
scurely  for  the  hope  of  the  former;  and  they 
are  of  such  a  nature  that  no  man  could  be 
impelled  to  them  by  the  mere  expectation 
of  either. 

The  gratitude,  sympathy,  resentment,  and 
shame,  which  are  the  principal  constituent 
parts  of  the  Moral  Sense,  thus  lose  their 
separate  agency,  and  constitute  an  entirely 
new  faculty,  co-extensive  with  all  the  dis 
positions  and  actions  of  voluntary  agents; 
though  some  of  them  are  more  predominant 
in  particular  cases  of  moral  sentiment  than 
others,  and  though  the  aid  of  all  continues  to 
be  necessary  in  their  original  character,  as 
subordinate  but  distinct  motives  of  action. 
Nothing  more  evidently  points  out  the  dis 
tinction  of  the  Hartleian  system  from  all  sys 
tems  called  "selfish," — not  to  say  its  superi 
ority  in  respect  to  disinterestedness  over  all 
moral  systems  before  Butler  and  Hutcheson, 
— than  that  excellent  part  of  it  which  relates 
to  the  "  rule  of  life."  The  various  principles 
of, human  action  rise  in  value  according  to 
the  order  in  which  they  spring  up  after  each 
other.  We  can  then  only  be  in  a  state  of 
as  much  enjoyment  as  we  are  evidently  ca 
pable  of  attaining,  when  we  prefer  interest 
to  the  original  gratifications;  honour  to  in 
terest  ;  the  pleasures  of  imagination  to  those 
of  sense;  the  dictates  of  Conscience  to  plea 
sure,  interest,  and  reputation;  the  well-being 
of  fellow-creatures  to  our  own  indulgences; 
in  a  word,  when  we  pursue  moral  good  and 


social  happiness  chiefly  and  for  their  own 
sake.  "With  self-interest,"  says  Hartley, 
somewhat  inaccurately  in  language,  "man 
must  begin.  He  may  end  in  self-annihila 
tion.  Theopathy,  or  piety,  although  the  last 
result  of  the  purified  and  exalted  sentiments, 
may  at  length  swallow  up  every  other  prin 
ciple,  and  absorb  the  whole  man."  Even  if 
this  last  doctrine  should  be  an  exaggeration 
unsuited  to  our  present  condition,  it  will  the 
more  strongly  illustrate  the  compatibility,  or 
rather  the  necessary  connection,  of  this  theo 
ry  with  the  existence  and  power  of  perfectly 
disinterested  principles  of  human  action. 

It  is  needless  to  remark  on  the  secondary 
and  auxiliary  causes  which  contribute  to  the 
formation  of  moral  sentiment; — education, 
imitation,  general  opinion,  laws,  and  govern 
ment.  They  all  presuppose  the  Moral  Facul 
ty  :  in  an  improved  state  of  society  they  con 
tribute  powerfully  to  strengthen  it,  and  on 
some  occasions  they  enfeeble,  distort  and 
maim  it ;  but  in  all  cases  they  must  them 
selves  be  tried  by  the  test  of  an  ethical  stand 
ard.  The  value  of  this  doctrine  will  not  be 
essentially  affected  by  supposing  a  greater 
number  of  original  principles  than  those  as 
sumed  by  Dr.  Hartley.  The  principle  of  As 
sociation  applies  as  much  to  a  greater  as  to  a 
smaller  number.  It  is  a  quality  common  to 
it  with  all  theories,  that  the  more  simplicity 
it  reaches  consistently  with  truth,  the  more 
perfect  it  becomes.  Causes  are  not  to  be 
multiplied  without  necessity.  If  by  a  con 
siderable  multiplication  of  primary  desires 
the  law  of  Association  were  lowered  nearly 
to  the  level  of  an  auxiliary  agent,  the  philo 
sophy  of  human  nature  would  still  be  under 
indelible  obligations  to  the  philosopher  who. 
by  his  fortunate  error,  rendered  the  import 
ance  of  that  great  principle  obvious  and 
conspicuous. 

ABRAHAM  TUCKER.* 

It  has  been  the  remarkable  fortune  of  this 
WTiter  to  have  been  more  prized  and  more 
disregarded  by  the  cultivators  of  moral  specu 
lation,  than  perhaps  any  other  philosopher.! 
He  had  many  of  the  qualities  which  might 
be  expected  in  an  affluent  country  gentleman, 
living  in  a  privacy  undisturbed  by  political 
zeal,  and  with  a  leisure  unbroken  by  the 
calls  of  a  profession,  at  a  time  when  Eng 
land  had  not  entirely  renounced  her  old  taste 
for  metaphysical  speculation.  He  was  natu 
rally  endowed,  not  indeed  with  more  than  or- 


*  Born,  1705;  died,  1774. 

t  "I  have  found  in  this  writer  more  original 
thinking  and  observation  upon  the  several  subjects 
that  he  has  taken  in  hand  than  in  any  other, — not 
to  say  than  in  all  others  put  together.  His  talent 
also  for  illustration  is  unrivalled." — Paley,  Pre 
face  lo  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy.  See  the 
excellent  preface  to  an  abridgment,  by  Mr.  Has- 
litt,  of  Tucker's  work,  published  in  London  in 
1807.  May  I  venture  to  refer  also  to  my  own 
Discourse  on  the  Law  of  Nature  and  Nations, 
London,  1799?  Mr.  Stewart  treats  Tucker  and 
Hartley  with  unwonted  harshness. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


153 


dinary  acuteness  or  sensibility,  nor  with  a 
high  degree  of  reach  and  range  of  mind,  but 
•with  a  singular  capacity  for  careful  observa 
tion  and  original  reflection,  and  with  a  fancy 
perhaps  unmatched  in  producing  various  and 
happy  illustration.  The  most  observable 
of  his  moral  qualities  appear  to  have  been 
prudence  and  cheerfulness,  good-nature  and 
easy  temper.  The  influence  of  his  situation 
and  character  is  visible  in  his  writings.  In 
dulging  his  own  tastes  arid  fancies,  like  most 
English  squires  of  his  time,  he  became,  like 
many  of  them,  a  sort  of  humourist.  Hence 
much  of  his  originality  and  independence ; 
hence  the  boldness  with  which  he  openly 
employs  illustrations  from  homely  objects. 
He  wrote  to  please  himself  more  than  the 
public.  He  had  too  little  regard  for  readers, 
either  to  sacrifice  his  sincerity  to  them,  or  to 
curb  his  own  prolixity,  repetition,  and  ego 
tism,  from  the  fear  of  fatiguing  them.  Hence 
he  became  as  loose,  as  rambling,  and  as 
much  an  egotist  as  Montaigne ;  but  not  so 
agreeably  so,  notwithstanding  a  considerable 
resemblance  of  genius ;  because  he  wrote  on 
subjects  where  disorder  and  egotism  are  un 
seasonable,  and  for  readers  whom  they  dis 
turb  instead  of  amusing.  His  prolixity  at 
last  so  increased  itself,  when  his  work  be 
came  long,  that  repetition  in  the  latter  parts 
partly  arose  from  forgetfulness  of  the  former ; 
and  though  his  freedom  from  slavish  defer 
ence  to  general  opinion  is  very  commenda 
ble,  it  must  be  owned,  that  his  want  of  a 
wholesome  fear  of  the  public  renders  the 
perusal  of  a  work  which  is  extremely  inter 
esting,  and  even  amusing  in  most  of  its  parts, 
on  the  whole  a  laborious  task.  He  was  by 
early  education  a  believer  in  Christianity,  if 
not  by  natural  character  religious.  His  calm 
good  sense  and  accommodating  temper  led 
him  rather  to  explain  established  doctrines 
in  a  manner  agreeable  to  his  philosophy,  than 
to  assail  them.  Hence  he  was  represented 
as  a  time-server  by  freethinkers,  and  as  a 
heretic  by  the  orthodox.*  Living  in  a  coun 
try  where  the  secure  tranquillity  flowing 
from  the  Revolution  was  gradually  drawing 
forth  all  mental  activity  towards  practical 
pursuits  and  outward  objects,  he  hastened 
from  the  rudiments  of  mental  and  moral 
philosophy,  to  those  branches  of  it  which 
touch  the  business  of  men.t  Had  he  recast 
without  changing  his  thoughts, — had  he  de 
tached  those  ethical  observations  for  which 
he  had  so  peculiar  a  vocation,  from  the  dis 
putes  of  his  country  and  his  day,  he  might 

*  This  disposition  to  compromise  and  accommo 
dation,  which  is  discoverable  in  Paley,  was  carried 
to  its  utmost  length  by  Mr.  Hey.  a  man  of  much 
acuteness,  Professor  of  Divinity  at  Cambridge. 

t  Perhaps  no  philosopher  ever  stated  more  just 
ly,  more  naturally,  or  more  modestly  than  Tucker, 
the  ruling  maxim  of  his  life.  "  My  thoughts," 
says  he,  "  have  taken  a  turn  from  my  earliest 
youth  towards  searching  into  the  foundations  and 
measures  of  Right  and  Wrong;  my  love  for  re 
tirement  has  furnished  me  with  continual  leisure  ; 
and  the  exercise  of  my  reason  has  been  my  daily 
employment." 

20 


have  thrown  many  of  his  chapters  into  their 
proper  form  of  essays,  and  these  might  have 
been  compared,  though  not  likened,  to  those 
of  Hume.  But  the  country  gentleman,  philo 
sophic  as  he  was,  had  too  much  fondness  for 
his  own  humours  to  engage  in  a  course  of 
drudgery  and  deference.  It  may,  however, 
be  confidently  added,  on  the  authority  of  all 
those  who  have  fairly  made  the  experiment, 
that  whoever,  unfettered  by  a  previous  sys 
tem,  undertakes  the  labour  necessary  to  dis 
cover  and  relish  the  high  excellences  of  this 
metaphysical  Montaigne,  will  find  his  toil 
lightened  as  he  proceeds,  by  a  grow  ing  in 
dulgence,  if  not  partiality,  for  the  foibles  of 
the  humourist,  and  at  last  rewarded,  in  a 
greater  degree  perhaps  than  by  any  other 
writer  on  mixed  and  applied  philosophy,  by 
being  led  to  commanding  stations  and  new 
points  of  view,  whence  the  mind  of  a  moralist 
can  hardly  fail  to  catch  some  fresh  prospects 
of  Nature  and  duty. 

It  is  in  mixed,  not  in  pure  philosophy,  that 
his  superiority  consists.  In  the  part  of  his 
work  which  relates  to  the  Intellect,  he  has 
adopted  much  from  Hartley,  hiding  but  ag 
gravating  the  offence  by  a  change  of  techni 
cal  terms  ;  and  he  was  ungrateful  enough  to 
countenance  the  vulgar  sneer  which  involves 
the  mental  analysis  of  that  philosopher  in 
the  ridicule  to  which  his  physiological  hypo 
thesis  is  liable.*  Thus,  for  the  Hartleian  term 
'•'association'7  he  substitutes  that  of  "trans 
lation,"  when  adopting  the  same  theory  of 
the  principles  which  move  the  mind  to  ac 
tion.  In  the  practical  and  applicable  part 
of  that  inquiry  he  indeed  far  surpasses  Hart 
ley  ;  and  it  is  little  to  add,  that  he  unspeak 
ably  exceeds  that  bare  and  naked  thinker 
in  the  useful  as  well  as  admirable  faculty 
of  illustration .  In  the  strictly  theoretical  part 
his  exposition  is  considerably  fuller  •  but  the 
defect  of  his  genius  becomes  conspicuous 
when  he  handles  a  very  general  principle. 
The  very  term  -'translation"  ought  to  have 
kept  up  in  his  mind  a  steady  conviction  that 
the  secondary  motives  to  action  become  as 
independent,  and  seek  their  own  objects  as 
exclusively,  as  the  primary  principles.  His 
own  examples  are  rich  in  proofs  of  this  im 
portant  truth.  But  there  is  a  slippery  de 
scent  in  the  theory  of  human  nature,  by 
which  he,  like  most  of  his  forerunners,  slid 
unawares  into  Selfishness.  He  was  not  pre 
served  from  this  fall  by  seeing  that  all  the 
deliberate  principles  which  have  self  for 
their  object  are  themselves  of  secondary  for 
mation  ;  arid  he  was  led  into  the  general 
error  by  the  notion  that  pleasure,  or,  as  he 
calls  it,  "satisfaction,"  was  the  original  and 


*  Light  of  Nature,  vol.  ii.  chap,  xviii.,  of  which 
the  conclusion  may  be  pointed  out  as  a  specimen 
of  unmatched  fruitfulness,  vivacity,  and  felicity  of 
illustration.  The  admirable  sense  of  the  conclu 
sion  of  chap.  xxv.  seems  to  have  suggested  Paley's 
good  chapter  on  Happiness.  The  alteration  of 
Plato's  comparison  of  Reason  to  a  charioteer,  and 
the  passions  to  the  horses,  in  chap,  xxvi.,  is  of 
characteristic  and  transcendent  excellence. 


154 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


sole  object  of  all  appetites  and  desires ; — 
confounding  this  with  the  true,  but  very  dif 
ferent  proposition,  that  the  attainment  of  all 
the  objects  of  appetite  and  desire  is  produc 
tive  of  pleasure.  He  did  not  see  that,  with 
out  presupposing  desires,  the  word  "plea 
sure"  would  have  no  signification ;  and  that 
the  representations  by  which  he  was  seduced 
would  leave  only  one  appetite  or  desire  in 
human  nature.  He  had  no  adequate  and 
constant  conception,  that  the  translation  of 
desire  from  being  the  end  to  be  the  means 
occasioned  the  formation  of  a  new  passion, 
which  is  perfectly  distinct  from,  and  alto- 

¥3ther  independent  of,  the  original  desire. 
oo  frequently  (for  he  was  neither  obstinate 
nor  uniform  in  error)  he  considered  these 
translations  as  accidental  defects  in  human 
nature,  not  as  the  appointed  means  of  sup 
plying  it  with  its  variety  of  active  principles. 
He  was  too  apt  to  speak  as  if  the  selfish 
elements  were  not  destroyed  in  the  new 
combination,  but  remained  still  capable  of 
being  recalled,  when  convenient,  like  the 
links  in  a  chain  of  reasoning,  which  we  pass 
over  from  forget  fulness,  or  for  brevity.  Take 
him  all  in  all,  however,  the  neglect  of  his 
writings  is  the  strongest  proof  of  the  disin 
clination  of  the  English  nation,  for  the  last 
half  century,  to  metaphysical  philosophy.* 

WILLIAM  PALEY.t 

This  excellent  writer,  who,  after  Clarke 
and  Butler,  ought  to  be  ranked  among  the 
brightest  ornaments  of  the  English  Church 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  is,  in  the  history 
of  philosophy,  naturally  placed  after  Tucker, 
to  whom,  with  praiseworthy  liberality;  he 
owns  his  extensive  obligations.  It  is  a  mis 
take  to  suppose  that  he  owed  his  system  to 
Hume, — a  thinker  too  refined,  and  a  writer 
perhaps  too  elegant,  to  have  naturally  at 
tracted  him.  A  coincidence  in  the  principle 
of  Utility,  common  to  bolh  with  so  many 
other  philosophers,  affords  no  sufficient 
ground  for  the  supposition.  Had  he  been 
habitually  influenced  by  Mr.  Hume,  who 
has  translated  so  many  of  the  dark  and  crab 
bed  passages  of  Butler  into  his  own  trans 
parent  and  beautiful  language,  it  is  not  pos- 

*  Much  of  Tucker's  chapter  on  Pleasure,  and 
of  Paley's  on  Happiness  (both  of  which  are  invalu 
able),  is  contained  in  the  passage  of  the  Traveller, 
of  which  the  following  couplet  expresses  the  main 
object : 

"  Unknown  to  them  when  sensual  pleasures  cloy, 
To  fill  the  languid  pause  with  finer  joy." 
"  An  honest  man,"  says  Hume,  (Inquiry  con 
cerning  Morals,    §  ix.)  "has   the  frequent  satis 
faction  of  seeing  knaves  betrayed  by  (heir  own 
rnaxims."     "  I  used  often  to  laugh  at  your  honest 
simple  neighbour  Flamborough,  and  one  way  or 
another  generally  cheated  him  once  a  year:  yet 
still  the  honest  man  went  forward  without  sus 
picion,    and  grew  rich,    while   I  still  continued 
tricksy  and  cunning,  and  was  poor,  without  the 
consolation  of  being  honest." — Vicar  of  Wake- 
field,  chap.  xxvi. 
t  Born,  1743  ;  died,  1805. 


sible  to  suppose  that  such  a  mind  as  that  of 
Paley  would  have  fallen  into  those  princi 
ples  of  gross  selfishness  of  which  Mr.  Hume 
is  a  uniform  and  zealous  antagonist. 

The  natural  frame  of  Pnley's  under 
standing  fitted  it  more  for  business  and  the 
world  than  for  philosophy;  and  he  accord 
ingly  enjoyed  with  considerable  relish  the 
few  opportunities  which  the  latlerpart  of  his 
life  afforded  of  taking  a  part  in  the  affairs  of 
his  county  as  a  magistrate.  Penetration 
and  shrewdness,  firmness  and  coolness,  a 
vein  of  pleasantry,  fruitful  though  somewhat 
unrefined,  with  an  original  homeliness  and 
significancy  of  expression,  were  perhaps  more 
remarkable  in  his  conversation  than  the  re 
straints  of  authorship  and  profession  allowed 
them  to  be  in  his  writings.  Grateful  re 
membrance  brings  this  assemblage  of  quali 
ties  with  unfaded  colours  before  the  mind  at 
the  present  moment,  after  the  long  interval 
of  twenty-eight  years.  His  taste  for  the 
common  business  and  ordinary  amusements 
of  life  fortunately  gave  a  zest  to  the  company 
which  his  neighbours  chanced  to  yield,  with 
out  rendering  him  insensible  to  the  pleasures 
of  intercourse  with  more  enlightened  society. 
The  practical  bent  of  his  nature  is  visible  in 
the  language  of  his  writings,  which,  on  prac 
tical  matters,  is  as  precise  as  the  nature  of 
the  subject  requires,  but,  in  his  rare  and 
reluctant  efforts  to  rise  to  first  principles, 
become  indeterminate  and  unsatisfactory; 
though  no  man's  composition  was  more  free 
from  the  impediments  which  hinder  a  man's 
meaning  from  being  quickly  and  clearly  seen. 
He  seldom  distinguishes  more  exactly  than  is 
required  for  palpable  and  direct  usefulness. 
He  possessed  that  chastised  acuteness  of  dis 
crimination,  exercised  on  the  affairs  of  men, 
and  habitually  looking  to  a  purpose  beyond 
the  mere  increase  of  knowledge,  which  forms 
the  character  of  a  lawyer's  understanding, 
and  which  is  apt  to  render  a  mere  lawyer 
too  subtile  for  the  management  of  affairs, 
and  yet  too  gross  for  the  pursuit  of  general 
truth.  His  style  is  as  near  perfection  in  its 
kind  as  any  in  our  language.  Perhaps  no 
words  were  ever  more  expressive  and  illus 
trative  than  those  in  which  he  represents  the 
art  of  life  to  be  that  of  rightly  "  setting  our 
habits." 

The  most  original  and  ingenious  of  his 
writings  is  the  Horse  Paulinas.  The  Evi 
dences  of  Christianity  are  formed  out  of  an 
admirable  translation  of  Butler's  Analogy, 
and  a  most  skilful  abridgment  of  Lardner's 
Credibility  of  the  Gospel  History.  He  may 
be  said  to  have  thus  given  value  to  two 
works,  of  which  the  first  was  scarcely  in 
telligible  to  the  majority  of  those  who  were 
most  desirous  of  profiting  by  it ;  while  the 
second  soon  wearies  out  the  larger  part  of 
readers,  though  the  more  patient  few  have 
almost  always  been  gradually  won  over  to 
feel  pleasure  in  a  display  of  knowledge, 
probity,  charity,  and  meekness,  unmatched 
by  any  other  avowed  advocate  in  a  case 
deeply  interesting  his  warmest  feelings.  His 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


155 


Natural  Theology  is  the  wonderful  work  of  a 
man  who,  after  sixty,  had  studied  Anatomy 
in  order  to  write  it;  and  it  could  only  have 
been  surpassed  by  one  who,  to  great  origin 
ality  of  conception  and  clearness  of  exposi 
tion,  adds  the  advantage  of  a  high  place  in 
the  first  class  of  physiologists.* 

It  would  be  unreasonable  here  to  say 
much  of  a  work  which  is  in  the  hands  of  so 
many  as  his  Moral  and  Political  Philosophy. 
A  very  few  remarks  on  one  or  two  parts  of 
it  may  be  sufficient  to  estimate  his  value  as 
a  moralist,  and  to  show  his  defects  as  a  me 
taphysician.  His  general  account  of  Virtue 
may  indeed  be  chosen  for  both  purposes. 
The  manner  in  which  he  deduces  the  ne 
cessary  tendency  of  all  virtuous  actions  to 
promote  general  happiness,  from  the  good 
ness  of  the  Divine  Lawgiver,  (though  the 
principle  be  not,  as  has  already  more  than 
once  appeared,  peculiar  to  him,  but  rather 
common  to  most  religious  philosophers.)  is 
characterised  by  a  clearness  and  vigour  which 
have  never  been  surpassed.  It  is  indeed 
nearly,  if  not  entirely,  an  identical  proposi 
tion,  that  a  Being  of  unmixed  benevolence 
will  prescribe  those  laws  only  to  His  crea 
tures  which  contribute  to  their  well-being. 
When  we  are  convinced  that  a  course  of 
conduct  is  generally  beneficial  to  all  men, 
we  cannot  help  considering  it  as  acceptable 
to  a  benevolent  Deity.  The  usefulness  of 
actions  is  the  mark  set  on  them  by  the 
Supreme  Legislator,  by  which  reasonable 
beings  discover  it  to  be  His  will  that  such 
actions  should  be  done.  In  this  apparently 
unanswerable  deduction  it  is  partly  admit 
ted,  and  universally  implied,  that  the  prin 
ciples  of  Right  and  Wrong  may  be  treated 
apart  from  the  manifestation  of  them  in  the 
Scriptures.  If  it  were  otherwise,  how  could 
men  of  perfectly  different  religions  deal  or 
reason  with  each  other  on  moral  subjects'? 
How  could  they  regard  rights  and  duties  as 
subsisting  between  them  ?  To  what  common 
principles  could  they  appeal  in  their  differ 
ences?  Even  the  Polytheists  themselves, 
those  worshippers  of 

Gods  partial,  changeful,  passionate,  unjust, 
Whose  attributes  are  rage,  revenge,  or  lust.t 

by  a  happy  inconsistency  are  compelled,  how 
ever  irregularly  and  imperfectly,  to  ascribe 
some  general  enforcement  of  the  moral  code 
to  their  divinities.  If  there  were  no  founda 
tion  for  Morality  antecedent  to  the  Revealed 
Religion,  we  should  want  that  important  test 
of  the  conformity  of  a  revelation  to  pure 
morality,  by  which  its  claim  to  a  divine 
origin  is  to  be  tried.  The  internal  evidence 
of  Religion  necessarily  presupposes  such  a 
standard.  The  Christian  contrasts  the  pre 
cepts  of  the  Koran  with  the  pure  and  bene 
volent  morality  of  the  Gospel.  The  Maho 
metan  claims,  with  justice,  a  superiority  over 

*  See  Animal  Mechanics,  by  Mr.  Charles  Bell, 
published  by  the  Society  for  the  diffusion  of 
Useful  Knowledge. 

t  Essay  on  Man,  Ep.  iii. 


the  Hindoo,  inasmuch  as  the  Musselman  re 
ligion  inculcates  the  moral  perfection  of  one 
Supreme  Ruler  of  the  world.  The  ceremonial 
and  exclusive  character  of  Judaism  has  ever 
been  regarded  as  an  indication  that  it  was 
intended  to  pave  the  way  for  an  universal 
religion,  a  morality  seated  in  the  heart,  and 
a  worship  of  sublime  simplicity.  These 
discussions  would  be  impossible,  unless 
Morality  were  previously  proved  or  granted 
to  exist.  Though  the  science  of  Ethics  is 
thus  far  independent,  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  there  is  any  equality,  or  that  there  may 
not  be  the  utmost  inequality,  in  the  moral 
tendency  of  religious  systems.  The  most 
ample  scope  is  still  left  for  the  zeal  and  ac 
tivity  of  those  who  seek  to  spread  important 
truth.  But  it  is  absolutely  essential  to  ethi 
cal  science  that  it  should  contain  principles, 
the  authority  of  which  must  be  recognised 
by  men  of  every  conceivable  variety  of  reli 
gious  opinion. 

The  peculiarities  of  Paley's  mind  are 
discoverable  in  the  comparison,  or  rather 
contrast,  between  the  practical  chapter  on 
Happiness,  and  the  philosophical  portion  of 
the  chapter  on  Virtue.  "  Virtue  is  the  doing 
good  to  mankind,  in  obedience  to  the  will  of 
God,  and-  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happi 
ness."*  It  is  not  perhaps  very  important  to 
observe,  that  these  words,  wnich  he  offers 
as  a  "definition,"  ought  in  propriety  to  have 
been  called  a  "proposition;"  but  it  is  much 
more  necessary  to  say  that  they  contain  a 
false  account  of  Virtue.  According  to  this 
doctrine,  every  action  not  done  for  the  sake 
of  the  agent's  happiness  is  vicious.  Now, 
it  is  plain,  that  an  act  cannot  be  said  to  be 
done  for  the  sake  of  any  thing  which  is  not 
present  to  the  mind  of  the  agent  at  the  mo 
ment  of  action  :  it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms 
to  affirm  that  a  man  acts  for  the  sake  of  any 
object,  of  which,  however  it  may  be  the  ne 
cessary  consequence  of  his  act,  he  is  not  at 
the  time  fully  aware.  The  unfelt  conse 
quences  of  his  act  can  no  more  influence  his 
will  than  its  unknown  consequences.  Nay, 
further,  a  man  is  only  with  any  propriety- 
said  to  act  for  the  sake  of  his  chief  object ; 
nor  can  he  with  entire  correctness  be  said  to 
act  for  the  sake  of  any  thing  but  his  sole 
object.  So  that  it  is  a  necessary  consequence 
of  Paley's  proposition,  that  every  act  which 
flows  from  generosity  or  benevolence  is  a 
vice ; — so  also  is  every  act  of  obedience  to 
the  will  of  God,  if  it  arises  from  any  motive 
but  a  desire  of  the  reward  which  He  will 
bestow.  Any  act  of  obedience  influenced 
by  gratitude,  and  affection,  and  veneration 
towards  Supreme  Benevolence  and  Perfec 
tion,  is  so  far  imperfect ;  and  if  it  arises 
solely  from  these  motives  it  becomes  a  vice. 
It  must  be  owned,  that  this  excellent  and 
most  enlightened  man  has  laid  the  founda 
tions  of  Religion  and  Virtue  in  a  more  intense 
and  exclusive  selfishness  than  was  avowed 
by  the  Catholic  enemies  of  Fenelon,  when 


Book  i.  chap.  vii. 


156 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


they  persecuted  him  for  his  doctrine  of  a 
pure  and  disinterested  love  of  God. 

In  another  province,  of  a  very  subordinate 
kind,  the  disposition  of  Paley  to  limit  his 
principles  to  his  own  time  and  country,  and 
to  look  at  them  merely  as  far  as  they  are 
calculated  to  amend  prevalent  vices  and 
errors,  betrayed  him  into  narrow  and  false 
views.  His  chapter  on  what  he  calls  the 
"Law  of  Honour"  is  unjust,  even  in  its  own 
small  sphere,  because  it  supposes  Honour  to 
allow  what  it  does  not  forbid;  though  the 
truth  be,  that  the  vices  enumerated  by  him 
are  only  not  forbidden  by  Honour,  because 
they  are  not  within  its  jurisdiction.  He  con 
siders  it  as  li  a  system  of  rules  constructed 
by  people  of  fashion  ;'? — a  confused  and  tran 
sient  mode  of  expression,  which  may  be  un 
derstood  with  difficulty  by  our  posterity,  and 
which  cannot  now  be  exactly  rendered  per 
haps  in  any  other  language.  The  subject, 
however,  thus  narrowed  arid  lowered,  is  nei 
ther  unimportant  in  practice,  nor  unworthy 
of  the  consideration  of  the  moral  philoso 
pher.  Though  all  mankind  honour  Virtue 
and  despise  Vice,  the  degree  of  respect  or 
contempt  is  often  far  from  being  proportioned 
to  the  place  which  virtues  and  vices  occupy 
in  a  just  system  of  Ethics.  Wherever  higher 
honour  is  bestowed  on  one  moral  quality 
than  on  others  of  equal  or  greater  moral 
value,  what  is  called  a  u  point  of  honour"  may 
be  said  to  exist.  It  is  singular  that  so  shrewd 
an  observer  as  Paley  should  not  have  ob 
served  a  law  of  honour  far  more  permanent 
than  that  which  attracted  his  notice,  in  the 
feelings  of  Europe  respecting  the  conduct  of 
men  and  women.  Cowardice  is  riot  so  im 
moral  as  cruelty,  nor  indeed  so  detestable ; 
but  it  is  more  despicable  and  disgraceful : 
the  female  point  of  honour  forbids  indeed  a 
great  vice,  but  one  not  so  great  as  many 
others  by  which  it  is  not  violated.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  see,  that  where  we  are  strongly 
prompted  to  a  virtue  by  a  natural  impulse. 
we  love  the  man  who  is  constantly  actuated 
by  the  amiable  sentiment;  but  we  do  not 
consider  that  which  is  done  without  diffi 
culty  as  requiring  or  deserving  admiration 
and  distinction.  The  kind  affections  are 
their  own  rich  reward,  and  they  are  the  ob 
ject  of  affection  to  others.  To  encourage 
kindness  by  praise  would  be  to  insult  it,  and 
to  encourage  hypocrisy.  It  is  for  the  con 
quest  of  fear,  it  would  be  still  more  for  the 
conquest  of  resentment, — if  that  were  not, 
wherever  it  is  real,  the  cessation  of  a  state 
of  mental  agony, — that  the  applause  of  man 
kind  is  reserved.  Observations  of  a  similar 
nature  will  easily  occur  to  every  reader  re 
specting  the  point  of  honour  in  the  other 
sex.  The  conquest  of  natural  frailties,  espe 
cially  in  a  case  of  far  more  importance  to 
mankind  than  is  at  first  sight  obvious,  is  well 
distinguished  as  an  object  of  honour,  and  the 
contrary  vice  is  punished  by  shame.  Honour 
is  not  wasted  on  those  who  abstain  from  acts 
•which  are  punished  by  the  law.  These  acts 
may  be  avoided  without  a  pure  motive. 


Wherever  a  virtue  is  easily  cultivable  by- 
good  men;  wherever  it  is  by  nature  attended 
by  delight :  wherever  its  outward  observance 
is  so  necessary  to  society  as  to  be  enforced 
by  punishment,  it  is  not  the  proper  object 
of  honour.  Honour  and  shame,  therefore, 
may  be  reasonably  dispensed,  without  being 
strictly  proportioned  to  the  intrinsic  morality 
of  actions,  if  the  inequality  of  their  distribu 
tion  contributes  to  the  general  equipoise  of 
the  whole  moral  system.  A  wide  dispro 
portion,  however,  or  indeed  any  dispropor 
tion  not  justifiable  on  moral  grounds,  would 
be  a  depravation  of  the  moral  principle. 
Duelling  is  among  us  a  disputed  case,  though 
the  improvement  of  manners  has  rendered  it 
so  much  more  infrequent,  that  it  is  likely  in 
time  to  lose  its  support  from  opinion.  Those 
who  excuse  individuals  for  yielding  to  a  false 
point  of  honour,  as  in  the  suicides  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans,  may  consistently  blame 
the  faulty  principle,  and  rejoice  in  its  de 
struction.  The  shame  fixed  on  a  Hindoo 
widow  of  rank  who  voluntarily  survives  her 
husband,  is  regarded  by  all  other  nations 
with  horror. 

There  is  room  for  great  praise  and  some 
blame  in  other  parts  of  Paley's  work.  His 
political  opinions  were  those  generally  adopt 
ed  by  moderate  Whigs  in  his  own  age.  His 
language  on  the  Revolution  of  1688  may  be 
very  advantageously  compared,  both  in  pre 
cision  and  in  generous  boldness,*  to  that  of 
Blackstone, — a  great  master  of  classical  and 
harmonious  composition,  but  a  feeble  rea- 
soner  and  a  confused  thinker,  whose  wri 
tings  are  not  exempt  from  the  charge  of 
slavishness. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  Paley  was  some- 
limes  rather  a  lax  moralist,  especially  on 
public  duties.  It  is  a  sin  which  easily  besets 
men  of  strong  good  sense,  little  enthusiasm, 
and  much  experience.  They  are  naturally  led 
to  lower  their  precepts  to  the  level  of  their 
expectations.  They  see  that  higher  preten 
sions  often  produce  less  good, — to  say  no 
thing  of  the  hypocrisy,  extravagance,  and 
turbulence,  which  they  may  be  said  to  fos 
ter.  As  those  who  claim  more  from  men 
often  gain  less,  it  is  natural  for  more  sober 
and  milder  casuists  to  present  a  more  ac 
cessible  Virtue  to  their  followers.  It  was 
thus  that  the  Jesuits  began,  till,  strongly 
tempted  by  their  perilous  station  as  the  mo 
ral  guides  of  the  powerful,  some  of  them  by 
degrees  fell  into  that  absolute  licentiousness 
for  which  all,  not  without  injustice,  have 


*  "  Government  maybe  too  secure.  The  greatest 
tyrants  have  bedn  those  whose  titles  were  the 
most  unquestioned.  Whenever,  therefore,  the 
opinion  of  right  becomes  too  predominant  and  su 
perstitious,  it  is  abated  by  breaking  the  custom. 
Thus  the  Revolution  broke  the  custom  of  suc 
cession,  and  thereby  moderated,  both  in  the  prince 
and  in  the  people,  those  lofty  notions  of  hereditary 
right,  which  in  the  one  were  become  a  continual 
incentive  to  tyranny,  a  <d  disposed  the  other  to 
invite  servitude,  by  u'^ne  compliances  and  dan 
gerous  concessions." — Book  vi.  chap.  2. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         157 


been  cruelly  immortalized  by  Pascal.  In 
dulgence,  which  is  a  great  virtue  in  judg 
ment  concerning  the  actions  of  others,  is  too 
apt,  when  blended  in  the  same  system  with 
the  precepts  of  Morality,  to  be  received  as  a 
licence  for  our  own  offences.  Accommoda 
tion,  without  which  society  would  be  pain 
ful,  and  arduous  affairs  would  become  im 
practicable,  is  more  safely  imbibed  from 
temper  and  experience,  than  taught  in  early 
and  systematic  instruction.  The  middle  re- 

fion  between  laxity  and  rigour  is  hard  to  be 
efined ;  and  it  is  still  harder  steadily  to  re 
main  within  its  boundaries.  Whatever  may 
be  thought  of  Paley's  observations  on  politi 
cal  influence  and  ecclesiastical  subscription 
to  tests,  as  temperaments  and  mitigations 
which  may  preserve  us  from  harsh  judg 
ment,  they  are  assuredly  not  well  qualified 
to  form  a  part  of  that  discipline  which  ought 
to  breathe  into  the  opening  souls  of  youth, 
at  the  critical  period  of  the  formation  of 
character,  those  inestimable  virtues  of  sin 
cerity,  of  integrity,  of  independence,  \vhich 
will  even  guide  tnem  more  safely  through 
life  than  will  mere  prudence:  while  they 
provide  an  inward  fountain  of  pure  delight, 
immeasurably  more  abundant  than  all  the 
outward  sources  of  precarious  and  perishable 
pleasure. 

JEREMY  BENTHAM.* 

The  general  scheme  oPthis  Dissertation 
would  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  omitting  the 
name  of  a  living  writer.  The  devoted  attach 
ment  and  invincible  repugnance  which  an 
impartial  estimate  of  Mr.  Bentham  has  to 
encounter  on  either  side,  are  a  strong  induce 
ment  not  to  deviate  from* that  scheme  in  his 
case.  But  the  most  brief  sketch  of  ethical 
controversy  in  England  would  be  imperfect 
without  it  j  and  perhaps  the  utter  hopeless 
ness  of  finding  any  expedient  for  satisfying 
his  followers,  or  softening  his  opponents,  may 
enable  a  writer  to  look  steadily  and  solely 
at  what  he  believes  to  be  the  dictates  01 
Truth  and  Justice.  He  who  has  spoken  of 
former  philosophers  with  unreserved  free 
dom,  ought  perhaps  to  subject  his  courage 
and  honesty  to  the  severest  test  by  an  at 
tempt  to  characterize  such  a  contemporary. 
Should  the  very  few  who  are  at  once  enlight 
ened  and  unbiassed  be  of  opinion  that  Jus 
firmness  and  equity  have  stood  this  trial, 
they  will  be  the  more  disposed  to  trust  his 
fairness  where  the  exercise  of  that  quality 
may  have  been  more  easy. 

The  disciples  of  Mr.  Bentham  are  more 
like  the  hearers  of  an  Athenian  philosopher 
lhan  the  pupils  of  a  modern  professor,  or  the 
cool  proselytes  of  a  modern  writer.  They 
are  in  general  men  of  competent  age,  of  su 
perior  understanding,  who  voluntarily  em-% 
brace  the  laborious  study  of  useful  and  noble 
sciences ;  who  derive  their  opinions,  not  so 
much  from  the  cold  perusal  of  his  writings, 

*  Born,  1748 ;  died,  1832.—Ed, 


as  from  familiar  converse  with  a  master  from 
whose  lips  these  opinions  are  recommended 
by  simplicity,  disinterestedness,  originality, 
and  vivacity, — aided  rather  than  impeded 
by  foibles  not  unamiable, — enforced  of  late 
by  the  growing  authority  of  years  and  of 
fame,  and  at  all  times  strengthened  by  that 
undoubting  reliance  on  his  own  judgment 
which  mightily  increases  the  ascendant  of 
such  a  man  over  those  who  approach  him. 
As  he  and  they  deserve  the  credit  of  braving 
vulgar  prejudices,  so  they  must  be  content 
to  incur  the  imputation  of  falling  into  the 
neighbouring  vices  of  seeking  distinction  by 
singularity, — of  clinging  to  opinions,  because 
they  are  obnoxious, — of  wantonly  wounding 
the  most  respectable  feelings  of  mankind, — 
of  regarding  an  immense  display  of  method 
and  nomenclature  as  a  sure  token  of  a  corres 
ponding  increase  of  knowledge. — arid  of  con 
sidering  themselves  as  a  chosen  few,  whom 
an  initiation  into  the  most  secret  mysteries 
of  Philosophy  entitles  to  look  down  with  pity, 
if  not  contempt,  on  the  profane  multitude. 
Viewed  with  aversion  or  dread  by  the  pub 
lic,  they  become  more  bound  to  each  other 
and  to  their  master ;  while  they  are  provoked 
into  the  use  of  language  which  more  and 
more  exasperates  opposition  to  them.  A 
hermit  in  the  greatest  of  cities,  seeing  only 
his  disciples,  and  indignant  that  systems  of 
government  and  law  which  he  believes  to  be 
perfect,  are  disregarded  at  once  by  the  many 
and  the  powerful,  Mr.  Bentham  has  at  length 
been  betrayed  into  the  most  unphilosophica] 
hypothesis,  that  all  the  ruling  bodies  who 
guide  the  community  have  conspired  to  stifle 
and  defeat  his  discoveries.  He  is  too  little 
acquainted  with  doubts  to  believe  the  honest 
doubts  of  others,  and  he  is  too  angry  to  mako 
allowance  for  their  prejudices  and  habits. 
He  has  embraced  the  most  extreme  party  in 
practical  politics ; — manifesting  more  dislike 
and  contempt  towards  those  who  are  mo 
derate  supporters  of  popular  principles  than 
towards  their  most  inflexible  opponents.  To 
the  unpopularity  of  his  philosophical  and 
political  doctrines,  he  has  added  the  more 
general  and  lasting  obloquy  due  to  the  un 
seemly  treatment  of  doctrines  and  principles 
which,  if  there  were  no  other  motives  for 
reverential  deference,  ought,  from  a  regard 
to  the  feelings  of  the  best  men,  to  be  ap 
proached  with  decorum  and  respect. 

Fifty-three  years  have  passed  since  the 
publication  of  Mr.  Bentham's  first  work,  A 
Fragment  on  Government, — a  considerable 
octavo  volume,  employed  in  the  examination 
of  a  short  paragraph  of  Blackstone.  unmatch 
ed  in  acute  hypercriticism,  but  conducted 
with  a  severity  which  leads  to  an  unjust  esti 
mate  of  the  writer  criticised,  till  the  like  ex 
periment  be  repeated  on  other  waitings.  It 
was  a  waste  of  extraordinary  power  to  em 
ploy  it  in  pointing  out  flaws  and  patches  in 
the  robe  occasionally  stolen  from  the  philoso 
phical  schools,  which  hung  loosely,  arid  not 
unbecomingly,  on  the  elegant  commentator. 
This  volume,  and  especially  the  preface, 
0 


158 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


abounds  in  fine,  original,  and  just  observa 
tion  ;  it  contains  the  germs  of  most  of  his 
subsequent  productions,  and  it  is  an  early 
example  of  that  disregard  for  the  method, 
proportions,  and  occasion  of  a  writing  which, 
with  all  common  readers,  deeply  affects  its 
power  of  interesting  or  instructing.  Two 
years  after,  he  published  a  most  excellent 
tract  on  the  Hard  Labour  Bill,  which.,  con 
curring  with  the  spirit  excited  by  Howard's 
inquiries,  laid  the  foundation  of  just  reason 
ing  on  reformatory  punishment.  The  Letters 
on  Usury,*  are  perhaps  the  best  specimen 
of  the  exhaustive  discussion  of  a  moral  or 
political  question,  leaving  no  objection,  how 
ever  feeble,  unanswered,  and  no  difficulty, 
however  small,  unexplained  ; — remarkable 
also,  as  they  are.  for  the  clearness  and  spirit 
of  the  style,  for  the  full  exposition  which 
suits  them  to  all  intelligent  readers,  and  for 
the  tender  and  skilful  hand  with  which  pre 
judice  is  touched.  The  urbanity  of  the  apo 
logy  for  projectors,  addressed  to  Dr.  Smith, 
whose  temper  and  manner  the  author  seems 
for  a  time  to  have  imbibed,  is  admirable. 

The  Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morals 
and  Politics,  printed  before  the  Letters,  but 
published  after  them,  was  the  first  sketch 
of  his  system,  and  is  still  the  only  account 
of  it  by  himself.  The  great  merit  of  this 
work,  and  of  his  other  writings  in  relation  to 
Jurisprudence  properly  so  called,  is  not  within 
our  present  scope.  To  the  Roman  jurists  be 
longs  the  praise  of  having  alloted  a  separate 
portion  of  their  Digest  to  the  signification  of 
the  words  of  the  most  frequent  use  in  law 
and  legal  discussion.!  Mr.  Bentham  not 
only  first  perceived  and  taught  the  great 
value  of  an  introductory  section,  composed 
of  the  definitions  of  general  terms,  as  subser 
vient  to  brevity  and  precision  in  every  part  of 


*  They  were  addressed  to  Mr.  George  Wilson, 
who  retired  from  the  English  bar  to  his  own  coun 
try,  and  died  at  Edinburgh  in  1816  ; — an  early 
friend  of  Mr.  Bentham,  and  afterwards  an  intimate 
one  of  Lord  Ellenborough,  of  Sir  Vicary  Gibbs, 
and  of  all  the  most  eminent  of  his  professional 
contemporaries.  The  rectitude  of  judgment,  purity 
of  heart,  elevation  of  honour,  the  sternness  only 
in  integrity,  the  scorn  of  baseness,  and  indulgence 
towards  weakness,  which  were  joined  in  him  with 
a  gravity  exclusive  neither  of  feeling  nor  of  plea 
santry,  contributed  still  more  than  his  abilities  and 
attainments  of  various  sorts,  to  a  moral  authority 
with  his  friends,  and  in  his  profession,  which  few 
men  more  amply  possessed,  or  more  usefully 
exercised.  The  same  character,  somewhat  soft 
ened,  and  the  same  influence,  distinguished  his 
closest  friend,  the  late  Mr.  Lens.  Both  were  in 
flexible  and  incorruptible  friends  of  civil  and  reli 
gious  liberty,  and  both  knew  how  to  reconcile  the 
warmest  zeal  for  that  sacred  cause,  with  a  charity 
towards  their  opponents,  which  partisans,  often 
more  violent  than  steady,  treated  as  lukewarm. 
The  present  writer  hopes  that  the  good-natured 
reader  will  excuse  him  for  having  thus,  perhaps 
unseasonably,  bestowed  heartfelt  commendation 
on  tho-u  who  were  above  the  pursuit  of  praise,  and 
the  reni..;'nbranoe  of  whose  good  opinion  and  good 
will  help  to  support  him  under  a  deep  sense  of 
faults  and  vices. 

t  Digest,  lib.  i.  tit.  16.  De  Verborum  Significa- 
tione. 


a  code ;  but  he  also  discovered  the  unspeak 
able  importance  of  naiural  arrangement  in  Ju 
risprudence,  by  rendering  the  mere  place  of  a 
proposed  law  in  such  an  arrangement  a  short 
and  easy  test  of  the  fitness  of  the  proposal.* 
But  here  he  does  not  distinguish  between 
the  value  of  arrangement  as  scaffolding,  and 
the  inferior  convenience  of  its  being  the  very 
frame-work  of  the  structure.  He,  indeed,  is 
much  more  remarkable  for  laying  down  de 
sirable  rules  for  the  determination  of  rights, 
and  the  punishment  of  wrongs,  in  general, 
than  for  weighing  the  various  circumstances 
which  require  them  to  be  modified  in  differ 
ent  countries  and  times,  in  order  to  render 
them  either  more  useful,  more  easily  intro 
duced,  more  generally  respected,  or  more 
certainly  executed.  The  art  of  legislation 
consists  in  thus  applying  the  principles  of 
Jurisprudence  to  the  situation,  wants,  inter 
ests,  feelings,  opinions,  and  habits,  of  each 
distinct  community  at  any  given  time.  It 
bears  the  same  relation  to  Jurisprudence 
which  the  mechanical  arts  bear  to  pure 
Mathematics.  Many  of  these  considerations 
serve  to  show,  that  the  sudden  establishment 
of  new  codes  can  seldom  be  practicable  or 
effectual  for  their  purpose ;  and  that  reforma 
tions,  though  founded  on  the  principles  of 
Jurisprudence,  ought  to  be  not  only  adapted 
to  the  peculiar  interests  of  a  people,  but  en 
grafted  on  their  previous  usages,  and  brought 
into  harmony  with  those  national  dispositions 
on  which  the  execution  of  laws  depends.! 
The  Romans,  under  Justinian,  adopted  at 
least  the  true  principle,  if  they  did  not  apply 
it  with  sufficient  freedom  and  boldness.  They 
considered  the  multitude  of  occasional  laws, 
and  the  still  greater  mass  of  usages,  opinions, 
and  determinations1,  as  the  materials  of  legis 
lation,  not  precluding,  but  demanding  a  sys 
tematic  arrangement  of  the  whole  by  the 
supreme  authority.  Had  the  arrangement 


*  See  a  beautiful  article  on  Codification,  in  the 
Edinburg  Review,  vol.  xxix.  p.  217.  It  need  no 
longer  be  concealed  that  it  was  contributed  by 
Sir  Samuel  Romilly.  The  steadiness  with  which 
he  held  the  balance  in  weighing  the  merits  of  his 
friend  against  his  unfortunate  defects,  is  an  exam 
ple  of  his  union  of  the  most  commanding  moral 
principle  with  a  sensibility  so  warm,  that,  if  it 
had  been  released  from  that  stern  authority,  it 
would  not  so  long  have  endured  the  coarseness 
and  roughness  of  human  concerns.  From  the 
tenderness  of  his  feelings,  and  from  an  anger  never 
roused  but  by  cruelty  and  baseness,  as  much  as 
from  his  genius  and  his  pure  taste,  sprung  that 
original  and  characteristic  eloquence,  which  was 
the  hope  of  the  afflicted  as  well  as  the  terror  of 
the  oppressor.  If  his  oratory  had  not  flowed  so 
largely  from  this  moral  source,  which  years  do 
not  dry  up,  he  would  not  perhaps  have  been  the 
only  example  of  an  orator  who,  after  the  age  of 
sixty,  daily  increased  in  polish,  in  vigour,  and  in 
splendour. 

t  An  excellent  medium  between  those  who 
absolutely  require  new  codes,  and  those  who  ob 
stinately  adhere  to  ancient  usages,  has  been  point 
ed  out  by  M.  Meyer,  in  his  most  justly  celebrated 
work,  Esprit,  &c.  des  Institutions  Judiciares  des 
Principaux  Pays  de  1'Europe,  La  Haye,  1819. 
tome  i.  Introduction,  p.  8. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.          159 


been  more  scientific,  had  there  been  a  bolder 
examination  and  a  more  free  reform  of  many 
particular  branches,  a  model  would  have 
been  offered  for  liberal  imitation  by  modern 
lawgivers.  It  cannot  be  denied,  without  in 
justice  and  ingratitude,  that  Mr.  Bentham 
has  done  more  thai/ any  other  writer  to  rouse 
the  spirit  of  juridical  reformation,  which  is 
now  gradually  examining  every  part  of  law, 
and  which,  when  further  progress  is  facili 
tated  by  digesting  the  present  laws,  will 
doubtles's  proceed  to  the  improvement  of  all. 
Greater  praise  it  is  given  to  few  to  earn  :  it 
ought  to  satisfy  him  for  the  disappointment 
of  hopes  which  were  not  reasonable,  that 
Russia  should  receive  a  code  from  him,  or 
that  North  America  could  be  brought  to  re 
nounce  the  variety  of  her  laws  and  institu 
tions,  on  the  single  authority  of  a  foreign 
philosopher,  whose  opinions  had  not  worked 
their  wray,  either  into  legislation  or  into  gene 
ral  reception,  in  his  own  country.  It  ought 
also  to  dispose  his  followers  to  do  fuller  jus 
tice  to  the  Romillys  and  Broughams,  without 
whose  prudence  and  energy,  as  well  as  rea 
son  and  eloquence,  the  best  plans  of  refor 
mation  must  have  continued  a  dead  letter ; 
— for  whose  sake  it  might  have  been  fit  to 
reconsider  the  obloquy  heaped  on  their  pro 
fession,  and  to  show  more  general  indul 
gence  to  all  those  whose  chief  offence  seems 
to  consist  in  their  doubts  whether  sudden 
changes,  almost  always  imposed  by  violence 
on  a  community,  be  the  surest  road  to  lasting 
improvement. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  ethical  theory,  with 
which  we  are  now  chiefly  concerned,  is  not 
the  province  in  which  Mr.  Bentham  has 
reached  the  most  desirable  distinction.  It 
may  be  remarked,  both  in  ancient  and  in 
modern  times,  that  whatever  modifications 
prudent  followers  may  introduce  into  the 
system  of  an  innovator,  the  principles  of.the 
master  continue  to  mould  the  habitual  dis 
positions,  and  to  influence  the  practical  ten 
dency  of  the  school.  Mr.  Bentham  preaches 
the  principle  of  Utility  with  the  zeal  of  a 
discoverer.  Occupied  more  in  reflection 
than  in  reading,  he  knew  not,  or  forgot,  how 
often  it  had  been  the  basis,  and  how  gene 
rally  an  essential  part,  of  all  moral  sys 
tems.*  That  in  which  he  really  differs  from 
others,  is  in  the  Necessity  which  he  teaches, 
and  the  example  which  he  sets,  of  constant 
ly  bringing  that  principle  before  us.  This 
peculiarity  appears  to  us  to  be  his  radical 
error.  In  an  attempt,  of  which  the  constitu 
tion  of  human  nature  forbids  the  success,  he 
seems  to  us  to  have  been  led  into  funda 
mental  errors  in  moral  theory,  and  to  have 
given  to  his  practical  doctrine  a  dangerous 
direction. 

The  confusion  of  moral  approbation  with 
the  moral  qualities  which  are  its  objects, 
common  to  Mr.  Bentham  with  many  other 
philosophers,  is  much  more  uniform  and 
prominent  in  him  than  in  most  others.  This 


*  See  Note  V, 


general  error,  already  mentioned  at  the  open- 
ng  of  this  Dissertation,  has  led  him  more 
;han  others  to  assume,  that  because  the  prin 
ciple  of  Utility  forms  a  necessary  part  of 
jvery  moral  theory,  it  ought  therefore  to  be 
he  chief  motive  of  human  conduct.  Now 
t  is  evident  that  this  assumption,  rather 
acitly  than  avowedly  made,  is  wholly  gra- 
uitous.  No  practical  conclusion  can  be  de 
duced  from  the  principle,  but  that  we  ought 
;o  cultivate  those  habitual  dispositions  which 
are  the  most  effectual  motives  to  useful  ac- 
ions.  But  before  a  regard  to  our  own  in- 
erest,  or  a  desire  to  promote  the  welfare  of 
men  in  general,  be  allowed  to  be  the  exclu 
sive,  or  even  the  chief  regulators  of  human 
conduct,  it  must  be  shown  that  they  are  the 
nost  effectual  motives  to  such  useful  actions : 
t  is  demonstrated  by  experience  that  they 
are  not.  It  is  even  owned  by  the  most  in 
genious  writers  of  Mr.  Bentham's  school, 
that  desires  which  are  pointed  to  general  and 
distant  objects,  although  they  have  their 
proper  place  and  their  due  value,  are  com 
monly  very  faint  and  ineffectual  inducements 
to  action.  A  theory  founded  on  Utility, 
therefore,  requires  that  we  should  cultivate, 
as  excitements  to  practice,  those  other  ha 
bitual  dispositions  which  we  know  by  expe 
rience  to  be  generally  the  source  of  actions 
beneficial  to  ourselves  and  our  fellows; — 
habits  of  feeling  productive  of  habits  of  vir 
tuous  conduct,  and  in  their  turn  strengthened 
by  the  re-action  of  these  last.  What  is  the 
result  of  experience  on  the  choice  of  the 
objects  of  moral  culture?  Beyond  all  dis 
pute,  that  we  should  labour  to  attain  that 
state  of  mind  in  which  all  the  social  affec 
tions  are  felt  with  the  utmost  warmth,  giving 
birth  to  more  comprehensive  benevolence, 
but  not  supplanted  by  it ; — when  the  Moral 
Sentiments  most  strongly  approve  what  is 
right  and  good,  without  being  perplexed  by 
a  calculation  of  consequences,  though  not 
incapable  of  being  gradually  rectified  by 
Reason,  whenever  they  are  decisively  proved 
by  experience  not  to  correspond  in  some  of 
their  parts  to  the  universal  and  perpetual  ef 
fects  of  conduct.  It  is  a  false  representation 
of  human  nature  to  affirm  that  "courage"  is 
only  "  prudence."*  They  coincide  in  their 
effects,  and  it  is  always  prudent  to  be  cou 
rageous:  but  a  man  who  fights  because  he 
thinks  it  more  hazardous  to  yield,  is  not  brave. 
He  does  not  become  brave  till  he  feels.cow- 
ardice  to  be  base  and  painful,  and  till  he  is 
no  longer  in  need  of  any  aid  from  prudence. 
Even  if  it  were  the  interest  of  every  man  to 
be  bold,  it  is  clear  that  so  cold  a  considera- 


*  Mill,  Analysis  of"  the  Human  Mind,  vol.  ii. 
p.  237.  It  would  be  unjust  not  to  say  that  this 
book,  partly  perhaps  from  a  larger  adoption  of  the 
principles  of  Hartley,  holds  or.t  fairer  opportuni 
ties  of  negotiation  with  natural  feelings  and  the 
doctrines  of  former  philosophers,  than  any  other 
production  of  the  same  school.  But  this  very  as 
sertion  about  courage  clearly  shows  at  least  a  for- 
getfulness  that  courage,  even  if  it  were  the  off 
spring  of  prudence,  would  not  for  that  reason  be 
a  species  of  it. 


160 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


tion  cannot  prevail  over  the  fear  of  danger. 
Where  it  seems  to  do  so,  it  must  be  the  un 
seen  power  either  of  the  fear  of  shame,  or 
of  some  other  powerful  passion,  to  which  it 
lends  its  name.  It  was  long  ago  with  strik 
ing  justice  observed  by  Aristotle,  that  he 
who  abstains  from  present  gratification  under 
a  distinct  apprehension  of  its  painful  conse 
quences,  is  only  prudent,  and  that  he  must 
acquire  a  disrelish  for  excess  on  its  own  ac 
count,  before  he  deserves  the  name  of  a 
temperate  man.  It  is  only  when  the  means 
are  firmly  and  unalterably  converted  into 
ends,  that  the  process  of  forming  the  mind 
is  completed.  Courage  may  then  seek,  in 
stead  of  avoiding  danger :  Temperance  may 
prefer  abstemiousness  to  indulgence:  Pru 
dence  itself  may  choose  an  orderly  govern 
ment  of  conduct,  according  to  certain  rules, 
without  regard  to  the  degree  in  which  it 
promotes  welfare.  Benevolence  must  desire 
the  happiness  of  others,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  consideration  how  far  it  is  connected 
with  that  of  the  benevolent  agent ;  and  those 
alone  can  be  accounted  just  who  obey  the 
.dictates  of  Justice  from  having  thoroughly 
learned  an  habitual  veneration  for  her  strict 
rules  and  for  her  larger  precepts.  In  that 
complete  state  the  mind  possesses  no  power 
of  dissolving  the  combinations  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  impel  it  to  action.  Nothing 
in  this  argument  turns  on  the  difference  be 
tween  implanted  and  acquired  principles. 
As  no  man  can  cease,  by  any  act  of  his,  to 
see  distance,  though  the  power  of  seeing  it 
be  universally  acknowledged  to  be  an  acqui 
sition,  so  no  man  has  the  power  to  extinguish 
the  affections  and  the  moral  sentiments, 
(however  much  they  may  be  thought  to  be 
acquired,)  anymore  than  that  of  eradicating 
the  bodily  appetites.  The  best  writers  of 
Mr.  Bentham's  school  overlook  the  indisso- 
lubility  of  these  associations,  and  appear  not 
to  bear  in  mind  that  their  strength  and  rapid 
action  constitute  the  perfect  state  of  a  moral 
agent. 

The  pursuit  of  our  own  general  welfare, 
or  of  that  of  mankind  at  large,  though  from 
their  vagueness  and  coldness  they  are  unfit 
habitual  motives  and  unsafe  ordinary  guides 
of  conduct,  yet  perform  functions  of  essen 
tial  importance  in  the  moral  system.  The 
former,  which  we  call  "  self-love,"  preserves 
the  balance  of  all  the  active  principles  which 
regard  ourselves  ultimately,  and  contributes 
to  subject  them  to  the  authority  of  the  moral 
principles.*  The  latter,  which  is  general 
benevolence,  regulates  in  like  manner  the 
equipoise  of  the  narrower  affections, — quick 
ens  the  languid,  and  checks  the  encroach 
ing, — borrows  strength  from  pity,  and  even 
from  indignation, — receives  some  compensa 
tion,  as  it  enlarges,  in  the  addition  of  beauty 
and  grandeur,  for  the  weakness  which  arises 
from  dispersion, — enables  us  to  look  on  all 
men  as  brethren,  and  overflows  on  every 
sentient  being.  The  general  interest  of  man- 

*  See  Note  W. 


kind,  in  truth,  almost  solely  affects  us  through 
the  affections  of  benevolence  and  sympathy; 
for  the  coincidence  of  general  with  indivi 
dual  interest, — even  where  it  is  certain, — is 
too  dimly  seen  to  produce  any  emotion  which 
can  impel  to,  or  restrain  from  action.  As  a 
general  truth,  its  value  consists  in  its  com 
pleting  the  triumph  of  Morality,  by  demon 
strating  the  absolute  impossibility  of  forming 
any  theory  of  human  nature  which  does  not 
preserve  the  superiority  of  Virtue  over  Vice ; 
— a  great,  though  not  a  directly  practical 
advantage. 

The  followers  of  Mr.  Bentham  have  car 
ried  to  an  unusual  extent  the  prevalent  fault 
of  the  more  modern  advocates  of  Utility, 
who  have  dwelt  so  exclusively  on  the  out 
ward  advantages  of  Virtue  as  to  have  lost 
sight  of  the  delight  which  is  a  part  of  vir 
tuous  feeling,  and  of  the  beneficial  influence 
of  good  actions  upon  the  frame  of  the  mind. 
u  Benevolence  towards  others,"  says  Mr. 
Mill,  "produces  a  return  of  benevolence 
from  them."  The  fact  is  true,  and  ought  to 
be  stated  :  but  how  unimportant  is  it  in  com 
parison  with  that  which  is  passed  over  in 
silence, — the  pleasure  of  the  affection  itself, 
which,  if  it  could  become  lasting  and  in 
tense,  would  convert  the  heart  into  a  heaven ! 
No  one  who  has  ever  felt  kindness,  if  he 
could  accurately  recall  his  feelings,  could 
hesitate  about  their  infinite  superiority.  The 
cause  of  the  general  neglect  of  this  consi 
deration  is,  that  it  is  only  when  a  gratifica 
tion  is  something  distinct  from  a  state  of 
mind,  that  we  can  easily  learn  to  consider  it 
as  a  pleasure.  Hence  the  great  error  re 
specting  the  affections,  where  the  inherent 
delight  is  not  duly  estimated,  on  account  of 
that  very  peculiarity  of  its  being  a  part  of 
a  state  of  mind  which  renders  it  unspeakably 
more  valuable  as  independent  of  every  thing 
without.  The  social  affections  are  the  only 
principles  of  human  nature  which  have  no 
direct  pains:  to  have  any  of  these  desires  is 
to  be  in  a  state  of  happiness.  The  malevo 
lent  passions  have  properly  no  pleasures ; 
for  that  attainment  of  their  purpose  which  is 
improperly  so  called,  consists  only  in  healing 
or  assuaging  the  torture  which  envy,  jealousy, 
and  malice,  inflict  on  the  malignant  mind. 
It  might  with  as  much  propriety  be  said  that 
the  toothache  and  the  stone  have  pleasures, 
because  their  removal  is  followed  by  an 
agreeable  feeling.  These  bodily  disorders, 
indeed,  are  often  cured  by  the  process  which 
removes  the  sufferings ;  but  the  mental  dis 
tempers  of  envy  and  revenge  are  nourished 
by  every  act  of  odious  indulgence  which  for 
a  moment  suspends  their  pain. 

The  same  observation  is  applicable  to 
every  virtuous  disposition,  though  not  so  ob 
viously  as  to  the  benevolent  affections.  That 
a  brave  man  is,  on  the  whole,  far  less  ex 
posed  to  danger  than  a  coward,  is  not  the 
chief  advantage  of  a  courageous  temper. 
Great  dangers  are  rare;  but  the  constant 
absence  of  such  painful  and  mortifying  sen 
sations  as  those  of  fear,  and  the  steady  con- 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


161 


eciousness  of  superiority  to  what  subdues 
ordinary  men,  are  a  perpetual  source  of  in 
ward  enjoyment.  No  man  who  has  ever 
been  visited  by  a  gleam  of  magnanimity,  can 
place  any  outward  advantage  of  fortitude  in 
comparison  with  the  feeling  of  being  always 
able  fearlessly  to  defend  a  righteous  cause.* 
Even  humility,  in  spite  of  first  appearances, 
is  a  remarkable  example  : — though  it  has  of 
late  been  unwarrantably  used  to  signify  that 
painful  consciousness  of  inferiority  which  is 
the  first  stage  of  erivy.t  It  is  a  term  conse 
crated  in  Christian  Ethics  to  denote  that  dis 
position  which,  by  inclining  towards  a  modest 
estimate  of  our  qualities,  corrects  the  preva 
lent  tendency  of  human  nature  to  overvalue 
our  merits  and  to  overrate  our  claims.  What 
can  be  a  less  doubtful,  or  a  much  more  con 
siderable  blessing  than  this  constant  seda 
tive,  which  soothes  and  composes  the  irrita 
ble  passions  of  vanity  and  pride  1  What  is 
more  conducive  to  lasting  peace  of  mind 
than  the  consciousness  of  proficiency  in  that 
most  delicate  species  of  equity  which,  in 
the  secret  tribunal  of  Conscience,  labours  to 
be  impartial  in  the  comparison  of  ourselves 
with  others'?  What  can  so  perfectly  assure 
us  of  the  purity  of  our  Moral  Sense,  as  the 
habit  of  contemplating,  not  that  excellence 
which  we  have  reached,  but  that  which  is 
still  to  be  pursuedjt — of  not  considering  how 
far  we  may  outrun  others,  but  how  far  we 
are  from  the  goal  ? 

Virtue  has  often  outward  advantages,  and 
always  inward  delights :  but  the  last,  though 
constant,  strong,  inaccessible  and  inviolable, 
are  not  easily  considered  by  the  common 
observer  as  apart  from  the  form  with  which 
they  are  blended.  They  are  so  subtile  and 
evanescent  as  to  escape  the  distinct  contem 
plation  of  all  but  the  very  few  who  meditate 
on  the  acts  of  the  mind.  The  outward  ad 
vantages,  on  the  other  hand, — cold,  uncer 
tain,  dependent  and  precarious  as  they  are. — 
yet  stand  out  to  the  sense  and  to  the  memory, 
may  be  as  it  were  handled  and  counted,  and 
are  perfectly  on  a  level  with  the  general  ap 
prehension.  Hence  they  have  become  the 
almost  exclusive  theme  of  all  moralists  who 
profess  to  follow  Reason.  There  is  room  for 
suspecting  that  a  very  general  illusion  pre 
vails  on  this  subject.  Probably  the  smallest 
part  of  the  pleasure  of  Virtue,  because  it  is 
the  most  palpable,  has  become  the  sign  and 
mental  representative  of  the  whole :  the 

*  According  to  Cicero's  definition  of  fortitude, 
"Virtus  pugnans  pro  aequitate."  The  remains 
of  the  original  sense  of  "  virtus,"  manhood,  give 
a  beauty  and  force  to  these  expressions,  which 
cannot  be  preserved  in  our  language.  The  Greek 
"tfSTjf,"  and  the  German  "  tugend,"  originally 
denoied  "strength,"  afterwards  "courage,"  and 
at  last  "  virtue."  But  the  happy  derivation  of 
"virtus"  from  "  vir"  gives  an  energy  to  the 
phrase  of  Cicero,  which  illustrates  the  use  of  ety 
mology  in  the  hands  of  a  skilful  writer. 

t  Anal.  Hum.  Mind,  vol.  ii.  p.  222. 

t  For  a  description  of  vanity,  by  a  great  orator, 
see  the  Rev.  R.  Hall's  Sermon  on  Modern  Infi 
delity. 

21 


outward  and  visible  sign  suggests  only  in 
sensibly  the  inward  and  mental  delight. 
Those  who  are  prone  to  display  chiefly  the 
external  benefits  of  magnanimity  and  kind 
ness,  would  speak  with  far  less  fervour,  and 
perhaps  less  confidence,  if  their  feelings 
were  not  unconsciously  affected  by  the  men 
tal  state  which  is  overlooked  in  their  state 
ments.  But  when  they  speak  of  what  is 
without,  they  feel  what  was  within,  and  their 
words  excite  the  same  feeling  in  others. 

Is  it  not  probable  that  much  of  our  love  of 
praise  may  be  thus  ascribed  to  humane  and 
sociable  pleasure  in  the  sympathy  of  others 
with  us  ?  Praise  is  the  symbol  which  repre 
sents  sympathy,  and  which  the  mind  insen 
sibly  substitutes  for  it  in  recollection  and  in 
language.  Does  not  the  desire  of  posthu 
mous  fame,  in  like  manner,  manifest  an 
ambition  for  the  fellow-feeling  of  our  race, 
when  it  is  perfectly  unproductive  of  any 
advantage  to  ourselves?  In  this  point  of 
view,  it  may  be  considered  as  the  passion  the 
very  existence  of  which  proves  the  mighty 
power  of  cfisinterested  desire.  Every  other 
pleasure  from  sympathy  is  derived  from  con 
temporaries :  the  love  of  fame  alone  seeks 
the  sympathy  of  unborn  generations,  and 
stretches  the  chain  which  binds  the  race  of 
man  together,  to  an  extent  to  which  Hope 
sets  no  bounds.  There  is  a  noble,  even  if 
unconscious  union  of  Morality  with  genius  in 
the  mind  of  him  who  sympathizes  with  the 
masters  who  lived  twenty  centuries  before 
him,  in  order  that  he  may  learn  to  command 
the  sympathies  of  the  countless  generations 
who  are  to  come. 

In  the  most  familiar,  as  wrell  as  in  the 
highest  instances,  it  would  seem,  that  the 
inmost  thoughts  and  sentiments  of  men  are 
more  pure  than  their  language.  Those  who 
speak  of  "a  regard  to  character,"  if  they  be 
serious,  generally  infuse  into  that  word,  una 
wares,  a  large  portion  of  that  sense  in  which 
it  denotes  the  frame  of  the  mind.  Those 
who  speak  of  "honour"  very  often  mean  a 
more  refined  and  delicate  sort  of  conscience, 
which  ought  to  render  the  more  edf3ted 
classes  of  society  alive  to  such  smaller 
wrongs  as  the  laborious  and  the  ignorant 
can  scarcely  feel.  What  heart  does  not 
warm  at  the  noble  exclamation  of  the  an 
cient  poet :  "  Who  is  pleased  by  false  hon 
our,  or  frightened  by  lying  infamy,  but  he 
who  is  false  and  depraved  !"*  Every  un- 
corrupted  mind  feels  unmerited  praise  as  a 
bitter  reproach,  and  regards  a  consciousness 
of  demerit  as  a  drop  of  poison  in  the  cup 
of  honour.  How  different  is  the  applause 
which  truly  delights  us  all,  a  proof  that  the 
consciences  of  others  are  in  harmony  with 
our  own!  "What,"  says  Cicero,  "is  glory 
but  the  concurring  praise  of  the  good,  the 
unbought  approbation  of  those  who  judge 
aright  of  excellent  Virtue  !"t  A  far  greater 

*  Horat.  Epistol.  lib.  i.  16. 

t  Probably  quoted  memoriterfrom  De  Fin.  lib. 


iv.  cap.  23.— Ed. 


02 


162 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


than  Cicero  rises  from  the  purest  praise  of 
marij  to  more  sublime  contemplations. 

Fame  is  no  plant  that  grows  on  mortal  soil, 
But  lives  and  spreads  aloft,  by  those  pure  eyes 
And  perfect  witness  of  all-judging  Jove.* 

Those  who  have  most  earnestly  inculcated 
the  doctrine  of  Utility  have  given  another 
notable  example  of  the  very  vulgar  preju 
dice  which  treats  the  unseen  as  insignificant. 
Tucker  is  the  only  one  of  them  who  occa 
sionally  considers  that  most  important  effect 
of  human  conduct  which  consists  in  its  ac 
tion  on  the  frame  of  the  mind,  by  fitting  its 
faculties  and  sensibilities  for  their  appointed 
purpose.  A  razor  or  a  penknife  would  well 
enough  cut  cloth  or  meat ;  but  if  they  were 
often  so  used,  they  would  be  entirely  spoiled. 
The  same  sort  of  observation  is  much  more 
strongly  applicable  to  habitual  dispositions, 
which,  if  they  be  spoiled,  we  have  no  cer 
tain  means  of  replacing  or  mending.  What 
ever  act.  therefore,  discomposes  the  moral 
machinery  of  Mind,  is  more  injurious  to 
the  welfare  of  the  agent  than  most  disas 
ters  from  without  can  be  :  for  the  latter  are 
commonly  limited  and  temporary ;  the  evil 
of  the  former  spreads  through  the  whole  of 
life.  Health  of  mind,  as  well  as  of  body,  is 
not  only  productive  in  itself  of  a  greater 
amount  of  enjoyment  than  arises  from  other 
sources,  but  is  the  only  condition  of  our 
frame  in  which  we  are  capable  of  receiving 
pleasure  from  without.  Hence  it  appears 
how  incredibly  absurd  it  is  to  prefer,  on 
grounds  of  calculation,  a  present  interest  to 
the  preservation  of  those  mental  habits  on 
which  our  well-being  depends.  When  they 
are  most  moral,  they  may  often  prevent  us 
from  obtaining  advantages  :  but  it  would  be 
as  absurd  to  desire  to  lower  them  for  that 
reason,  as  it  would  be  to  weaken  the  body, 
lest  its  strength  should  render  it  more  liable 
to  contagious  disorders  of  rare  occurrence. 

It  is,  on  the  other  hand,  impossible  to  com 
bine  the  benefit  of  the  general  habit  with  the 
advantages  of  occasional  deviation;  for  every 
such  deviation  either  produces  remorse,  or 
weakens  the  habit,  and  prepares  the  way  for 
its  gradual  destruction.  He  who  obtains  a 
fortune  by  the  undetected  forgery  of  a  will, 
may  indeed  be  honest  in  his  other  acts ;  but 
if  he  had  such  a  scorn  of  fraud  before  as  he 
must  himself  allow  to  be  generally  useful, 
he  must  suffer  a  severe  punishment  from 
contrition:  and  he  will  be  haunted  with  the 
fears  of  one  who  has  lost  his  own  security 
for  his  good  conduct.  In  all  cases,  if  they  be 
well  examined,  his  loss  by  the  distemper  of 
his  mental  frame  will  outweigh  the  profits 
of  his  vice. 

By  repeating  the  like  observation  on  simi 
lar  occasions,  it  will  be  manifest  that  the 
infirmity  of  recollection,  aggravated  by  the 
defects  of  language,  gives  an  appearance  of 
more  selfishness  to  man  than  truly  belongs 
to  his  nature ;  and  that  the  effect  of  active 


Lycidas,  1.  78. 


agents  upon  the  habitual  state  of  mind, — 
one  of  the  considerations  to  which  the  epi 
thet  "  sentimental-"'  has  of  late  been  applied 
in  derision, — is  really  among  the  most  seri 
ous  and  reasonable  objects  of  Moral  Philoso 
phy.  When  the  internal  pleasures  and  pains 
which  accompany  good  and  bad  feelings,  or 
rather  form  a  part  of  them,  and  the  internal 
advantages  and  disadvantages  which  follow 
good  and  bad  actions,  are  sufficiently  con 
sidered,  the  comparative  importance  of  out 
ward  consequences  will  be  more  and  more 
narrow;  so  that  the  Stoical  philosopher  may 
be  thought  almost  excusable  for  rejecting 
it  altogether,  were  it  not  an  almost  indis 
pensably  necessary  consideration  for  those 
in  whom  right  habits  of  feeling  are  not  suffi 
ciently  strong.  They  alone  are  happy,  or 
even  truly  virtuous,  who  have  little  need 
of  it. 

The  later  moralists  who  adopt  the  princi 
ple  of  Utility,  have  so  misplaced  it,  that  in 
their  hands  it  has  as  great  a  tendency  as  any 
theoretical  error  can  have,  to  lessen  the  in 
trinsic  pleasure  of  Virtue,  and  to  unfit  our 
habitual  feelings  for  being  the  most  effectual 
inducements  to  good  conduct.  This  is  the 
natural  tendency  of  a  discipline  which  brings 
Utility  too  closely  and  frequently  into  contact 
with  action.  By  this  habit,  in  its  best  state, 
an  essentially  weaker  motive  is  gradually 
substituted  for  others  which  must  always  be 
of  more  force.  The  frequent  appeal  to  Utility 
as  the  standard  of  action  tends  to  introduce 
an  uncertainty  with  respect  to  the  conduct 
of  other  men,  which  would  render  all  inter 
course  with  them  insupportable.  It  affords 
also  so  fair  a  disguise  for  selfish  and  malig 
nant  passions,  as  often  to  hide  their  nature 
from  him  who  is  their  prey.  Some  taint 
of  these  mean  and  evil  principles  will  at 
least  spread  itself,  and  a  venomous  anima 
tion,  not  its  own,  will  be  given  to  the  cold 
desire  of  Utility.  Moralists  who  take  an 
active  part  in  those  affairs  which  often  call 
out  unamiable  passions,  ought  to  guard  with 
peculiar  watchfulness  against  such  self-de 
lusions.  The  sin  that  must  most  easily  beset 
them,  is  that  of  sliding  from  general  to  par 
ticular  consequences, — that  of  trying  single 
actions,  instead  of  dispositions,  habits,  and 
rules,  by  the  standard  of  Utility, — that  of 
authorizing  too  great  a  latitude  for  discretion 
and  policy  in  moral  conduct, — that  of  readily 
allowing  exceptions  to  the  most  important 
rules, — that  of  too  lenient  a  censure  of  the- 
use  of  doubtful  means,  when  the  end  seems 
to  them  good, — and  that  of  believing  unphi- 
losophically,  as  well  as  dangerously,  that 
there  can  be  any  measure  or  scheme  so  use 
ful  to  the  world  as  the  existence  of  men  who 
would  not  do  a  base  thing  for  any  public 
advantage.  It  was  said  of  Andrew  Fletcher, 
u  that  he  would  lose  his  life  to  serve  his 
country,  but  would  not  do  a  base  thing  to 
save  it."  Let  those  preachers  of  Utility  who 
suppose  that  such  a  man  sacrifices  ends-  to 
means,  consider  whether  the  scorn  of  base 
ness  be  not  akin  to  the  contempt  of  danger; 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


163 


and  whether  a  nation  composed  of  such  men 
would  not  be  invincible.  But  theoretical 
principles  are  counteracted  by  a  thousand 
causes,  which  confine  their  mischief  as  well 
as  circumscribe  their  benefits.  Men  are 
never  so  good  or  so  bad  as  their  opinions.  All 
that  can  be  with  reason  apprehended  is,  that 
these  last  may  always  produce  some  part  of 
their  natural  evil,  and  that  the  mischief  will 
be  greatest  among  the  many  wrho  seek  ex 
cuses  for  their  passions.  Aristippus  found 
in  the  Socratic  representation  of  the  union 
of  virtue  and  happiness  a  pretext  for  sensu 
ality  ;  and  many  Epicureans  became  volup 
tuaries  in  spite  of.  the  example  of  their 
master, — easily  dropping  by  degrees  the 
limitations  by  which  he  guarded  his  doc 
trines.  In  proportion  as  a  man  accustoms 
himself  to  be  influenced  by  the  utility  of 
particular  acts,  without  regard  to  rules,  he 
approaches  to  the  casuistry  of  the  Jesuits, 
and  to  the  practical  maxims  of  Caesar  Borgia. 
Injury  on  this,  as  on  other  occasions,  has 
been  suffered  by  Ethics,  from  their  close 
affinity  to  Jurisprudence.  The  true  and 
eminent  merit  of  Mr.  Bentham  is  that  of  a 
reformer  of  Jurisprudence  :  he  is  only  a  mo 
ralist  with  a  view  to  being  a  jurist :  and  he 
sometimes  becomes  for  a  few  hurried  mo 
ments  a  metaphysician  with  a  view  to  lay 
ing  the  foundation  of  both  the  moral  sciences. 
Both  he  and  his  followers  have  treated  Ethics 
too  juridically :  they  do  not  seem  to  be  aware, 
or  at  least  they  do  not  bear  constantly  in 
mind,  that  there  is  an  essential  difference  in 
the  subjects  of  these  two  sciences. 

The  object  of  law  is  the  prevention  of 
actions  injurious  to  the  community :  it  con 
siders  the  dispositions  from  which  they  flow 
only  indirectly)  to  ascertain  the  likelihood  of 
their  recurrence,  and  thus  to  determine  the 
necessity  and  the  means  of  preventing  them. 
The  direct  object  of  Ethics  is  only  mental 
disposition  :  it  considers  actions  indirectly  as 
the  signs  by  which  such  dispositions  are 
manifested.  If  it  were  possible  for  the  mere 
moralist  to  see  that  a  moral  and  amiable 
temper  was  the  mental  source  of  a  bad 
action,  he  could  not  cease  to  approve  and 
love  the  temper,  as  we  sometimes  presume 
to  suppose  may  be  true  of  the  judgments  of 
the  Searcher  of  Hearts.  Religion  necessarily 
coincides  with  Morality  in  this  respect ;  and 
it  is  the  peculiar  distinction  of  Christianity 
that  it  places  the  seat  of  Virtue  in  the  heart. 
Law  and  Ethics  are  necessarily  so  much 
blended,  that  in  many  intricate  combinations 
the  distinction  becomes  obscure :  but  in  all 
strong  cases  the  difference  is  evident.  Thus, 
law  punishes  the  most  sincerely  repentant  • 
but  wherever  the  soul  of  the  penitent  can  be 
thought  to  be  thoroughly  purified,  Religion 
and  Morality  receive  him  with  open  arms. 

It  is  needless,  after  these  remarks,  to  ob 
serve,  that  those  whose  habitual  contempfaL- 
tiori  is  directed  to  the  rules  of  action,  are 
likely  to  underrate  the  importance  of  feeling 
and  disposition ; — an  error  of  very  unfortu 
nate  consequences,  since  the  far  greater  part 


of  human  actions  flow  from  these  neglected 
sources ;  while  the  law  interposes  only  in 
cases  which  may  be  called  exceptions,  which 
are  now  rare,  and  ought  to  be  less  frequent. 

The  coincidence  of  Mr.  Bentham's  school 
with  the  ancient  Epicureans  in  the  disregard 
of  the  pleasures  of  taste  and  of  the  arts  de 
pendent  on  imagination,  is  a  proof  both  of 
[he  inevitable  adherence  of  much  of  the 
popular  sense  of  the  words  "interest'"7  and 
"pleasure/''  to  the  same  words  in  their 
philosophical  acceptation,  and  of  the  perni 
cious  influence  of  narrowing  Utility  to  mere 
visible  and  tangible  objects,  to  the  exclusion 
of  those  which  form  the  larger  part  of  human 
enjoyment. 

The  mechanical  philosophers  who,  under 
Descartes  and  Gassendi,  began  to  reform 
Physics  in  the  seventeenth  century,  attempt 
ed  to  explain  all  the  appearances  of  nature 
by  an  immediate  reference  to  the  figure  of 
particles  of  matter  impelling  each  other  in 
various  directions,  and  with  unequal  force, 
but  in  all  other  points  alike.  The  commu 
nication  of  motion  by  impulse -they  conceived 
to  be  perfectly  simple  and  intelligible.  It 
never  occurred  to  them,  that  the  movement 
of  one  ball  when  another  is  driven  against 
it,  is  a  fact  of  which  no  explanation  can  be 
given  which  will  amount  to  more  than  a 
statement  of  its  constant  occurrence.  That 
no  body  can  act  where  it  is  not,  appeared  to 
them  as  self-evident  as  that  the  whole  is 
equal  to  all  the  parts.  By  this  axiom  they 
understood  that  no  body  moves  another  with 
out  touching  it.  They  did  not  perceive,  that 
it  was  only  self-evident  where  it  means  that 
no  body  can  act  where  it  has  not  the  power 
of  acting;  and  that  if  it  be  understood  more 
largely,  it  is  a  mere  assumption  of  the  pro 
position  on  which  their  whole  system  rested. 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  reformed  Physics,  not  by 
simplifying  that  science,  but  by  rendering 
it  much  more  complicated.  He  introduced 
into  it  the  force  of  attraction,  of  which  he 
ascertained  many  laws,  but  which  even  he 
did  not  dare  to  represent  as  being  as  intelli 
gible,  and  as  conceivably  ultimate  as  impul 
sion  itself.  It  was  necessary  for  Laplace  to 
introduce  intermediate  laws,  and  to  calculate 
disturbing  forces,  before  the  phenomena  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  could  be  reconciled  even 
to  Newton's  more  complex  theory.  In  the 
present  state  of  physical  and  chemical  know  • 
ledge,  a  man  who  should  attempt  to  refer  all 
the  immense  variety  of  facts  to  the  simple 
impulse  of  the  Cartesians,  would  have  no 
chance  of  serious  confutation.  The  number 
of  laws  augments  with  the  progress  of  know 
ledge. 

The  speculations  of  the  followers  of  Mr. 
Bentham  are  not  unlike  the  unsuccessful 
attempt  of  the  Cartesians.  Mr.  Mill,  for  ex 
ample,  derives  the  whole  theory  of  Govern 
ment*  from  the  single  fact,  that  every  man 
pursues  his  interest  when  he  knows  it ; 
which  he  assumes  to  be  a  sort  of  self-evi- 


Encyc.  Brit.,  article  "  Government." 


164 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


dent  practical  principle, — if  such  a  phrase 
be  not  contradictory.  That  a  man's  pur 
suing  the  interest  of  another,  or  indeed  any 
other  object  in  nature,  is  just  as  conceivable 
as  that  he  should  pursue  his  own  interest,  is 
a  proposition  which  seems  never  to  have  oc 
curred  to  this  acute  and  ingenious  writer. 
Nothing,  however,  can  be  more  certain  than 
its  truth,  if  the  term  "  interest"  be  employed 
in  its  proper  sense  of  general  well-being, 
which  is  the  only  acceptation  in  which  it  can 
serve  the  purpose  of  his  arguments.  If,  indeed, 
the  term  be  employed  to  denote  the  gratifi 
cation  of  a  predominant  desire,  his  proposi 
tion  is  self-evident,  but  wholly  unserviceable 
in  his  argument ;  for  it  is  clear  that  individu 
als  and  multitudes  often  desire  what  they 
know  to  be  most  inconsistent  with  their  gene 
ral  welfare.  A  nation,  as  much  as  an  indi 
vidual,  and  sometimes  more,  may  not  only 
mistake  its  interest,  but,  perceiving  it  clearly, 
may  prefer  the  gratification  of  a  strong  passion 
to  it.*  The  whole  fabric  of  his  political  rea 
soning  seems  to  be  overthrown  by  this  single 
observation ;  and  instead  of  attempting  to  ex 
plain  the  immense  variety  of  political  facts 
by  the  simple  principle  of  a  contest  of  inter 
ests,  we  are  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  once 
more  referring  them  to  that  variety  of  pas 
sions,  habits,  opinions,  and  prejudices,  which 
we  discover  only  by  experience.  Mr.  MilPs 
essay  on  Education!  affords  another  example 
of  the  inconvenience  of  leaping  at  once  from 
the  most  general  laws,  to  a  multiplicity  of 
minute  appearances.  Having  assumed,  or 
at  least  inferred  from  insufficient  premises, 
that  the  intellectual  and  moral  character  is 
.entirely  formed  by  circumstances,  he  pro 
ceeds,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  essay,  as  if  it 
were  a  necessary  consequence  of  that  doc 
trine  that  we  might  easily  acquire  the  power 
-of  combining  and  directing  circumstances  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  produce  the  best  possi 
ble  character.  Without  disputing,  for  the 
present,  the  theoretical  proposition,  let  us 
consider  what  would  be  the  reasonableness 
of  similar  expectations  in  a  more  easily  in 
telligible  case.  The  general  theory  of  the 
winds  is  pretty  well  understood ;  we  know 
that  they  proceed  from  the  rushing  of  air 
from  those  portions  of  the  atmosphere  which 
are  more  condensed,  into  those  which  are 
more  rarefied:  but  how  great  a  chasm  is 
there  between  that  simple  law  and  the  great 
variety  of  facts  which  experience  exhibits  ! 
The  constant  winds  between  the  tropics  are 
large  and  regular  enough  to  be  in  some  mea 
sure  capable  of  explanation :  but  who  can 
tell  "why,  in  variable  climates,  the  wind 
blows  to-day  from  the  east,  to-morrow  from 
the  west  ?  Who  can  foretell  what  its  shift 
ing  and  variations  are  to  be  ?  Who  can  ac 
count  for  a  tempest  on  one  day.  and  a  calm 
on  another  ?  Even  if  we  could  foretell  the 
irregular  and  infinite  variations,  how  far 


*  The  same  mode  of  reasoning  has  been  adopt 
ed  by  the  writer  of  a  late  criticism,  on  Mr  Mill's 
Essay.  See  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xlix.  p.  159. 

t  Encyc.  Brit.,  article  "  Education." 


might  we  not  still  be  from  the  power  of  com 
bining  and  guiding  their  causes?  No  man 
but  the  lunatic  in  the  story  of  Rasselas  ever 
dreamt  that  he  could  command  the  weather. 
The  difficulty  plainly  consists  in  the  multi 
plicity  and  minuteness  of  the  circumstances 
which  act  on  the  atmosphere :  are  those 
which  influence  the  formation  of  the  human 
character  likely  to  be  less  minute  and  inuhi- 
plied  ? 

The  style  of  Mr.  Bentham  underwent  a 
more  remarkable  revolution  than  perhaps 
befell  that  of  any  other  writer.  In  his  early 
works,  it  was  clear,  free,  spirited,  often  and 
seasonably  eloquent :  many  passages  of  his 
later  writings  retain  the  inimitable  stamp  of 
genius ;  but  he  seems  to  have  been  oppressed 
by  the  vastness  of  his  projected  works, — to 
have  thought  that  he  had  no  longer  more 
than  leisure  to  preserve  the  heads  of  them, — 
to  have  been  impelled  by  a  fruitful  mind  to 
new  plans  before  he  had  completed  the  old. 
In  this  state  of  things,  he  gradually  ceased 
to  use  words  for  conveying  his  thoughts  to 
others,  but  merely  employed  them  as  a  sort 
of  short-hand  to  preserve  his  meaning  for  his 
own  purpose.  It  was  no  wonder  ^that  his 
language  should  thus  become  obscure  and 
repulsive.  Though  many  of  his  technical 
terms  are  in  themselves  exact  and  pithy,  yet 
the  overflow  of  his  vast  nomenclature  was 
enough  to  darken  his  whole  diction. 

It  was  at  this  critical  period  that  the  ar 
rangement  and  translation  of  his  manuscripts 
were  undertaken  by  M.  Dumont,  a  generous 
disciple,  who  devoted  a  genius  formed  for 
original  and  lasting  works,  to  diffuse  the 
principles,  and  promote  the  fame  of  his  mas 
ter.  He  whose  pen  Mirabeau  did  not  dis 
dain  to  borrow, — who,  in  the  same  school 
with  Romilly,  had  studiously  pursued  the 
grace  as  well  as  the  force  of  composition, 
was  perfectly  qualified  to  strip  of  its  uncouth- 
ness  a  philosophy  which  he  understood  and 
admired.  As  he  wrote  in  a  general  language, 
he  propagated  its  doctrines  throughout  Eu 
rope,  where  they  were  beneficial  to  Juris 
prudence,  but  perhaps  injurious  to  the  cause 
of  reformation  in  Government.  That  they 
became  more  popular  abroad  than  at  home, 
is  partly  to  be  ascribed  to  the  taste  and 
skill  of  M.  Dumont ;  partly  to  that  tendency 
towards  free  speculation  and  bold  reform 
which  was  more  prevalent  among  nations 
newly  freed,  or  impatiently  aspiring  to  free 
dom,  than  in  a  people  such  as  ours,  long 
satisfied  with  their  government,  but  not  yet 
aware  of  the  imperfections  and  abuses  in 
their  laws ; — to  the  amendment  of  which  last 
a  cautious  consideration  of  Mr.  Bentham's 
works  will  undoubtedly  most  materially  con 
tribute. 

DUGALD  STEWART.* 

Manifold  are  the  discouragements  rising 
up  at  every  step  in  that  part  of  this  Disserta- 

*  Born,  1753 ;  died,  1828. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


165 


tion  which  extends  to  very  recent  times. 
No  sooner  does  the  writer  escape  from  the 
angry  disputes  of  the  living,  than  he  may 
feel  his  mind  clouded  by  the  name  of  a  de 
parted  friend.  But  there  are  happily  men 
whose  fame  is  brightened  by  free  discussion, 
and  to  whose  memory  an  appearance  of  belief 
that  they  needed  tender  treatment  would  be 
a  grosser  injury  than  it  could  suffer  from  a 
respectable  antagonist. 

Dugald  Stewart  was  the  son  of  Dr.  Matthew 
Stewart,  Professor  of  Mathematics  in  the 
University  of  Edinburgh, — a  station  immedi 
ately  before  filled  by  Maclaurin,  on  the  re 
commendation  of  Newton.  Hence  the  poet* 
spoke  of  "the  philosophic  sire  and  son." 
He  was  educated  at  Edinburgh,  and  he  heard 
the  lectures  of  Reid  at  Glasgow.  He  was 
early  associated  with  his  father  in  the  duties 
of  the  mathematical  professorship ;  and  dur 
ing  the  absence  of  Dr.  Adam  Ferguson  as 
secretary  to  the  commissioners  sent  to  con 
clude  a  peace  with  North  America,  he  oc 
cupied  the  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy.  He 
was  appointed  to  the  professorship  on  the 
resignation  of  Ferguson, — not  the  least  dis 
tinguished  among  the  modern  moralists  in 
clined  to  the  Stoical  school. 

This  office,  filled  in  immediate  succession 
by  Ferguson,  Stewart,  and  Brown,  received  a 
lustre  from  their  names,  which  it  owed  in  no 
degree  to  its  modest  exterior  or  its  limited 
advantages;  and  was  rendered  by  them  the 
highest  dignity,  in  the  humble,  but  not  ob 
scure,  establishments  of  Scottish  literature. 
The  lectures  of  Mr.  Stewart,  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  rendered  it  famous  through  every 
country  where  the  light  of  reason  was  al 
lowed  to  penetrate.  Perhaps  few  men  ever 
lived,  who  poured  into  the  breasts  of  youth 
a  more  fervid  and  yet  reasonable  love  of 
liberty,  of  truth,  and  of  virtue.  How  many 
are  still  alive,  in  different  countries,  and  in 
every  rank  to  which  education  reaches,  who, 
if  they  accurately  examined  their  own  minds 
and  lives,  would  not  ascribe  much  of  what 
ever  goodness  and  happiness  they  possess, 
to  the  early  impressions  of  his  gentle  and 
persuasive  eloquence  !  He  lived  to  see  his 
disciples  distinguished  among  the  lights  and 
ornaments  of  the  council  and  the  senate. t 
He  had  the  consolation,  to  be  sure,  that  no 

*  Burns. 

t  As  an  example  of  Mr.  Stewart's  school  may 
be  mentioned  Francis  Homer,  a  favourite  pupil, 
and,  till  his  last  moment,  an  affectionate  friend. 
The  short  life  of  this  excellent  person  is  worthy 
of  serious  contemplation,  hy  those  more  especially, 
who,  in  circumstances  like  his,  enter  on  the  slip 
pery  path  of  public  affairs.  Without  the  aids  of 
birth  or  fortune,  in  an  assembly  where  aristocrati- 
cal  propensities  prevail, — by  his  understanding, 
indusiry,  pure  taste,  and  useful  information, — siill 
more  by  modest  independence,  by  steadiness  and 
sincerity,  joined  to  moderation, — by  the  stamp  of 
unbending  integrity,  and  by  the  conscientious  con- 
siderateness  which  breathed  through  his  well- 
chosen  language,  he  raised  himself,  af  the  early  ase 
of  thirty-six,  to  a  moral  authority  which,  without 
these  qualities,  no  brilliancy  of  tafents  or  power  of 
reasoning  could  have  acquired.  No  eminent  speak- 


words  of  his  promoted  the  growth  of  an  im 
pure  taste,  of  an  exclusive  prejudice,  or  of 
a  malevolent  passion.  Without  delegation 
from  his  writings,  it  may  be  said  that  his 
disciples  were  among  his  best  works.  He, 
indeed,  who  may  justly  be  said  to  have  cul 
tivated  an  extent  of  mind  which  would  other 
wise  have  lain  barren,  and  to  have  contribu 
ted  to  raise  virtuous  dispositions  where  the 
natural  growth  might  have  been  useless  or 

xious,  is  not  less  a  benefactor  of  man 
kind,  and  may  indirectly  be  a  larger  con 
tributor  to  knowledge,  than  the  author  of 
great  works,  or  even  the  discoverer  of  im 
portant  truths.  The  system  of  conveying 
scientific  instruction  to  a  large  audience  by 
lectures,  from  which  the  English  universities 
have  in  a  great  measure  departed,  renders 
his  qualities  as  a  lecturer  a  most  important 
part  of  his  merit  in  a  Scottish  university 
which  still  adheres  to  the  general  method  of 
European  education.  Probably  no  modern 
ever  exceeded  him  in  that  species  of  elo 
quence  which  springs  from  sensibility  to  lite 
rary  beauty  and  moral  excellence, — which 
neither  obscures  science  by  prodigal  orna 
ment,  nor  disturbs  the  serenity  of  patient  at 
tention, — but  though  it  rather  calms  and 
soothes  the  feelings,  yet  exalts  the  genius, 
and  insensibly  inspires  a  reasonable  enthusi 
asm  for  whatever  is  good  and  fair. 

He  embraced  the  philosophy  of  Dr.  Reid, 
a  patient,  modest,  and  deep  thinker,*  who, 

er  in  Parliament  owed  so  much  of  his  success  to 
his  moral  character.  His  high  place  was  therefore 
honourable  to  his  audience  and  to  his  country. 
Regret  for  his  death  was  expressed  with  touching 
unanimity  from  every  part  of  a  divided  assembly, 
unused  to  manifestations  of  sensibility,  abhorrent 
from  theatrical  display,  and  whose  tribute  on  such 
an  occasion  derived  its  peculiar  value  from  their 
general  coldness  and  sluggishness.  The  tears  of 
those  to  whom  he  was  unknown  were  shed  over 
him  ;  and  at  the  head  of  those  by  whom  he  was 
"praised,  wept,  and  honoured,"  was  one,  whose 
commendation  would  have  been  more  enhanced 
in  the  eye  of  Mr.  Homer,  by  his  discernment 
and  veracity,  than  by  the  signal  proof  of  the  con 
currence  of  all  orders,  as  well  as  parties,  which 
was  afforded  by  the  name  of  Howard. 

*  Those  who  may  doubt  the  justice  of  this  de 
scription  will  do  well  to  weigh  the  words  of  the 
most  competent  of  judges,  who,  though  candid  and 
even  indulgent,  was  not  prodigal  oi  praise.  "  It 
is  certainly  very  rare  that  a  piece  so  deeply  philo 
sophical  is  wrote  with  so  much  spirit,  and  affords 
so  much  entertainment  to  the  reader.  Whenever 
I  enter  into  your  ideas,  no  man  appears  to  express 
himself  with  greater  perspicuty.  Your  style  is  so 
correct  and  so  good  English,  that  I  found  not  any 
thing  worth  the  remarking.  I  beg  my  compli 
ments  to  my  friendly  adversaries  Dr.  Campbell 
and  Dr.  Gerard,  and  also  to  Dr.  Gregory,  whom 
I  suspect  to  be  of  the  same  disposition,  though  he 
has  not  openly  declared  himself  such." — Letter 
from  Mr.  Hume  to  Dr.  Reid:  Stewart's  Biogra 
phical  Memoirs,  p.  417.  The  latter  part  of  the 
above  sentences  (written  after  a  perusal  of  Dr. 
Reid's  Inquiry,  but  before  its  publication)  suffi 
ciently  shows,  that  Mr.  Hume  felt  no  displeasure 
against  Reid  and  Campbell,  undoubtedly  his  most 
formidable  antagonist,  however  he  might  resent 
the  language  of  Dr.  Beattie,  an  amiable  man,  an 
elegant  and  tender  poet,  and  a  good  writer  on 


166 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


in  his  first  work  (Inquiry  into  the  Human 
Mind),  deserves  a  commendation  more  de 
scriptive  of  a  philosopher  than  that  bestowed 
upon  him  by  Professor  Cousin, — of  having 
made  "  a  vigorous  protest  against  scepticism 
on  behalf  of  common  sense."  Reid's  obser 
vations  on  Suggestion,  on  natural  signs,  on 
the  connection  between  what  he  calls  "  sen 
sation"  and  "  perception,"  though  perhaps 
suggested  by  Berkeley  (whose  idealism  he 
had  once  adopted),  are  marked  by  the  genu 
ine  spirit  of  original  observation.  As  there 
are  too  many  who  seem  more  wise  than  they 
are,  so  it  was  the  more  uncommon  fault  with 
Reid  to  appear  less  a  philosopher  than  he 
really  was.  Indeed  his  temporary  adoption 
of  Berkeleianism  is  a  proof  of  an  unpreju 
diced  and  acute  mind.  Perhaps  no  man  ever 
rose  finally  above  the  seductions  of  that  sim 
ple  and  ingenious  system,  who  had  not  some 
times  tried  their  full  effect  by  surrendering 
his  whole  mind  to  them. 

But  it  is  never  with  entire  impunity  that 
philosophers  borrow  vague  and  inappropri 
ate  terms  from  vulgar  use.  Never  did  any 
man  afford  a  stronger  instance  of  this  danger 
than  Reid,  in  his  two  most  unfortunate  terms, 
"common  sense"  and  "instinct."  Common 
sense  is  that  average  portion  of  understand 
ing,  possessed  by  most  men,  which,  as  it  is 
nearly  always  applied  to  conduct,  has  ac 
quired  an  almost  exclusively  practical  sense. 
Instinct  is  the  habitual  power  of  producing 
effects  like  contrivances  of  Reason,  yet  so  far 
beyond  the  intelligence  and  experience  of 
the  agent,  as  to  be  utterly  inexplicable  by 
reference  to  them.  No  man,  if  he  had  been 
in  search  of  improper  words,  could  have  dis 
covered  any  more  unfit  than  these  two,  for 
denoting  that  law,  or  state,  or  faculty  of  Mind, 
which  compels  us  to  acknowledge  certain 
simple  and  very  abstract  truths,  not  being 
identical  propositions,  to  lie  at  the  foundation 
of  all  reasoning,  and  to  be  the  necessary 
ground  of  all  belief. 

Long  after  the  death  of  Dr.  Reid,  his  phi 
losophy  was  taught  at  Paris  by  M.  Royer 
Collard,*  who  on  the  restoration  of  free  de 
bate,  became  the  most  philosophical  orator 
of  his  nation,  and  now!  fills,  with  impartiali 
ty  and  dignity,  the  chair  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  His  ingenious  and  eloquent  scho 
lar,  Professor  Cousin,  dissatisfied  with  what 
he  calls  -'the  sage  and  timid"  doctrines  of 
Edinburgh,  which  he  considered  as  only  a 
vigorous  protest,  on  behalf  of  common  sense. 
against  the  scepticism  of  Hume,  sought  in 
Germany  for  a  philosophy  of  l:  such  a  mascu 
line  and  brilliant  character  as  might  com 
mand  the  attention  of  Europe,  and  be  able 

miscellaneous  literature  in  prose,  but  who,  in  his 
Essay  on  Truth, —  (an  unfair  appeal  to  the  multi 
tude  of  philosophical  questions)  indulged  himself 
in  the  personalities  and  invectives  of  a  popular 
pamphleteer. 

*  Fragments  of  his  lectures  have  been  recently 
published  in  a  French  translation  of  Dr.  Reid,  by 
M.  JonfTroy  :  CEuvres  Completes  de  Thomas 
Reid,  vol  iv.  Paris,  1828. 

1 1831.— ED. 


to  struggle  with  success  on  a  great  theatre, 
against  the  genius  of  the  adverse  school."* 
It  may  be  questioned  whether  he  found  in 
Kant  more  than  the  same  vigorous  protest, 
under  a  more  systematic  form,  with  an  im 
mense  nomenclature,  and  constituting  a  phi 
losophical  edifice  of  equal  symmetry  and 
vastness.  The  preference  of  the  more  boast 
ful  system,  over  a  philosophy  thus  chiefly 
blamed  for  its  modest  pretensions,  does  not 
seem  to  be  entirely  justified  by  its  permanent 
authority  even  in  the  country  which  gave  it 
birth:  where,  however  powerful  its  influence 
still  continues  to  be,  its  doctrines  do  not  ap 
pear  to  have  now  many  supporters.  Indeed, 
the  accomplished  professor  himself  has  ra 
pidly  shot  through  Kantianism,  and  now  ap 
pears  to  rest  or  to  stop  at  the  doctrines  of 
Schelling  and  Hegel,  at  a  point  so  high,  that 
it  is  hard  to  descry  from  it  any  distinction  be 
tween  objects, — even  that  indispensable  dis 
tinction  between  reality  and  illusion.  As  the 
works  of  Reid,  and  those  of  Kant,  otherwise 
so  different,  appear  to  be  simultaneous  efforts 
of  the  conservative  power  of  philosophy  to 
expel  the  mortal  poison  of  scepticism,  so  the 
exertions  of  M.  Royer  Collard  and  M.  Cousin, 
however  at  variance  in  metaphysical  princi 
ples,  seem  to  have  been  chiefly  roused  by 
the  desire  of  delivering  Ethics  from  that  fatal 
touch  of  personal,  and,  indeed,  gross  interest, 
which  the  science  had  received  in  France  at 
the  hands  of  the  followers  of  Cond  iliac,— 
especially  Helvetius,  St.  Lambert,  and  Caba- 
nis.  The  success  of  these  attempts  to  render 
speculative  philosophy  once  more  popular  in 
the  country  of  Descartes,  has  already  been 
considerable.  The  French  youth,  whose  de 
sire  of  knowledge  and  love  of  liberty  afford 
an  auspicious  promise  of  the  succeeding  age, 
have  eagerly  received  doctrines,  of  which 
the  moral  part  is  so  much  more  agreeable  to 
their  liberal  spirit,  than  is  the  Selfish  theory, 
generated  in  the  stagnation  of  a  corrupt, 
cruel;  and  dissolute  tyranny. 

These  agreeable  prospects  bring  us  easily 
back  to  our  subject  j  for  though  the  restora 
tion  of  speculative  philosophy  in  the  country 
of  Descartes  is  due  to  the  precise  statement 
and  vigorous  logic  of  M.  Royer  Collard,  the 
modifications  introduced  by  him  into  the 
doctrine  of  Reid  coincide  with  those  of  Mr. 
Stewart,  and  would  have  appeared  to  agree 
more  exactly,  if  the  forms  of  the  French  phi 
losopher  had  not  been  more  dialectical,  and 
the  composition  of  Mr.  Stewart  had  retained 
less  of  that  oratorical  character,  which  be 
longed  to  a  justly  celebrated  speaker.  Amidst 
excellencies  of  the  highest  order,  the  writings 
of  the  latter,  it  must  be  confessed,  leave 
some  room  for  criticism.  He  took  precau 
tions  against  offence  to  the  feelings  of  his 
contemporaries,  more  anxiously  and  fre 
quently  than  the  impatient  searcher  for  truth 
may  deem  necessary.  For  the  sake  of  pro 
moting  the  favourable  reception  of  philosophy 


*  Coursde  Philosophic,  parM.  Cousin,  legonxii. 
Paris,  1828. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         167 


itself,  he  studies,  perhaps  too  visibly,  to  avoid 
whatever  might  raise  up  prejudices  against 
it.  His  gratitude  and  native  modesty  dic 
tated  a  superabundant  care  in  softening  and 
excusing  his  dissent  from  those  who  had 
been  his  own  instructors,  or  who  were  the 
objects  of  general  reverence.  Exposed  by 
his  station,  both  to  the  assaults  of  political 
prejudice,  and  to  the  religious  animosities 
of  a  country  where  a  few  sceptics  attacked 
the  slumbering  zeal  of  a  Calvinistic  people, 
it  would  have  been  wonderful  if  he  had  not 
betrayed  more  weariness  than  would  have 
been  necessary  or  becoming  in  a  very  differ 
ent  position.  The  fulness  of  his  literature 
seduced  him  too  much  into  multiplied  illus 
trations.  Too  many  of  the  expedients  hap 
pily  used  tosallure  the  young  may  unneces 
sarily  swell  his  volumes.  Perhaps  a  succes 
sive  publication  in  separate  parts  made  him 
more  voluminous  than  he  would  have  been 
if  the  whole  had  been  at  once  before  his 
eyes.  A  peculiar  susceptibility  and  delicacy 
of  taste  produced  forms  of  expression,  in 
themselves  extremely  beautiful,  but  of  which 
the  habitual  use  is  not  easily  reconcilable 
with  the  condensation  desirable  in  works 
necessarily  so  extensive.  If,  however,  it 
must  be  owned  that  the  caution  incident  to 
his  temper,  his  feelings,  his  philosophy,  and 
his  station,  has  somewhat  lengthened  his 
composition,  it  is  not  less  true,  that  some  of 
the  same  circumstances  have  contributed  to 
wards  those  peculiar  beauties  which  place 
him  at  the  head  of  the  most  adorned  writers 
on  philosophy  in  our  language. 

Few  writers  rise  with  more  grace  from  a 
plain  groundwork,  to  the  passages  which  re 
quire  greater  animation  or  embellishment. 
He  gives  to  narrative,  according  to  the  pre 
cept  of  Bacon,  the  colour  of  the  time,  by  a 
selection  of  happy  expressions  from  original 
writers.  Among  the  secret  arts  by  which  he 
diffuses  elegance  over  his  diction,  may  be 
remarked  the  skill  which,  by  deepening  or 
brightening  a  shade  in  a  secondary  term, 
and  by  opening  partial  or  preparatory  glimp 
ses  of  a  thought  to  be  afterwards  unfolded, 
unobservedly  heightens  the  import  of  a  word, 
and  gives  it  a  new  meaning,  without  any 
offence  against  old  use.  It  is  in  this  manner 
that  philosophical  originality  may  be  recon- 
'Ciled  to  purity  and  stability  of  speech,  and 
that  we  may  avoid  new  terms,  which  are 
the  easy  resource  of  the  unskilful  or  the  in 
dolent,  and  often  a  characteristic  mark  of 
writers  who  love  their  language  too  little  to 
feel  its  peculiar  excellencies,  or  to  study  the 
art  of  calling  forth  its  powers. 

He  reminds  us  not  unfrequently  of  the 
character  given  by  Cicero  to  one  of  his  con 
temporaries,  "who  expressed  refined  and 
abstruse  thought  in  soft  and  transparent  dic 
tion."  His  writings  are  a  proof  that  the 
mild  sentiments  have  their  eloquence  as 
well  as  the  vehement  passions.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  name  works  in  which  so  much 
refined  philosophy  is  joined  with  so  fine 
••a  fancy; — so  much  elegant  literature,  with 


which  throw  much  light 


such  a  delicate  perception  of  the  distinguish 
ing  excellencies  of  great  writers,  and  with 
an  estimate  in  general  so  just  of  the  services 
rendered  to  Knowledge  by  a  succession  of 
philosophers.  They  are  pervaded  by  a  philo 
sophical  benevolence,  which  keeps  up  the 
ardour  of  his  genius,  without  disturbing  the 
serenity  of  his  mind, — which  is  felt  equally 
in  the  generosity  of  his  praise,  and  in 'the 
tenderness  of  his  censure.  It  is  still  more 
sensible  in  the  general  tone  with  which  he 
relates  the  successful  progress  of  the  human 
understanding,  among  many  formidable  ene 
mies.  Those  readers  are  not  to  be  envied 
who  limit  their  admiration  to  particular  parts, 
or  to  excellencies  merely  literary,  without 
being  wrarmed  by  the  glow  of  that  honest 
triumph  in  the  advancement  of  Knowledge, 
and  of  that  assured  faith  in  the  final  preva 
lence  of  Truth  and  Justice,  which  breathe 
through  every  page  of  them,  and  give  the 
unity  and  dignity  of  a  moral  purpose  to  the 
whole  of  these  classical  works. 

In  quoting  poetical  passages,  some  of 
on  our  mental  ope 
rations,  if  he  sometimes  prized  the  moral 
common-places  of  Thomson  and  the  specu 
lative  fancy  of  Akenside  more  highly  than, 
the  higher  poetry  of  their  betters,  it  was  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  the  metaphysician 
and  the  moralist  should  sometimes  prevail 
over  the  lover  of  poetry.  His  natural  sensi 
bility  was  perhaps  occasionally  cramped,  by 
the  cold  criticism  of  an  unpoetical  age  ]  and 
some  of  his  remarks  may  be  thought  to  indi 
cate  a  more  constant  and  exclusive  regard  to 
diction  than  is  agreeable  to  a  generation 
wrhich  has  been  trained  by  tremendous  events 
to  a  passion  for  daring  inventions,  and  to  an 
irregular  enthusiasm,  impatient  of  minute 
elegancies  and  refinements.  Many  of  those 
beauties  which  his  generous  criticism  de 
lighted  to  magnify  in  the  works  of  his  con 
temporaries,  have  already  faded  under  the 
scorching  rays  of  a  fiercer  sun. 

Mr.  Stewart  employed  more  skill  in  con 
triving,  and  more  care  in  concealing  his  very 
important  reforms  of  Reid's  doctrines,  than 
others  exert  to  maintain  their  claims  to  origi 
nality.  Had  his  well-chosen  language  of 
"laws  of  human  thought  or  belief"  been  at 
first  adopted  in  that  school,  instead  of  "in 
stinct"  arid  "common  sense,"  it  would  have 
escaped  much  of  the  reproach  (which  Dr. 
Reid  himself  did  not  merit)  of  shallowness 
and  popularity.  Expressions  so  exact,  em 
ployed  in  the  opening,  could  not  have  failed 
to  influence  the  whole  system,  and  to  have 
given  it,  not  only  in  the  general  estimation, 
but  in  the  minds  of  its  framers,  a  more  scien 
tific  complexion.  In  those  parts  of  Mr. 
Stewart's  speculations  in  which  he  farthest 
departed  from  his  general  principles,  ne 
seems  sometimes,  as  it  were,  to  be  suddenly 
driven  back  by  what  he  unconsciously  shrinks 
from  as  ungrateful  apostasy,  arid  to  be  desi 
rous  of  making  amends  to  his  master,  by 
more  harshness,  than  is  otherwise  natural  to 
him  towards  the  writers  whom  ho  has  insen- 


168 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


sibly  approached.  Hence  perhaps  the  un 
wonted  severity  of  his  language  towards 
Tucker  and  Hartley.  It  is  thus  at  the  very 
time  when  he  largely  adopts  the  principle 
of  Association  in  his  excellent  Essay  on  the 
Beautiful,*  that  he  treats  most  rigidly  the 
latter  of  these  writers,  to  whom,  though 
neither  the  discoverer  nor  the  sole  advocate 
of  that  principle,  it  surely  owes  the  greatest 
illustration  and  support. 

In  matters  of  far  other  importance,  causes 
perhaps  somewhat  similar  may  have  led  to 
the  like  mistake.  When  he  absolutely  con 
tradicts  Dr.  Reid,  by  truly  stating  that  "  it  is 
more  philosophical  to  resolve  the  power  of 
habit  into  the  association  of  ideas,  than  to 
resolve  the  association  of  ideas  into  habit,"t 
he,  in  the  sequel  of  the  same  volume,!  re 
fuses  to  go  farther  than  to  own,  that  u  the 
theory  of  Hartley  concerning  the  origin  of 
our  affections,  and  of  the  Moral  Sense,  is  a 
most  ingenious  refinement  on  the  Selfish  sys 
tem,  and  that  by  means  of  it  the  force  of 
many  of  the  common  reasonings  against  that 
system  is  eluded  ;"  though  he  somewhat  in 
consistently  allows,  that  "  active  principles 
which,  arising  from  circumstances  in  which 
all  the  situaiions  of  mankind  must  agree, 
are  therefore  common  to  the  whole  species, 
at  whatever  period  of  life  they  may  appear, 
are  to  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  human  nature, 
no  less  than  the  instinct  of  suction,  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  acquired  perception  of 
distance,  by  the  eye,  is  to  be  ranked  among 
the  perceptive  powers  of  man,  no  less  than 
the  original  perceptions  of  the  other  sen 
ses.'^  In  another  place  also  he  makes  a 
remark  on  mere  beauty,  which  might  have 
led  him  to  a  more  just  conclusion  respecting 
the  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  affections  and 
the  Moral  Sense:  "It  is  scarcely  necessary 
for  me  to  observe,  that,  in  those  instances 
where  association  operates  in  heightening'' 
(or  he  might  have  said  creates)  "  the  plea 
sure  we  receive  from  sight,  the  pleasing 
emotion  continues  still  to  appear,  to  our  con 
sciousness,  simple  and  uncompounded."H~ 
To  this  remark  he  might  have  added,  that 
until  all  the  separate  pleasures  be  melted 
into  one, — as  long  as  any  of  them  are  dis 
cerned  and  felt  as  distinct  from  each  other, — 
the  associations  are  incomplete,  and  the 
qualities  which  gratify  are  not  called  by  the 
name  of  u  beauty."  In  .like  manner,  as  has 
been  repeatedly  observed,  it  is  only  when 
all  the  separate  feelings,  pleasurable  and 
painful,  excited  by  the  contemplation  of  vo 
luntary  action,  are  lost  in  the  general  senti 
ments  of  approbation  or  disapprobation, — 
when  these  general  feelings  retain  no  trace 


*  Philosophical  Essays,  part  ii.  essay  i.,  espe 
cially  chap.  vi.  The  condensation,  if  not  omission, 
of  the  discussion  of  the  theories  of  Buffier,  Rey 
nolds,  Burke,  and  Price,  in  this  essay,  would  have 
lessened  that  temporary  appearance  which  is  un 
suitable  to  a  scientific  work. 

t  Elements  of  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human 
Mind  (1792,  4to.),  vol.  i.  p.  281. 

t  Ibid.  p.  383.  $Ibid.  p.  385. 

IT  Philosophical  Essays,  part  ii.  essay  i.  chap.  xi. 


of  the  various  emotions  which  originally  at 
tended  different  actions, — when  they  are 
held  in  a  state  of  perfect  fusion  by  the  ha 
bitual  use  of  the  words  used  in  every  lan 
guage  to  denote  them,  that  Conscience  can 
be  said  to  exist,  or  that  we  can  be  considered 
as  endowed  with  a  moral  nature.  The 
theory  which  thus  ascribes  the  uniform  for 
mation  of  the  Moral  Faculty  to  universal 
and  paramount  laws,  is  not  a  refinement  of 
the  Selfish  system,  nor  is  it  any  modification 
of  that  hypothesis.  The  partisans  of  Sel 
fishness  maintain,  that  in  acts  of  Will  the 
agent  must  have  a  view  to  the  pleasure  or 
happiness  which  he  hopes  to  reap  fiom  it: 
the  philosophers  who  regard  the  social  affec 
tions  and  the  Moral  Sentiments  as  formed  by 
a  process  of  association,  on  the  other  hand, 
contend  that  these  affections  and  sentiments 
must  work  themselves  clear  from  every  par 
ticle  of  self-regard,  before  they  deserve  the 
names  of  benevolence  and  of  Conscience. 
In  the  actual  state  of  human  motives  the 
two  systems  are  not  to  be  likened,  but  to  be 
contrasted  to  each  other.  It  is  remarkable 
that  Mr.  Stewart,  who  admits  the  "question 
respecting  the  origin  of  the  affections  to  be 
rather  curious  than  important,"*  should  have 
held  a  directly  contrary  opinion  respecting 
the  Moral  Sense, t  to  which  these  words,  in 
his  sense  of  them,  seem  to  be  equally  appli 
cable.  His  meaning  in  the  former  affirma 
tion  is,  that  if  the  affections  be  acquired,  yet 
they  are  justly  called  natural;  and  if  their 
origin  be  personal,  yet  their  nature  may  and 
does  become  disinterested.  What  circum 
stance  distinguishes  the  former  from  the 
latter  case  ?  With  respect  to  the  origin  of 
the  affections,  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that 
his  language  is  somewhat  contradictory.  For 
if  the  theory  on  that  subject  from  which 
he  dissents  were  merely  "a  refinement  on 
the  Selfish  system,"  its  truth  or  falsehood 
could  riot  be  represented  as  subordinate; 
since  the  controversy  would  continue  to  re 
late  to  the  existence  of  disinterested  motives 
of  human  conduct.!  It  may  also  be  ob 
served,  that  he  uniformly  represents  his  op 
ponents  as  deriving  the  affections  from  l  self- 
love,'  which,  in  its  proper  sense,  is  not  the 
source  to  which  they  refer  even  avarice,  and 
which  is  itself  derived  from  other  antecedent 
principles,  some  of  which  are  inherent,  and 
some  acquired.  If  the  object  of  this  theory 
of  the  rise  of  the  most  important  feelings  of 
human  nature  were,  as  our  philosopher  sup 
poses,  "  to  elude  objections  against  the  Sel 
fish  system,"  it  would  be  at  best  worthless. 


*  Outlines  of  Moral  Philosophy,  p.  93. 

t  Outlines,  p.  117.  "  This  is  the  most  impor 
tant  question  that  can  be  stated  with  respect  to 
the  theory  of  Morals." 

\  In  the  Philosophy  of  the  Active  and  Moral 
Powers  of  Man  (vol.  i.  p.  164.),  Mr.  Stewart  has 
done  more  manifest  injustice  to  the  Hartleian 
theory,  by  calling  it  "  a  doctrine  fundamentally 
the  same  with  the  Selfish  system,"  and  especially 
by  representing  Hartley,  who  ought  to  be  rather 
classed  with  Butler  and  Hume,  as  agreeing  with 
Gay,  Tucker,  and  Paley. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


169 


Its  positive  merits  are  several.  It  affirms  the 
actual  disinterestedness  of  human  motives, 
as  strongly  as  Butler  himself.  The  explana 
tion  of  the  mental  law,  by  which  benevo 
lence  and  Conscience  are  formed  habitually, 
when  it  is  contemplated  deeply,  impresses 
on  the  mind  the  truth  that  they  not  only  are 
but  must  be  disinterested.  It  confirms,  as  it 
were,  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  by 
exhibiting  to  the  Understanding  the  means 
employed  to  insure  the  production  of  disin 
terestedness.  It  affords  the  only  effectual 
answer  to  the  prejudice  against  the  disinte 
rested  theory,  from  the  multiplication  of  ulti 
mate  facts  and  implanted  principles,  which, 
under  all  its  other  forms,  it  seems  to  require. 
No  room  is  left  for  this  prejudice  by  a  repre 
sentation  of  disinterestedness,  which  ulti 
mately  traces  its  formation  to  principles  al 
most  as  simple  as  those  of  Hobbes  himself. 
Lastly,  every  step  in  just  generalization  is 
an  advance  in  philosophy.  No  one  has  yet 
shown,  either  that  Man  is  not  actually  dis 
interested,  or  that  he  may  not  have  been 
destined  to  become  so  by  such  a  process  as 
has  been  described  :  the  cause  to  which  the 
effects  are  ascribed  is  a  real  agent,  which 
seems  adequate  to  the  appearance ;  and  if 
future  observation  should  be  found  to  require 
that  the  theory  shall  be  confined  within  nar 
rower  limits,  such  a  limitation  will  not  de 
stroy  its  value. 

The  acquiescence  of  Mr.  Stewart  in  Dr. 
Reid's  general  representation  of  our  mental 
constitution,  led  him  to  indulge  more  freely 
the  natural  bent  of  his  understanding,  by 
applying  it  to  theories  of  character  and 
manners/  of  life  and  literature,  of  taste  and 
the  arts,  rather  than  to  the  consideration  of 
those  more  simple  principles  which  rule  over 
human  nature  under  every  form.  His  chief 
work,  as  he  frankly  owns,  is  indeed  rather  a 
collection  of  such  theories,  pointing  toward 
the  common  end  of  throwing  light  on  the 
structure  and  functions  of  the  mind,  than  a 
systematic  treatise,  such  as  might  be  ex 
pected  from  the  title  of  '•'*  Elements."  It  is 
in  essays  of  this  kind  that  he  has  most  sur 
passed  other  cultivators  of  mental  philosophy. 
His  remarks  on  the  effects  of  casual  associa 
tions  may  be  quoted  as  a  specimen  of  the  most 
original  and  just  thoughts,  conveyed  in  the 
best  manner.*  In  this  beautiful  passage,  he 
proceeds  from  their  power  of  confusing  spe 
culation  to  that  of  disturbing  experience  and 
of  misleading  practice,  and  ends  with  their 
extraordinary  effect  in  bestowing  on  trivial, 
and  even  ludicrous  circumstances,  some  por 
tion  of  the  dignity  and  sanctity  of  those 
sublime  principles  with  which  they  are  as 
sociated.  The  style,  at  first  only  clear,  af 
terwards  admitting  the  ornaments  of  a  calm 
and  grave  elegance,  and  at  last  rising  to  as 
high  a  strain  as  Philosophy  will  endure,  (all 
the  parts,  various  as  their  nature  is,  being 
held  together  by  an  invisible  thread  of  gentle 
transition,)  affords  a  specimen  of  adaptation 


*  Elem. Philos.  Hum.  Mind,  vol.  i.  pp.  340—352. 
22 


of  manner  to  matter  which  it  will  be  hard 
to  match  in  any  other  philosophical  writing. 
Another  very  fine  remark,  which  seems  to 
be  as  original  as  it  is  just,  may  be  quoted  as 
a  sample  of  those  beauties  with  which  his 
writings  abound.  "The  apparent  coldness 
and  selfishness  of  mankind  may  be  traced,  in 
a  great  measure,  to  a  want  of  attention  and  a 
want  of  imagination.  In  the  case  of  those  mis 
fortunes  which  happen  to  ourselves  or  our 
near  connections,  neither  of  these  powers  is 
necessary  to  make  us  acquainted  with  our 
situation.  But  without  an  uncommon  degree 
of  both,  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  com 
prehend  completely  the  situation  of  his  neigh 
bour,  or  to  have  an  idea  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  distress  which  exists  in  the  world.  If  we 
feel  more  for  ourselves  than  for  others,  in  the 
former  case  the  facts  are  more  fully  before 
us  than  they  can  be  in  the  latter."*  Yet 
several  parts  of  his  writings  afford  the  most 
satisfactory  proof,  that  his  abstinence  from 
what  is  commonly  called  metaphysical  spe 
culation,  arose  from  no  inability  to  pursue  it 
with  signal  success.  As  examples,  his  ob 
servations  on  "general  terms,"  and  on  "cau 
sation,"  may  be  appealed  to  with  perfect 
confidence.  In  the  first  two  dissertations  of 
the  volume  bearing  the  title  "  Philosophical 
Essays,"  he  with-equal  boldness  and  acute- 
ness  grapples  with  the  most  extensive  and 
abstruse  questions  of  mental  philosophy,  and 
points  out  both  the  sources  and  the  utter 
most  boundaries  of  human  knowledge  with 
a  Verulamean  hand.  In  another  part  of  his 
writings,  he  calls  what  are  usually  deno 
minated  first  principles  of  experience,  "  fun 
damental  laws  of  human  belief,  or  primary 
elements  of  human  reason;"!  which  last 
form  of  expression  has  so  close  a  resemblance 
to  the  language  of  Kant,  that  it  should  have 
protected  the  latter  from  the  imputation  of 
writing  jargon. 

The  excellent  volume  entitled  "Outlines 
of  Moral  Philosophy,"  though  composed  only 
as  a  text-book  for  the  use  of  his  hearers,  is 
one  of  the  most  decisive  proofs  that  he  was 
perfectly  qualified  to  unite  precision  with 
ease,  to  be  brief  with  the  utmost  clearness, 
and  to  write  with  becoming  elegance  in  a 
style  where  the  meaning  is  not  overladen  by 
ornaments.  This  volume  contains  his  pro 
perly  ethical  theory.J  which  is  much  ex 
panded,  but  not  substantially  altered,  in  his 
Philosophy  of  the  Active  and  Moral  Powers, 
— a  work  almost  posthumous,  and  composed 
under  circumstances  which  give  it  a  deeper 
interest  than  can  be  inspired  by  any  desert 
in  science.  Though,  with  his  usual  modesty, 
he  manifests  an  anxiety  to  fasten  his  ethical 
theory  to  the  kindred  speculations  of  other 
philosophers  of  the  "Intellectual  school," 
especially  to  those  of  Cud  worth, — recently 
clothed  in  more  modern  phraseology  by 
Price, — yet  he  still  shows  that  independence 
and  originality  which  all  his  aversion  from 
parade  could  not  entirely  conceal.  "Right," 


*  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  502. 
\  pp.  76—148. 


t  Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  57. 


170 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


"duty,"  "virtue."  "moral  obligation,"  and 
the  like  or  the  opposite  forms  of  expression, 
represent,  according  to  him.  certain  thoughts, 
which  arise  necessarily  and  instantaneously 
in  the  mind,  (or  in  the  Reason,  if  we  take 
that  word  in  the  large  sense  in  which  it  de 
notes  all  that  is  not  emotive)  at  the  contem 
plation  of  actions,  and  which  are  utterly 
incapable  of  all  resolution,  and  consequent 
ly  of  all  explanation,  and  which  can  be 
known  only  by  being  experienced.  These 
"thoughts"  or  "ideas."  by  whatever  name 
they  may  be  called,  are  followed, — as  inex 
plicably  as  inevitably, — by  pleasurable  and 
painful  emotions,  which  suggest  the  concep 
tion  of  moral  beauty', — a  quality  of  human 
actions  distinct  from  their  adherence  to.  or 
deviation  from  rectitude^  though  generally 
coinciding  with  it.  The  question  which  a 
reflecting  reader  will  here  put  is,  whether 
any  purpose  is  served  by  the  introduction 
of  the  intermediate  mental  process  between 
the  particular  thoughts  and  the  moral  emo 
tions?  How  would  the  view  be  darkened 
or  confused,  or  indeed  in  any  degree  changed, 
by  withdrawing  that  process,  or  erasing  the 
words  which  attempt  to  express  it  ?  No  ad 
vocate  of  the  intellectual  origin  of  the  Moral 
Faculty  has  yet  stated  a  case  in  which  a 
mere  operation  of  Reason  or  Judgment,  un 
attended  by  emotion,  could,  consistently  with 
the  universal  opinion  of  mankind,  as  it  is 
exhibited  by  the  structure  of  language,  be 
said  to  have  the  nature  or  to  produce  the 
effects  of  Conscience.  Such  an  example 
would  be  equivalent  to  an  experimentum  cru- 
cis  on  the  side  of  that  celebrated  theory. 
The  failure  to  produce  it,  after  long  chal 
lenge,  is  at  least  a  presumption  against  it, 
nearly  approaching  to  that  sort  of  decisively 
discriminative  experiment.  It  would  be  vain 
to  restate  what  has  already  been  too  often 
repeated,  that  all  the  objections  to  the  Selfish 
philosophy  turn  upon  the  actual  nature,  not 
upon  the  original  source,  of  our  principles  of 
action,  and  that  it  is  by  a  confusion  of  these 
very  distinct  questions  alone  that  the  confu 
tation  of  Hobbes  can  be  made  apparently  to 
involve  Hartley.  Mr.  Stewart  appears,  like 
most  other  metaphysicians,  to  have  blended 
the  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  our  Moral 
Sentiments  with  that  other  which  only  seeks 
a  criterion  to  distinguish  moral  from  immoral 
habits  of  feeling  and  action ;  for  he  considers 
the  appearance  of  the  Moral  Sentiments  at 
an  early  age,  before  the  general  tendency  of 
actions  can  be  ascertained,  as  a  decisive  ob 
jection  to  the  origin  of  these  sentiments  in 
Association, — an  objection  which  assumes 
that,  if  utility  be  the  criterion  of  Morality, 
associations  with  utility  must  be  the  mode 
by  which  the  Moral  Sentiments  are  formed  : 
but  this  no  skilful  advocate  of  the  theory  of 
Association  will  ever  allow.  That  the  main, 
if  not  sole  object  of  Conscience  is  to  govern 
our  voluntary  exertions,  is  manifest :  but  how 
oould  it  perform  this  great  function  if  it  did 
not  impel  the  Will  ?  and  how  could  it  have 
the  latter  effect  as  a  mere  act  of  Reason,  or, 


ndeed,  in  any  respect  otherwise  than  as  it 
s  made  up  of  emotions'?  Judgment  and 
Reason  are  therefore  preparatory  to  Consci 
ence, — not  properly  a  part  of  it.  The  asser 
tion  that  the  exclusion  of  Reason  reduces 
Virtue  to  be  a  relative  quality,  is  another  in 
stance  of  the  confusion  of  the  two  questions 
in  moral  theory :  for  though  a  fitness  to 
excite  approbation  may  be  only  a  relation 
of  objects  to  our  susceptibility,  yet  the  pro 
position  that  all  virtuous  actions  are  benefi 
cial,  is  a  proposition  as  absolute  as  any  other 
within  the  range  of  our  understanding. 

A  delicate  state  of  health,  and  an  ardent 
desire  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  study 
and  composition,  induced  Mr.  Stewart,  while 
in  the  full,  blaze  of  his  reputation  as  a  lec 
turer,  to  retire,  in  1810,  from  the  labour  of 
public  instruction.  This  retirement,  as  he 
himself  describes  it,  was  that  of  a  quiet  but 
active  life.  Three  quarto  and  two  octavo 
volumes,  besides  the  magnificent  Disserta 
tion  prefixed  to  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
were  among  its  happy  fruits.  This  Disser 
tation  is,  perhaps,  the  most  profusely  orna 
mented  of  any  of  his  compositions  ; — a  pecu 
liarity  which  must  in  part  have  arisen  from 
a  principle  of  taste,  which  regarded  decora 
tion  as  more  suitable  to  the  history  of  philo 
sophy  than  to  philosophy  itself.  But  the 
memorable  instances  of  Cicero,  of  Milton, 
and  *still  more  those  of  Dryden  and  Burke, 
seem  to  show  that  there  is  some  natural 
tendency  in  the  fire  of  genius  to  burn  more 
brightly,  or  to  blaze  more  fiercely,  in  the 
evening  than  in  the  morning  of  human  life. 
Probably  the  materials  which  long  experi 
ence  supplies  to  the  imagination,  the  bold 
ness  with  which  a  more  established  reputa 
tion  arms  the  mind,  and  the  silence  of  the 
low  but  formidable  rivals  of  the  higher  prin 
ciples,  may  concur  in  producing  this  unex 
pected  and  little  observed  effect. 

It  was  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  when 
suffering  under  the  effects  of  a  severe  attack 
of  palsy,  with  which  he  had  been  afflicted 
in  1822,  that  Mr.  Stewart  most  plentifully 
reaped  the  fruits  of  long  virtue  and  a  well- 
ordered  mind.  Happily  for  him,  his  own 
cultivation  and  exercise  of  every  kindly 
affection  had  laid  up  a  store  of  that  domestic 
consolation  which  none  who  deserve  it  ever 
want,  and  for  the  loss  of  which,  nothing  be 
yond  the  threshold  can  make  amends.  The 
same  philosophy  which  he  had  cultivated 
from  his  youth  upward,  employed  his  dying 
hand ;  aspirations  after  higher  and  brighter 
scenes  of  excellence,  always  blended  with 
his  elevated  morality,  became  more  earnest 
and  deeper  as  worldly  passions  died  away, 
and  earthly  objects  vanished  from  his  sight. 

THOMAS  BROWN.* 

A  writer,  as  he  advances  in  life,  ought  to 
speak  with  diffidence  of  systems  which  he 
has  only  begun  to  consider  with  care  after 

*  Born,  1778;  died,  1820. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         171 


the  age  in  which  it  becomes  hard  for  his 
thoughts  to  flow  into  new  channels.  A  reader 
cannot  be  said  practically  to  understand  a 
theory,  till  he  has  acquired  the  power  of 
thinking,  at  least  for  a  short  time,  with  the 
theorist.  Even  a  hearer,  with  all  the  helps 
of  voice  in  the  instructor,  and  of  countenance 
from  him  and  from  fellow-hearers,  finds  it 
difficult  to  perform  this  necessary  process, 
without  either  being  betrayed  into  hasty  and 
undistinguishing  assent,  or  falling  while  he 
is  in  pursuit  of  an  impartial  estimate  of  opi 
nions,  into  an  indifference  about  their  truth. 
I  have  felt  this  difficulty  in  reconsidering  old 
opinions  :  but  it  is  perhaps  more  needful  to 
own  its  power,  and  to  warn  the  reader  against 
its  effects,  in  the  case  of  a  philosopher  well 
known  to  me,  and  with  \vhom  common  friend 
ships  stood  in  the  stead  of  much  personal 
intercourse,  as  a  cement  of  kindness.  I 
very  early  read  Brown's  Observations  on  the 
Zoonomia  of  Dr.  Darwin, — the  perhaps  un 
matched  work  of  a  boy  in  the  eighteenth 
year  of  his  age.*  His  first  tract  on  Causa 
tion  appeared  to  me  to  be  the  finest  model 
of  discussion  in  mental  philosophy  since 
Berkeley  and  Hume, — with  this  superiority 
over  the  latter,  that  its  aim  is  that  of  a  phi 
losopher  who  seeks  to  enlarge  knowledge, — 
not  that  of  sceptic,  who — even  the  most 
illustrious — has  no  better  end  than  that  of 
displaying  his  powers  in  confounding  and 
darkening  truth, — and  the  happiest  efforts  of 
whose  scepticism  cannot  be  more  leniently 
described  than  as  brilliant  fits  of  mental  de 
bauchery. t  From  a  diligent  perusal  of  his 
succeeding  works  at  the  time  of  their  publi 
cation,  I  was  prevented  by  pursuits  and  du 
ties  of  a  very  different  nature.  These  causes, 
together  with  ill  health  and  growing  occupa 
tion,  hindered  me  from  reading  his  Lectures 
with  due  attention,  till  it  has  now  become  a 
duty  to  consider  with  care  that  part  of  them 
which  relates  to  Ethics. 

Dr.  Brown  was  bom  of  one  of  those  fami- 


*  Welsh's  Life  of  Brown,  p.  43  ; — a  pleasingly 
affectionate  work,  full  of  analytical  spirit  and  meta 
physical  reading, — of  such  merit,  in  short,  that  I 
could  wish  to  have  found  in  it  no  phrenology. 
Objections  a  priori  in  a  case  dependent  on  facts 
are,  indeed,  inadmissible:  even  the  allowance  of 
presumptions  of  that  nature  would  open  so  wide  a 
door  for  prejudices,  that  at  most  they  can  be  con 
sidered  only  as  maxims  of  logical  prudence,  which 
fortify  the  watchfulness  of  the  individual.  The 
fatal  objection  to  phrenology  seems  to  me  to  be, 
that  what  is  new  in  it,  or  peculiar  to  it,  has  no 
approach  to  an  adequate  foundation  in  experience. 

t  "  Bayle,  a  writer  who,  pervading  human  na 
ture  at  his  ease,  struck  into  the  province  of  paradox, 
as  an  exercise  for  the  unwearied  vigour  of  his  mind  ; 
who,  with  a  soul  superior  to  the  sharpest  attacks 
of  fortune,  and  a  heart  practised  to  the  best  philo 
sophy,  had  not  enough  of  real  greatness  to  over 
come  that  last  foible  of  superior  minds,  the  temp 
tation  of  honour,  which  the  academic  exercise  of 
wit  is  conceived  to  bring  to  its  professor."  So  says 
Warburton  (Divine  Legation,  book  i.  sect.  4), 
speaking  of  Bayle,  but  perhaps  in  part  excusing 
himself,  in  a  noble  strain,  of  which  it  would  have 
been  more  agreeable  to  find  the  repetition  than  the 
contrast  in  his  language  towards  Hume. 


ies  of  ministers  in  the  Scottish  Church,  who, 
after  a  generation  or  two  of  a  humble  life 
spent  in  piety  and  usefulness,  with  no  more 
than  needful  knowledge,  have  more  than 
once  sent  forth  a  man  of  genius  from  their 
;ool  and  quiet  shade,  to  make  his  fellows 
viser  or  better  by  tongue  or  pen,  by  head  or 
hand.  Even  the  scanty  endowments  and 
constant  residence  of  that  Church,  by  keep 
ing  her  ministers  far  from  the  objects  which 
awaken  turbulent  passions  and  disperse  the 
understanding  on  many  pursuits,  affords 
some  of  the  leisure  and  calm  of  monastic 
life,  without  the  exclusion  of  the  charities 
of  family  and  kindred.  It  may  be  well 
doubted  whether  this  undissipated  retire 
ment,  which  during  the  eighteenth  century 
was  very  general  in  Scotland,  did  not  make 
full  amends  for  the  loss  of  curious  and  orna 
mental  knowledge,  by  its  tendency  to  qualify 
men  for  professional  duty ;  with  its  opportu 
nities  for  the  cultivation  of  the  reason  for  the 
many,  and  for  high  meditation,  and  concen 
tration  of  thought  on  worthy  objects  for  the 
few  who  have  capacity  for  such  exertions.* 
An  authentic  account  of  the  early  exercises 
of  Brown's  mind  is  preserved  by  his  biogra 
pher,!  from  which  it  appears  that  at  the  age 
of  nineteen  he  took  a  part  with  others  (some 
of  whom  ^became  the  most  memorable  men 
of  their  time),  in  the  foundation  of  a  private 
society  in  Edinburgh,  under  the  name  of 
"the  Academy  of  Physics."! 

The  character  of  Dr.  Brown  is  very  at 
tractive,  as  an  example  of  one  in  whom 
the  utmost  tenderness  of  affection,  and  the 
indulgence  of  a  flowery  fancy,  were  not 
repressed  by  the  highest" cultivation,  and  by 


*  See  Sir  H.  Moncreiff's  Life  of  the  Reverend 
Dr.  Erskine. 

t  Welsh's  Life  of  Brown,  p.  77,  and  App.  p. 
498. 

t  A  part  of  the  first  day's  minutes  is  here  bor 
rowed  from  Mr.  Welsh  :— "  7th  January,  1797.— 
Present,  Mr.  Erskine,  President,— Mr.  Broug 
ham,  Mr.  Reddie,  Mr.  Brown,  Mr.  Birbeck,  Mr. 
Leyden,"  &c.  who  were  afterwards  joined  by 
Lord  Webb  Seymour,  Messrs.  Homer,  Jeffrey, 
Sidney  Smith,  &c.  Mr.  Erskine,  who  thus  ap 
pears  at  the  head  of  so  remarkable  an  association, 
and  whom  diffidence  and  untoward  circumstances 
have  hitherto  withheld  from  the  full  manifestation 
of  his  powers,  continued  to  be  the  bosom  friend 
of  Brown  to  the  last.  He  has  shown  the  con 
stancy  of  his  friendship  for  others  by  converting 
all  his  invaluable  preparations  for  a  translation  of 
Sultan  Baber's  Commentaries,  (perhaps  the  best, 
certainly  the  most  European  work  of  modern 
Eastern  prose)  into  the  means  of  completing  the 
imperfect  attempt  of  Leyden,  with  a  regard 
equally  generous  to  the  fame  of  his  early  friend, 
and  to  the  comfort  of  that  friend's  surviving  rela 
tions.  The  review  of  Baber's  Commentaries,  by 
M.  Silvestre  de  Sacy,  in  the  Journal  des  Savans 
for  May  and  June  1829,  is  perhaps  one  of  the  best 
specimens  extant  of  the  value  of  literary  commen 
dation  when  it  is  bestowed  with  conscientious 
calmness,  and  without  a  suspicion  of  bias,  by  one 
of  the  greatest  orientalists,  in  a  case  where  he 
pronounces  every  thing  to  have  been  done  by 
Mr.  Erskine  "  which  could  have  been  performed 
by  the  most  learned  and  the  most  scrupulously 
conscientious  of  editors  and  translators." 


172 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


a  perhaps  excessive  refinement  of  intellect. 
His  mind  soared  and  roamed  through  every 
region  of  philosophy  and  poetry  ;  but  his 
untravelled  heart  clung  to  the  hearth  of  his 
father,  to  the  children  who  shared  it  with 
him,  and  after  them,  first  to  the  other  part 
ners  of  his  childish  sports,  and  then  almost 
solely  to  those  companions  of  his  youthful 
studies  who  continued  to  be  the  friends  of 
his  life.  Speculation  seemed  to  keep  his 
kindness  at  home.  It  is  observable,  that 
though  sparkling  with  fancy,  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  deeply  or  durably  touch 
ed  by  those  affections  which  are  lighted  at 
its  torch,  or  at  least  tinged  with  its  colours. 
His  heart  sought  little  abroad,  but  content 
edly  dwelt  in  his  family  and  in  his  study. 
He  was  one  of  those  men  of  genius  who  re 
paid  the  tender  care  of  a  mother  by  rocking 
the  cradle  of  her  reposing  age.  He  ended 
a  life  spent  in  searching  for  truth,  and  exer 
cising  love,  by  desiring  that  he  should  be 
buried  in  his  native  parish,  with  his  "dear 
father  and  mother."  Some  of  his  delightful 
qualities  were  perhaps  hidden  from  the  ca 
sual  observer  in  general  society,  by  the  want 
of  that  perfect  simplicity  of  manner  which 
is  doubtless  their  natural  representative. 
Manner  is  a  better  mark  of  the  state  of  a 
mind,  than  those  large  and  deli  berate  actions 
which  form  what  is  called  conduct  ;  it  is  the 
constant  and  insensible  transpiration  of  cha 
racter.  In  serious  acts  a  man  may  display 


himself 


the    thousand    nameless   acts 


which  compose  manner,  the  mind  betrays 
its  habitual  bent.  But  manner  is  then  only 
an  index  of  disposition,  when  it  is  that  of 
men  who  live  at  ease  in  the  intimate  famili 
arity  of  friends  and  equals.  It  may  be  di 
verted  from  simplicity  by  causes  which  do 
not  reach  so  deep  as  the  character ; — by  bad 
models,  or  by  a  restless  and  wearisome 
anxiety  to  shine,  arising  from  many  circum 
stances, — none  of  which  are  probably  more 
common  than  the  unseasonable  exertions  of 
a  recluse  student  in  society,  and  the  unfortu 
nate  attempts  of  some  others,  to  take  by 
violence  the  admiration  of  those  with  whom 
they  do  not  associate  with  ease.  The  asso 
ciation  with  unlike  or  superior  companions 
which  least  distorts  manners,  is  that  which 
takes  place  with  those  classes  whose  secure 
dignity  generally  renders  their  own  manners 
easy, — with  whom  the  art  of  pleasing  or  of 
not  displeasing  each  other  in  society  is  a 
serious  concern, — who  have  leisure  enough 
to  discover  the  positive  and  negative  parts 
of  the  smaller  moralities,  and  who,  being 
trained  to-  a  watchful  eye  on  what  is  ludi 
crous,  apply  the  lash  of  ridicule  to  affectation, 
the  most  ridiculous  of  faults.  The  busy  in 
every  department  of  life  are  too  respectably 
occupied  to  form  these  manners:  they  are  the 
frivolous  work  of  polished  idleness  ;  and  per 
haps  their  most  serious  value  consists  in  the 
war  which  they  wage  against  affectation, — 
though  even  there  they  betray  their  origin 
in  punishing  it,  not  as  a  deviation  from  na 
ture,  but  as  a  badge  of  vulgarity. 


The  prose  of  Dr.  Brown  is  brilliant  to  ex» 
cess :  it  must  not  be  denied  that  its  beauty 
is  sometimes  womanly, — that  it  too  often 
melts  down  precision  into  elegance, — that  it 
buries  the  main  idea  under  a  load  of  illustra 
tion,  of  which  every  part  is  expanded  and 
adorned  with  such  visible  labour,  as  to  with 
draw  the  mind  from  attention  to  the  thoughts 
which  it  professes  to  introduce  more  easily 
into  the  understanding.  It  is  darkened  by 
excessive  brightness  ;  it  loses  ease  and  live 
liness  by  over-dress;  and,  in  the  midst  of  its 
luscious  sweetness,  we  wish  for  the  striking 
and  homely  illustrations  of  Tucker,  and  for 
the  pithy  and  sinewy  sense  of  Paley ; — either 
of  whom,  by  a  single  short  metaphor  from  a 
familiar,  perhaps  a  low  object,  could  at  one 
blow  set  the  two  worlds  of  Reason  and  Fancy 
in  movement. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  censure  severely  the 
declamatory  parts  of  his  Lectures :  they  are 
excusable  in  the  first  warmth  of  composi 
tion;  they  might  even  be  justifiable  allure 
ments  in  attracting  young  hearers  to  abstruse 
speculations.  Had  he  lived,  he  would  pro 
bably  have  taken  his  thoughts  out  of  the 
declamatory  forms  of  spoken  address,  and 
given  to  them  the  appearance,  as  well  as 
the  reality,  of  deep  and  subtile  discussion. 
The  habits,  indeed,  of  so  successful  a  lec 
turer,  and  the  natural  luxuriance  of  his  mind, 
could  not  fail  to  have  somewhat  affected  all 
his  compositions :  but  though  he  might  still 
have  fallen  short  of  simplicity,  he  certainly 
would  have  avoided  much  of  the  diffusion7 
and  even  common-place,  which  hang  heavily 
on  original  and  brilliant  thoughts :  for  it  must 
be  owned,  that  though,  as  a  thinker,  he  is 
unusually  original,  yet  when  he  falls  among 
the  declaimers,  he  is  infected  by  their  com 
mon-places.  In  like  manner,  he  would  as 
suredly  have  shortened,  or  left  out,  many  of 
the  poetical  quotations  which  he  loved  to  re 
cite,  and  which  hearers  even  beyond  youth 
hear  with  delight.  There  are  two  very  differ 
ent  sorts  of  passages  of  poetry  to  be  found  in 
works  on  philosophy,  which  are  as  far  asun 
der  from  each  other  in  value  as  in  matter. 
A  philosopher  will  admit  some  of  those  won 
derful  lines  or  words  which  bring  to  light  the 
infinite  varieties  of  character,  the  furious 
bursts  or  wily  workings  of  passion,  the  wind 
ing  approaches  of  temptation,  the  slippery 
path  to  depravity,  the  beauty  of  tenderness, 
and  the  grandeur  of  what  is  awful  and  holy 
in  Man.  In  every  such  quotation,  the  moral 
philosopher,  if  he  be  successful,  uses  the 
best  materials  of  his  science;  for  what  are 
they  but  the  results  of  experiment  and  ob 
servation  on  the  human  heart,  performed  by 
artists  of  far  other  skill  and  power  than  his? 
They  are  facts  which  could  have  only  been 
ascertained  by  Homer,  by  Dante,  by  Shak- 
speare,  by  Cervantes,  by  Milton.  Every  year 
of  admiration  since  the  unknown  period 
when  the  Iliad  first  gave  delight,  has  extort 
ed  new  proofs  of  the  justness  of  the  picture 
of  human  nature,  from  the  responding  hearts 
of  the  admirers.  Every  strong  feeling  which 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         173 


these  masters  have  excited,  is  a  successful 
repetition  of  their  original  experiment,  and 
a  continually  growing  evidence  of  the  great 
ness  of  their  discoveries.  Quotations  of  this 
nature  may  be  the  most  satisfactory,  as  well 
as  the  most  delightful,  proofs  of  philosophical 
positions.  Others  of  inferior  merit  are  not  to 
be  interdicted :  a  pointed  maxim,  especially 
when  familiar,  pleases,  and  is  recollected.  I 
cannot  entirely  conquer  my  passion  for  the 
Roman  and  Stoical  declamation  of  some  pas 
sages  in  Lucan  and  Akenside :  but  quota 
tions  from  those  who  have  written  on  philo 
sophy  in  verse,  or,  in  other  words,  from  those 
who  generally  are  inferior  philosophers,  and 
voluntarily  deliver  their  doctrines  in  the 
most  disadvantageous  form,  seem  to  be  un 
reasonable.  It  is  agreeable,  no  doubt,  to  the 
philosopher,  and  still  more  to  the  youthful 
student,  to  meet  his  abstruse  ideas  clothed 
in  the  sonorous  verse  of  Akenside  ;  the  sur 
prise  of  the  unexpected  union  of  verse  with 
science  is  a  very  lawful  enjoyment :  but  such 
slight  and  momentary  pleasures,  though  they 
may  tempt  the  writer  to  display  them,  do 
not  excuse  a  vain  effort  to  obtrude  them  on 
the  sympathy  of  the  searcher  after  truth  in 
after-times.  It  is  peculiarly  unlucky  that 
Dr.  Brown  should  have  sought  supposed  or 
nament  from  the  moral  common-places  of 
Thomson,  rather  than  from  that  illustration 
of  philosophy  which  is  really  to  be  found 'in 
his  picturesque  strokes. 

Much  more  need  not  be  said  of  Dr.  Brown's 
own  poetry, — somewhat  voluminous  as  it  is, 
— than  that  it  indicates  fancy  and  feeling, 
and  rises  at  least  to  the  rank  of  an  elegant 
accomplishment.  It  may  seem  a  paradox, 
but  it  appears  to  me  that  he  is  really  most 
poetical  in  those  poems  and  passages  which 
have  the  most  properly  •metaphysical  charac 
ter.  For  every  varied  form  of  life  and  nature, 
when  it  is  habitually  contemplated,  may  in 
spire  feeling ;  and  the  just  representation  of 
these  feelings  may  be  poetical.  Dr.  Brown 
observed  Man,  and  his  wider  world,  with 
the  eye  of  a  metaphysician ;  and  the  dark 
results  of  such  contemplations,  when  he  re 
viewed  them,  often  filled  his  soul  with  feel 
ings  which,  being  both  grand  and  melan 
choly,  were  truly  poetical.  Unfortunately, 
however,  few  readers  can  be  touched  with 
fellow-feelings.  He  sings  to  few,  and  must 
be  content  with  sometimes  moving  a  string 
in  the  soul  of  the  lonely  visionary,  who,  in 
the  day-dreams  of  youth,  has  felt  as  well  as 
meditated  on  the  mysteries  of  nature.  His 
heart  has  produced  charming  passages  in  all 
his  poems  :  but,  generally  speaking,  they  are 
only  beautiful  works  of  art  and  imitation. 
The  choice  of  Akenside  as  a  favourite  and  a 
model  may,  without  derogation  from  that 
writer,  be  considered  as  no  proof  of  a  poeti 
cally  formed  mind.*  There  is  more  poetry 

*  His  accomplished  friend  Mr.  Erskine  con 
fesses  that  Brown's  poems  "  are  not  written  in 
the  language  of  plain  and  gross  emotion.  The 
string  touched  is  too  delicate  for  general  sympa 
thy.  They  are  in  an  unknown  tongue  to  one 


in  many  single  lines  of  Cowper  than  in  vo 
lumes  of  sonorous  verses  such  as  Akenside's. 
Philosophical  poetry  is  very  different  from 
versified  philosophy :  the  former  is  the  high 
est  exertion  of  genius;  the  latter  cannot  be 
be  ranked  above  the  slighter  amusements 
of  ingenuity.  Dr  Brown's  poetry  was,  it 
must  be  owned,  composed  either  of  imita 
tions,  which,  with  some  exceptions,  may  be 
produced  and  read  without  feeling,  or  of 
effusions  of  such  feelings  only  as  meet  a 
rare  and  faint  echo  in  the  human  breast. 

A  few  words  only  can  here  be  bestowed 
on  the  intellectual  part  of  his  philosophy.  It 
is  an  open  revolt  against  the  authority  of 
Reid;  and,  by  a  curious  concurrence,  he  be 
gan  to  lecture  nearly  at  the  moment  when 
the  doctrines  of  that  philosopher  came  to  be 
taught  with  applause  in  France.  Mr.  Stew 
art  had  dissented  from  the  language  of  Reid, 
and  had  widely  departed  from  his  opinions 
on  several  secondary  theories:  Dr.  Brown 
rejected  them  entirely.  He  very  justly  con 
sidered  the  claim  of  Reid  to  the  merit  of  de 
tecting  the  universal  delusion  which  had 
betrayed  philosophers  into  the  belief  that 
ideas  which  were  the  sole  objects  of  know 
ledge  had  a  separate  existence,  as  a  proof 
of  his  having  mistaken  their  illustrative  lan 
guage  for  a  metaphysical  opinion  ;*  but  he 
does  not  do  justice  to  the  service  which  Reid 
really  rendered  to  mental  science,  by  keep 
ing  the  attention  of  all  future  speculators  in 
a  state  of  more  constant  watchfulness  against 
the  transient  influence  of  such  an  illusion. 
His  choice  of  the  term  "  feeling"!  to  denote 
the  operations  which  we  usually  refer  to  the 
Understanding,  is  evidently  too  wide  a  de 
parture  from  its  ordinary  use,  to  have  any 
probability  of  general  adoption.  No  definition 
can  strip  so  familiar  a  word  of  the  thoughts 
and  emotions  which  have  so  long  accompa 
nied  it,  so  as  to  fit  it  for  a  technical  term  of 
the  highest  abstraction.  If  we  can  be  said 
to  have  a  feeling  "  of  the  equality  of  the 
angle  of  forty-five  to  half  the  angle  of  ninety 
degrees,"!  we  may  call  Geometry  and  Arith 
metic  sciences  of  "feeling."  He  has  very 
forcibly  stated  the  necessity  of  assuming 
u  the  primary  universal  intuitions  of  direct 
belief,"  which,  in  their  nature,  are  incapable 
of  all  proof.  They  seem  to  be  accurately 
described  as  notions  which  cannot  be  con 
ceived  separately,  but  without  which  nothing 
can  be  conceived.  They  are  not  only  neces 
sary  to  reasoning  and  to  belief,  but  to  thought 
itself.  It  is  equally  impossible  to  prove  or  to 
disprove  them.  He  has  very  justly  blamed 
the  school  of  Reid  for  "an  extravagant  and 
ridiculous"  multiplication  of  those  principles 
which  he  truly  represents  as  inconsistent 
with  sound  philosophy.  To  philosophize  is  in 
deed  nothing  more  than  to  simplify  securely.^ 


half"  (he  might  have  said  nineteen  twentieths) "  of 
the  reading  part  of  the  community." — Welsh's 
Life  of  Brown,  p.  431. 

*  Brown's  Lectures,  vol.  ii.  pp.  1 — 49. 

t  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  220.         t  Ibid.  vol.  i.  p.  222. 

$  Dr.  Brown  always  expresses  himself  best 
P2 


174 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


The  substitution  of  "suggestion"5  for  the 
former  phrase  of  "association  of  ideas," 
would  hardly  deserve  notice  in  so  cursory  a 
view,  if  it  had  not  led  him.  to  a  serious  mis 
conception  of  the  doctrines  and  deserts  of 
other  philosophers.  The  fault  of  the  latter 
phrase  is  rather  in  the  narrowness  of  the  last 
than  in  the  inadequacy  of  the  first  word. 
'Association'  presents  the  fact  in  the  light 
of  a  relation  between  two  mental  acts :  l  sug 
gestion'  denotes  rather  the  power  of  the  one 
to  call  up  the  other.  But  whether  we  say 
that  the  sight  of  ashes  i  suggests'  fire,  or  that 
the  ideas  of  fire  and  ashes  are  'associated^ 
we  mean  to  convey  the  same  fact,  and,  in 
both  cases,  an  exact  thinker  means  to  ac 
company  the  fact  with  no  hypothesis.  Dr. 
Brown  has  supposed  the  word  "'association" 
as  intended  to  affirm  that  there  is  some  "in 
termediate  process"*  between  the  original 
succession  of  the  mental  acts  and  the  power 
which  they  acquired  therefrom  of  calling  up, 
each  other.  This  is  quite  as  much  to  raise 
up  imaginary  antagonists  for  the  honour  of 
conquering  them,  as  he  justly  reprehends 
Dr.  Reid  for  doing  in  the  treatment  of  pre 
ceding  philosophers.  He  falls  into  another 
more  important  and  unaccountable  error,  in 
representing  his  own  reduction  of  Mr.  Hume's 
principles  of  association  ( —  resemblance, 
contrariety,  causation,  contiguity  in  time  or 
place)  to  the  one  principle  of  contiguity,  as  a 
discovery  of  his  own,  by  which  his  theory  is 
distinguished  from  "  the  universal  opinion 
of  philosophers.''!  Nothing  but  too  exclu 
sive  a  consideration  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
Scottish  school  could  have  led  him  to  speak 
thus  of  what  was  hinted  by  Aristotle,  dis 
tinctly  laid  down  by  Hobbes,  and  fully  un 
folded  both  by  Hartley  and  Condillac.  He 
has,  however,  extremely  enlarged  the  proof 
and  the  illustration  of  this  law  of  mind,  by 
the  exercise  of  "a  more  subtile  analysis'' 
and  the  disclosure  of  "a  finer  species  of 
proximity. "t  As  he  has  thus  aided  and 
confirmed,  though  he  did  not  discover,  the 
general  law,  so  he  has  rendered  a  new  and 
very  important  service  to  mental  science,  by 
drawing  attention  to  what  he  properly  calls 
"secondary  laws  of  Suggestion"§  or  Asso 
ciation,  which  modify  the  action  of  the  gene 
ral  law,  and  must  be  distinctly  considered, 
in  order  to  explain  its  connection  with  the 
phenomena.  The  enumeration  and  exposi 
tion  are  instructive,  and  the  example  is  wor 
thy  of  commendation.  For  it  is  in  this  lower 


where  he  is  short  and  familiar.  "An  hypothesis 
is  nothing  more  than  a  reason  for  making  one  ex 
periment  or  observation  rather  than  another." — 
Lectures,  vol.  i.  p.  170.  In  1812,  as  the  present 
writer  observed  to  him  that  Reid  and  Hume  dif 
fered  more  in  words  than  in  opinion,  he  answered, 
"  Yes,  Reid  bawled  out,  we  must  believe  an  out 
ward  world,  but  added  in  a  whisper,  we  can  give 
no  reason  for  our  belief:  Hume  cries  out,  V6*«an 
give  no  reason  for  such  a  notion,  and  whispers,  I 
awn  we  cannot  get  rid  of  it." 

*  Brown's  Lectures,  vol.  ii.  pp.  335 — 347. 

+  Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  349.         \  Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  218. 

$  Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  270. 


region  of  the  science  that  most  remains  to 
be  discovered  •  it  is  that  which  rests  most 
on  observation,  and  least  tempts  to  contro 
versy :  it  is  by  improvements  in  this  part  of 
our  knowledge  that  the  foundations  are  se- 
ured,  and  the  whole  building  so  repaired  as 
to  rest  steadily  on  them.  The  distinction 
of  common  language  between  the  head  and 
the  heart,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  so 
often  overlooked  or  misapplied  by  metaphy 
sicians,  is,  in  the  system  of  Brown,  signified 
by  the  terms  "mental  states"  and  "emo 
tions."  It  is  unlucky  that  no  single  word 
could  be  found  for  the  former,  and  that  the 
addition  of  the  generic  term  "  feeling"  should 
disturb  its  easy  comprehension,  when  it  is 
applied  more  naturally. 

In  our  more  proper  province  Brown  fol 
lowed  Butler  (who  appears  to  have  been 
chiefly  known  to  him  through  the  writings 
of  Mr.  Stewart),  in  his  theory  of  the  social 
affections.  Their  disinterestedness  is  en 
forced  by  the  arguments  of  both  these  phi 
losophers,  as  well  as  by  those  of  Hutcheson.* 
It  is  observable,  however,  that  Brown  ap 
plies  the  principle  of  Suggestion,  or  Associa 
tion,  boldly  to  this  part  of  human  nature,  and 
seems  inclined  to  refer  to  it  even  Sympathy 
itself.f  It  is  hard  to  understand  how,  with 
such  a  disposition  on  the  subject  of  a  princi 
ple  so  generally  thought  ultimate  as  Sympa 
thy,  he  should,  inconsistently  with  himself, 
follow  Mr.  Stewart  in  representing  the  theory 
which  derives  the  affections  from  Associa 
tion  as  "a  modification  of  the  Selfish  sys 
tem,  "t  He  mistakes  that  theory  when  he 
states,  that  it  derives  the  affections  from  our 
experience  that  our  own  interest  is  connect 
ed  with  that  of  others ;  since,  in  truth,  it 
considers  our  regard  to  our  own  interest  as 
formed  from  the  same  original  pleasures  by 
association,  which,  by  the  like  process,  may 
and  do  directly  generate  affections  towards 
others,  without  passing  through  the  channel 
of  regard  to  our  general  happiness.  But,  says 
he,  this  is  only  an  hypothesis,  since  the  form 
ation  of  these  affections  is  acknowledged  to 
belong  to  a  time  of  which  there  is  no  re 
membrance^ — an  objection  fatal  to  every 
theory  of  any  mental  functions, — subversive, 
for  example,  of  Berkeley's  discovery  of  ac 
quired  visual  perception,  and  most  strangely 
inconsistent  in  the  mouth  of  a  philosopher 
whose  numerous  simplifications  of  mental 
theory  are  and  must  be  founded  on  occur 
rences  which  precede  experience.  It  is  in 
all  other  cases,  and  it  must  be  in  this,  suffi 
cient  that  the  principle  of  the  theory  is  really 
existing, — that  it  explains  the  appearances, 
— that  its  supposed  action  resembles  what  we 
know  to  be  its  action  in  those  similar  cases 
of  which  we  have  direct  experience.  Last 
ly,  he  in  express  words  admits  that,  accor 
ding  to  the  theory  to  which  he  objects,  we 
have  affections  which  are  at  present  disin- 

*  Brown's  Lectures,  vol.  iii.  p.  248. 

t  Ibid.  vol.  iv.  p.  82.         t  Ibid.  vol.  iii.  p.  282. 

§  Ibid.  vol.  iv.  p.  87. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


175 


terested.*  Is  it  not  a  direct  contradiction  in 
terms  to  call  such  a  theory  "a  modification 
of  the  Selfish  system  V}  His  language  in 
the  sequel  clearly  indicates  a  distrust  of  his 
own  statement,  and  a  suspicion  that  he  is 
not  only  inconsistent  with  himself;  but  alto 
gether  mistaken. t 

As  we  enter  farther  into  the  territory  of 
Ethics,  we  at  length  discover  a  distinction, 
originating  with  Brown,  the  neglect  of  which 
by  preceding  speculators  \ve  have  more  than 
once  lamented  as  productive  of  obscurity 
and  confusion.  "The  moral  affections," 
says  he,  "which  I  consider  at  present.  I  con 
sider  rather  physiological))''37  (or,  as  ne  else 
where  better  expresses  it,  "  psychologically") 
"  than  ethically,  as  parts  of  our  mental  con 
stitution,  not  as  involving  the  fulfilment  or 
violation  of  duties.^  He  immediately,  how 
ever,  loses  sight  of  this  distinction,  and  rea 
sons  inconsistently  with  it,  instead  of  follow 
ing  its  proper  consequences  in  his  analysis 
of  Conscience.  Perhaps,  indeed,  (for  the 
•words  are  capable  of  more  than  one  sense) 
he  meant  to  distinguish  the  virtuous  affec 
tions  from  those  sentiments  which  have 
Morality  exclusively  in  view,  rather  than  to 
distinguish  the  theory  of  Moral  Sentiment 
from  the  attempt  to  ascertain  the  character 
istic  quality  of  right  action.  Friendship  is 
conformable  in  its  dictates  to  Morality ;  but 
it  may,  and  does  exist,  without  any  view7  to 
it :  he  who  feels  the  affections,  and  performs 
the  duties  of  friendship,  is  the  object  of  that 
distinct  emotion  which  is  called  "moral  ap 
probation." 

It  is  on  the  subject  of  Conscience  that,  in 
imitation  of  Mr.  Stewart,  and  with  the  argu 
ments  of  that  philosopher,  he  makes  his 
chief  stand  against  the  theory  which  con 
siders  the  formation  of  that  master  faculty 
itself  as  probably  referable  to  the  necessary 
and  universal  operation  of  those  laws  of  hu 
man  nature  to  which  he  himself  ascribes 
almost  every  other  state  of  mind.  On  both 
sides  of  this  question  the  supremacy  of  Con 
science  is  alike  held  to  be  venerable  and  ab 
solute.  Once  more,  be  it  remembered,  that 
the  question  is  purely  philosophical,  and  is 
only  whether,  from  the  impossibility  of  ex 
plaining  its  formation  by  more  general  laws, 
we  are  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  consider 
ing  it  as  an  original  fact  in  human  nature,  of 
which  no  further  account  can  be  given.  Let 
it,  however,  be  also  remembered,  that  we 
are  not  driven  to  this  supposition  by  the  mere 
circumstance,  that  no  satisfactory  explana 
tion  has  yet  appeared ;  for  there  are  many 
analogies  in  an  unexplained  state  of  mind 
to  states  already  explained,  wrhich  may  jus 
tify  us  in  believing  that  the  explanation  re 
quires  only  more  accurate  observation,  and 
more  patient  meditation,  to  be  brought  to 
that  completeness  which  it  probably  will 
attain. 


*  Brown's  Leclures,  vol.  iv.  p.  87. 
t  Ibid.  vol.  iv.  pp.  94—97. 
I  Ibid.  vol.  iii.  p.  231. 


SECTION  VII. 

GENERAL    REMARKS. 

THE  oft-repeated  warning  with  which  the 
foregoing  section  concluded  being  again  pre 
mised,  it  remains  that  we  should  offer  a  few 
observations,  which  naturally  occur  on  the 
consideration  of  Dr.  Brown's  argument  in 
support  of  the  proposition,  that  moral  appro 
bation  is  not  only  in  its  mature  state  inde 
pendent  of,  and  superior  to,  any  other  prin 
ciple  of  human  nature  (regarding  which  there 
is  no  dispute),  but  that  its  origin  is  altogether 
inexplicable,  and  that  its  existence  is  an  ulti 
mate  fact  in  mental  science.  Though  these 
observations  are  immediately  occasioned  by 
the  writings  of  Brown,  they  are  yet,  in  the 
main,  of  a  general  nature,  and  might  have 
been  made  without  reference  to  any  particu 
lar  writer. 

The  term  ".suggestion,"  which  might  be 
inoffensive  in  describing  merely  intellectual 
associations,  becomes  peculiarly  unsuitable 
when  it  is  applied  to  those  combinations  of 
thought  with  emotion,  and  to  those  unions 
of  feeling,  which  compose  the  emotive  na 
ture  of  Man.  Its  common  sense  of  a  sign 
recalling  the  thing  signified,  always  embroils 
the  new  sense  vainly  forced  upon  it.  No  one 
can  help  owning,  that  if  it  were  consistently 
pursued,  so  as  that  we  were  to  speak  of 
"  suggesting  a  feeling"  or  "  passion,"  the 
language  would  be  universally  thought  ab 
surd.  To  "suggest  love"  or  "hatred"  is  a 
mode  of  expression  so  manifestly  incongru 
ous,  that  most  readers  would  choose  to  un 
derstand  it  as  suggesting  reflections  on  the 
subject  of  these  passages.  "  Suggest"  would 
not  commonly  be  understood  as  synonymous 
wnth  "revive"  or  "rekindle."  Defects  of 
the  same  sort  may  indeed  be  found  in  the 
parallel  phrases  of  most,  if  not  all,  philoso 
phers  ;  and  all  of  them  proceed  from  the  er 
roneous  but  prevalent  notion,  that  the  law  of 
Association  produces  only  such  a  close  union 
of  a  thought  and  a  feeling,  as  gives  one  the 
power  of  reviving  the  other  : — the  truth  being 
that  it  forms  them  into  a  new  compound,  in 
which  the  properties  of  the  component  parts 
are  no  longer  discoverable,  and  which  may 
itself  become  a  substantive  principle  of  hu 
man  nature.  They  supposed  the  condition, 
produced  by  the  power  of  that  law,  to  re 
semble  that  of  material  substances  in  a  state 
of  mechanical  separation  ;  whereas  in  reality 
it  may  be  better  likened  to  a  chemical  com 
bination  of  the  same  substances,  from  which 
a  totally  new  product  arises.  Their  language 
involves  a  confusion  of  the  question  which 
relates  to  the  origin  of  the  principles  of  hu 
man  activity,  with  the  other  and  far  more 
important  question  which  relates  to  their 
nature;  and  as  soon  as  this  distinction  is 
hidden,  the  theorist  is  either  betrayed  into 
the  Selfish  system  by  a  desire  of  clearness 
and  simplicity,  or  tempted  to  the  needless 
multiplication  of  ultimate  facts  by  mistaken 
anxiety  for  what  he  supposes  to  be  tho 


176 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


guards  of  our  social  and  moral  nature.  The 
defect  is  common  to  Brown  with  his  prede 
cessors,  but  in  him  it  is  less  excusable ;  for 
he  saw  the  truth  and  recoiled  from  it.  It  is 
the  main  defect  of  the  term  "association" 
itself,  that  it  does  not,  till  after  long  use,  con 
vey  the  notion  of  a  perfect  union,  but  rather 
leads  to  that  of  a  combination  which  may  be 
dissolved,  if  not  at  pleasure,  at  least  with  the 
help  of  care  and  exertion ;  which  is  utterly 
and  dangerously  false  in  the  important  cases 
where  such  unions  are  considered  as  consti 
tuting  the  most  essential  principles  of  human 
nature.  Men  can  no  more  dissolve  these 
unions  than  they  can  disuse  their  habit  of 
judging  of  distance  by  the  eye,  and  often  by 
the  ear.  But  "  suggestion"  implies,  that 
what  suggests  is  separate  from  what  is  sug 
gested,  and  consequently  negatives  that  unity 
in  an  active  principle  which  the  whole  an 
alogy  of  nature,  as  well  as  our  own  direct 
consciousness,  shows  to  be  perfectly  com 
patible  with  its  origin  in  composition. 

Large  concessions  are,  in  the  first  place, 
to  be  remarked,  which  must  be  stated,  be 
cause  they  very  much  narrow  the  matter  in 
dispute.  Those  who,  before  Brown,  con 
tended  against  "  beneficial  tendency"  as  the 
standard  of  Morality,  have  either  shut  their 
eyes  on  the  connection  of  Virtue  with  gene 
ral  utility,  or  carelessly  and  obscurely  al 
lowed,  without  further  remark,  a  connection 
which  is  at  least  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
and  important  of  ethical  facts.  He  acts  more 
boldly,  and  avowedly  discusses  "  the  rela 
tion  of  Virtue  to  Utility."  He  was  compelled 
by  that  discussion  to  make  those  concessions 
which  so  much  abridge  this  controversy. 
"Utility  and  Virtue  are  so  related,  that  there 
is  perhaps  no  action  generally  felt  to  be  vir 
tuous,  which  it  would  not  be  beneficial  that 
all  men  in  similar  circumstances  should 
imitate."*  "In  every  case  of  benefit  or  in 
jury  willingly  done,  there  arise  certain  emo 
tions  of  moral  approbation  or  disapproba 
tion."!  "The  intentional  produce  of  evil, 
as  pure  evil,  is  always  hated,  and  that  of 
good,  as  pure  good,  always  loved. "J  All 
virtuous  acts  are  thus  admitted  to  be  univer 
sally  beneficial;  Morality  and  the  general 
benefit  are  acknowledged  always  to  coincide. 
It  is  hard  to  say,  then,  why  they  should  not 
be  reciprocally  tests  of  each  other,  though  in 
a  very  different  way  ; — the  virtuous  feelings, 
fitted  as  they  are  by  immediate  appearance, 
by  quick  and  power'ful  action,  to  be  sufficient 
tests  of  Morality  in  the  moment  of  action, 
and  for  all  practical  purposes;  while  the 


*  Lectures,  vol.  iv.  p.  45.     The  unphilosophical 
word  "  perhaps"  must  be  struck  out  of  the  propo 
sition,  unless  the  whole  be  considered  as  a  mere 
conjecture  ;  it  limits  no  affirmation,  but  destroys 
it,  by  converting  it  into  a  guess.     See  the  like  con- 
cession,  vol.  iv.  p.  33,  with  some  words  interlard 
ed,  which  betray  a  sort  of  reluctance  and  fluctua 
tion,  indicative  of  the  difficulty  with  which  Brown 
struggled  to  withhold  his  assent  from  truths  which 
he  unreasonably  dreaded. 

*  Ibid.  vol.  iii.  p.  567.         I  Ibid.  vol.  iii,  p.  621. 


consideration  of  tendency  of  those  acts  to 
contribute  to  general  happiness,  a  more  ob 
scure  and  slowly  discoverable  quality,  should 
be  applied  in  general  reasoning,  as  a  test  of 
the  sentiments  and  dispositions  themselves. 
In  cases  where  such  last-mentioned  test  has 
been  applied,  no  proof  has  been  attempted 
that  it  has  ever  deceived  those  who  used  it 
in  the  proper  place.  It  has  uniformly  served 
to  justify  our  moral  constitution,  and  to  show 
how  reasonable  it  is  for  us  to  be  guided  in 
action  by  our  higher  feelings.  At  all  events 
it  should  be,  but  has  not  been  considered, 
that  from  these  concessions  alone  it  follows, 
that  beneficial  tendency  is  at  least  one  con 
stant  property  of  Virtue.  Is  not  this,  in  ef 
fect,  an  admission  that  beneficial  tendency 
does  distinguish  virtuous  acts  and  disposi 
tions  from  those  which  we  call  vicious  1  If 
the  criterion  be  incomplete  or  delusive,  let 
its  faults  be  specified,  and  let  some  other 
quality  be  pointed  out,  which,  either  singly 
or  in  combination  with  beneficial  tendency, 
may  more  perfectly  indicate  the  distinction. 
But  let  us  not  be  assailed  by  arguments 
which  leave  untouched  its  value  as  a  test, 
and  are  in  truth  directed  only  against  its  fit 
ness  as  an  immediate  incentive  and  guide  to 
right  action.  To  those  who  contend  for  its 
use  in  the  latter  character,  it  must  be  left  to 
defend,  if  they  can,  so  untenable  a  position  : 
but  all  others  must  regard  as  pure  sophistry 
the  use  of  arguments  against  it  as  a  test, 
which  really  show  nothing  more  than  its  ac 
knowledged  unfitness  to  be  a  motive. 

When  voluntary  benefit  and  voluntary  in 
jury  are  pointed  out  as  the  main,  if  not  the 
sole  objects  of  moral  approbation,  and  disap 
probation, — when  we  are  told  truly,  that  the 
production  of  good,  as  good,  is  always  loved, 
and  that  of  evil,  as  such,  always  hated,  can 
we  require  a  more  clear,  short,  and  unan 
swerable  proof,  that  beneficial  tendency  is 
an  essential  quality  of  Virtue?  It  is  indeed 
an  evidently  necessary  consequence  of  this 
statement,  that  if  benevolence  be  amiable  in 
itself,  our  affection  for  it  must  increase  with 
its  extent,  and  that  no  man  can  be  in  a  per 
fectly  right  state  of  mind,  who,  if  he  consider 
general  happiness  at  all,  is  not  ready  to  ac 
knowledge  that  a  good  man  must  regard  it 
as  being  in  its  own  nature  the  most  desirable 
of  all  objects,  however  the  constitution  and 
circumstances  of  human  nature  may  render 
it  unfit  or  impossible  to  pursue  it  directly  as 
the  object  of  life.  It  is  at  the  same  time  ap 
parent  that  no  such  man  can  consider  any 
habitual  disposition,  clearly  discerned  to  be 
in  its  whole  result  at  variance  with  general 
happiness,  as  not  unworthy  of  being  culti 
vated,  or  as  not  fit  to  be  rooted  out.  It  is 
manifest  that,  if  it  were  otherwise,  he  would 
cease  to  be  benevolent.  As  soon  as  we  con 
ceive  the  sublime  idea  of  a  Being  who  no1 
only  foresees,  but  commands,  all  the  conse 
quences  of  the  actions  of  all  voluntary  agents, 
this  scheme  of  reasoning  appears  far  more 
clear.  In  such  a  case,  if  our  moral  senti 
ments  remain  the  same,  they  compel  us  to 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


177 


attribute  His  whole  government  of  the  world 
to  benevolence.  The  consequence  is  as  ne 
cessary  as  in  any  process  of  reason  •  for  if 
our  moral  nature  be  supposed,  it  will  appear 
self-evident,  that  it  is  as  much  impossible  for 
us  to  love  and  revere  such  a  Being,  if  we  as 
cribe  to  Him  a  mixed  or  imperfect  benevo 
lence,  as  to  believe  the  most  positive  contra 
diction  in  terms.  Now,  as  Religion  consists 
in  that  love  and  reverence,  it  is  evident  that 
it  cannot  subsist  without  a  belief  in  benevo 
lence  as  the  sole  principle  of  divine  govern 
ment.  It  is  nothing  to  tell  us  that  this  is  not 
a  process  of  reasoning,  or,  to  speak  more  ex 
actly,  that  the  first  propositions  are  assumed. 
The  first  propositions  in  every  discussion  re 
lating  to  intellectual  operations  must  likewise 
be  assumed.  Conscience  is  not  Reason,  but 
it  is  not  less  an  essential  part  of  human  na 
ture.  Principles  which  are  essential  to  all  its 
operations  are  as  much  entitled  to  immediate 
and  implicit  assent,  as  those  principles  which 
stand  in  the  same  relation  to  the  reasoning 
faculties.  The  laws  prescribed  by  a  bene 
volent  Being  to  His  creatures  must  necessa 
rily  be  founded  on  the  principle  of  promoting 
their  happiness.  It  would  be  singular  indeed, 
if  the  proofs  of  the  goodness  of  God,  legible 
in  every  part  of  Nature,  should  not.  above 
all  others,  be  most  discoverable  and  'conspi 
cuous  in  the  beneficial  tendency  of  His  moral 
laws. 

But  we  are  asked,  if  tendency  to  general 
welfare  be  the  standard  of  Virtue,  why  is  it 
not  always  present  to  the  contemplation  of 
every  man  who  does  or  prefers  a  virtuous 
action  1  Must  not  Utility  be  in  that  case 
"the  felt  essence  of  Virtue?"*  Why  are 
other  ends,  besides  general  happiness,  fit  to 
be  morally  pursued  ? 

These  questions,  which  are  all  founded  on 
that  confusion  of  the  theory  of  actions  with 
the  theory  of  sentiments,  against  which  the 
reader  was  so  early  warned,t  might  be  dis 
missed  with  no  more  than  a  reference  to  that 
distinction,  from  'the  forgetfulness  of  which 
they  have  arisen.  By  those  advocates  of  the 
principle  of  Utility,  indeed,  who  hold  it  to  be 
a  necessary  part  of  their  system,  that  some 
glimpse  at  least  of  tendency  to  personal  or 
general  well-being  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
motives  which  render  an  action  virtuous, 
these  questions  cannot  be  satisfactorily  an 
swered.  Against  such  they  are  arguments 
of  irresistible  force:  but  against  the  doctrine 
itself,  rightly  understood  and  justly  bounded, 
they  are  altogether  powerless.  The  reason 
why  there  may,  and  must  be  many  ends  mo 
rally  more  fit  to  be  pursued  in  practice  than 
general  happiness,  is  plainly  to  be  found  in 
the  limited  capacity  of  Man.  A  perfectly 
good  Being,  who  foresees  and  commands  all 
the  consequences  of  action,  cannot  indeed  be 
conceived  by  us  to  have  any  other  end  in 
view  than  general  well-being.  Why  evil 
exists  under  that  perfect  government,  is  a 


*  Lectures,  vol.  iv.  p.  38. 
t  See  supra,  p.  97. 
23 


question  towards  the  solution  of  which  the 
human  understanding  can  scarcely  advance 
a  single  step.  But  all  who  hold  the  evil  to 
exist  only  for  good,  and  own  their  inability 
to  explain  why  or  how,  are  perfectly  exempt 
from  any  charge  of  inconsistency  in  their 
obedience  to  the  dictates  of  their  moral  na 
ture.  The  measure  of  the  faculties  of  Man 
renders  it  absolutely  necessary  for  him  to 
have  many  other  practical  ends;  the  pursuit 
of  all  of  which  is  moral,  "when  it  actually 
tends  to  general  happiness,  though  that  last 
end  never  entered  into  the  contemplation  of 
the  agent.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  calcu 
late  the  effects  of  a  single  action,  any  more 
than  the  chances  of  a  single  life.  But  let  it 
not  be  hastily  concluded,  that  the  calculation 
of  consequences  is.impossible  in  moral  sub 
jects.  To  calculate  the  general  tendency  of 
every  sort  of  human  action,  is  a  possible, 
easy,  and  common  operation.  The  general 
good  effects  of  temperance,  prudence,  forti 
tude,  justice,  benevolence,  gratitude,  vera 
city,  fidelity,  of  the  affections  of  kindred, 
and  of  love  for  our  country,  are  the  subjects 
of  calculations  which,  taken  as  generalities, 
are  absolutely  unerring.  They  are  founded 
on  a  larger  and  firmer  basis  of  more  uniform 
experience,  than  any  of  those  ordinary  cal 
culations  which  govern  prudent  men  in  the 
whole  business  of  life.  An  appeal  to  these 
daily  and  familiar  transactions  furnishes  at 
once  a  decisive  answer,  both  to  those  advo 
cates  of  Utility  who  represent  the  considera 
tion  of  it  as  a  necessary  ingredient  in  virtu 
ous  motives,  as  well  as  moral  approbation, 
and  to  those  opponents  who  turn  the  unwar 
rantable  inferences  of  unskilful  advocates 
into  proofs  of  the  absurdity  into  which  the 
doctrine  leads. 

The  cultivation  of  all  the  habitual  senti 
ments  from  which  the  various  classes  of  vir 
tuous  actions  flow,  the  constant  practice  of 
such  actions,  the  strict  observance  of  rules 
in  all  that  province  of  Ethics  which  can  be 
subjected  to  rules,  the  watchful  care  of  all 
the  outworks  of  every  part  of  duty,  and  of 
that  descending  series  of  useful  habits  which, 
being  securities  to  Virtue,  become  themselves 
virtues, — are  so  many  ends  which  it  is  abso 
lutely  necessary  for  man  to  pursue  and  to 
seek  for  their  own  sake.  "  I  saw  D'Alem- 
bert,"  says  a  very  late  writer,  "congratulate 
a  young  man  very  coldly,  who  brought  him 
a  solution  of  a  problem  The  young  man 
said,  '  I  have  done  this  in  order  to  have  a  seat 
in  the  Academy.'  'Sir,'  answered  D'Alem- 
bert,  l  with  such  dispositions  you  never 
will  earn  one.  Science  must  be  loved  for 
its  own  sake,  and  not  for  the  advantage  to 
be  derived.  No  other  principle  will  enable 
a  man  to  make  progress  in  the  sciences.'  "* 
It  is  singular  that  D'Alembert  should  not 
perceive  the  extensive  application  of  this 
truth  to  the  whole  nature  of  Man.  No  man 
can  make  progress  in  a  virtue  who  does 
not  seek  it  for  its  own  sake.  No  man  is  a 


Memoires  de  Montlosier,  vol.  i.  p.  50. 


178 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


friend,  a  lover  of  his  country,  a  kind  father, 
a  dutiful  sd"n,  who  does  not  consider  the  culti 
vation  of  affection  and  the  performance  of 
duty  in  all  these  cases,  respectively,  as  in 
cumbent  on  him  for  their  own  sake,  and 
not  for  the  advantage  to  be  derived  from 
them.  Whoever  serves  another  with  a  view 
of  advantage  to  himself  is  universally  ac 
knowledged  not  to  act  from  affection.  But 
the  more  immediate  application  of  this  truth 
to  our  purpose  is,  that  in  the  case  of  those 
virtues  which  are  the  means  of  cultivating 
and  preserving  other  virtues,  it  is  necessary 
to  acquire  love  and  reverence  for  the  se 
condary  virtues  for  their  own  sake,  without 
which  they  never  will  be  effectual  means  of 
sheltering  and  strengthening  those  intrinsi 
cally  higher  qualities  to  which  they  are  ap 
pointed  to  minister.  Every  moral  act  must 
be  considered  as  an  end,  and  men  must  ba 
nish  from  their  practice  the  regard  to  the 
most  naturally  subordinate  duty  as  a  means. 
Those  who  are  perplexed  by  the  supposition 
that  secondary  virtues,  making  up  by  the 
extent  of  their  beneficial  tendency  for  what 
in  each  particular  instance  they  may  want 
in  magnitude,  may  become  of  as  great  im 
portance  as  the  primary  virtues  themselves, 
would  do  well  to  consider  a  parallel  though 
very  homely  case.  A  house-  is  useful  for 
many  purposes :  many  of  these  purposes 
are  in  themselves,  for  the  time,  more  im 
portant  than  shelter.  The  destruction  of  the 
house  may,  nevertheless,  become  a  greater 
evil  than  the  defeat  of  several  of  these  pur 
poses,  because  it  is  permanently  convenient, 
and  indeed  necessary  to  the  execution  of 
most  of  them.  A  floor  is  made  for  warmth, 
for  dryness, — to  support  tables,  chairs,  beds', 
and  all  the  household  implements  which 
contribute  to  accommodation  and  to  plea 
sure.  The  floor  is  valuable  only  as  a  means ; 
but,  as  the  only  means  by  which  many  ends 
are  attained,  it  may  be  much  more  valuable 
than  some  of  them.  The  table  might  be, 
and  generally  is,  of  more  valuable  timber 
than  the  floor ;  but  the  workman  who  should 
for  that  reason  lake  more  pains  in  making 
the  table  strong,  than  the  floor  secure,  would 
not  long  be  employed  by  customers  of  com 
mon  sense. 

The  connection  of  that  part  of  Morality 
which  regulates  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes 
with  benevolence,  affords  the  most  striking 
instance  of  the  very  great  importance  which 
may  belong  to  a  virtue,  in  itself  secondary, 
but  on  which  the  general  cultivation  of  the 
highest  virtues  permanently  depends.  Deli 
cacy  and  modesty  may  be  thought  chiefly 
worthy  of  cultivation,  because  they  guard 
purity;  but  they  must  be  loved  for'their 
own  sake,  without  which  they  cannot  flou 
rish.  Purity  is  the  sole  school  of  domestic 
fidelity,  and  domestic  fidelity  is  the  only 
nursery  of  the  affections  between  parents 
and  children,  from  children  towards  each 
,  other,  and,  through  these  affections,  of  all 
the  kindness  which  renders  the  world  ha 
bitable.  At  each  step  in  the  progress,  the 


appropriate  end  must  be  loved  for  its  own 
sake ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  only 
means  of  sowing  the  seeds  of  benevolence, 
in  all  its  forms,  may  become  of  far  greater 
importance  than  many  of  the  modifications 
and  exertions  even  of  benevolence  itself. 
To  those  who  will  consider  this  subject,  it 
will  not  long  seem  strange  that  the  sweetest 
and  most  gentle  affections  grow  up  only 
under  the  apparently  cold  and  dark  shadow 
of  stern  duty.  The  obligation  is  strength 
ened,  not  weakened,  by  the  consideration 
that  it  arises  from  human  imperfection ; 
which  only  proves  it  to  be  founded  on  the 
nature  of  man.  It  is  enough  that  the  pursuit 
of  all  these  separate  ends  leads  to  general 
well-being,  the  promotion  of  which  is  the 
final  purpose  of  the  Creation. 

The  last  and  most  specious  argument 
against  beneficial  tendency,  even  as  a  test, 
is  conveyed  in  the  question,  Why  moral  ap- 

Erobation  is  not  bestowed  on  every  thing 
eneficial,  instead  of  being  confined,  as  it 
confessedly  is,  to  voluntary  acts?  It  may 
plausibly  be  said,  that  the  establishment  of 
the  beneficial  tendency  of  all  those  voluntary 
acts  which  are  the  objects  of  moral  approba 
tion,  is  not  sufficient; — since,  if  such  ten 
dency  be  the  standard,  it  ought  to  follow,  that 
whatever  is  useful  should  also  be  morally 
approved.  To  answer,  as  has  before  been 
done,*  that  experience  gradually  limits  mo 
ral  approbation  and  disapprobation  to  volun 
tary  acts,  by  teaching  us  that  they  influence 
the  Will,  but  are  wholly  wasted  if  they  be 
applied  to  any  other  object, — though  the 
fact  be  true,  and  contributes  somewhat  to 
the  result, — is  certainly  not  enough.  It  is 
at  best  a  partial  solution.  Perhaps,  on  recon 
sideration,  it  is  entitled  only  to  a  secondary 
place.  To  seek  a  foundation  for  universal, 
ardent,  early,  and  immediate  feelings,  in  pro 
cesses  of  an  intellectual  nature,  has,  since 
the  origin  of  philosophy,  been  the  grand 
error  of  ethical  inquirers  into  human  nature. 
To  seek  for  such  a  foundation  in  Association, 
— an  early  and  insensible  process,  which 
confessedly  mingles  itself  with  the  compo 
sition  of  our  first  and  simplest  feelings,  and 
which  is  common  to  both  parts  of  our  nature, 
is  not  liable  to  the  same  animadversion.  If 
Conscience  be  uniformly  produced  by  the 
regular  and  harmonious  co-operation  of  many 
processes  of  association,  the  objection  is  in 
reality  a  challenge  to  produce  a  complete 
theory  of  it,  founded  on  that  principle,  by 
exhibiting  such  a  full  account  of  all  these 
processes  as  may  satisfactorily  explain  why 
it  proceeds  thus  far  and  no  farther.  This 
would  be  a  very  arduous  attempt,  and  per 
haps  it  may  be  premature.  But  something 
may  be  more  modestly  tried  towards  an 
outline,  which,  though  it  may  leave  many 
particulars  unexplained,  may  justify  a  rea 
sonable  expectation  that  they  are  not  incapa 
ble  of  explanation,  and  may  even  now  assign 
such  reasons  for  the  limitation  of  approbation 


*  See  supra,  p.  142. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


to  voluntary  acts,  as  may  convert  the  objec 
tion  derived  from  that  fact  into  a  corrobora- 
tion  of  the  doctrines  to  which  it  has  been 
opposed  as  an  insurmountable  difficulty. 
Such  an  attempt  will  naturally  lead  to  the 
close  of  the  present  Dissertation.  The  at 
tempt  has  indeed  been  already  made,*  but 
not  without  great  apprehensions  on  the  part 
of  the  author  that  he  has  not  been  clear 
enough,  especially  in  those  parts  which  ap 
peared  to  himself  to  owe  most  to  his  own 
reflection.  He  will  now  endeavour,  at  the 
expense  of  some  repetition,  to  be  more  satis 
factory. 

There  must  be  primary  pleasures,  pains, 
and  even  appetites,  which  arise  from  no 
prior  state  of  mind,  and  which,  if  explained 
at  all,  can  be  derived  only  from  bodily 
organization ;  for  if  there  were  not,  there 
could  be  no  secondary  desires.  What  the 
number  of  the  underived  principles  may  be, 
is  a  question  to  which  the  answers  of  phi 
losophers  have  been  extremely  various,  and 
of  which  the  consideration  is  not  necessary 
to  our  present  purpose.  The  rules  of  phi 
losophizing,  however,  require  that  causes 
should  not  be  multiplied  without  necessity. 
Of  two  explanations,  therefore,  which  give 
an  equally  satisfactory  account  of  appear 
ances,  that  theory  is  manifestly  to  be  pre 
ferred  which  supposes  the  smaller  number 
of  ultimate  and  inexplicable  principles.  This 
maxim,  it  is  true,  is  subject  to  three  indis 
pensable  conditions : — 1st,  That  the  princi 
ples  employed  in  the  explanation  should  be 
known  really  to  exist;  in  which  consists  the 
main  distinction  between  hypothesis  and 
theory.  Gravity  is  a  principle  universally 
known  to  exist ;  ether  and  a  nervous  fluid 
are  mere  suppositions. — 2dly,  That  these 
principles  should  be  known  to  produce  ef 
fects  like  those  which  are  ascribed  to  them 
in  the  theory.  This  is  a  further  distinction 
between  hypothesis  and  theory;  for  there 
are  an  infinite  number  of  degrees  of  likeness, 
from  the  faint  resemblances  which  have  led 
some  to  fancy  that  the  functions  of  the 
nerves  depend  on  electricity,  to  the  remark 
able  coincidences  between  the  appearances 
of  projectiles  on  earth,  and  the  movements 
of  the  heavenly  bodies,  which  constitutes 
the  Newtonian  system, — a  theory  now  per 
fect,  though  exclusively  founded  on  analogy, 
and  in  which  one  of  the  classes  of  pheno 
mena  brought  together  by  it  is  not  the  sub 
ject  of  direct  experience. — 3dly,  That  it 
should  correspond,  if  not  with  all  the  facts 
to  be  explained,  at  least  with  so  great  a  ma 
jority  of  them  as  to  render  it  highly  proba 
ble  that  means  will  in  time  be  found  of  re 
conciling  it  to  all.  It  is  only  on  this  ground 
that  the  Newtonian  system  justly  claimed 
the  title  of  a  legitimate  theory  during  that 
long  period  when  it  was  unable  to  explain 
many  celestial  appearances,  before  the  la 
bours  of  a  century,  and  the  genius  of  La 
place,  at  length  completed  it  by  adapting  it 


*  See  suvra  p.  149,  et  seq. 


to  all  the  phenomena.     A  theory  may  be 
just  before  it  is  complete. 

In  the  application  of  these  canons  to  the 
theory  which  derives  most  of  the  principles 
of  human  action  from  the  transfer  of  a  small 
number  of  pleasures,  perhaps  organic  ones? 
by  the  law  of  Association  to  a  vast  variety 
of  new  objects,  it  cannot  be  denied,  1st, 
That  it  satisfies  the  first  of  the  above  condi 
tions,  inasmuch  as  Association  is  really  one" 
of  the  laws  of  human  nature  ;  2dly,  Tnat  it 
also  satisfies  the  second,  for  Association  cer 
tainly  produces  effects  like  those  which  are 
referred  to  it  by  this  theory; — otherwise 
there  would  be  no  secondary  desires,  no 
acquired  relishes  and  dislikes, — facts  uni 
versally  acknowledged,  which  are,  and  can 
be  explained  only  by  the  principle  called  by 
Hobbes  "Mental  Discourse," — by  Locke., 
Hume,  Hartley,  Condillac,  and  the  majority 
of  speculators,  as  well  as  in  common  speech, 
"Association,"— by  Tucker,  "Translation," 
— and  by  Brown,  "Suggestion."  The  facts 
generally  referred  to  the  principle  resemble 
those  facts  which  are  claimed  for  it  by  the 
theory  in  this  important  particular,  that  in 
both  cases  equally,  pleasure  becomes  at 
tached  to  perfectly  new  things, — so  that  the 
derivative  desires  become  perfectly  inde 
pendent  of  the  primary.  The  great  dissimi 
larity  of  these  two  classes  of  passions  has 
been  supposed  to  consist  in  this,  that  the  for 
mer  always  regards  the  interest  of  the  indi 
vidual,  while  the  latter  regards  the  welfare 
of  others.  The  philosophical  world  has  been 
almost  entirely  divided  into  two  sects, — the 
partisans  of  Selfishness,  comprising  mostly 
all  the  predecessors  of  Butler,  and  the  greater 
part  of  his  successors,  and  the  advocates  of 
Benevolence,  who  have  generally  contended" 
that  the  reality  of  Disinterestedness  depends 
on  its  being  a  primary  principle.  Enough 
has  been  said  by  Butler  against  the  more 
fatal  heresy  of  Selfishness :  something  also 
has  already  been  said  against  the  error  of  the 
advocates  of  Disinterestedness,  in  the  pro 
gress  of  this  attempt  to  develope  ethical 
truths  historically,  in  the  order  in  which 
inquiry  and  controversy  brought  them  out 
with  increasing  brightness.  The  analogy  of 
the  material  world  "is  indeed  faint,  and  often 
delusive ;  yet  we  dare  not  utterly  reject  that 
on  which  the  whole  technical  language  of 
mental  and  moral  science  is  necessarily 
grounded.  The  whole  creation  teem»  with 
instances  where  the  most  powerful  agents 
and  the  most  lasting  bodies  are  the  acknow 
ledged  results  of  the  composition,  sometimes 
of  a  few,  often  of  many  elements.  These 
compounds  often  in  their  turn  become  the 
elements  of  other  substances;  and  it  is  with 
them  that  we  are  conversant  chiefly  in  the 
pursuits  of  knowledge,  and  solely  in  the  con 
cerns  of  life.  No  man  ever  fancied,  that 
because  they  were  compounds,  they  were 
therefore  less  real.  It  is  impossible  to  con 
found  them  with  any  of  the  separate  ele 
ments  which  contribute  towards  their  forma 
tion.  But  a  much  more  close  resemblance 


180 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


presents  itself:  every  secondary  desire,  or 
acquired  relish,  involves  in  it  a  transfer  of 
pleasure  to  something  which  was  before  in 
different  or  disagreeable.  Is  the  new  plea 
sure  the  less  real  for  being  acquired  ?  Is  it 
not  often  preferred  to  the  original  enjoyment  ? 
Are  not  many  of  the  secondary  pleasures  in 
destructible  ?  Do  not  many  of  them  survive 
primary  appetites "?  Lastly,  the  important 

Srinciple  of  regard  to  our  own  general  wel- 
ire,  which  disposes  us  to  prefer  it  to  imme 
diate  pleasure  (unfortunately  called  "Self- 
love," — as  if,  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the 
term  "love."  it  were  possible  fora  man  to 
love  himself),  is  perfectly  intelligible,  if  its 
origin  be  ascribed  to  Association,  but  utterly 
incomprehensible,  if  it  be  considered  as  prior 
to  the  appetites  and  desires,  which  alone 
furnish  it  with  materials.  As  happiness  con 
sists  of  satisfactions,  Self-love  presupposes 
appetites  and  desires  which  are  to  be  satis 
fied.  If  the  order  of  time  were  important, 
the  affections  are  formed  at  an  earlier  period 
than  many  self-regarding  passions,  and  they 
always  precede  the  formation  of  Self-love. 

Many  of  the  later  advocates  of  the  Disin 
terested  system,  though  recoiling  from  an 
apparent  approach  to  the  Selfishness  into 
which  the  purest  of  their  antagonists  had 
occasionally  fallen,  were  gradually  obliged 
to  make  concessions  to  the  Derivative  system, 
though  clogged  with  the  contradictory  asser 
tion,  that  it  was  only  a  refinement  of  Selfish 
ness  :  and  we  have  seen  that  Brown,  the  last 
and  not  the  least  in  genius  of  them,  has 
nearly  abandoned  the  greater,  though  not 
indeed  the  most  important,  part  of  the  terri 
tory  in  dispute,  and  scarcely  contends  for  any 
nnderived  principle  but  the  Moral  Faculty. 
This  being  the  state  of  opinion  among  the 
very  small  number  in  Great  Britain  who  still 
preserve  some  remains  of  a  taste  for  such 
speculations,  it  is  needless  here  to  trace  the 
application  of  the  law  of  Association  to  the 
formation  of  the  secondary  desires,  whether 
private  or  social.  For  our  present  purposes, 
the  explanation  of  their  origin  may  be  as 
sumed  to  be  satisfactory.  In  what  follows, 
it  must,  however,  be  steadily  borne  in  mind, 
that  this  concession  involves  an  admission 
that  the  pleasure  derived  from  low  objects 
may  be  transferred  to  the  most  pure. — that 
from  a  part  of  a  self-regarding  appetite  such 
a  pleasure  may  become  a  portion  of  a  per 
fectly  disinterested  desire, — and  that  the 
disinterested  nature  and  absolute  indepen 
dence  of  the  latter  are  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  impaired  by  the  consideration,  that 
it  is  formed  by  one  of  those  grand  mental 
processes  to  which  the  formation  of  the  other 
habitual  states  of  the  human  mind  have 
been,  with  great  probability,  ascribed. 

When  the  social  affections  are  thus  form 
ed,  they  are  naturally  followed  in  every  in 
stance  by  the  will  to  do  whatever  can  pro 
mote  their  object.  Compassion  excites  a 
voluntary  determination  to  do  whatever  re 
lieves  the  person  pitied  :  the  like  process 
must  occur  in  every  case  of  gratitude,  gene 


rosity,  and  affection.  Nothing  so  uniformly 
follows  the  kind  disposition  as  the  act  of 
Will,  because  it  is  the  only  means  by  which 
the  benevolent  desire  can  be  gratified.  The 
result  of  what  Brown  justly  calls  "a  finer 
analysis,"  shows  a  mental  contiguity  of  the 
affection  to  the  volition  to  be  much  closer 
than  appears  on  a  coarser  examination  of  this 
part  of  our  nature.  No  wonder,  then,  that 
the  strongest  association,  the  most  active 
power  of  reciprocal  suggestion,  should  sub 
sist  between  them.  As  all  the  affections  are 
delightful,  so  the  volitions, — voluntary  acts 
which  are  the  only  means  of  their  gratifica 
tion, — become  agreeable  objects  of  contem 
plation  to  the  mind.  The  habitual  disposi 
tion  to  perform  them  is  felt  in  ourselves,  and 
observed  in  others,  with  satisfaction.  As 
these  feelings  become  more  lively,  the  ab 
sence  of  them  may  be  viewed  in  ourselves 
with  a  pain, — in  others  with  an  alienation 
capable  of  indefinite  increase.  They  become 
entirely  independent  sentiments, — still,  how 
ever,  receiving  constant  supplies  of  nourish 
ment  from  their  parent  affections, — which,  in 
well-balanced  minds,  reciprocally  strengthen 
each  other; — unlike  the  unkind  passions> 
which  are  constantly  engaged  in  the  most 
angry  conflicts  of  civil  war.  In  this  state  we 
desire  to  experience  the  beneficient  volitions, 
to  cultivate  a  disposition  towards  them,  and 
to  do  every  correspondent  voluntary  act : 
they  are  for  their  own  sake  the  objects  of 
desire.  They  thus  constitute  a  large  portion 
of  those  emotions,  desires,  and  affections, 
which  regard  certain  dispositions  of  the  mind, 
and  determinations  of  the  Will  as  their  sole 
and  ultimate  end.  These  are  what  are  called 
the  "Moral  Sense,"  the  "Moral  Sentiments," 
or  best,  though  most  simply,  by  the  ancient 
name  of  Conscience, — which  has  the  merit, 
in  our  language,  of  being  applied  to  no  other 
purpose, — which  peculiarly  marks  the  strong 
working  of  these  feelings  on  conduct, — and 
which,  from  its  solemn  and  sacred  character, 
is  well  adapted  to  denote  the  venerable  au 
thority  of  the  highest  principle  of  human 
nature. 

Nor  is  this  all :  it  has  already  been  seen, 
that  not  only  sympathy  with  the  sufferer, 
but  indignation  against  the  wrong-doer,  con 
tributes  a  large  and  important  share  towards 
the  moral  feelings.  We  are  angry  at  those 
who  disappoint  our  wish  for  the  happiness 
of  others ;  we  make  the  resentment  of  the 
innocent  person  wronged  our  own  :  our  mo 
derate  anger  approves  all  well-proportioned 
punishment  of  the  wrong-doer.  We  hence 
approve  those  dispositions  and  actions  of 
voluntary  agents  which  promote  such  suit 
able  punishment,  and  disapprove  those  which 
hinder  its  infliction,  or  destroy  its  effect ;  at 
the  head  of  which  may  be  placed  that  excess 
of  punishment  beyond  the  average  feelings 
of  good  men  which  turns  the  indignation  of 
the  calm  by-stander  against  the  culprit  into 
pity.  In  this  state,  when  anger  is  duly  mo 
derated, — when  it  is  proportioned  to  the 
wrong, — when  it  is  detached  from  personal 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         181 


considerations, — when  dispositions  and  actions 
are  its  ultimate  objects,  it  becomes  a  sense  of 
justice,  and  is  so  purified  as  to  be  fitted  to 
be  a  new  element  of  Conscience.  There  is 
no  part  of  Morality  which  is  so  directly  aided 
by  a  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  its  observ 
ance  to  the  general  interest,  as  Justice.  The 
connection  between  them  is  discoverable  by 
the  most  common  understanding.  All  pub 
lic  deliberations  profess  the  public  welfare 
to  be  their  object  ]  all  laws  propose  it  as  their 
end.  This  calm  principle  of  public  utility 
serves  to  mediate  between  the  sometimes 
repugnant  feelings  which  arise  in  the  punish 
ment  of  criminals,  by  repressing  undue  pity 
on  one  hand,  and  reducing  resentment  to  its 
proper  level  on  the  other.  Hence  the  un-. 
speakable  importance  of  criminal  laws  as  a 
part  of  the  moral  education  of  mankind. 
Whenever  they  carefully  conform  to  the  Mo 
ral  Sentiments  of  the  age  and  country, — when 
they  are  withheld  from  approaching  the 
limits  within  which  the  disapprobation  of 
good  men  would  confine  punishment,  they 
contribute  in  the  highest  degree  to  increase 
the  ignominy  of  crimes,  to  make  men  recoil 
from  the  first  suggestions  of  criminality,  and 
to  nourish  and  mature  the  sense  of  justice, 
which  lends  new  vigour  to  the  conscience 
with  which  it  has  been  united. 

Other  contributary  streams  present  them 
selves  :  qualities  which  are  necessary  to  Vir 
tue,  but  may  ba»  subservient  to  Vice,  may, 
independently  of  that  excellence,  or  of  that 
defect,  be  in  themselves  admirable :  courage, 
energy,  decision,  are  of  this  nature.  In  their 
wild  state  they  are  often  savage  and  destruc 
tive:  when  they  are  tamed  by  the  society 
of  the  affections,  and  trained  up-in  obedience 
to  the  Moral  Faculty,  they  become  virtues 
of  the  highest  order,  and,  by  their  name  of 
"  magnanimity."  proclaim  the  general  sense 
of  mankind  that  they  are  the  characteristic 
qualities  of  a  great  soul.  They  retain  what 
ever  was  admirable  in  their  unreclaimed 
state,  together  with  all  that  they  borrow  from 
their  new  associate  and  their  high  ruler. 
Their  nature,  it  must  be  owned,  is  prone  to 
evil ;  but  this  propensity  does  not  hinder 
them  from  being  rendered  capable  of  being 
ministers  of  good,  when  in  a  state  where  the 
gentler  virtues  require  to  be  vigorously 
guarded  against  the  attacks  of  daring  de 
pravity.  It  is  thus  that  the  strength  of  the 
well-educated  elephant  is  sometimes  em 
ployed  in  vanquishing  the  fierceness  of  the 
tiger,  and  sometimes  used  as  a  means  of  de 
fence  against  the  shock  of  his  brethren  of  the 
same  species.  The  delightful  contempla 
tion,  however,  of  these  qualities,  when  purely 
applied,  becomes  one  of  the  sentiments  of 
which  the  dispositions  and  actions  of  volun 
tary  agents  are  the  direct  and  final  object. 
By  this  resemblance  they  are  associated  with 
the  other  moral  principles,  and  with  them 
contribute  to  form  Conscience,  which,  as  the 
master  faculty  of  the  soul,  levies  such  large 
contributions  on  every  province  of  human 
nature. 


It  is  important,  in  this  point  of  view,  to 
consider  also  the  moral  approbation  which 
is  undoubtedly  bestowed  on  those  dispositions 
and  actions  of  voluntary  agents  which  termi 
nate  in  their  own  satisfaction,  security,  and 
well-being.  They  have  been  called  "duties 
to  ourselves,"  as  absurdly  as  a  regard  to  our 
own  greatest  happiness  is  called  "  sell-love." 
But  it  cannot  be  reasonably  doubted,  that  in 
temperance,  improvidence,  timidity, — even 
when  considered  only  in  relation  to  the  indi 
vidual, — are  riot  only  regretted  as  imprudent, 
but  blamed  as  morally  wrong.  It  was  ex 
cellently  observed  by  Aristotle,  that  a  man 
is  not  commended  as  temperate,  so  long  as  it 
costs  him  efforts  of  self-denial  to  persevere 
in  the  practice  of  temperance,  but  only  when 
he  prefers  that  virtue  for  its  own  sake.  He  is 
not  meek,  nor  brave,  as  long  as  the  most 
vigorous  self-command  is  necessary  to  bridle 
his  anger  or  his  fear.  On  the  same  princi 
ple,  he  may  be  judicious  or  prudent,  but  he 
is  not  benevolent,  if  he  confers  benefits  with 
a  view  to  his  own  greatest  happiness.  In. 
like  manner,  it  is  ascertained  by  experience, 
that  all  the  masters  of  science  and  of  art, — 
that  all  those  who  have  successfully  pursued 
Truth  and  Knowledge,  love  them  for  their 
own  sake,  without  regard  to  the  generally 
imaginary  dower  of  interest,  or  even  to  the 
dazzling  crown  which  Fame  may  place  on 
their  heads.*  But  it  may  still  be  reasonably 
asked,  why  these  useful  qualities  are  morally 
improved,  and  how  they  become  capable  of 
being  combined  with  those  public  and  disin 
terested  sentiments  which  principally  con 
stitute  Conscience  ?  The  answer  is,  because 
they  are  entirely  conversant  with  volitions 
and  voluntary  actions,  and  in  that  respect 
resemble  the  other  constituents  of  Con 
science,  with  which  they  are  thereby  fitted  to 
mingle  and  coalesce.  Like  those  other  prin 
ciples,  they  may  be  detached  from  what  is 
personal  and  outward,  and  fixed  on  the  dis 
positions  and  actions,'  which  are  the  only 
means  of  promoting  their  ends.  The  se 
quence  of  these  principles  and  acts  of  Will 
becomes  so  frequent,  that  the  association 
between  both  may  be  as  firm  as  in  the  for- 


*  See  the  Pursuit  of  Knowledge  under  Difficul 
ties,  a  discourse  forming  the  first  part  of  the  third 
volume  of  the  Library  of  Entertaining  Knowledge, 
London,  1829.  The  author  of  this  essay,  for  it 
can  be  no  other  than  Mr.  Brougham,  will  by 
others  be  placed  at  the  head  of  those  who,  in  the 
midst  of  arduous  employments,  and  surrounded 
by  all  the  allurements  of  society,  yet  find  leisure 
for  exerting  the  unwearied  vigour  of  their  minds 
in  every  mode  of  rendering  permanent  service  to 
the  human  species;  more  especially  in  spreading 
a  love  of  knowledge,  and  diffusing  useiul  truth 
among  all  classes  of  men.  These  voluntary  occu 
pations  deserve  our  attention  still  less  as  examples 
of  prodigious  power  than  as  proofs  of  an  intimaie 
conviction,  which  binds  them  by  unity  of  purpose 
with  his  public  duties,  that  (to  use  the  almost  dying 
words  of  an  excellent  person)  ''  man  can  neither  be 
happy  without  virtue,  nor  actively  virtuous  without 
liberty,  nor  securely  free  without  rational  know 
ledge."— Close  of  Sir  VV.  Jones'  last  Discourse 
to  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Calcutta. 

a 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


mer  cases.  All  those  sentiments  of  which 
the  final  object  is  a  state  of  the  Will,  become 
thus  intimately  and  inseparably  blended ; 
.and  of  that  perfect  state  of  solution  (if  such 
words  may  be  allowed)  the  result  is  Con- 
^scierice — the  judge  and  arbiter  of  human 
conduct — which,  though  it  does  not  super 
sede  ordinary  motives  of  virtuous  feelings  and 
habits  (equally  the  ordinary  motives  of  good 
actions),  yet  exercises  a  lawful  authority 
even  over  them,  and  ought  to  blend  with 
them.  Whatsoever  actions  and  dispositions 
are  approved  by  Conscience  acquire  the  name 
of  virtues  or  duties:  they  are  pronounced  to 
deserve  commendation;  and  we  are  justly 
considered  as  under  a  moral  obligation  to  prac 
tise  the  actions  and  cultivate  the  dispositions. 
The  coalition  of  the  private  and  public 
feelings  is  very  remarkable  in  two  points  of 
view,  from  which  it  seems  hitherto  to  have 
been'  scarcely  observed.  1st.  It  illustrates 
very  forcibly  all  that  has  been  here  offered 
to  prove,  that  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
Moral  Sentiments  consists  in  their  exclusive 
reference  to  states  of  Will,  and  that  every 
jfeelihg  which  has  that  quality,  when  it  is 
purified  from  all  admixture  with  different 
.objects,  becomes  capable  of  being  absorbed 
into  Conscience,  and  of  being  assimilated  to 
it,  so  as  to  become  a  part  of  it.  For  no  feel- 
jngs  can  be  more  unlike  each  other  in  their 
.object,  than  the  private  and  the  social; 
and  yet,  as  both  employ  voluntary  actions 
as  their  sole  immediate  means,  both  may 
be  transferred  by  association  to  states  of  the 
Will,  in  which  case  they  are  transmuted  into 
moral  sentiments.  No  example  of  the  coali- 
Jion  of  feelings  in  their  general  nature  less 
widely  asunder,  could  afford  so  much  sup 
port  to  this  position.  2d.  By  raising  quali 
ties  useful  to  ourselves  to  the  rank  of  virtues, 
it  throws  a  strong  light  on  the  relation  of 
Virtue  to  individual  interest ;  very  much  as 
justice  illustrates  the  relation  of  Morality  to 
general  interest.  The  coincidence  of  Mo 
rality  with  individual  interest  is  an  impor 
tant  truth  in  Ethics:  it  is  most  manifest  in 
that  part  of  the  science  which  we  are  now 
considering.  A  calm  regard  to  our  general 
interest  is  indeed  a  faint  and  infrequent  mo 
tive  to  action.  Its  chief  advantage  is,  that 
it  is  regular,  and  that  its  movements  may  be 
.calculated.  In  deliberate  conduct  it  may 
often  be  relied  on,  though  perhaps  never  I 
safely  without  knowledge  of  the  whole  tem 
per  and  character  of  the  agent.  But  in  moral 
reasoning  at  least,  the  fore-named  coinci 
dence  is  of  unspeakable  advantage.  If  there 
be  a  miserable  man  who  has  cold  affections, 
a  weak  sense  of  justice,  dim  perceptions  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  faint  feelings  of  them. — 
if,  still  more  wretched,  his  heart  be  con 
stantly  torn  and  devoured  by  malevolent  pas 
sions — the  vultures  of  the  soul,  we  have  one 
resource  still  left,  even  in  cases  so  dreadful. 
Even  he  still  retains  a  human  principle,  to 
which  we  can  speak  :  he  must  own  that  he 
"jfias  some  wish  for  his  own  lasting  welfare. 
We  can  prove  to  him  that  his  state  of  mind 


is  inconsistent  with  it.  It  may  be  impossible 
indeed  to  show,  that  while  his  disposition 
continues  the  same,  he  can  derive  any  en 
joyment  from  the  practice  of  virtue:  but  it 
may  be  most  clearly  shown,  that  every  ad 
vance  in  the  amendment  of  that  disposition 
is  a  step  towards  even  temporal  happiness. 
If  he  do  not  amend  his  character,  we  may 
compel  him  to  own  that  he  is  at  variance 
with  himself  and  offend's  against  a  principle 
of  which  even  he  must  recognise  the  reason 
ableness. 

The  formation  of  Conscience  from  so  many 
elements,  and  especially  from  the  combina 
tion  of  elements  so  unlike  as  the  private  de 
sires  and  the  social  affections,  early  con 
tributes  to  give  it  the  appearance  of  that 
simplicity  and  independence  which  in  its 
mature  state  really  distinguish  it.  It  be 
comes,  from  these  circumstances,  more  diffi 
cult  to  distinguish  its  separate  principles; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  exhibit  them  in  sepa 
rate  action.  The  affinity  of  these  various 
passions  to  each  other,  which  consists  in 
their  having  no  object  but  states  of  the  Will, 
is  the  only  common  property  which  strikes 
the  mind.  Hence  the  facility  with  which 
the  general  terms,  first  probably  limited  to 
the  relations  between  ourselves  and  others, 
are  gradually  extended  to  all  voluntary  acts 
and  dispositions.  Prudence  and  temperance 
become  the  objects  of  moral  approbation. 
When  imprudence  is  immediately  disap 
proved  by  the  by-stander,  without  deliberate 
consideration  of  its  consequences,  it  is  not 
only  displeasing,  as  being  pernicious,  but  is 
blamed  as  wron^  though  with  a  censure  so 
much  inferior  to  mat  bestowed  on  inhumani 
ty  and  injustice,  as  may  justify  those  writers 
who  use  the  milder  term  i  improper .'  At 
length,  when  the  general  words  come  to  sig 
nify  the  objects  of  moral  approbation,  and 
the  reverse,  they  denote  merely  the  power  to 
excite  feelings,  which  are  as  independent  as 
if  they  were  underived,  and  which  coalesce 
the  more  perfectly,  because  they  are  de 
tached  from  objects  so  various  and  unlike  as 
to  render  their  return  to  their  primitive  state 
very  difficult. 

The  question,*  Why  we  do  not  morally 
approve  the  useful  qualities  of  actions  which 
are  altogether  involuntary?  may  now  be 
shortly  and  satisfactorily  answered: — be 
cause  Conscience  is  in  perpetual  contact,  as 
it  were,  with  all  the  dispositions  and  actions 
of  voluntary  agents,  and  is  by  that  means  in- 
dissolubly  associated  with  them  exclusively. 
It  has  a  direct  action  on  the  Will,  and  a 
constant  mental  contiguity  to  it.  It  has 
no  such  mental  contiguity  to  involuntary 
changes.  It  has  never  perhaps  been  ob 
served,  that  an  operation  of  the  conscience 
precedes  all  acts  deliberate  enough  to  be  in 
the  highest  sense  voluntary  and  does  so  as 
much  when  it  is  defeated  as  when  it  pre 
vails.  In  either  case  the  association  is  re 
peated.  It  extends  to  the  whole  of  the  ac- 


*  See  supra,  p.  178. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         183 


live  man.  All  passions  have  a  definite  out 
ward  object  to  which  they  tend,  and  a  limited 
sphere  within  which  they  act.  But  Con 
science  has  no  object  but  a  state  of  Will ; 
and  as  an  act  of  Will  is  the  sole  means  of 
gratifying  any  passion,  Conscience  is  co-ex 
tensive  with  the  whole  man,  and  without  en 
croachment  curbs  or  aids  every  feeling, — 
even  within  the  peculiar  province  of  that 
feeling  itself.  As .  Will  is  the  universal 
means,  Conscience,  which  regards  Will,  must 
.be  a  universal  principle.  As  nothing  is  in 
terposed  between  Conscience  and  the  Will 
when  the  mind  is  in  its  healthy  state,  the 
dictate  of  Conscience  is  followed  by  the  de 
termination  of  the  Will,  with  a  promptitude 
and  exactness  which  very  naturally  is  likened 
to  the  obedience  of  an  inferior  to  the  lawful 
commands  of  those  whom  he  deems  to  be 
rightfully  placed  over  him.  It  therefore 
seems  clear,  that  on  the  theory  which  has 
been  attempted,  moral  approbation  must  be 
limited  to  voluntary  operations,  and  Con 
science  must  be  universal,  independent,  and 
commanding. 

One  remaining  difficulty  may  perhaps  be 
objected  to  the  general  doctrines  of  this  Dis 
sertation,  though  it  does-  not  appear  at  any 
time  to  have  been  urged  against  other  modi 
fications  of  the  same  principle.  "If  moral 
approbation,"  it  may  be  said,  "involve  no 
perception  of  beneficial  tendency,  whence 
arises  the  coincidence  between  that  princi 
ple  and  the  Moral  Sentiments'?"  It  may 
seem  at  first  sight,  that  such  a  theory  rests 
the  foundation  of  Morals  upon  a  coincidence 
altogether  mysterious,  and  apparently  ca 
pricious  and  fantastic.  Waiving  all  other 
answers,  let  us  at  once  proceed  to  that  which 
seems  conclusive.  It  is  true  that  Conscience 
rarely  contemplates  so  distant  an  object  as 
the  welfare  of  all  sentient  beings; — but  to 
what  point  is  every  one  of  its  elements  di 
rected  ?  What,  for  instance,  is  the  aim  of 
all  the  social  affections? — Nothing  but  the 
production  of  larger  or  smaller  masses  of 
happiness  among  those  of  our  fellow-crea 
tures  who  are  the  objects  of  these  affections. 
In  every  case  these  affections  promote  hap 
piness,  as  far  as  their  foresight  and  their 
power  extend.  What  can  be  more  condu 
cive,  or  even  necessary,  to  the  being  and 
well-being  of  society,  than  the  rules  of  jus 
tice  ?  Are  not  the  angry  passions  themselves, 
as  far  as  they  are  ministers  of  Morality,  em 
ployed  in  removing  hindrances  to  the  welfare 
of  ourselves  and  others,  and  so  in  indirectly 
promoting  it  ?  The  private  passions  termi 
nate  indeed  in  the  happiness  of  the  indi 
vidual,  which,  however,  is  a  part  of  general 
happiness,  and  the  part  over  which  we  have 
most  power.  Every  principle  of  which  Con 
science  is  composed  has  some  portion  of  hap 
piness  for  its  object :  to  that  point  they  all 
converge.  General  happiness  is  not  indeed 
one  of  the  natural  objects  of  Conscience,  be 
cause  our  voluntary  acts  are  not  felt  and  per 
ceived  to  affect  it.  But  how  small  a  step  is 
left  for  Reason  !  It  only  casts  up  the  items 


of  the  account.  It  has  only  to  discover  that 
the  acts  of  those  who  labour  to  promote  sepa 
rate  portions  of  happiness  must  increase  the 
amount  of  the  whole.  It  may  be  truly  said, 
that  if  observation  and  experience  did  not 
clearly  ascertain  that  beneficial  tendency  is 
the  constant  attendant  and  mark  of  all  virtu 
ous  dispositions  and  actions,  the  same  great 
truth  would  be  revealed  to  us  by  the  voice 
of  Conscience.  The  coincidence,  instead  of 
being  arbitrary,  arises  necessarily  from  the 
laws  of  human  nature,  and  the  circumstances 
in  which  mankind  are  placed.  We  perform 
and  approve  virtuous  actions,  partly  because 
Conscience  regards  them  as  right,  partly  be 
cause  we  are  prompted  to  them  by  good  af 
fections.  All  these  affections  contribute 
towards  general  well-being,  though  it  is  not 
necessary,  nor  would  it  be  fit,  that  the  agent 
should  be  distracted  by  the  contemplation  of 
that  vast  and  remote  object. 

The  various  relations  of  Conscience  to  Re 
ligion  we  have  already  been  led  to  consider 
on  the  principles  of  Butler,  of  Berkeley,  of 
Paley,  and  especially  of  Hartley,  who  was 
brought  by  his  own  piety  to  contemplate  as 
the  last  and  highest  stage  of  virtue  and  hap 
piness,  a  sort  of  self-annihilation,  which, 
however  unsuitable  to  the  present  condition 
of  mankind,  yet  places  in  the  strongest  light 
the  disinterested  character  of  the  system,  of 
which  it  is  a  conceivable,  though  perhaps 
not  attainable,  result.  The  completeness 
and  rigour  acquired  by  Conscience,  when  all 
its  dictates  are  revered  as  the  commands  of 
a  perfectly  wise  and  good  Being,  are  so  ob 
vious,  that  they  cannot  be  questioned  by  any 
reasonable  man,  however  extensive  his  in 
credulity  may  be.  It  is  thus  that  she  can 
add  the  warmth  of  an  affection  to  the  in 
flexibility  of  principle  and  habit.  It  is  true 
that,  in  examining  the  evidence  of  the  divine 
original  of  a  religious  system,  in  estimating 
an  imperfect  religion,  or  in  comparing  the 
demerits  of  religions  of  human  origin,  hers 
must  be  the  standard  chiefly  applied  :  but  it 
follows  with  equal  clearness,  that  those  who 
have  the  happiness  to  find  satisfaction  and 
repose  in  divine  revelation  are  bound  to  con 
sider  all  those  precepts  for  the  government 
of  the  Will,  delivered  by  her,  which  are 
manifestly  universal,  as  the  rules  to  which 
all  their  feelings  and  actions  should  conform. 
The  true  distinction  between  Conscience  and 
a  taste  for  moral  beauty  has  already  been 
pointed  out;* — a  distinction  which,  notwith 
standing  its  simplicity,  has  been  unobserved 
by  philosophers,  perhaps  on  account  of  the 
frequent  co-operation  and  intermixture  of 
the  two  feelings.  Most  speculators  have 
either  denied  the  existence  of  the  taste,  or 
kept  it  out  of  view  in  their  theory,  or  exalted 
it  to  the  place  which  is  rightfully  filled  only 
by  Conscience.  Yet  it  is  perfectly  obvious 
that,  like  all  the  other  feelings  called  "  plea 
sures  of  imagination,"  it  terminates  in  de 
lightful  contemplation,  while  the  Moral 

*  See  supra,  p.  151. 


184 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Faculty  always  aims  exclusively  at  voluntary 
action.  Nothing  can  more  clearly  show  that 
this  last  quality  is  the  characteristic  of  Con 
science,  than  its  being  thus  found  to  distin 
guish  that  faculty  from  the  sentiments  which 
most  nearly  resemble  it,  most  frequently  at 
tend  it,  and  are  most  easily  blended  with  it. 


Some  attempt  has  now  been  made  to  de- 
velope  the  fundamental  principles  of  Ethical 
theory,  in  that  historical  order  in  which  me 
ditation  and  discussion  brought  them  suc 
cessively  into  a  clearer  light.  That  attempt, 
as  far  as  it  regards  Great  Britain,  is  at  least 
chronologically  complete.  The  spirit  of  bold 
speculation,  conspicuous  among  the  English 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  languished  after 
the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth,  and  seems, 
from  the  time  of  Hutcheson,  to  have  passed 
into  Scotland,  where  it  produced  Hume,  the 
greatest  of  sceptics,  and  Smith,  the  most 
eloquent  of  modern  moralists ;  besides^iving 
rise  to  that  sober,  modest,  perhaps  timid  phi 
losophy  which  is  commonly  called  Scotch, 
and  which  has  the  singular  merit  of  having 
first  strongly  and  largely  inculcated  the  abso 
lute  necessity  of  admitting  certain  principles 
as  the  foundation  of  all  reasoning,  and  the 
indispensable  conditions  of  thought  itself. 
In  the  eye  of  the  moralist  all  the  philoso 
phers  of  Scotland, — Hume  and  Smith  as 
much  as  Reid,  Campbell,  and  Stewart. — have 
also  the  merit  of  having  avoided  the  Selfish 
system,  and  of  having,  under  whatever  va 
riety  of  representation,  alike  maintained  the 
disinterested  nature  of  the  social  affections 
and  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Moral 
Sentiments.  Brown  reared  the  standard  of 
revolt  against  the  masters  of  the  Scottish 
School,  and  in  reality  still  more  than  in  words, 
adopted  those  very  doctrines  against  which 
his  predecessors,  after  their  war  against 
scepticism,  uniformly  combated.  The  law 
of  Association,  though  expressed  in  other 
language,  became  the  nearly  universal  prin 
ciple  of  his  system ;  and  perhaps  it  would 
have  been  absolutely  universal,  if  he  had  not 
been  restrained  rather  by  respectful  feelings 
than  by  cogent  reasons.  With  him  the  love 
of  speculative  philosophy,  as  a  pursuit,  ap 
pears  to  have  expired  in  Scotland.  There 
are  some  symptoms,  yet  however  very  faint, 
of  the  revival  of  a  taste  for  it  among  the  Eng 
lish  youth :  while  in  France  instruction  in  it 
has  been  received  with  approbation  from  M. 
Royer  Collard,  the  scholar  of  Stewart  more 
than  of  Reid,  and  with  enthusiasm  from  his 
pupil  and  successor  M.  Cousin,  who  has 
clothed  the  doctrines  of  the  Schools  of  Ger 
many  in  an  unwonted  eloquence,  which  al 
ways  adonis,  but  sometimes  disguises  them. 

The  history  of  political  philosophy,  ev-?n 
if  its  extent  and  subdivisions  were  better 
defined,  would  manifestly  have  occupied 
another  dissertation,  at  least  equal  in  length 
to  the  present.  The  most  valuable  parts  of 
it  belong  to  civil  history.  It  has  too  much 
of  the  spirit  of  faction  and  turbulence  in 


fused  into  it  to  be  easily  combined  with  the 
calmer  history  of  the  progress  of  Science,  or 
even  with  that  of  the  revolutions  of  specu 
lation.  In  no  age  of  the  world  were  its  prin 
ciples  so  interwoven  with  political  events, 
and  so  deeply  imbued  with  the  passions  and 
divisions  excited  by  them,  as  in  the  eigh 
teenth  century. 

It  was  at  one  time  the  purpose,  or  rather 
perhaps  the  hope,  of  the  writer,  to  close  this 
discourse  by  an  account  of  the  Ethical  sys 
tems  which  have  prevailed  in  Germany 
during  the  last  half  century; — which,  main 
taining  the  same  spirit  amidst  great  changes 
of  technical  language,  and  even  of  specula 
tive  principle,  have  now  exclusive  possession 
of  Europe  to  the  north  of  the  Rhine. — have 
been  welcomed  by  the  French  youth  with 
open  arms, — have  roused  in  some  measure 
the  languishing  genius  of  Italy,  but  are  still 
little  known,  and  unjustly  estimated  by  the 
mere  English  reader.  He  found  himself 
however,  soon  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
either  being  superficial,  arid  by  consequence 
uninstructive,  or  of  devoting  to  that  subject 
a  far  longer  time  than  he  can  now  spare,  and 
a  much  larger  space  than  the  limits  of  this 
work  would  probably  allow.  The  majority 
of  readers  will,  indeed,  be  more  disposed 
to  require  an  excuse  for  the  extent  of  what 
has  been  done,  than  for  the  relinquishment 
of  projected  additions.  All  readers  must 
agree  that  this  is  peculiarly  a  subject  on 
which  it  is  better  to  be  silent  than  to  say  too 
little. 

A  very  few  observations,  however,  on  the 
German  philosophy,  as  far  as  relates  to  its 
ethical  bearings  and  influence,  may  perhaps 
be  pardoned.  These  remarks  are  not  so 
much  intended  to  be  applied  to  the  moral 
doctrines  of  that  school,  considered  in  them 
selves,  as  to  those  apparent  defects  in  the 
prevailing  systems  of  Ethics  throughout  Eu 
rope,  which  seem  to  have  suggested  the  ne 
cessity  of  their  adoption.  Kant  has  himself 
acknowledged  that  his  whole  theory  of  the 
percipient  and  intellectual  faculty  was  in 
tended  to  protect  the  first  principles  of  human 
knowledge  against  the  assaults  of  Hume. 
In  like  manner,  his  Ethical  system  is  evi 
dently  framed  for  the  purpose  of  guarding 
certain  principles,  either  directly  governing, 
or  powerfully  affecting  practice,  which  seem 
ed  to  him  to  have  been  placed  on  unsafe 
foundations  by  their  advocates,  and  which 
were  involved  in  perplexity  and  confusion, 
especially  by  those  who  adapted  the  results 
of  various  and  sometimes  contradictory  sys 
tems  to  the  taste  of  multitudes, — more  eager 
to  know  than  prepared  to  be  taught.  To  the 
theoretical  Reason  the  former  superadded  the 
Practical  Reason,  which  had  peculiar  laws 
and  principles  of  its  own,  from  which  all  the 
rules  of  Morals  may  be  deduced.  The  Prac 
tical  Reason  cannot  be  conceived  without 
these  laws  ;  therefore  they  are  inherent.  It 
perceives  £hem  to  be  necessary  and  universal. 
Hence,  by  a  process  not  altogether  dissimilar, 
at  least  in  its  gross  results,  to  that  which  was 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


185 


employed  for  the  like  purpose  by  Cudworth 
and  Clarke,  by  Price,  and  in  some  degree  by 
Stewart,  he  raises  the  social  affections,  and 
still  more  the  Moral  Sentiments,  above  the 
sphere  of  enjoyment,  and  beyond  that  series 
of  enjoyments  which  is  called  happiness. 
The  performance  of  duty,  not  the  pursuit  of 
happiness,  is  in  this  system  the  chief  end  of 
man.  By  the  same  intuition  we  discover 
that  Virtue  deserves  happiness;  and  as  this 
desert  is  not  uniformly  so  requited  in  the 
present  state  of  existence,  it  compels  us  to 
believe  a  moral  government  of  the  world, 
and  a  future  state  of  existence,  in  which  all 
the  conditions  of  the  Practical  Reason  will 
be  realized ; — truths,  of  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  Kant,  the  argumentative  proofs  were  at 
least  very  defective,  but  of  which  the  reve 
lations  of  the  Practical  Reason  afforded  a 
more  conclusive  demonstration  than  any  pro 
cess  of  reasoning  could  supply.  The  Un 
derstanding,  he  owned,  saw  nothing  in  the 
connection  of  motive  with  volition  different 
from  what  it  discovered  in  every  other  uni 
form  sequence  of  a  cause  and  an  effect.  But 
as  the  moral  law  delivered  by  the  Practical 
Reason  issues  peremptory  and  inflexible 
commands,  the  power  of  always  obeying 
them  is  implied  in  their  very  nature.  All 
individual  objects,  all  outward  things,  must 
indeed  be  viewed  in  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect :  these  last  are  necessary  condi 
tions  of  all  reasoning.  But  the  acts  of  the 
faculty  which  wills,  of  which  we  are  imme 
diately  conscious,  belong  to  another  province 
of  mind,  and  are  not  subject  to  these  laws  of 
the  Theoretical  Reason.  The  mere  intellect 
must  still  regard  them  as  necessarily  con 
nected  ;  but  the  Practical  Reason  distinguish 
es  its  own  liberty  from  the  necessity  of  nature, 
conceives  volition  without  at  the  same  time 
conceiving  an  antecedent  to  it,  and  regards 
all  moral  beings  as  the  original  authors  of 
their  own  actions. 

Even  those  who  are  unacquainted  with 
this  complicated  and  comprehensive  system, 
will  at  once  see  the  slightness  of  the  above 
sketch:  those  who  understand  it,  will  own 
that  so  brief  an  outline  could  not  be  other 
wise  than  slight.  It  will,  however,  be  suf 
ficient  for  the  present  purpose,  if  it  render 
what  follows  intelligible. 

With  respect  to  what  is  called  the  "  Prac 
tical  Reason,"  the  Kantian  system  varies 
from  ours,  in  treating  it  as  having  more  re 
semblance  to  the  intellectual  powers  than  to 
sentiment  and  emotion : — enough  has  al- 
r^ady  been  said  on  that  question.  At  the 
next  step,  however,  the  difference  seems  to 
resolve  itself  into  a  misunderstanding.  The 
character  and  dignity  of  the  human  race 
surely  depend,  not  on  the  state  in  which 
they  are  born,  but  on  that  which  they  are  all 
destined  to  attain,  or  to  approach.  No  man 
would  hesitate  in  assenting  to  this  observa 
tion,  when  applied  to  the  intellectual  facul 
ties.  Thus,  the  human  infant  comes  into 
the  world  imbecile  and  ignorant ;  but  a  vast 
majority  acquire  some  vigour  of  reason  and 
24 


extent  of  knowledge.  Strictly,  the  human 
infant  is  born  neither  selfish  nor  social ;  but 
a  far  greater  part  acquire  some  provident 
regard  to  their  own  welfare,  and  a  number, 
probably  not  much  smaller,  feel  some  sparks 
of  affection  towards  others.  On  our  princi 
ples,  therefore,  as  much  as  on  those  of  Kant, 
human  nature  is  capable  of  disinterested 
sentiments.  For  we  too  allow  and  contend 
that  our  Moral  Faculty  is  a  necessary  part  of 
human  nature, — that  it  universally  exists  in 
human  beings, — and  that  we  cannot  conceive 
any  moral  agents  without  qualities  which 
are  either  like,  or  produce  the  like  effects. 
It  is  necessarily  regarded  by  us  as  co-exten 
sive  with  human,  and  even  with  moral  nature. 
In  what  other  sense  can  universality  be  pre 
dicated  of  any  proposition  not  identical  ? 
Why  should  it  be  tacitly  assumed  that  all 
these  great  characteristics  of  Conscience 
should  necessarily  presuppose  its  being  un 
formed  and  underived  ?  What  contradiction 
is  there  between  them  and  the  theory  of 
regular  and  uniform  formation  ? 

In  this  instance  it  would  seem  that  a  ge 
neral  assent  to  truth  is  chiefly,  if  not  solely, 
obstructed  by  an  inveterate  prejudice,  arising 
from  the  mode  in  which  the  questions  relat 
ing  to  the  affections  and  the  Moral  Faculty 
have  been  discussed  among  ethical  philo 
sophers.  Generally  speaking,  those  who 
contend  that  these  parts  of  the  mind  are 
acquired,  have  also  held  that  they  are,  in 
their  perfect  state,  no  more  than  modifica 
tions  of  self-love.  On  the  other  hand,  phi 
losophers  "of  purer  fire,"  who  felt  that  Con 
science  is  sovereign,  and  that  affection  is 
disinterested,  have  too  hastily  fancied  that 
their  ground  was  untenable,  without  con 
tending  that  these  qualities  were  inherent  or 
innate,  and  absolutely  underived  from  any 
other  properties  of  Mind.  If  a  choice  were 
necessary  between  these  two  systems  as 
masses  of  opinion,  without  any  freedom  of 
di.scriminat.ion  and  selection.  I  should  un 
questionably  embrace  that  doctrine  which 
places  in  the  clearest  light  the  reality  of 
benevolence  and  the  authority  of  the  Moral 
Faculty.  But  it  is  surely  easy  to  apply  a 
test  which  may  be  applied  to  our  conceptions 
as  effectually  as  a  decisive  experiment  is 
applied  to  material  substances.  Does  not 
he  who,  whatever  he  may  think  of  the  origin 
of  these  parts  of  human  nature,  believes 
that  actually  Conscience  is  supreme,  and  af 
fection  terminates  in  its  direct  object,  retain 
all  that  for  which  the  partisans  of  the  un 
derived  principles  value  and  cling  to  their 
system'?  "But  they  are  made,"  these  phi 
losophers  may  say,  "  by  this  class  of  our 
antagonists,  to  rest  on  insecure  foundations  : 
unless  they  are  underived,  we  can  see  no 
reason  for  regarding  them  as  independent." 
In  answer,  it  may  be  asked,  how  is  conneo 
tion  between  these  two  qualities  established  ? 
It  is  really  assumed.  It  finds  its  way  easily 
into  the  mind  under  the  protection  of  another 
coincidence,  which  is  of  a  totally  different 
nature.  The  great  majority  of  those  specu- 
Q2 


186 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


lators  who  have  represented  the  moral  and 
social  feelings  as  acquired,  have  also  consi 
dered  them  as  being  mere  modifications  of 
self-love,  and  sometimes  as  being  casually 
formed  and  easily  eradicated,  like  local  and 
temporary  prejudices.  But  when  the  nature 
of  our  feelings  is  thoroughly  explored,  is  it 
not  evident  that  this  coincidence  is  the  result 
of  superficial  confusion  ?  The  better  moralists 
observed  accurately,  and  reasoned  justly,  on 
the  province  of  the  Moral  Sense  and  the 
feelings  in  the  formed  and  mature  man  :  they 
reasoned  mistakenly  on  the  origin  of  these 
principles.  But  the  Epicureans  were  by  no 
means  right,  even  on  the  latter  question  ; 
and  they  were  totally  wrong  on  the  olher, 
and  far  more  momentous,  part  of  the  subject : 
their  error  is  more  extensive,  and  infinitely 
more  injurious.  But  what  should  now  hin 
der  an  inquirer  after  truth  from  embracing, 
but  amending  their  doctrine  where  it  is  par 
tially  true,  and  adopting  without  any  change 
the  just  description  of  the  most  important 
principles  of  human  nature  which  we  owe 
to  their  more  enlightened  as  well  as  more 
generous  antagonists  ? 

Though  unwilling  to  abandon  the  argu 
ments  by  which,  from  the  earliest  times, 
the  existence  of  the  Supreme  and  Eternal 
Mind  has  been  established,  we,  as  well  as 
the  German  philosophers,  are  entitled  to  call 
in  the  help  of  our  moral  nature  to  lighten 
the  burden  of  those  tremendous  difficulties 
which  cloud  His  moral  government.  The 
moral  nature  is  an  actual  part  of  man,  as 
much  on  our  scheme  as  on  theirs. 

Even  the  celebrated  questions  of  Liberty 
and  Necessity  may  perhaps  be  rendered 
somewhat  less  perplexing,  if  we  firmly  bear 
in  mind  that  peculiar  relation  of  Conscience 
to  the  Will  which  we  have  attempted  to  il 
lustrate.  It  is  impossible  for  Reason  to  con 
sider  occurrences  otherwise  than  as  bound 
together  by  the  connection  of  cause  and  ef 
fect  ;  and  in  this  circumstance  consists  the 
strength  of  the  Necessitarian  system.  But 
Conscience,  which  is  equally  a  constituent 
part  of  the  mind,  has  other  laws.  It  is  com 
posed  of  emotions  and  desires,  which  contem 
plate  only  those  dispositions  which  depend  on 
the  Will.  Now,  it  is  the  nature  of  an  emotion 
to  withdraw  the  mind  from  the  contemplation 
of  every  idea  but  that  of  the  object  which 
excites  it :  while  every  desire  exclusively 
looks  at  the  object  which  it  seeks.  Every 
attempt  to  enlarge  the  mental  vision  alters 
the  tftate  of  mind,  weakens  the  emotion,  or 
dissipates  the  desire,  and  tends  to  extin 
guish  both.  If  a  man,  while  he  was  pleased 
with  the  smell  of  a  rose,  were  to  reflect  on 
the  chemical  combinations  from  which  it 
arose,  the  condition  of  his  mind  would  be 
changed  from  an  enjoyment  of  the  senses 
to  an  exertion  of  the  Understanding.  If, 
in  the  view  of  a  beautiful  scene,  a  man 
were  suddenly  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  the 
disposition  of  water,  vegetables,  and  earths, 
on  which  its  appearance  depended,  he  might 
enlarge  his  knowledge  of  Geology,  but  he 


must  lose  the  pleasure  of  the  prospect.  The 
anatomy  and  analysis  of  the  flesh  and  blood 
of  a  beautiful  woman  necessarily  suspend 
admiration  and  affection.  Many  analogies 
here  present  themselves.  .When  life  is  in 
danger  either  in  a  storm  or  a  battle,  it  is  cer 
tain  that  less  fear  is  felt  by  the  commander 
or  the  pilot,  and  even  by  the  private  soldier 
actively  engoged/  or  the  common  seaman  la 
boriously  occupied,  than  by  those  viho  are 
exposed  to  the  peril,  but  not  employed  in 
the  means  of  guarding  against  it.  The  rea 
son  is  not  that  the  one  class  believe  the  dan 
ger  to  be  less:  they  are  likely  in  many  in 
stances  to  perceive  it  more  clearly.  But 
having  acquired  a  habit  of  instantly  turning 
their  thoughts  to  means  of  counteracting  the 
danger,  their  minds  are  thrown  into  a  state 
which  excludes  the  ascendency  of  fear. — 
Mental  fortitude  entirely  depends  on  this 
habit.  The  timid  horseman  is  haunted  by 
the  fear  of  a  fall :  the  bold  and  skilful  thinks 
only  about  the  best  way  of  curbing  or  sup 
porting  his  horse.  Even  when  all  means  of 
avoiding  danger  are  in  both  cases  evidently 
unavailable,  the  brave  man  still  owes  to  his 
fortunate  habit  that  he  does  not  suffer  the 
agony  of  the  coward.  Many  cases  have 
been  known  where  fortitude  has  reached 
such  strength  that  the  faculties,  instead  of 
being  confounded  by  danger,  are  never  raised 
to  their  highest  activity  by  a  less  violent 
stimulant.  The  distinction  between  such 
men  and  the  coward  does  not  depend  on  dif 
ference  of  opinion  about  the  reality  or  extent 
of  the  danger,  but  on  a  state  of  mind  \\hich 
renders  it  more  or  less  accessible  to  fear. 
Though  it  must  be  owned  that  the  Moral 
Sentiments  are  very  different  from  any  other 
human  faculty,  yet  the  above  observations 
seem  to  be  in  a  great  measure  applicable  to 
every  state  of  mind.  The  emotions  and  de 
sires  which  compose  Conscience,  while  they 
occupy  the  mind,  must  exclude  all  contem 
plation  of  the  cause  in  which  the  object  of 
these  feelings  may  have  originated.  To  their 
eye  the  voluntary  dispositions  and  actions, 
their  sole  object,  must  appear  to  be  the  first 
link  of  a  chain  :  in  the  view  of  Conscience 
these  have  no  foreign  origin,  and  her  view, 
constantly  associated  as  she  is  with  all  voli 
tions,  becomes  habitual.  Being  always  pos 
sessed  of  some,  and  capable  of  intense 
warmth,  it  predominates  over  the  habits  of 
thinking  of  those  few  who  are  employed  in 
the  analysis  of  mental  occupations. 

The  reader  who  has  in  any  degree  been 
inclined  to  adopt  the  explanations  attempted 
above,  of  the  imperative  character  of  Con 
science,  may  be  disposed  also  to  believe  that 
they  afford  some  foundation  for  that  convic 
tion  of  the  existence  of  a  power  to  obey  its 
commands,  which  (it  ought  to  be  granted  to 
the  German  philosophers)  is  irresistibly  sug 
gested  by  the  commanding  tone  of  all  its 
dictates.  *  If  such  an  explanation  should  be 
thought  worthy  of  consideration,  it  must  be 
very  carefully  distinguished  from  that  illu 
sive  sense  by  which  some  writers  have  la- 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.         1ST 


boured  to  reconcile  the  feeling  of  liberty  with 
the  reality  of  necessity.*  In  this  case  there 
is  no  illusion ;  nothing  is  required  but  the 
admission,  that  every  faculty  observes  its 
own  laws,  and  that  when  the  action  of  the 
one  fills  the  mind,  that  of  every  other  is  sus 
pended.  The  ear  cannot  see,  nor  can  the 
eye  hear :  why  then  should  not  the  greater 
powers  of  Reason  and  Conscience  have  dif 
ferent  habitual  modes  of  contemplating  vo 
luntary  actions  ?  How  strongly  do  experience 
and  analogy  seem  to  require  the  arrange 
ment  of  motive  and  volition  under  the  class 
of  causes  and  effects!  With  what  irresisti 
ble  power,  on  the  other  hand,  do  all  our  mo 
ral  sentiments  remove  extrinsic  agency  from 
view,  and  concentrate  all  feeling  in  the  agent 
himself !  The  one  manner  of  thinking  may 
predominate  among  the  speculative  few  in 
their  short  moments  of  abstraction ;  the  other 
will  be  that  of  all  other  men,  and  of  the 
speculator  himself  when  he  is  called  upon 
to  act,  or  when  his  feelings  are  powerfully 
excited  by  the  amiable  or  odious  disposi 
tions  of  his  fellow-men.  In  these  work 
ings  of  various  faculties  there  is  nothing 
that  can  be  accurately  described  as  contra 
riety  of  opinion.  An  intellectual  state,  and 
a  feeling,  never  can  be  contrary  to  each 
other:  they  are  too  utterly  incapable  of  com 
parison  to  be  the  subject  of  contrast;  they 
are  agents  of  a  perfectly  different  nature, 
acting  in  different  spheres.  A  feeling  can 
no  more  be  called  true  or  false,  than  a  de 
monstration,  considered  simply  in  itself, 
can  be  said  to  be  agreeable  or  disagreeable. 
It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in  consequence  of 
the  association  of  all  mental  acts  with  each 
other,  emotions  and  desires  may  occasion 
habitual  errors  of  judgment :  but  liability  to 
error  belongs  to  every  exercise  of  human 
reason  ;  it  arises  from  a  multitude  of  causes  ; 
it  constitutes,  therefore,  no  difficulty  peculiar 
to  the  case  before  us.  Neither  truth  nor 
falsehood  can  be  predicated  of  the  percep 
tions  of  the  senses,  but  they  lead  to  false 
opinions.  An  object  seen  through  different 
mediums  may  by  the  inexperienced  be 
thought  to  be  no  longer  the  same.  All  men 
long  concluded  falsely,  from  what  they  saw, 
that  the  earth  was  stationary,  and  the  sun 
in  perpetual  motion  around  it :  the  greater 
part  of  mankind  still  adopt  the  same  error. 
Newton  and  Laplace  used  the  same  language 
with  the  ignorant,  and  conformed, — if  we 
may  not  say  to  their  opinion, — at  least  to 
their  habits  of  thinking  on  all  ordinary  occa 
sions,  and  during  the  far  greater  part  of  their 
lives.  Nor  is  this  all :  the  language  which 
represents  various  states  of  mind  is  very 
vague.  The  word  which  denotes  a  com 
pound  state  is  often  taken  from  its  principal 
fact, — from  that  which  is  most  conspicuous, 
most  easily  called  to  mind,  most  warmly  felt, 
or  most  frequently  recurring.  It  is  some 
times  borrowed  from  a  separate,  but,  as  it 


*  Lord  Kames,  in  his  Essays  on  Morality  and 
Natural  Religion,  and  in  his  Sketches  of  the  His 
tory  of  Man. 


were,  neighbouring  condition  of  mind.  The 
jrand  distinction  between  thought  and  feei 
ng  is  so  little  observed,  that  we  are  pecu- 
iarly  liable  to  confusion  on  this  subject. — 
Perhaps  when  we  use  language  which  indi 
cates  an  opinion  concerning  the  acts  of  the 
Will,  we  may  mean  little  more  than  to  ex 
press  strongly  and  warmly  the  moral  senti- 
.nents  which  voluntary  acts  alone  call  up.  It 
would  argue  disrespect  for  the  human  un 
derstanding,  vainly  employed  for  so  many 
centuries  in  reconciling  contradictory  opi 
nions,  to  propose  such  suggestions  without 
peculiar  diffidence ;  but  before  they  are  alto 
gether  rejected,  it  may  be  well  to  consider, 
whether  the  constant  success  of  the  advo 
cates  of  Necessity  on  one  ground,  and  of  the 
partisans  of  Free  Will  on  another,  does  not 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  two  parties  con 
template  the  subject  from  different  points  of 
view,  that  neither  habitually  sees  more  than 
one  side  of  it,  and  that  they  look  at  it  through 
the  medium  of  different  states  of  mind. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  these  hints 
of  a  possible  reconciliation  between  seeming 
ly  repugnant  opinions  are  proposed,  not  as 
perfect  analogies,  but  to  lead  men's  minds 
into  the  inquiry,  whether  that  which  certain 
ly  befalls  the  mind,  in  many  cases  on  a  small 
scale,  may  not,  under  circumstances  favour 
able  to  its  development,  occur  with  greater 
magnitude  and  more  important  consequen 
ces.  The  coward  and  brave  md,n,  as  has 
been  stated,  act  differently  at  the  approach 
of  danger,  because  it  produces  exertion  in  the 
one,  and  fear  in  the  other.  But  very  brave 
men  must,  by  force  of  the  term,  be  few : 
they  have  little  aid  in  their  highest  acts, 
therefore,  from  fellow-feeling.  They  are 
often  too  obscure  for  the  hope  of  praise ;  and 
they  have  seldom  been  trained  to  cultivate 
courage  as  a  virtue.  The  very  reverse  oc 
curs  in  the  different  view  taken  by  the  Un 
derstanding  and  by  Conscience,  of  the  nature 
of  voluntary  actions.  The  conscientious 
view  must,  in  some  degree,  present  itself  to 
all  mankind ;  it  is  therefore  unspeakably 
strengthened  by  general  sympathy.  All  men 
respect  themselves  for  being  habitually 
guided  by  it :  it  is  the  object  of  general  com 
mendation  ;  and  moral  discipline  has  no  other 
aim  but  its  cultivation.  Whoever  does  not 
feel  more  pain  from  his  crimes  than  from 
his  misfortunes,  is  looked  on  with  general 
aversion.  And  when  it  is  considered  that  a 
Being  of  perfect  wisdom  and  goodness  esti 
mates  us  according  to  the  degree  in  which 
Conscience  governs  our  voluntary  acts,  it  is 
surely  no  wonder  that,  in  this  most  impor 
tant  discrepancy  between  the  great  faculties 
of  our  nature,  we  should  consider  the  best 
habitual  disposition  to  be  that  which  the  cold 
est  Reason  shows  us  to  be  most  conducive 
to  well-doing  and  well-being. 

On  every  other  point,  at  least,  it  would 
seem  that,  without  the  multiplied  supposi 
tions  and  immense  apparatus  of  the  German 
school,  the  authority  of  Morality  may  bo 
vindicated,  the  disinterestedness  of  human 


188 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


nature  asserted,  the  first  principles  of  know 
ledge  secured,  and  the  hopes  and  consola 
tions  of  mankind  preserved.  Ages  may  yet 
be  necessary  to  give  to  ethical  theory  all  the 
forms  and  language  of  a  science,  and  to  ap 
ply  it  to  the  multiplied  and  complicated  facts 
and  rules  which  are  within  its  province.  In 
the  mean  time,  if  the  opinions  here  unfolded, 
or  intimated,  shall  be  proved  to  be  at  vari 
ance  with  the  reality  of  social  affections,  and 
with  the  feeling  of  moral  distinction,  the 


author  of  this  Dissertation  will  be  the  first  to 
relinquish  a  theory  which  will  then  show 
itself  inadequate  to  explain  the  most  indis 
putable,  as  well  as  by  far  the  most  import 
ant,  parts  of  human  nature.  If  it  shall  be 
shown  to  lower  the  character  of  Man,  to 
cloud  his  hopes,  or  to  impair  his  sense  of 
duty,  he  will  be  grateful  to  those  who  may 
point  out  his  error,  and  deliver  him  from  the 
poignant  regret  of  adopting  opinions  which 
lead  to  consequences  so  pernicious. 


NOTES  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


.NOTE  A.  page  103. 

THE  remarks  of  Cicero  on  the  Stoicism  of  Cato 
are  perhaps  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  that  re 
fined  raillery  which  attains  the  object  of  the  ora 
tor  without  general  injustice  to  the  person  whose 
authority  is  for  the  moment  to  be  abated  : — 

"  Accessit  his  tot  doctrina  non  moderata,  nee 
mitis,  sed,  ut  mihi  videtur,  paulo  asperior  et  durior 
quam  aut  veritas  aut  natura  patiatur."  After  an 
enumeration  of  the  Stoical  paradoxes,  he  adds : 
"  Hffic  homo  ingeniosissimus,  M.  Cato,  auctoribus 
eruditissimis  inductus,  arripuit ;  neque  disputandi 
causa,  ut  magna  pars,  sed  ita  vivendi . . .  Nostri 
autem  isti  (fatebor  enim,  Cato,  me  quoque  in  ado- 
lescentia  diffisum  ingenio  meo  quaesisse  adjumenta 
doclrinae)  nostri,  inquam,  illi  a  Platone  atque  Aris- 
totele  moderati  homines  et  temperati  aiunt  apud 
sapientem  valere  aliquando  gratiam  ;  viri  boniesse 
misereri;  .  .  .  omnesvirtutes  mediocritate  quadam 
esse  moderatas.  Hos  ad  magistros  si  qua  te  for- 
tuna,  Cato,  cum  isia  natura  detulisset,  non  tu  qui- 
dem  yir  melior  esses,  nee  fortior,  nee  temperantior, 
nee  justior  (neque  enim  esse  poles),  sed  paulo  ad 
lenitatem  propensior." — Pro  Murena. — Cap.  xxix. 
— xxxi. 

NOTE  B.  page  106.  \.  •' 

The  greater  part  of  the  following  extract  from 
Grotius'  History  of  the  Netherlands  is  inserted 
as  the  best  abridgment  of  the  ancient  history  of 
these  still  subsisting  controversies  known  in  our 
time.  I  extract  also  the  introduction  as  a  model 
of  the  manner  in  which  an  historian  may  state  a 
religious  dispute  which  has  influenced  political  af 
fairs  ;  but  far  more  because  it  is  an  unparalleled 
example  of  equity  and  forbearance  in  the  narra 
tive  of  a  contest  of  which  the  historian  was  him 
self  a  victim  : — 

"  Habuit  hie  annus  (1608)  haud  spernendi  quoque 
rnali  semina,  vix  ut  arma  desierant,  exorto  pub 
lics  religionis  dissidio,  latentibus  initiis,  sed  ut 
paulatim  in  majus  erumperet.  Lugduni  sacras 
literas  docebant  viri  eruditione  praestantes  Goma- 
rus  et  Arminius ;  quorum  ille  aeterna  Dei  lego 
fixurri  memorabat,  cui  hominum  salus  destinaretur, 
q\iis  in  exttium  tenderet;  inde  alios  ad  piefatem 
Irani,  et  tractos  custodiri  ne  elabantur;  relinqni 
alios  communi  humanitatis  vitio  et  suis  criminibus 
involutes:  hie  vero  contra  integrum  judicem,  sed 
eundem  optimum  patrem.  id  reorum  fecisse  dis- 
crimen,  ut  peccandi  pertaesisfiduciamque  in  Chris 
tum  reponentibus  veniam  ac  vitam  daret,  contu- 
macibus  poenam  ;  Deoque  gratum,  ut  omnes  re- 
jipiscant,  ac  meiiora  edocti  retineant;  sed  cogi 


neminem.  Accusabantque  invicem ;  Arminius 
Gomarum,  quod  peccandi  causas  Deo  ascriberet, 
ac  fati  persuasione  teneret  immobiles  animos; 
Gomarus  Arminium,  quod  longius  ipsis  Roman- 
ensium  scitis  hominem  arrogantia  impieret,  nee 
pateretur  soli  Deo  acceptam  Jerri,  rem  maximam, 
bonam  mentem.  Cpnstat  his  queis  cura  legere 
veterum  libros,  antiques  Christianorum  tribuisse 
hominum  voluntati  vim  liberam,  tarn  in  accep- 
tanda,  quam  in  retinenda  disciplina;  unde  sua 
pragma's  ac  suppliciis  aequitas.  Neque  iidem  tarnen 
omisere  cuncta  divinam  ad  boriitatem  referre, 
cujus  munere  salutare  semen  ad  nos  pervenisset, 
ac  cujus  singular! auxilio  pericula  nostra  indigerent. 
Primus  omnium  Augustinus,  ex  quo  ipsi  cum  Pe- 
lagio  et  eum  secutis  certamen  (nam  ante  aliter  et 
ipse  senseret),  acer  disputandi,  ita  libertatis  vocem 
relinquere,  ut  ei  decreta  quaBdam  Dei  prasponeret, 
quae  vim  ipsam  destruere  viderentur.  At  per  Graa- 
ciam  quidem  Asiamque  retenta  vetus  ilia  ac  sim- 
plicior  sententia.  Per  Occidentem  magnum  Au- 
gustini  nomen  multostraxitin  consensum,  repertis 
tamen  per  Galliam  et  alibi  qui  se  opponerent,  pos- 
tcrioribus  soeculis,  cum  schola  non  alio  magis 
quam  Augustino  doctore  uteretur,  quis  ipsi  sensus, 
quis  dexter  pugnare  visa  conciliandi  modus,  diu 
inter  Francisci  et  Dominici  familiam  disputato, 
doctissimi  Jesuitarum,  cum  exaction  subtilitate 
nodum  solvere  laborassent,  Romse  accusati  aagre 
damnationem  effugere.  At  Proteslantium  prin- 
ceps,  Lutherus,  egressus  monasterio  quod  Augus- 
tini  ut  nomen,  ita  sensus  sequebatur,  parte  Au- 
gustini  arrepta,  id  quod  is  reliquerat,  libertatis 
nomen,  ccepit  exscindere  ;  quod  tarn  grave  Eras- 
mo  visum,  ut  cum  caetera  ipsius  aut  probaret  aut 
silentio  transmitteret,  hie  objiciat  sese  :  cujus  ar- 
gumentis  motus  Philippus  Melanchthon,  Lutheri 
adjutor,  qua3  prius  scripserat  immutavit,  auctorque 
fuit  Luthero,  quod  mulii  volunt,  certe  quod  con- 
stat  Lutheranis,  deserendi  decreta  rigida  et  con- 
ditionem  respuentia  ;  sic  tamen  ut  libertatis  vo- 
cabulum  quam  rem  magis  perhorrescerent.  At 
in  altera  Protestantium  parte  dux  Calyinus,  primis 
Lutheri  dictis  in  hac  controversia  inhasrescens, 
novis  ea  fulsit  praesidiis,  addiditque  intactum  Au 
gustine,  veram  ac  salutarem  fidem  rem  esse  per- 
petuam  et  amitti  nesciam  :  cujus  proinde  qui  sibi 
essent  conscii,  eos  aeternae  felicitatis  jam  nunc 
certos  esse,  quos  interim  in  crirnina,  quantumvis 
gravia,  prolabi  posse  non  diffitebatur.  Auxit  sen- 
tentiae  rigorem  Genevae  Beza,  per  Germaniam 
Zanchius,  Ursinus,  Piscator,  saepe  eo  usque  pro- 
vecti,  ut,  quod  alii  anxie  vitaverant,  apertius  non- 
nunquam  traderent,  etiam  pecrandi  necessitatem  a 
prima  causa  pendere  :  quae  ampla  Lutheranis  cri- 
minandi  materia."— Lib.  xvii.  p.  552. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


189 


NOTE  C.  page  106. 

The  Calvinism,  or  rather  Augustinianism,  of 
Aquinas  is  placed  beyond  all  doubt  by  the  follow 
ing  passages:  "Praedestinatio  est  causa  gratia?  et 
gloriae."— Opera,  (Paris,  1664.)  vol.  vii.  p.  356. 
*'  Numerus  praedestinatorum  certus  est." — p.  363. 
"  Praescientia  meritorum  nullo  modo  est  causa 
prsedestinationis  divinas." —  p.  370.  "Liberum 
arbitrium  est  facultas  qua  bonum  eligitur,  gratia 
assistente,  vel  malum,  eadem  desistente." — vol. 
viii.  p.  222.  "  Deus  inclinat  ad  bonum  adminis- 
trando  virtntem  agendi  et  monendo  ad  bonum. 
Sed  ad  malum  diciturinclinarein  quantum  gratiam 
non  praebet,  per  quam  aliquis  a  malo  retrahere- 
tur." — p.  364.  On  the  other  side:  "  Accipitur 
fides  pro  eo  quo  creditur,  et  est  virtus,  et  pro  eo 
quod  creditur,  et  non  est  virtus.  Fides  qua  credi 
tur,  si  cum  caritate  sit,  virtus  est." — vol.  ix.  p. 
236.  "Divina  bonitas  est  primum  principium 
communicationis  totius  quam  Deus  creaturis  lar- 
gitur."  "  Quamvis  omne  quod  Deus  vult  justum 
sit,  non  tamen  ex  hoc  justum  dicitur  quod  Deus 
illud  vult."— p.  697. 

NOTE  D.  page  106. 

The  Augustinian  doctrine  is,  with  some  hesita 
tion  and  reluctance,  acquiesced  in  by  Scotus,  in 
that  milder  form  which  ascribes  election  to  an  ex 
press  decree,  and  considers  the  rest  of  mankind  as 
only  left  to  the  deserved  penalties  of  their  trans 
gressions.  "  In  hujus  quaastionis  solutione  mallem 
alios  audire  quam  docere."— Opera,  Lugd.  1639. 
vol.  v.  p.  1329.  This  modesty  and  prudence  is 
foreign  to  the  dogmatical  genius  of  a  Schoolman  ; 
and  these  qualities  are  still  more  apparent  in  the 
very  remarkable  language  which  he  applies  to  the 
tremendous  doctrine  of  reprobation.  "  Eorum 
autem  non  miseretur  (scil.  Deus)  quibus  gratiam 
non  prcebendam  esse  cequitate  occultissima  et  ab 
humanis  sensibus  remotissimd  judicat." — p.  1329. 
In  the  commentary  on  Scotus  which  follows,  it 
appears  that  his  acute  disciple  Ockham  disputed 
very  freely  against  the  opinions  of  his  master. 
"  Mala  fieri  bonum  est"  is  a  startling  paradox, 
quoted  by  Scotus  from  Augustin. — p.  1381.  It 
appears  that  Ockham  saw  no  difference  between 
election  and  reprobation,  and  considered  those 
who  embraced  only  the  former  as  at  variance  with 
themselves. — p.  1313.  Scotus,  at  great  length, 
contends  that  our  thoughts  (consequently  our 
opinions)  are  not  subject  to  the  will. — vol.  vi.  pp. 
1054 — 1056.  One  step  more  would  have  led  him 
to  acknowledge  that  all  erroneous  judgment  is  in 
voluntary,  and  therefore  inculpable  and  unpunish 
able,  however  pernicious.  His  attempt  to  recon 
cile  foreknowledge  with  contingency  (vol.  v.  pp. 
1300 — 1327),  is  a  remarkable  example  of  the  power 
of  human  subtlety  to  keep  up  the  appearance  of  a 
struggle  where  it  is  impossible  to  make  one  rea" 
effort.  But  the  most  dangerous  of  all  the  devia 
tions  of  Scotus  from  the  system  of  Aquinas  is 
that  he  opened  the  way  to  the  opinion  that  the 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong  depends  on  the 
mere  will  of  the  Eternal  Mind.  The  absolute 
power  of  the  Deity,  according  to  him,  extends  to 
all  but  contradictions.  His  regular  power  (ordinata 
is  exercised  conformably  to  an  order  esta^blishec 
by  himself:  "si  placet  voluntati,  sub  qua  libera 
est,  recta  est  lex." — p.  1368,  et  seq. 

NOTE  E.  page  106. 


Plat.  Op.  (Bipont.  1781.)  vol.  ii.  p.  224 
— Ha.<rwi  djuvariof  dfAzQiw  «v*/. — p.  227.  Plato  i_ 
quoted  on  this  subject  by  Marcus  Aurelius,  in  a 
manner  which  shows,  if  there  had  been  any  doubt 
the  meaning  to  be,  that  all  error  is  involuntary 

TT/r/l-x*      .Lfi*Y/U      nfvr.Il/T/*       /Tfrtt\tt(Tftt      rT-tt/»      /Vi  nAtlr*/-        ^*?       1G*\A 


Tw.  Every  mind  is  unwillingly  led  from 
ruth. — Epict.  Dissert,  lib.  i.  cap.  xxviii.  Augustin 
loses  the  long  line  of  ancient  testimony  to  the  in- 
oluntary  character  of  error  :  "  Quis  est  qui  velit 
ecipi  ?  Fallere  nolunt  boni  ;  falli  autem  nee  boni 
olunt  nee  mali." — Sermo  de  Verbo. 

•       NOTE  F.  page  106. 

From  a  long,  able,  and  instructive  dissertation 
»y  the  commentator  on  Scotus,  it  appears  that  this 
nimoral  dogma  was  propounded  in  terms  more 
>old  and  startling  by  Ockham,  who  openly  affirm- 
•d,  that  "  moral  evil  was  only  evil  because  it  was 
irohibited." — Ochamus,  qui  putat  quod  nihil  pos- 
et  esse  malum  sine  voluntate  prohibitiva  Dei, 
lancque  voluntatem  esse  liberam  ;  sic  ut  posset 
sam  non  habere,  et  consequenter  ut  posset  fieri 
}uod  nulla  prorsus  essent  mala." — Scot.  Op.  vol. 
ii.  p.  859.  But,  says  the  commentator,  "  Dico 
rimo  legem  naturalem  non  consistere  in  jussione 
ilia  quae  sit  actus  voluntatis  Dei.  Haec  est  com- 
munissima  theologorum  sententia." — p.  858.  And 
ndeed  the  reason  urged  against  Ockham  complete- 
y  justifies  this  approach  to  unanimity.  "  For,"  he 
asks,  "  why  is  it  right  to  obey  the  will  of  God  ? 
:s  it  because  our  moral  faculties  perceive  it  to  be 
right  ?  But  they  equally  perceive  and  feel  the 
authority  of  all  the  primary  principles  of  morality  ; 
and  if  this  answer  be  made,  it  is  obvious  that  those 
who  make  it  do  in  effect  admit  the  independence 
of  moral  distinctions  on  the  will  of  God."  "  If 
jrod,"  said  Ockham,  "  had  commanded  his  crea- 
ures  to  hate  himself,  hatred  of  God  would  have 
been  praiseworthy." — Domin.  Soto  de  Justitiaet 
Jure,  lib.  ii.  quaest.  3.  "  Ulrum  praecepta  Deca- 
logi  sint  dispensabitia ;" — a  book  dedicated  to 
Don  Carlos,  the  son  of  Phillip  II.  Suarez,  the 
ast  scholastic  philosopher,  rejected  the  Ockhami- 
cal  doctrine,  but  allowed  will  to  be  a  part  of  the 
foundation  of  Morality.  "  Voluntas  Dei  non  est 
tola  ratio  bonitatis  aut  malitiae. — De  Legibus, 
(Lond.  1679.)  p.  71.  As  the  great  majority  of  the 
Schoolmen  supported  their  opinion  of  this  subject 
by  the  consideration  of  eternal  and  immutable 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong  in  the  Divine  Intellect,  it 
was  natural  that  the  Nominalists,  of  whom  Ock 
ham  was  the  founder,  who  rejected  all  general 
ideas,  should  also  have  rejected  those  moral  dis 
tinctions  which  were  then  supposed  to  originate 
in  such  ideas.  Gerson  was  a  celebrated  Nomi 
nalist  ;  and  he  was  the  more  disposed  to  follow 
the  opinions  of  his  master  because  they  agreed  in 
maintaining  the  independence  of  the  State  on  the 
Church,  and  the  superiority  of  the  Church  over  the 
Pope. 

NOTE  G.  page  107. 

It  must  be  premised  that  Charitas  among  the 
ancient  divines  corresponded  with  Epac  of  the  Pla- 
tonists,  and  with  the  yi\ia.  of  later  philosophers, 
as  comprehending  the  love  of  all  that  is  loveworthy 
in  the  Creator  or  his  creatures.  It  is  the  theologi 
cal  virtue  of  charity,  and  corresponds  with  no  term 
in  use  among  modern  moralists.  "  Cum  objectum 
amoris  sit  bonum,  dupliciter  potest  aliquis  tendere 
in  bonum  alicujus  rei ;  uno  modo,  quod  bonum 
illius  rei  ad  alterum  referat,  sicut  amat  quis  vinum 
in  quantum  dulcedinem  vini  peroptat ;  et  hie  amor 
vocatur  a  quibusdam  amor  concupiscentiae.  Amor 
autem  iste  non  terminatur  ad  rem  qua  dicitur  amari, 
sed  reflectitur  ad  rem  illam  cui  optatur  bonum  illius 
rei.  Alio  modo  amor  fortior  in  bonum  alicujus  rei, 
ita  quod  ad  rem  ipsam  terminatur;  et  hie  est  amor 
benevolent!®.  Qua  bonum  nostrum  in  Deo  perfec- 
tum  est,  sicut  in  causa  universali  bonorum  ;  ideo  bo 
num  in  ipso  esse  magis  naturaliter  complacet  quam 
in  nobis  ipsis  :  et  ideoetiam  amore  amicitiae  natu 
raliter  Deus  ab  homine  plus  seipso  diligitur."  The 
above  quotations  from  Aquinas  will  probably  be 
sufficient  for  those  who  are  acquainted  with  theso 


100 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


questions,  and  they  will  certainly  be  thought  too 
large  by  those  who  are  not.  In  the  next  question 
he  inquires,  whether  in  the  love  of  God  there  can 
be  any  view  to  reward.  He  appears  to  consider 
himself  as  bound  by  authority  to  answer  in  the 
affirmative  ;  and  he  employs  much  ingenuity  in 
reconciling  a  certain  expectation  of  reward  with 
the  disinterested  character  ascribed  by  him  to  piety 
in  common  with  all  the  affections  which  terminate 
in  other  beings.  "  Nikil  aliud  est  merces  nostra 
quam  perfrui  Deo*  Ergo  charitas  non  solum  non 
excludit,  sed  etiam  facit  habere  oculum  ad  mer- 
cedem."  In  this  answer  he  seems  to  have  anti 
cipated  the  representations  of  Jeremy  Taylor 
(Sermon  on  Growth  in  Grace),  of  Lord  Shanes- 
bury  (Inquiry  concerning  Virtue,  book  i.  part  iii. 
sect.  3),  of  Mr.  T.  Erskine  (Freeness  of  the  Gos 
pel,  Edin.  1828),  and  more  especially  of  Mr.  John 
Smith  (Discourses,  Lond.  1660).  No  extracts 
could  convey  a  just  conception  of  the  observations 
which  follow,  unless  they  were  accompanied  by  a 
longer  examination  of  the  technical  language  of 
the  Schoolmen  than  would  be  warranted  on  this 
occasion.  It  is  clear  that  he  distinguishes  well 
the  affection  of  piety  from  the  happy  fruits,  which, 
as  he  cautiously  expresses  it,  "are  in  the  nature 
of  a  reward  ;" — just  as  the  consideration  of  the 
pleasures  and  advantages  of  friendship  may  enter 
into  the  affection  and  strengthen  it,  though  they 
are  not  its  objects,  and  never  could  inspire  such  a 
feeling.  It  seems  to  me  aK<o  that  he  had  a  dim 
mer  view  of  another  doctrine,  by  which  we  are 
taught,  that  though  our  own  happiness  be  not  the 
end  which  we  pursue  in  loving  others,  yet  it  may 
be  the  final  cause  of  the  insenion  of  disinterested 
affections  into  the  nature  of  man.  "  Ponere  mer- 
cedem  aliquam  finem  amoris  ex  parte  amati,  est 
contra  rationem  amicitia?.  Sed  ponere  mercedem 
esse  finem  amoris  ex  parte  amantis,  non  tamen 
ultimam,  prout  scilicet  ipse  amor  est  quaedam 
operatio  amantis,  non  est  contra  rationem  amicitiae. 
Possum  operationem  amoris  amare  propter  aliquid 
aliud,  salva  amicitia.  Potest  habeas  charitatem 
habere  oculum  ad  mercedem,  uli  ponat  beatitudinem 
creatam  finem  amoris,  non  aulem  finem  amati.'1 
Upon  the  last  words  rny  interpretation  chiefly  de 
pends.  The  immediately  preceding  sentence 
must  be  owned  to  have  been  founded  on  a  distinc 
tion  between  viewing  the  good  fruits  of  our  own 
affections  as  enhancing  their  intrinsic  pleasures, 
and  feeling  love  for  another  on  account  of  the  ad 
vantage  to  be  derived  from  him  ;  which  last  is  in 
conceivable. 

NOTE  H.  p.  107. 

"  Potestas  spirituals  et  secularis  utraque  de- 
ducitur  a  potestate  divina;  ideo  in  tantum  secu 
laris  est  sub  spiritual!,  in  quantum  est  a  Deo 
supposita ;  scilicet,  in  his  qua  ad  salutem  animae 
pertinent.  In  his  autem  qua?  ad  bonum  civile 
epectant,  est  magis  obediendum  potestati  secu- 
lari ;  sicut  illud  Matthaei,  '  Reddite  quae  sunt  C&- 
saris  Csesari.'  "  What  follows  is  more  doubtful. 
"...  Nisi/or«e  potestati  spiritual!  etiam  potestas 
eecularis  conjungatur,  ut  in  Papa,  qui  utriusque 
potestatis  apicem  tenet." — Op.  vol.  viii.  p.  435. 
Here,  says  the  French  editor,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  Aquinas  means  the  Pope's  temporal 
power  in  his  own  dominions,  or  a  secular  autho 
rity  indirectly  extending  over  all  for  the  sake  of 
religion.  My  reasons  for  adopting  the  more  ra 
tional  construction  are  shortly  these: — 1.  The 
text  of  Matthew  is  so  plain  an  assertion  of  the  in 
dependence  of  both  powers,  that  it  would  be  the 
height  of  extravagance  to  quote  it  as  an  authority 
for  the  dependence  of  ihe  stale.  At  mo?t  it  could 
only  be  represented  as  reconcilable  with  such  a 
dependence  in  one  case.  2.  The  word  'forte* 
seems  manifestly  to  refer  to  the  territorial  sove 
reignty  acquired  by  the  Popes.  If  they  have  a 
general  power  in  secular  affairs,  it  must  be  be 


cause  it  is  necessary  to  their  spiritual  authority  \ 
and  in  that  case  to  call  it  fortuitous  would  be  ta 
ascribe  to  it  an  adjunct  destructive  of  its  nature* 
3.  His  former  reasoning  on  the  same  question 
seems  to  be  decisive.  The  power  of«he  Pope 
over  bishops,  he  says,  is  not  founded  merely  in 
his  superior  nature,  but  in  their  authority  being 
altogether  derived  from  his,  as  the  proconsular 
power  from  the  imperial.  Therefore  he  infers 
that  this  case  is  not  analagous  to  the  relation  be 
tween  the  civil  and  spiritual  power,  which  are 
alike  derived  from  God.  4.  Had  an  Italian  monk 
of  the  twelfth  century  really  intended  to  affirm 
the  Pope's  temporal  authority,  he  probably  would 
have  laid  it  down  in  terms  more  explicit  and  more 
acceptable  at  Rome.  Hesitaiion  and  ambiguity- 
are  here  indications  of  unbelief.  Mere  veneration 
for  the  apostolical  See  might  present  a  more  pre 
cise  determination  against  it,  as  it  caused  the  quo 
tation  which  follows,  respecting  the  primacy  of 
Peter. — A  mere  abridgment  of  these  very  cu 
rious  passages  might  excite  a  suspicion  that  I  had 
tinctured  Aquinas  unconsciously  with  a  colour  of 
my  own  opinions.  Extracts  are  very  difficult, 
from  the  scholastic  method  of  stating  objections 
and  answers,  as  well  as  from  the  mixture  of  theo 
logical  authorities  with  philosophical  reasons. 

NOTE  I.  page  108. 

The  debates  in  the  first  assembly  of  the  Coun 
cil  of  Trent  (A.  D.  1546)  between  the  Dominicans 
who  adhered  to  Aquinas,  and  the  Franciscans  who* 
followed  Scotuson  Original  Sin,  Justification,  and 
Grace,  are  to  be  found  in  Fra  Paolo  (Istoria  del 
Concilio  Tridentino,  lib.  ii.)  They  show  how  much 
metaphysical  controversy  is  hid  in  a  theological 
form;  how  many  disputes  of  our  times  are  of  no 
very  ancient  origin,  and  how  strongly  the  whole 
Western  Church,  through  all  the  divisions  into 
which  it  has  been  separated,  has  manifested  the 
same  unwillingness  to  avow  the  Augustinian  sys 
tem,  and  the  same  fear  of  contradicting  it.  To 
his  admirably  clear  and  short  statement  of  these 
abstruse  controversies,  must  be  added  that  of  his 
accomplished  opponent  Cardinal  Pallavicino  (Isto 
ria,  &c.  lib.  vii.  et  viii.),  who  shows  still  more 
evidently  the  strength  of  the  Augustinian  party, 
and  the  disposition  of  the  Council  to  tolerate 
opinions  almost  Lutheran,  if  not  accompanied  by 
revolt  from  the  Church.  A  little  more  compro 
mising  disposition  in  the  Reformers  might  have 
betrayed  reason  to  a  prolonged  thraldom.  We 
must  esteem  Erasmus  and  Me  tench  thon,  but  we 
should  reserve  our  gratitude  for  Luther  and  Cal 
vin.  The  Scotists  maintained  their  doctrine  of 
merit  of  congruity,  waived  by  the  Council,  and 
soon  after  condemned  by  the  Church  of  England  ; 
by  which  they  meant  that  they  who  had  good  dis 
positions  always  received  the  Divine  grace,  not 
indeed  as  a  reward  of  which  they  were  worthy, 
but  as  aid  which  they  were  fit  and  willing  to  re 
ceive.  The  Franciscans  denied  that  belief  was  in 
the  power  of  man.  "  I  Francescani  lo  negavano 
seguendo  Scoto,  qual  vupl'e  che  srccome  dalle 
dimostrazioni  per  necessita  nasce  la  scienza,  cos- 
dalle  persuasioni  nasca  la  fede  ;  e  ch'  essa  e  nell'  in- 
telletlo,  il  quale  e  agente  naturale,  e  mosso  natural- 
mente  dall'  oggetto.  Allegavano  1'  esperienza,  che 
nessuno  puo credere quello  che  vuole,  ma  quello che 
gli  par  vero." — Fra.  Paolo,  Istoria,  &c.  (Helm- 
stadf,  1763,  4to.),  vol.  i.  p.  193.  Cardinal  Sforza 
Pallavicino,  a  learned  and  very  able  Jesuit,  was 
appointed,  according  to  his  own  account,  in  1651, 
many  years  after  the  death  of  Fra  Paolo,  to  write 
a  true  history  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  as  a  cor 
rective  of  the  misrepresentations  of  the  celebrated 
Venetian.  Algernon  Sidney,  who  knew  this  court 
historian  at  Rome,  and  who  may  he  believed  when 
he  speaks  well  of  a  Jesuit  and  a  cardinal,  com 
mends  the  work  in  a  letter  to  his  father,  Lord 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


191 


Leicester.  At  the  end  of  Pallavicino'a  work  is 
a  list  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  errors  in  matters 
of  fact,  which  the  Papal  party  pretended  to  have 
detected  in  the  independent  historian,  whom  they 
charge  with  heresy  or  infidelity,  and  in  either 
case,  with  hypocrisy. 

NoxEK.   page  110. 

"  Hoc  tempore,  Ferditiando  et  Isabella  rognan- 
tibus,  in  academia  Salmamina  jac'a  sun?  robusti- 
oris  theologiae  semina;  ingentis  etiim  fatnae  vir 
Franciscus  de  Victoria,  non  tain  lucuhraiionibus 
editis,  quamvis  hasc  non  magnac  molis  aut  maiMii 
pretii  sint,  sed  doctissimorum  theologorum  edu- 
catione.  quamdiu  fuerit  sacrae  sci«:-niia3  honos  inter 
mortales,  vehementer  laudabiiur." — Anionio,  Bi- 
bliotheca  Hispanica  Nova,  (Madrid,  1783,)  in  prasf 
"  Si  ad  morum  instructoresrespicias,  Sotusiterum 
nominabitur. "  — Ibid. 


NOTE  L.  page  110. 

The  title  of  the  published  account  of  the  con 
ference  at  Valladolid  is,  "  The  controversy  be 
tween  the  Bishop  of  Chiapa  and  Dr.  Sepulveda ; 
in  which  the  Doctor  contended  that  the  conquest 
of  the  Indies  from  the  natives  was  lawful,  and  the 
Bishop  maintained  that  it  was  unlawful,  tyran 
nical,  and  unjust,  in  the  presence  of  many  theolo 
gians,  lawyers,  and  other  learned  men  assembled 
by  his  Majesty. :'-Bibl.  Hisp.  Nova,  torn.  i.  p.  192. 

Las  Casas  died  in  1566,  in  the  92d  year  of  his 
age;  Sepulveda  died  in  1571,  in  his  82d  year. 
Sepulveda  was  the  scholar  of  Pomponatius,  and  a 
friend  of  Erasmus,  Cardinal  Pole,  Aldus  Manu- 
tius,  &c.  In  his  book  "  De  Justis  Belli  Causis 
contra  Indos  suscepti,"  he  contended  only  that 
the  king  ought  justly  "ad  ditionem  Indos,  non 
herilem  sedregiam  etcivilem,  lege  belli redigere." 
— Antonio,  voce  Sepulveda,  Btbl.  Hisp.  Nova, 
torn.  i.  p.  703.  But  this  smooth  and  specious  lan 
guage  concealed  poison.  Had  it  entirely  pre 
vailed,  the  cruel  consequence  of  the  defeat  of  the 
advocate  of  the  oppressed  would  alone  have  re 
mained  ;  the  limitations  and  softenings  em 


by  their  opponent  to  obtain  success  would  have 
been  speedily  disregarded  and  forgotten.  Covar- 
ruvias,  another  eminent  Jurist,  was  sent  by  Phi 
lip  II.  to  the  Council  of  Trent,  at  its  renewal  in 
1560,  and,  with  Cardinal  Buoncampagni,  drew  up 
the  decrees  of  reformation.  Francis  Sanchez,  the 
father  of  philosophical  grammar,  published  his 
Minerva  at  Salamanca  in  1587 ; — so  active  was 
the  cultivation  of  philosophy  in  Spain  in  the  age 
of  Cervantes. 

NOTE  M.   page  120. 

"  Alors  en  repassant  dans  mon  esprit  les  di verses 
opinions  qui  m'avoient  tour-a-tour  entraine  depuis 
ma  nai?sance,  je  vis  que  bien  qu'aucune  d'elles  ne 
fut  assez  evidente  pour  produire  immediatement 
la  conviction,  elles  avoient  divers  degres  de  vrai- 
semblarice,  et  que  Passentiment  interieur  s'y  pre- 
toit  ou  s'y  refusoit  a  differentes  mesures.  Sur 
cette  premiere  observation,  comparant  entr'elles 
toutes  ces  differentes  idees  dans  le  silence  des 
prejuges,  je  trouvai  que  la  premiere,  et  la  plus 
commune,  etoit  aussi  la  plus  simple  et  la  plus  rai- 
sonnable  ;  et  qu'il  ne  lui  manquoit,  pour  reunir 
tons  les  suffrages,  qued'avoir  ele  proposee  la  der- 
riiere.  Imagines  tons  vos  philosophies  anciens  et 
rnodernes.  ayant  d'ahord  epuise  leur  bizarres  sys- 
ternes  de  forces,  de  chances,  de  fatalite,  de  neces- 
site,  d'atomes.  de  monde  anime,  de  matiere  vi- 
vante,  de  materialisme  de  toute  espece  ;  et  apres 
eux  tons  I'illustre  Clarke,  eclairant  le  monde, 
annoncant  enfin  1'Etre  des  etres,  et  le  di^pensa- 
teur  des  choses.  Avec  quelle  universelle  admi 
ration,  avec  quel  applaudissement  unanime  n'eut 


point  eie  regu  ce  nouveau  sysieme  si  grand,  si 
consolant,  si  sublime,  si  propre  a  clever  Tame,  a 
dormer  une  base  a  la  verm,  et  en  meme  terns  si 
fnppaiit,  si  lumineux,  si  simple,  et,  ce  me  sernble, 
offrant  moins  de  choses  incornprelif  nsibles  a 
I'esprit  humain.  qu'il  n'en  trouve  d'absurdes  en 
tout  autre  systeme  !  Je  me  disois,  les  objections 
insolubles  sont  communes  a  tous,  parceque  I'es 
prit  de  I'homme  esi  trop  borne  pour  les  resondre; 
elles  ne  prouvent  done  rien  contre  aucun  par  pre 
ference :  mais  quelle  difference  entre  les  preuves 
directes!" — Rousseau.  GSuvres,  tome  ix.  p.  25. 

NOTE  N.   page  128. 

"  Est  autem  jus  quaedam  potentia  moralis,  et 
olIiiTutio  necessitas  rnoralis.  Moralem  autem  in* 
telligo.  quae  apud  virum  bonum  aequipollet  natu- 
rali :  Nam  ut  praeclare  jurisconsultus  Romanus 
ait,  quce  contra  bonos  mores  sunt,  ea  nee  facer e  nos 
posse  crtdendum  est.  Vir  bonus  autem  est,  qui 
amat  omnes,  quantum  ratio  permittit.  Justitiam 
igitur,  quae  virtus  est  hujus  affectus  rectrix,  quern 
<fox«ti'9»ar7r/*!>  Graeci  vpcant,  commodissime,  ni 
fallor,  definiemus  caritatem  sapientis,  hoc  est, 
sequentem  sapientiae  dictata.  Itaque,  quod  Car- 
neades  dixisse  fertur,  Justitiam  esse  summam  stul- 
titiam,  quia  alienis  utilitatibus  consuli  jubeat,  ne- 
glectis  propriis,  ex  ignorata  ejus  definitipne  natum 
est.  Caritas  est  benevolentia  universalis,  et  bene- 
volentia  amandi  sive  diligendi  habitus.  Amare 
autem  sive  diligere  est  felicitate  aherius  delectari, 
vel,  quod  eodem  redit,  felicitaiem  alienam  adscis- 
cere  in  suam.  Unde  difficilis  nodus  solvitur, 
magni  etiam  in  Theologia  momenti,  quomodo 
amor  non  mercenarius  detur,  qui  sit  a  spe  metuque 
et  omni  utilitatis  respectu  separatus  :  scilicet,  quo 
rum  utilitas  delectat,  eorum  felicitas  nostram  in- 
greditur;  nam  quos  delectant,  per  se  expetuntur. 
Et  uti  pulchrorum  contemplatio  ipsa  jucunda  est, 
pictaque  tabula  Raphaelis  intelligentem  afficit,  etsi 
nullos  census  ferat,  adeo  ut  in  oculis  deliciisque 
feratur,  quodam  simulacro  amoris ;  ita  quum  res 
pulchra  simul  etiam  felicitatis  est  capax,  transit 
affectus  in  verum  amorem.  Superat  autem  di- 
vinus  amor  alios  amores,  quos  Deus  cum  maximo 
successu  amare  potest,  quando  Deo  simul  et  feli- 
cius  nihil  est,  et  nihil  pulchrius  felicitateque  dig- 
nius  intelligi  potest.  Et  quum  idem  sit  poteniia3 
sapientiasque  summae,  felicitas  ejus  non  tantum 
ingreditur  nostram  (si  sapimus,  id  est,  ipsum. 
amamus),  sed  et  facit.  Quia  auiem  sapientia  cari 
tatem  dirigere  debet,  hujus  quoque  definitione  opus 
erit.  Arbitror  autem  notioni  hotninum  op'imesatis- 
fieri,  si  sapientiam  nihil  aliud  esse  dicamus,  quarn 
ipsam  scientiam  felicitatis." — Leibnitii  Opera,  vol. 
iv.  pars  iii.  p.  294.  "  Et  jus  quidem  merum  sive 
strictum  nascitur  ex  principio  servandae  pacis ; 
sequitas  sive  caritas  ad  majus  aliquid  contendit,  ut, 
dum  quisque  alteri  prodest,  quantum  potest,  feli- 
citatem  suam  augeat  in  aliena  ;  et,  ut  verbo  dicam, 
jus  strictum  miseriam  vitat,  jus  superius  ad  felici- 
tatem  tendif ,  sed  qualis  in  hanc  mortalitatem  cadit, 
Quod  vero  ipsam  vitam,  et  quicquid  hanc  vitarn 
expetendam  facit,  magno  commodo  alieno  postha- 
bere  debeamus,  ita  ut  maximos  etiam  dolores  in 
aliorum  graiiam  perferre  oporteat ;  magis  pulchre 
praecipitur  a  philosophis  quam  solide  demonstra- 
tur.  Nam  decus  et  gloriam,  et  animi  sui  virtute 
gaudentis  sensum,  ad  qnae  sub  honestatis  nomine 
provocant,  coffitationis  sive  mentis  bona  esse  con- 
stat,  magna  qiiidem,  sed  non  omnibus,  nee  omni 
malorum  acerbitati  praevalitura,  quando  non  om 
nes  seque  imaginando  afficiuntur;  prapseriim  quos 
neque  educatio  liberalis,  neque  consuetudo  vivendi 
ingenua,  vel  vitas  sectaeve  disciplina  ad  honoris 
cBStimationem,  vel  animi  bona  seniienda  apsuefecit. 
Ut  vero  universal]  demonstration!  connViatui, 
omne  honestum  esse  utile,  et  omne  turpe  damno 
sum,  aspumendaesf  immortalitas  anitnas  et  rehtor 
universi  Deus.  Ita  fit,  ut  omnes  in  civitate  per- 


192 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


fectissima  vivere  intelligamur,  sub  monarcha,  qui 
nee  ob  sapientiam  fallt,  nee  ob  poteniiam  vitari 
potest ;  idemque  tam  amabilis  est,  ut  felicitas  sit 
tali  domino  servire.  Huic  igitur  qui  animam  im- 
pendit,  Christo  dpcente,  earn  lucratur.  Hujus 
potentia  providentiaque  effic-iur,  ut  omne  jus  in 
facium  transeat,  ut  nemo  laedatur  nisi  aseipso,  ut 
nihil  recte  gestum  sine  praemio  sit,  nullum  pecca- 
tum  sine  poena." — p.  296. 

NOTE  O.  page  130. 

The  writer  of  this  Discourse  was  led,  on  a  for 
mer  occasion,  by  a  generally  prevalent  notion,  to 
confound  the  theological  doctrine  of  Predestination 
with  the  philosophical  opinion  which  supposes  the 
determination  of  the  Will  to  be,  like  other  events, 
produced  by  adequate  causes.  (See  a  criticism  on 
Mr.  Stewart's  Dissertation,  EHinb.  Review,  vol. 
xxxvi.  p.  225.)  More  careful  reflection  has  cor 
rected  a  confusion  common  to  him  with  most  writ 
ers  on  the  subject.  What  is  called  "  Sublapsarian 
Calvinism,"  which  was  the  doctrine  of  the  most 
eminent  men,  including  Augustin  and  Calvin  him 
self,  ascribed  to  God,  and  to  man  before  the  Fall, 
what  is  called  "  free-will."  which  they  even  own 
Still  to  exist  in  all  the  ordinary  acts  of  life,  though 
it  be  lost  with  respect  to  religious  morality.  The 
decree  of  election,  on  this  scheme,  arises  from 
God's  foreknowledge  that  man  was  to  fall,  and 
that  all  men  became  thereby  with  justice  liable  to 
eternal  punishment.  The  election  of  some  to  sal 
vation  was  an  act  of  Divine  goodness,  and  the  pre- 
terition  of  the  rest  was  an  exercise  of  holiness  and 
justice.  This  Sublapsarian  predestination  is  evi 
dently  irreconcilable  with  the  doctrine  of  Neces 
sity,  which  considers  free-will,  or  volitions  not 
caused  by  motives,  as  absolutely  inconsistent  with 
the  definition  of  an  intelligent  being, — which  is, 
that  he  acts  from  a  motive,  or,  in  other  words, 
with  a  purpose.  The  Supralapsarian  scheme, 
which  represents  the  Fall  itself  as  fore-ordained, 
may  indeed  be  built  on  necessitarian  principles. 
But  on  that  scheme  original  sin  seems  wholly  to 
lose  that  importance  which  the  former  system 
gives  it  as  a  revolution  in  the  state  of  the  world, 
requiring  an  interposition  of  Divine  power  to  re 
medy  a  part  of  its  fatal  effects.  It  becomes  no 
more  than  the  first  link  in  the  chain  of  predestined 
offences.  Yet  both  Catholic  and  Protestant  pre- 
destinarians  have  borrowed  the  arguments  and 
distinctions  of  philosophical  necessitarians.  One 
of  the  propositions  of  Jansenius,  condemned  bv 
the  bull  of  Innocent  X.  in  1653,  is,  that  "  to  merit 
or  demerit  in  a  stale  of  lapsed  naiure,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  there  should  be  in  man  a  liberty 
free  from  necessity  ;  it  is  sufficient  that  there  be  a 
liberty  free  from  constraint." — Dupin,  Histoire  de 
1'Eglise  en  abrege,  livre  iv.  chap.  viii.  Luther,  in 
his  once  famous  treatise  De  Servo  Arbitrio  against 
Erasmus  (printed  in  1526),  expresses  himself  as 
follows:  "  Hie  est  fidei  summus  gradus,  credere 
ilium  esse  clementem  qui  tam  paucos  salvat,  tam 
multos  damnat ;  credere  justum  qui  sua"  voluntate 
nos  necessario  damnabiles  facit,  ut  videatur,  ut 
Erasmus  refert,  delectari  cruciatibus  miserorum, 
et  odio  potius  quam  amore  dignus."  (My  copy 
of  this  stern  and  abusive  book  is  not  paged.)  In 
another  passage,  he  states  the  distinction  between 
co-action  and  necessity  as  familiar  a  hundred  and 
thirty  years  before  it  was  proposed  by  Hobbes,  or 
condemned  in  the  Jansenists.  "  Necessario  di- 
co,  non  coacte,  sed,  ut  illi  dicur.t,  necessitate  im- 
mutabilitatis,  non  coactionis  ;  hoc  est,  homo,  cum 
vocat  Spiritus  Dei,  non  quidem  violentia,  velut 
raptus  obtorto  collo,  nolens  facit  malum,  quemad- 
modum  fur  aut  latro  nolens  ad  poanam  ducitur, 
sed  sponte  et  libera  voluntate  facit  "  He  uses 
also  the  illustration  of  Hobbes,  from  the  difference 
between  a  stream  forced  out  of  its  course,  and 
freely  flowing  in  its  channel. 


[The  following  is  the  whole  of  the  passage  in 
the  Edinburgh  Review,  referred  to  above  :  the 
reader,  while  bearing  in  mind  ihe  modification  of 
opinion  ihere  announced,  may  still  find  sufficient 
interest  in  the  general  statement  of  the  argument 
to  justify  iis  admission  here. — ED.] 

"...It  would  be  inexcusable  to  revive  the 
mention  of  such  a  controversy  as  that  which  re 
lates  to  Liberty  and  Necessity,  for  any  other  pur 
pose  than  to  inculcate  mutual  candour,  and  to 
censure  the  iniroduction  of  invidious  topics.  If 
there  were  any  hope  of  terminating  that  endless 
and  fruitless  controversy,  the  most  promising  ex 
pedient  would  be  a  general  agreement  to  banish 
the  technical  terms  hitherto  employed  on  both 
sides  from  philosophy,  and  to  limit  ourselves  rigor 
ously  to  a  statement  of  those  facts  in  which  all 
men  agree,  expressed  in  language  perfecily  puri 
fied  from  all  tincture  of  system.  The  agreement 
in  facts  would  then  probably  be  found  to  be  much 
more  extensive  than  is  often  suspected  by  either 
party.  Experience  is,  and  indeed  must  be,  equally 
appealed  to  by  both.  All  mankind  feel  and  own, 
that  their  actions  are  at  least  very  much  affected 
by  their  situation,  their  opinions,  their  feelings, 
and  their  habits  ;  yet  no  man  would  deserve  the 
compliment  of  confutation,  who  seriously  profess 
ed  to  doubt  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong,  the  reasonableness  of  moral  approbation 
and  disapprobaiion,  the  propriety  of  praising  and 
censuring  voluntary  actions,  and  the  justice  of  re 
warding  or  punishing  them  according  to  their  in 
tention  and  tendency.  No  reasonable  person,  in 
whatever  terms  he  may  express  himself  concern 
ing  the  Will,  has  ever  meant  to  deny  that  man 
has  powers  and  faculties  which  jusiify  the  moral 
judgments  of  the  human  race.  Every  advocate 
of  Free  Will  admits  the  fact  of  the  influence  of 
motives,  from  which  the  Necessarian  infers  the 
truth  of  his  opinion.  Every  Necessarian  must 
also  admit  those  attributes  of  moral  and  responsi 
ble  agency,  for  the  sake  of  which  the  advocate  of 
Liberty  considers  his  own  doctrine  as  of  such 
unspeakable  importance.  Both  parlies  ought 
equally  to  own,  that  the  matter  in  dispute  is  a 
question  of  fact  relating  to  the  mind,  which  must 
be  ultimately  decided  by  its  own  consciousness. 
The  Necessarian  is  even  bound  to  admit,  that  no 
speculation  is  tenable  on  this  subject,  which  is  not 
reconcilable  to  the  general  opinions  of  mankind, 
and  which  does  not  afford  a  satisfactory  expla 
nation  of  that  part  of  common  language  which  at 
first  sight  appears  to  be  most  at  variance  with  it. 

"  After  the  actual  antecedents  of  volition  had 
been  thus  admitted  by  one  party,  and  its  moral 
consequences  by  another,  the  subject  of  conten 
tion  would  be  reduced  to  the  question, — What  is 
the  state  of  the  mind  in  the  interval  which  passes 
between  motive  and  action  ?  or,  to  speak  with  still 
more  strict  propriety,  By  what  words  is  that  state 
of  the  mind  most  accurately  described?  If  this  habit 
of  thinking  could  be  steadily  and  long  preserved, 
so  evanescent  a  subject  of  dispute  might  perhaps  in 
the  end  disappear,  and  the  contending  parties  might 
at  length  discover  that  they  had  been  only  looking 
at  opposite  sides  of  the  same  truth.  But  the  terms 
"Liberty"  and  "  Necessity"  embroil  the  contro 
versy,  inflame  the  temper  of  disputants,  and  in 
volve  them  in  clouds  of  angry  zeal,  which  render 
them  incapable  not  only  of  perceiving  their  nume 
rous  and  important  coincidences,  but  even  of 
clearly  discerning  the  single  point  in  which  they 
differ.  Every  generous  sentiment,  and  every  hos 
tile  passion  of  human  nature,  have  for  ages  been 
connected  with  these  two  words.  They  are  the 
badges  of  the  oldest,  the  widest,  and  the  most 
obstinate  warfare  waged  by  metaphysicians. — 
Whoever  refuses  to  try  the  experiment  of  re 
nouncing  them,  at  least  for  a  time,  can  neither  be 
a  peace- maker  nor  a  friend  of  dispassionate  dis 
cussion;  and,  if  he  stickles  for  mere  words,  he 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


193 


may  be  justly  suspected  of  being  almost  aware 
that  he  is  contending  for  nothing  but  words. 

"  But  if  projects  of  perpetual  peace  should  be 
as  Utopian  in  the  schools  as  in  the  world,  it  is  the 
more  necessary  to  condemn  the  use  of  weapons 
which  exasperate  animosity,  without  contributing 
to  decide  the  contest.  Of  this  nature,  in  pur 
opinion,  are  the  imputations  of  irreligion  and  im 
morality  which  have  for  ages  been  thrown  on  those 
divines  and  philosophers  who  have  espoused  Ne 
cessarian  opinions.  Mr.  Stewart,  though  he  anx 
iously  acquits  individuals  of  evil  intention,  has  too 
much  lent  the  weight  of  his  respectable  opinion  to 
these  useless  and  inflammatory  charges.  We  are 
at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  he  could  imagine  that 
there  is  the  slightest  connection  between  the  doc 
trine  of  Necessity  and  the  system  of  Spinoza. 
That  the  world  is  governed  by  a  Supreme  Mind, 
\vhich  is  invariably  influenced  by  the  dictates  of 
its  own  wisdom  and  goodness,  seems  to  be  the 
very  essence  of  theism ;  and  no  man  who  sub 
stantially  dissents  from  that  proposition,  can  de 
serve  the  name  of  a  pure  theist.  But  this  is  pre 
cisely  the  reverse  of  the  doctrine  of  Spinoza, 
which,  in  spite  of  all  its  ingenious  disguises,  un 
doubtedly  denies  the  supremacy  of  mind.  This 
objection,  however,  has  already  been  answered, 
not  only  by  the  pious  and  profound  Jonathan  Ed 
wards  (Inquiry,  part  iv.  chap.  7.),  an  avowed  Ne 
cessarian,  but  by  Mr.  Locke,  (whose  opinions, 
however,  about  this  question  are  not  very  distinct,) 
and  even  by  Dr.  Clarke  himself,  the  ablest  and 
most  celebrated  of  the  advocates  of  liberty.  (De 
monstration  of  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God.) 

"  The  charge  of  immoral  tendency,  however, 
deserves  more  serious  consideration,  as  it  has 
been  repeatedly  enforced  by  Mr.  Stewart,  and 
brought  forward  also  by  Dr.  Copplestone.*  (Dis 
courses,  Lond.  1821), — the  only  writer  of  our  time 
who  has  equally  distinguished  himself  in  paths  so 
distant  from  each  other  as  classical  literature,  po 
litical  economy,  and  metaphysical  philosophy.  His 
general  candour  and  temperance  give  weight  to 
his  accusation  ;  and  it  is  likely  to  be  conveyed  to 
posterity  by  a  volume,  which  is  one  of  the  best 
models  of  philosophical  style  that  our  age  has  pro 
duced, — a  Sermon  of  Archbishop  King,  repub- 
lished  by  Mr.  Wha»ely,t  an  ingenious  and  learned 
member  of  Oriel  College.  The  Sermons  of  Dr. 
Copplestone  do  indeed  directly  relate  to  theology  ; 
but,  in  this  case,  it  is  impossible  to  separate  that 
eubjecl  from  philosophy.  Necessity  is  a  philoso 
phical  opinion  relating  to  the  human  will :  Pre 
destination  is  a  theological  doctrine,  concerning 
the  moral  government  of  the  world.  But  since 
the  writings  of  Leibnitz  and  Jonathan  Edwards, 
all  supporters  of  Predestination  endeavour  to 
show  its  reasonableness  by  the  arguments  of  the 
Necessarian.  It  is  possible,  and  indeed  very  com 
mon,  to  hold  the  doctrines  of  Necessity,  without 
adopting  many  of  the  dogmas  which  the  Calvinist 
connects  with  it :  but  it~is  not  possible  to  make 
any  argumentative  defence  of  Calvinism,  which 
is  not  founded  on  the  principle  of  Necessity.  The 
moral  consequences  of  both  (whatever  they  may 
be)  must  be  the  same  ;  and  both  opinions  are,  ac 
cordingly,  represented  by  their  opponents  as  tend 
ing,  in  a  manner  very  similar,  to  weaken  the  mo 
tives  to  virtuous  action. 

"  There  is  no  topic  which  requires  such  strong 
grounds  to  justify  its  admission  into  controversy, 
as  that  of  moral  consequences  ;  for,  besides  its 
incurable  tendency  to  inflame  the  angry  passions, 
and  to  excite  obloquy  against  individuals,  which 
renders  it  a  practical  restraint  on  free  inquiry,  the 
employment  of  it  in  dispute  seems  to  betray  ap 
prehensions  derogatory  from  the  dignity  of  Morals, 
and  not  consonant  either  to  the  dictates  of  Reason 


*  Afterwards  Bishop  of  Llandaff. — ED. 
t  Afterwards  Archbishop  of  Dublin.— ED. 
25 


or  to  the  lessons  of  experience.  The  rules  of 
Morality  are  too  deeply  rooted  in  human  nature, 
to  be  shaken  by  every  veering  breath  of  metaphy 
sical  theory.  Our  Moral  Sentiments  spring  from 
no  theory :  they  are  as  general  as  any  part  of  our 
nature  ;  the  causes  which  generate,  or  unfold  and 
nourish  them,  lie  deep  in  the  unalterable  interests 
of  society,  and  in  those  primitive  feelings  of  the 
human  heart  which  no  circumstance  can  eradicate. 
The  experience  of  all  ages  teaches,  that  these 
deep-rooted  principles  are  far  less  affected  than  is 
commonly  supposed,  by  the  revolutions  of  philo 
sophical  opinion,  which  scarcely  penetrate  beyond 
the  surface  of  human  nature.  Exceptions  there 
doubtless  are  :  the  most  speculative  opinions  are 
not  pretended  to  be  absolutely  indifferent  in  their 
moral  tendency  ;  and  it  is  needless  to  make  an 
express  exception  of  those  opinions  which  directly 
relate  to  practice,  and  which  may  have  a  consider 
able  moral  effect.  But,  in  general,  the  power  of 
the  moral  feelings,  and  the  feebleness  of  specula 
tive  opinions,  are  among  the  most  striking  pheno 
mena  in  the  history  of  mankind.  What  teacher, 
either  philosophical  or  religious,  has  ever  been 
successful  in  spreading  his  doctrines,  who  did  not 
reconcile  them  to  our  moral  sentiments,  and  even 
recommend  them  by  pretensions  to  a  purer  and 
more  severe  morality  ?  Wherever  there  is  a  seem 
ing,  or  a  real  repugnance  between  speculative 
opinions  and  moral  rules,  the  speculator  has  al 
ways  been  compelled  to  devise  some  compromise 
which,  with  whatever  sacrifice  of  consistency, 
may  appease  the  alarmed  conscience  of  mankind. 
The  favour  of  a  few  is  too  often  earned  by  flatter 
ing  their  vicious  passions  ;  but  no  immoral  system 
ever  acquired  popularity.  Wherever  there  is  a 
contest,  the  speculations  yield,  and  the  principles 
prevail.  The  victory  is  equally  decisive,  whether 
the  obnoxious  doctrine  be  renounced,  or  so  modi 
fied  as  no  longer  to  dispute  the  legitimate  authority 
of  Conscience. 

"  Nature  has  provided  other  guards  for  Virtue 
against  the  revolt  of  sophistry  and  the  inconstancy 
of  opinion.  The  whole  system  of  morality  is  of 
great  extent,  and  comprehends  a  variety  of  prin 
ciples  and  sentiments. — of  duties  and  virtues. 
Wherever  new  and  singular  speculation  has  been 
at  first  sight  thought  to  weaken  some  of  the  mo 
tives  of  moral  activity,  it  has  almost  uniformly 
been  found,  by  longer  experience,  that  the  same 
speculation  itself  makes  amends,  by  strengthen 
ing  other  inducements  to  right  conduct.  There 
is  thus  a  principle  of  compensation  in  the  opinions, 
as  in  the  circumstances  of  man  ;  which,  though 
not  sufficient  to  level  distinction  and  to  exclude 
preference,  has  yet  such  power,  that  it  ought  to 
appease  our  alarms,  and  to  soften  our  controver 
sies.  A  moral  nature  assimilates  every  specula 
tion  which  it  does  not  reject.  If  these  general 
reasonings  be  just,  with  what  increased  force  do 
they  prove  the  innocence  of  error,  in  a  case  where, 
as  there  seems  to  be  no  possibility  of  difference 
about  facts,  the  mistake  of  either  party  must  be 
little  more  than  verbal ! 

"  We  have  much  more  ample  experience  re 
specting  the  practical  tendency  of  religious  than 
of  philosophical  opinions.  The  latler  were  for 
merly  confined  to  the  schools,  and  are  still  limited 
to  persons  of  some  education.  They  are  generally 
kept  apart  from  our  passions  and  our  business, 
and  are  entertained,  as  Cicero  said  of  the  Stoical 
paradoxes,  "  more  as  a  subject  of  dispute  than  as 
a  rule  of  life."  Religious  opinions,  on  the  con 
trary,  are  spread  over  ages  and  nations;  they  are 
felt  perhaps  most  strongly  by  the  more  numerous 
classes  of  mankind  ;  wherever  they  are  sincerely 
entertained,  they  must  be  regarded  as  the  most 
serious  of  all  concerns;  they  are  often  incorpo 
rated  with  the  warmest  passions  of  which  the  hu 
man  heart  is  capable ;  and,  in  this  state,  from 
their  eminently  social  and  sympathetic  nature, 
R 


194 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


they  are  capable  of  becoming  the  ruling  principle 
of  action  in  vast  multitudes.  Let  us  therefore 
appeal  to  experience,  on  the  moral  influence  of 
Necessarian  opinions  in  their  theological  form. 
By  doing  so,  we  shall  have  an  opportunity  of  con 
templating  the  principle  in  its  most  active  state, 
operating  upon  the  greatest  masses,  and  for  the 
longest  time.  Predestination,  or  doctrines  much 
inclining  towards  it,  have,  on  the  whole,  prevailed 
in  the  Christian  churches  of  the  West  since  the 
days  of  Augustine  and  Aquinas.  Who  were  the 
first  formidable  opponents  of  these  doctrines  in 
the  Church  of  Rome  ?  The  Jesuits — the  con 
trivers  of  courtly  casuistry,  and  the  founders  of 
lax  morality.  Who,  in  the  same  Church,  inclined 
to  the  stern  theology  of  Augustine  ?  The  Jan- 
senists — the  teachers  and  the  models  of  austere 
morals.  What  are  we  to  think  of  the  morality 
of  Calvinistic  nations,  especially  of  the  most  nu 
merous  classes  of  them,  who  seem,  beyond  all 
other  men,  to  be  most  zealously  attached  to  their 
religion,  and  most  deeply  penetrated  with  its 
spirit  ?  Here,  if  any  where,  we  have  a  practical 
and  a  decisive  test  of  the  moral  influence  of  a 
belief  in  Necessarian  opinions.  In  Protestant 
Switzerland,  in  Holland,  in  Scotland,  among  the 
English  Nonconformists,  and  the  Protestants  of 
the  north  of  Ireland,  in  the  New  England  States, 
Calvinism  long  was  the  prevalent  faith,  and  is 
probably  still  the  faith  of  a  considerable  majority. 
Their  moral  education  was  at  least  completed,  and 
their  collective  character  formed,  during  the  preva 
lence  of  Calvinistic  opinions.  Yet  where  are 
communities  to  be  found  of  a  more  pure  and  ac 
tive  virtue  ?  Perhaps  these,  and  other  very  strik 
ing  facts,  might  justify  speculations  of  a  somewhat 
singular  nature,  and  even  authorize  a  retort  upon 
our  respectable  antagonists.  But  we  have  no  such 
purpose.  It  is  sufficient  for  us  to  do  what  in  us 
lies  to  mitigate  the  acrimony  of  controversy,  to 
teach  disputants  on  both  sides  to  respect  the  sacred 
neutrality  of  Morals,  and  to  show  that  the  provi 
dent  and  parental  care  of  Nature  has  sufficiently 
provided  for  the  permanent  security  of  the  princi 
ples  of  Virtue. 

"  If  we  were  to  amuse  ourselves  in  remarks  on 
the  practical  tendency  of  opinions,  we  might  with 
some  plausibility  contend,  that  there  was  a  ten 
dency  in  infidelity  to  produce  Toryism.  In  Eng 
land  alone,  we  might  appeal  to  the  examples  of 
Hobbes,  Bolingbroke,  Hume,  and  Gibbon ;  and 
to  the  opposite  cases  of  Milton,  Locke,  Addison, 
Clarke,  and  even  Newton  himself;  for  the  last 
of  these  great  men  was  also  a  Whig.  The  only 
remarkable  example  which  now  occurs  to  us  of  a 
zealous  believer  who  was  a  bigoted  Tory,  is  that  of 
Dr.  Johnson  ;  and  we  may  balance  against  him  the 
whole,  or  the  greater  part  of  the  life  of  his  illus 
trious  friend,  Mr.  Burke.  We  would  not,  how 
ever,  rest  much  on  observations  founded  on  so 
small  an  experience,  that  the  facts  may  arise  from 
causes  wholly  independent  of  the  opinion.  But 
another  unnoticed  coincidence  may  serve  as  an 
introduction  to  a  few  observations  on  the  scepti 
cism  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

"  The  three  most  celebrated  sceptics  of  modern 
times  have  been  zealous  partisans  of  high  autho 
rity  in  government.  It  would  be  rash  to  infer, 
from  the  remarkable  examples  of  this  coincidence, 
in  Montaigne,  Bayle,  and  Hume,  that  there  is  a 
natural  connection  between  scepticism  and  Tory 
ism  ;  or,  even,  if  there  were  a  tendency  to  such  a 
connection,  that  it  might  not  be  counteracted  by 
more  powerful  circumstances,  or  by  stronger  prin 
ciples  of  human  nature.  It  is  more  worth  while, 
therefore,  to  consider  the  particulars  in  the  history 
of  these  three  eminent  persons,  which  may  have 
strengthened  or  created  this  propensity. 

"  Montaigne,  who  was  methodical  in  nothing, 
does  not  indeed  profess  systematic  scepticism.  He 
was  a  freethinker  who  loosened  the  ground  about 


received  opinions,  and  indulged  his  humour  in 
arguing  on  both  sides  of  most  questions.  But  the 
sceptical  tendency  of  his  writings  is  evident ;  and 
there  is  perhaps  nowhere  to  be  found  a  more  vigor 
ous  attack  on  popular  innovations,  than  in  the  lat 
ter  part  of  the  22d  Essay  of  his  first  book.  But 
there  is  no  need  of  any  general  speculations  to 
account  for  the  repugnance  to  change,  felt  by  a 
man  who  was  wearied  and  exasperated  by  the 
horrors  of  forty  years'  civil  war. 

"  The  case  of  Bayle  is  more  remarkable. 
Though  banished  from  France  as  a  Protestant, 
he  published,  without  his  name,  a  tract,  entitled, 
"Advice  to  the  Refugees,"  in  the  year  1690, 
which  could  be  considered  in  no  other  light  than 
that  of  an  apology  for  Louis  XIV.,  an  attack  on 
the  Protestant  cause,  and  a  severe  invective 
against  his  companions  in  exile.  He  declares,  in 
this  unavowed  work,  for  absolute  power  and  pas 
sive  obedience,  and  inveighs,  with  an  intemper 
ance  scarcely  ever  found  in  his  avowed  writings, 
against  "the  execrable  doctrines  of  Buchanan," 
and  the  "  pretended  sovereignty  of  the  people," 
without  sparing  even  the  just  and  glorious  Revo 
lution,  which  had  at  that  moment  preserved  the 
constitution  of  England,  the  Protestant  religion, 
and  the  independence  of  Europe.  It  is  no  wonder 
therefore,  that  he  was  considered  as  a  partisan  of 
France,  and  a  traitor  to  the  Protestant  cause  ;  nor 
can  we  much  blame  King  William  for  regarding 
him  as  an  object  of  jealous  policy.  Many  years 
after,  he  was  represented  to  Lord  Sunderland  as 
an  enemy  of  the  Allies,  and  a  detractor  of  their 
great  captain,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough.  The 
generous  friendship  of  the  illustrious  author  of  the 
Characteristics, — the  opponent  of  Bayle  on  almost 
every  question  of  philosophy,  government,  and, 
we  may  add,  religion, — preserved  him,  on  that 
occasion,  from  the  sad  necessity  of  seeking  a  new 
place  of  refuge  in  the  very  year  of  his  death.  The 
vexations  which  Bayle  underwent  in  Holland  from 
the  Calvinist  ministers,  and  his  long  warfare 
against  their  leader  Jurieu,  who  was  a  zealous  as- 
sertor  of  popular  opinions,  may  have  given  this 
bias  to  his  mind,  and  disposed  him  to  "fly  from 
petty  tyrants  to  the  throne."  His  love  of  para 
dox  may  have  had  its  share  ;  for  passive  obedi 
ence  was  considered  as  a  most  obnoxious  paradox 
in  the  schools  and  societies  of  the  oppressed  Cal- 
vinists.  His  enemies,  however,  did  not  fail  to 
impute  his  conduct  to  a  design  of  paying  his  court 
to  Louis  XIV.,  and  to  the  hope  of  being  received 
with  open  arms  in  France  ; — motives  which  seem 
to  be  at  variance  both  with  the  general  integrity 
of  his  life,  and  with  his  favourite  passion  for  the 
free  indulgence  of  philosophical  speculation.  The 
scepticism  of  Bayle  must,  however,  be  distin 
guished  from  that  of  Hume.  The  former  of 
these  celebrated  writers  examined  many  ques 
tions  in  succession,  and  laboured  to  show  that 
doubt  was,  on  all  of  them,  the  result  of  examina 
tion.  His,  therefore,  is  a  sort  of  inductive  scepti 
cism,  in  which  general  doubt  was  an  inference 
from  numerous  examples  of  uncertainty  in  par 
ticular  cases.  It  is  a  kind  of  appeal  to  experience, 
whether  so  many  failures  in  the  search  of  truth 
ought  not  to  deter  wise  men  from  continuing  the 
pursuit.  Content  with  proving,  or  seeming  to 
himself  to  prove,  that  we  have  not  attained  cer 
tainty,  he  does  not  attempt  to  prove  that  we  can- 
not  reach  it. 

"  The  doctrine  of  Mr.  Hume,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  not  that  we  have  not  reached  truth,  but  that  we 
never  can  reach  it.  It  is  an  absolute  and  universal 
system  of  scepticism,  professing  to  be  derived  from 
the  very  structure  of  the  Understanding,  which, 
if  any  man  could  seriously  believe  it,  would 
render  it  impossible  for  him  to  form  an  opinion 
upon  any  subject, — to  give  the  faintest  assent  to 
any  proposition, — 'to  ascribe  any  meaning  to  thc- 
words  '  truth'  and  '  falsehood,'— to  believe,  to  in- 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY. 


195 


quiro,  or  to  reason,  and,  on  the  very  same  ground, 
to  disbelieve,  fo  dissent,  or  to  doubt, — to  adhere 
to  his  own  principle  of  universal  doubt,  and  lastly, 
if  he  be  consistent  with  himself,  even  to  think.  It 
is  not  easy  to  believe  that  speculations  so  shadowy, 
which  never  can  pretend  to  be  more  than  the 
amusements  of  idle  ingenuity,  should  have  any  in 
fluence  on  the  opinions  of  men  of  great  understand 
ing,  concerning  the  most  important  concerns  of 
human  life.  But  perhaps  it  may  be  reasonable  to 
allow,  that  the  same  character  which  disposes  men 
to  scepticism,  may  dispose  them  also  to  acquiesce  in 
considerable  abuses,  and  even  oppressions,  rather 
than  to  seek  redress  in  forcible  resistance.  Men 
of  such  a  character  have  misgivings  in  every  en 
terprise  ;  their  acuteness  is  exercised  in  devising 
objections, — in  discovering  difficulties, — in  fore 
seeing  obstacles ;  they  hope  little  from  human 
wisdom  and  virtue,  and  are  rather  secretly  prone 
to  that  indolence  and  indifference  which  forbade 
the  Epicurean  sage  to  hazard  his  quiet  for  the 
doubtful  interests  of  a  contemptible  race.  They 
do  not  lend  a  credulous  ear  to  the  Utopian  projec 
tor  ;  they  doubt  whether  the  evils  of  change  will 
be  so  little,  or  the  benefits  of  reform  so  great,  as 
the  sanguine  reformer  foretells  that  they  will  be. 
The  sceptical  temper  of  Mr.  Hume  may  have  thus 
insensibly  moulded  his  political  opinions.  But 
causes  still  more  obvious  and  powerful  had  proba 
bly  much  more  share  in  rendering  him  so  zealous 
a  partisan  of  regal  power.  In  his  youth,  the  Pres 
byterians,  to  whose  enmity  his  opinions  exposed 
him,  were  the  zealous  and  only  friends  of  civil 
liberty  in  Scotland  ;  and  the  close  connection  of 
liberty  with  Calvinism,  made  both  more  odious  to 
him.  The  gentry  in  most  parts  of  Scotland,  ex 
cept  in  the  west,  were  then  Jacobites ;  and  his 
early  education  was  probably  among  that  party. 
The  prejudices  which  he  perhaps  imbibed  in 
P'rance  against  the  literature  of  England,  extended 
to  her  institutions ;  and  in  the  state  of  English 
opinion,  when  his  history  was  published,  if  he 
sought  distinction  by  paradox,  he  could  not  so 
effectually  have  obtained  his  object  by  the  most 
startling  of  his  metaphysical  dogmas,  as  by  his 
doubts  of  the  genius  of  Shakespeare,  and  the  vir 
tue  of  Hampden." 

NOTE  P.  page  139. 

Though  some  parts  of  the  substance  of  the  fol 
lowing  Tetter  have  already  appeared  in  various 
forms,  perhaps  the  account  of  Mr.  Hume's  illness, 
in  the  words  of  his  friend  and  physician  Dr.  Cul- 
len,  will  be  acceptable  to  many  readers.  I  owe 
it  to  the  kindness  of  Mrs.  Baillie,  who  had  the 
goodness  to  copy  it  from  the  original,  in  the  col 
lection  of  her  late  learned  and  excellent  husband, 
Dr.  Baillie.  Some  portion  of  what  has  been  for 
merly  published  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to 
reprint. 

FROM  DR.  CULLEN  TO  DR.  HUNTER. 

"My  DEAR  FRIEND, — I  was  favoured  with 
yours  by  Mr.  Halket  on  Sunday,  and  have  an 
swered  some  part  of  it  by  a  gentleman  whom  I 
was  otherwise  obliged  to  write  by  ;  but  as  I  was 
not  certain  how  soon  that  might  come  to  your 
hand,  I  did  not  answer  your  postscript;  in  doing 
which,  if  I  can  oblige  you,  a  part  of  the  merit  must 
be  that  of  the  information  being  early,  and  I  there 
fore  give  it  you  as  soon  as  I  possibly  could.  You 
desire  an  account  of  Mr.  Hume's  last  days,  and  I 
give  it  you  with  some  pleasure  ;  for  though  I  could 
not  look  upon  him  in  his  illness  without  much 
concern,  yet  the  tranquillity  and  pleasantry  which 
he  constantly  discovered  did  even  then  give  me 
satisfaction,  and,  novv  that  the  curtain  is  dropped, 
allows  me  to  indulge  the  less  allayed  reflection. 
He  was  truly  an  example  des  grands  homines  qui 


sont  marts  en  plaiaantant.  .  .  .  For  many  weeks 
before  his  death  he  was  very  sensible  of  his  gradual 
decay  ;  and  his  answer  to  inquiries  after  his  health 
was,  several  times,  that  he  was  going  as  fast  as 
his  enemies  could  wish,  and  as  easily  as  his  friends 
could  desire.  He  was  not,  however,  without  a 
frequent  recurrence  of  pain  and  uneasiness  ;  but  he 
passed  most  part  of  the  day  in  his  drawing-room, 
admitted  the  visits  of  his  friends,  and.  with  his 
usual  spirit,  conversed  with  them  upon  literature, 
politics,  or  whatever  else  was  accidentally  started. 
In  conversation  he  seemed  to  be  perfectly  at  ease, 
and  to  the  last  abounded  with  that  pleasantry,  and 
those  curious  and  entertaining  anecdotes,  which 
ever  distinguished  him.  This,  however,  I  always 
considered  rather  as  an  effort  to  be  agreeable  ;  and 
he  at  length  acknowledged  that  it  became  too 
much  for  his  strength.  For  a  few  days  before  his 
death,  he  became  more  averse  to  receive  visits  ; 
speaking  became  more  and  more  difficult  for  him, 
and  for  twelve  hours  before  his  death  his  speech 
failed  altogether.  His  senses  and  judgment  did 
not  fail  till  the  last  hour  of  his  life.  He  constantly 
discovered  a  strong  sensibility  to  the  attention  and 
care  of  his  friends  ;  and,  amidst  great  uneasiness 
and  langour,  never  betrayed  any  peevishness  or 
impatience.  This  is  a  general  account  of  his  last 
days  ;  but  a  particular  fact  or  two  may  perhaps 

convey  to  you  a  still  better  idea  of  them. 

*  *  *  * 

"  About  a  fortnight  before  his  death,  he  added 
a  codicil  to  his  will,  in  which  he  fully  discovered 
his  attention  to  his  friends,  as  well  as  his  own 
pleasantry.  What  little  wine  he  himself  drank 
was  generally  port,  a  wine  for  which  his  friend 
the  poet  [John  Home]  had  ever  declared  the 
strongest  aversion.  David  bequeaths  to  his  friend 
John  one  bottle  of  port  ;  and,  upon  condition  of 
his  drinking  this  even  at  two  down-sittings,  be 
stows  upon  him  twelve  dozen  of  his  best  claret. 
He  pleasantly  adds,  that  this  subject  of  wine  was 
the  only  one  upon  which  they  had  ever  differed. 
In  the  codicil  there  are  several  other  strokes  of 
raillery  and  pleasantry,  highly  expressive  of  the 
cheerfulness  which  he  then  enjoyed.  He  even 
turned  his  attention  to  some  of  the  simple  amuse 
ments  with  which  he  had  been  formerly  pleased. 
In  the  neighbourhood  of  his  brother's  house  in 
Berwickshire  is  a  brook,  by  which  the  access  in 
time  of  floods  is  frequently  interrupted.  Mr.  Hume 
bequeaths  1001.  for  building  a  bridge  over  this 
brook,  but  upon  the  express  condition  that  none  of 
the  stones  for  that  purpose  shall  be  taken  from  a 
quarry  in  the  neighbourhood,  which  forms  part  of 
a  romantic  scene  in  which,  in  his  earlier  days, 
Mr.  Hume  took  particular  delight  :—  otherwise 
the  money  to  go  to  the  poor  of  the  parish. 

"  These  are  a  few  particulars  which  may  per 
haps  appear  trifling  ;  but  to  me  no  particulars  seem 
trifling  that  relate  to  so  great  a  man.  It  is  per 
haps  from  trifles  that  we  can  best  distinguish  the 
tranquillity  and  cheerfulness  of  the  philosopher, 
at  a  time  when  the  most  part  of  mankind  are  under 
disquiet,  anxiety,  and  sometimes  even  horror.  .  .  . 
I  had  gone  so  far  when  I  was  called  to  the  country  ; 
and  I  nave  returned  only  so  long  before  the  post 
as  to  say,  that  I  am  most  affectionately  yours, 
"  WILLIAM  CULLEN. 

"  Edinburgh,  llth  September,  1776." 

NOTE  Q.  page  139. 

Pyrrho  was  charged  with  carrying  his  scepti 
cism  so  far  as  not  to  avoid  a  carriage  if  it  was 
driven  against  him.  ^Enesidemus,  the  most  fa 
mous  of  ancient  sceptics,  with  great  probability 
vindicates  the  more  ancient  doubter  from  such 
lunacy,  of  which  indeed  his  having  lived  to  the 
age  of  ninety  seems  sufficient  to  acquit  him.  Am- 


%v;  teyiv,  [J.H  fjwm  yt  aTrKcpirl;  'UiFTct 


196 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Diogenes  Laertius,  lib.  ix.  sect.  62.  Brief  and 
imperfect  as  our  accounts  of  ancient  scepticism  are, 
it  does  appear  that  their  reasoning  on  the  subject 
of  causation  had  some  resemblance  to  that  of  Mr. 
Hume.  ^Aysufouiri  t)s  TO  aUTisy  ZJy  TO  ctirtov  T^ir  ftp; 

Tt  \7Tl,  T*:?  yap  TV  O-lTtCtT^  t9"Tl'  TO.  efg  Trpf  Tt  t7riVCt7- 

u7rdf%u  is  ou*  licit  TO  O.ITICV  ovv  vrtfootto  uv 
v. — Ibid.  sec.  97.  It  is  perhaps  impossible  to 
translate  the  important  technical  expression  TO,  nfa 
Tt.  It  comprehends  two  or  more  things  as  related 
to  each  other;  both  the  relative  and  correlative 
being  taken  together  as  such.  Fire  considered  as 
having  the  power  of  burning  wood  is  TO  nfa  Tt. 
The  words  of  Laertius  may  therefore  be  nearly 
rendered  into  the  language  of  modern  philosophy 
as  follows:  "Causation  they  take  away  thus: — 
A  cause  is  so  only  in  relation  to  an  effect.  What 
is  relative  is  only  conceived,  but  does  not  exist. 
Therefore  cause  is  a  mere  conception."  The  first 
attempt  to  prove  the  necessity  of  belief  in  a  Divine 
revelation,  by  demonstrating  that  natural  reason 
leads  to  universal  scepticism,  was  made  by  Alga- 
zel,  a  professor  at  Bagdad,  in  the  beginning  of  the 
twelfth  century  of  our  era ;  whose  work  entitled 
the  "  Destruction  of  the  Philosopher"  is  known 
to  us  only  by  the  answer  of  Averroes,  called  "De 
struction  of  the  Destruction."  He  denied  a  necessa 
ry  connection  between  cause  and  effect ;  for  of  two 
separate  things,  the  affirmation  of  the  existence  of 
one  does  not  necessarily  contain  the  affirmation  of 
the  existence  of  the  other ;  and  the  same  may  be 
said  of  denial.  It  is  curious  enough  that  this  argu 
ment  was  more  especially  pointed  against  those 
Arabian  philosophers  who,  from  the  necessary 
connection  of  causes  and  effects,  reasoned  against 
the  possibility  of  miracles  ; — thus  anticipating  one 
doctrine  of  Mr.  Hume,  to  impugn  another.— Ten- 
nemann,  Geschichte  der  Philosophic,  vol.  viii.  p. 
387.  The  same  attempt  was  made  by  the  learned 
but  unphilosophical  Huet,  bishop  of  Avranches. — 
(Qua3stiones  Alnetanae,  Caen,  1690,  and  Traite 
de  la  Foiblesse  de  1'Esprit  Humain,  Amsterdam, 
1723.)  A  similar  motive  urged  Berkeley  to  his 
attack  on  Fluxions.  The  attempt  of  Huet  has 
been  lately  renewed  by  the  Abbe  Lamennais,  in 
his  treatise  on  Religious  Indifference  ; — a  fine 
writer  whose  apparent  reasonings  amount  to  little 
more  than  well- varied  assertions,  and  well-dis 
guised  assumptions  of  the  points  to  be  proved. 
To  build  religion  upon  scepticism  is  the  most  ex 
travagant  of  all  attempts  ;  for  it  destroys  the  proofs 
of  a  divine  mission,  and  leaves  no  natural  means 
of  distinguishing  between  revelation  and  imposture. 
The  Abbe  Lamennais  represents  authority  as  the 
sole  ground  of  belief.  Why  ?  If  any  reason  can  be 
given,  the  proposition  must  be  false  ;  if  none,  it  is 
obviously  a  mere  groundless  assertion. 

NOTE  R.  page  142. 

Casanova,  a  Venetian  doomed  to  solitary  im 
prisonment  in  the  dungeons  at  Venice  in  1755, 
thus  speaks  of  the  only  books  which  for  a  time  he 
was  allowed  to  read.  The  title  of  the  first  was 
"  La  Cite  Mystique  de  Soeur  Marie  de  Jesus,  ap- 
pellle  d'Agrada."  "  J'y  lus  tout  ce  que  peut  en- 
ianter  1'imagination  exaltee  d'une  vierge  Espag- 
nole  extravagamment  devote,  cloitree,  melancho- 
lique,  ayant  des  directeurs  de  conscience,  ignprans, 
faux,  et  devots.  Amoureuse  et  amie  tres  intime 
de  la  Sainte  Vierge,  elle  avail  rec,u  ordre  de  Dieu 
m8me  d'ecrire  la  vie  de  sa  divine  mere.  Les  in 
structions  necessaires  lui  avaient  ete  fournies  par 
le  Saint  Esprit.  Elle  commencoit  la  vie  de  Marie, 
non  pas  du  jour  de  sanaissance,  mais  du  moment 
de^son  immaculee  conception  dans  le  sein  de  sa 
mere  Anne.  Apres  avoir  narre  en  detail  tout  ce 
que  sa  divine  heroine  fit  les  neuf  mois  qu'elle  a 
passe  dans  le  sein  maternel,  elle  nous  apprend 
qu'a  rage  de  trois  ans  elle  bnlayoit  la  maison, 
nidee  par  neuf  cents  domestrques,  tous  anges,  j 


commanded  par  leur  prropre  Prince  Michel.  Ce 
qui  frappe  dans  ce  livre  est  I'assurance  que  tout 
est  dit  de  bonne  foi.  Ce  sont  les  visions  d'un  es 
prit  sublime,  qui,  sans  aucune  ombre  d'orgueil, 
ivre  de  Dieu,  croit  ne  reveler  que  ce  que  1'Esprit 
Saint  lui  inspire." — Memoires  de  Casanova  (Leip- 
sic,  1827),  vol.  iv.  p.  343,  A  week's  confinement 
to  this  volume  produced  such  an  effect  on  Casa 
nova,  an  unbeliever  and  a  debauchee,  but  who  was 
then  enfeebled  by  melancholy,  bad  air,  and  bad 
food,  that  his  sleep  was  haunted,  and  his  waking 
hours  disturbed  by  its  horrible  visions.  Many 
years  after,  passing  through  Agrada  in  Old  Cas 
tile,  he  charmed  the  old  priest  of  that  village  by 
speaking  of  the  biographer  of  the  virgin.  The 
priest  showed  him  all  the  spots  which  were  con 
secrated  by  her  presence,  and  bitterly  lamented 
that  the  Court  of  Rome  had  refused  to  canonize 
her.  It  is  the  natural  reflection  of  Casanova  that 
the  book  was  well  qualified  to  turn  a  solitary  pri 
soner  mad,  or  to  make  a  man  at  large  an  atheist. 
It  ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  that  the  inquisitors 
of  state  at  Venice,  who  proscribed  this  book,  were 
probably  of  the  latter  persuasion.  It  is  a  striking 
instance  of  the  infatuation  of  those  who,  in  their 
eagerness  to  rivet  the  bigotry  of  the  ignorant,  use 
means  which  infallibly  tend  to  spread  utter  unbe 
lief  among  the  educated.  The  book  is  a  disgust 
ing,  but  in  its  general  outline  seemingly  faithful, 
picture  of  the  dissolute  manners  spread  over  the 
Continent  of  Europe  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

NOTE  S.   page  143. 

"  The  Treatise  on  the  Law  of  War  and  Peace, 
the  Essay  on  Human  Understanding,  the  Spirit 
of  Laws,  and  the  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the 
Wealth  of  Nations,  are  the  works  which  have 
most  directly  influenced  the  general  opinion  of 
Europe  during  the  two  last  centuries.  They  are 
also  the  most  conspicuous  landmarks  in  the  pro 
gress  of  the  sciences  to  which  they  relate.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  defects  of  all  these  great 
works  are  very  similar.  The  leading  notions  of 
none  of  them  can,  in  the  strictest  sense,  be  said  to 
be  original,  though  Locke  and  Smith  in  that  re 
spect  surpass  their  illustrious  rivals.  All  of  them 
employ  great  care  in  ascertaining  those  laws  which 
are  immediately  deduced  from  experience,  or  di 
rectly  applicable  to  practice  ;  but  apply  metaphy 
sical  and  abstract  principles  with  considerable 
negligence.  Not  one  pursues  the  order  of  science, 
beginning  with  first  elements,  and  advancing  to 
more  and  more  complicated  conclusions ;  though 
Locke  is  perhaps  less  defective  in  method  than 
the  rest.  All  admit  digressions  which,  though 
often  intrinsically  excellent,  distract  attention  and 
break  the  chain  of  thought.  Not  one  of  them  is 
happy  in  the  choice,  or  constant  in  the  use,  of 
technical  terms ;  and  in  none  do  we  find  much  of 
that  rigorous  precision  which  is  the  first  beauty 
of  philosophical  language.  Grotius  and  Montes 
quieu  were  imitators  ol  Tacitus, — the  first  with 
more  gravity,  the  second  with  more  vivacity  ;  but 
both  were  tempted  to  forsake  the  simple  diction 
of  science,  in  pursuit  of  the  poignant  brevity  which 
that  great  historian  has  carried  to  a  vicious  excess. 
Locke  and  Smith  chose  an  easy,  clear,  and  free, 
but  somewhat  loose  and  verbose  style, — more 
concise  in  Locke, — more  elegant  in  Smith,— in 
both  exempt  from  pedantry,  but  not  void  of  am 
biguity  and  repetition.  Perhaps  all  these  apparent 
defects  contributed  in  some  degree  to  the  specific 
usefulness  of  these  great  works  ;  and,  by  render 
ing  their  contents  more  accessible  and  acceptable 
to  the  majority  of  readers,  have  more  completely 
blended  their  principles  with  the  common  opinions 
of  mankind." — Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxxvi.  p. 
244.  [This  is  a  further  extract  from  the  article 
alluded  to  at  p.  192.  -ED.] 


As? 


NOTES  T—  U.  p.  147. 
tv  yp*ju/u.x.Ttia>  % 


Aristotle.  "  De  Anima,"  Opera,  (Paris,  1639) 
tome  ii.  p.  50.  A  little  before,  in  the  same  treatise, 
appears  a  great  part  of  the  substance  of  the  famous 
maxim,  Nil  est  in  intellects,  quod  non  priusfuit  in 
sensu.  "HSt  9*vrx<rix.  *iv»<rts  *ts  3ix.x  Weti,  **i  dx. 


DISSERTATION  ON  THE  PROGRESS  OF  ETHICAL  PHILOSOPHY.  197 

owever,  been  vain :  I  have  discovered  no  trace 
f  that  or  of  any  similar  speculation.  My  edition 
s  in  Latin  by  Elzevir,  at  Amsterdam,  in  1650, 
he  year  of  Descartes'  death.  I  am  obliged, 
therefore,  to  conjecture,  that  Mr.  Coleridge,  hav- 
ng  mislaid  his  references,  has,  by  mistake,  quo- 
ed  the  discourse  on  Method,  instead  of  another 
vork  ;  which  would  affect  hts  inference  from  the 
riority  of  Descartes  to  Hobbes.  It  is  not  to 
e  denied,  that  the  opinion  of  Aristotle,  repeated 
jy  so  many  commentators,  may  have  found  its 
way  into  the  mind  of  Hobbes,  and  also  of  Hume  ; 
hough  neither  might  be  aware  of  its  source,  or 
ven  conscious  that  it  was  not  originally  his  own. 
fet  the  very  narrow  view  of  Association  taken 
jy  Locke,  his  apparently  treating  it  as  a  novelty, 
md  the  silence  of  common  books  respecting  it, 
fford  a  presumption  that  the  Peripatetic  doctrine 
,vas  so  little  known,  that  it  might  have  escaped 
he  notice  of  these  philosophers ; — one  of  whom 
>oasted  that  he  was  unread,  while  the  other  is 
iot  liable  to  the  suspicion  of  unacknowledged 


ivavrcv,  «  TOU 


0.1  &  «*iV6«Vs»?  yiyvty-Qxt. — Ibid.  p.  47.  In  the  tract 
on  Memory  and  Reminiscence  we  find  his  enu^ 
meration  ot  the  principles  of  association.  A/a  K.AI 

TO'J  VUV  H  aAXCW  T/VCf, 

f>ve)yvs- — Ibid.  p.  86. 

If  the  latter  word  be  applied  to  time  as  well  as 
space,  and  considered  as  comprehending  causa 
tion,  the  enumeration  will  coincide  with  that  of 
Hume.  The  term  d-vpt'Jta  is  as  significant  as  if  it 
had  been  chosen  by  Hobbes.  But  it  is  to  be  ob 
served,  that  these  principles  are  applied  only  to 
explain  memory. 

Something  has  been  said  on  the  subject,  and 
something  on  the  present  writer,  by  Mr.  Cole 
ridge,  in  his  unfortunately  unfinished  work  called 
"  Biographia  Literaria,"  chap,  v.,  which  seems  to 
.justify,  if  not  to  require,  a  few  remarks.     That 
learned  gentleman  seems  to  have  been  guilty  of 
an  oversight  in  quoting  as  a  distinct  work   the 
"  Parva  Naturalia,"  which  is  the  collective  name 
given  by  the  scholastic  translators  to  those  trea 
tises  of  Aristotle  which  form  the  second  volume 
of  Duval's  edition  of  his  works,  published  at  Paris 
in  1639.  I  have  already  acknowledged  the  striking 
resemblance  of  Mr.  Hume's  principles  of  associa 
tion  to  those  of  Aristotle.     In  answer,  however, 
to  a  remark  of  Mr.  Coleridge,  I  must  add,  that 
the  manuscript  of  a  part  of  the  Aquinas  which  I 
bought  many  years  ago  (on  the  faith  of  a  booksel 
ler's  catalogue)  as  being  written  by  Mr.  Hume, 
was  not  a  copy  of  the  Commentary  on  the  "  Parva 
Naturalia,"  but  of  Aquinas'  own  "  Secunda  Se- 
cundae ;"  and  that,  on  examination,  it  proves  not 
to  be  the  handwriting  of  Mr.  Hume,  and  to  con 
tain  nothing  written  by  him.     It  is  certain  that, 
in  the  passages  immediately  preceding  the  quota 
tion,  Aristotle  explains  recollection  as  depending 
on  a  general  law, — that  the  idea  of  an  object  will 
remind  us  of  the  objects  which  immediately  pre 
ceded  or  followed  when  originally  perceived.    But 
what  Mr.  Coleridge  has  not  told  us  is,  that  the 
Stagyrite  confines  the  application  of  this  law  ex 
clusively  to  the  phenomena  of  recollection  alone, 
without   any  glimpse   of  a  more  general  opera 
tion  extending  to  all  connections  of  thought  and 
feeling, — a  wonderful  proof,  indeed,  even  so  limit 
ed,  of  the  sagacity  of  the   great  philosopher,  but 
which  for  many  ages  continued  barren  of  further 
consequences.  The  illustrations  of  Aquinas  throw 
light  on  the  original  doctrine,  and  show  that  it 
was  unenlarged  in  his  time.  "  When  we  recollect 
Socrates,  the   thought  of  Plato  occurs  'as  like 
him.'     When  we  remember  Hector,  the  thought 
of  Achilles  occurs  '  as  contrary.'     The  idea  of  " 
father  is  followed  by  that  of  a  son  '  as  near.'  "• 
Opera,  vol.  i.  pars  ii.  p.  62.  et  sea.     Those  of  Lu- 
dovicus  Vives,  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Coleridge,  ex 
tend  no  farther.     But  if  Mr.  Coleridge  will  coni- 
pare  the  parts  of  Hobbes  on  Human  Nature  which 
relate  to  this  subject,  with   those  which  explain 
general  terms,  he  will  perceive  that  the  philoso 
pher  of  Malmesbury  builds  on  these  two  founda 
tions  a  general  theory  of  the  human  understanding 
of  which  reasoning  is  only  a  particular  case.     Ii 
consequence  of  the  assertion  of  Mr.  Coleridge 
that  Hobbes  was  anticipated  by  Descartes  in  his 
excellent  and  interesting  discourse  on  Method, 
have  twice  reperused  the  latter's  work  in  quest  o 
this  remarkable  anticipation,  though,  as  I  thought 
well  acquainted   by  my  old  studies  with  the  wri 
ting's  of  that  great  philosopher.     My  labour  has 


)orrowng. 

To  Mr.  Coleridge,  who  distrusts  his  own  power 
f  building  a  bridge  by  which  his  ideas  may  pass 
nto  a  mind  so  differently  trained  as  mine,  1  ven- 
ure  to  suggest,  with  that   sense  of  his  genius 
vhich  no  circumstance   has  hindered   me   from 
seizing  every  fit  occasion  to  manifest,  that  more   __ 
of  my  early  years  were  employed  in  contempla- 
ions  of  an  abstract  nature,  than  of  those  of  the 
majority  of  his  readers, — that  there  are  not,  even, 
now,  many  of  them  less  likely  to  be  repelled  from 
doctrines  by  singularity  or  uncouthness  ;  or  many 
more  willing  to  allow  that  every  system  has  caught 
an  advantageous  glimpse  of  some  side  or  corner 
of  the  truth ;  or  many  more  desirous  of  exhibit' 
ng  this  dispersion  of  the  fragments  of  wisdom  by 
attempts  to  translate  the  doctrine  of  one  school 
nto  the  language  of  another  ;  or  many  who  when 
.hey  cannot  discover  a  reason  for  an  opinion,  con 
sider  it  more  important  to  discover  the  causes  of 
its  adoption  by  the  philosopher  ;— believing,  as  I 
do,  that  one  of  the  most  arduous  and  useful  offices 
of  mental  philosophy  is  to  explore  the  subtile  illu 
sions  which  enable  great  minds  to  satisfy  them 
selves  by  mere  words,  before  they  deceive  others 
by   payment  in  the  same   counterfeit  coin.     My 
habits,  together  with  the  natural  influence  of  my 
age  and  avocations,  lead   me  to   suspect  that  in 
speculative  philosophy  I  am  nearer  to  indifference 
than  to   an  exclusive  spirit.     I   hope  that  it  can 
neither  be  thought  presumptuous  nor  offensive  in 
me  to  doubt,  whether  the  circumstance  of  its  being 
found  difficult  to  convey  a  metaphysical  doctrine 
to  a  person  who,  at  one  part  of  his  life,  made  such 
studies  his  chief  pursuit,  may   not  imply  either 
error  in  the  opinion,  or  defect  in  the  mode  of  com 
munication. 

NOTE  V.  page  159. 

A  very  late  writer,  who  seems  to  speak  for  Mr. 
Bentham  with  authority,  tells  us  that  "  the  first 
time  the  phrase  of  '  the  principle  of  utility'  was 
brought  decidedly  into  notice,  was  in  the  '  Essays,' 
by  David  Hume,  published  about  the  year  1742. 
In  that  work  it  is  mentioned  as  the  name  of  a  prin 
ciple  which  might  be  made  the  foundation  of  a  sys 
tem  of  morals,  in  opposition  to  a  system  then  in 
vogue,  which  was  founded  on  what  ivas  called  the 
'  moral  sense.'  The  ideas,  however,  there  at 
tached  to  it,  are  vague,  and  defective  in  practical 
application." — Westminster  Review,  vol.  xi.  p. 
258.  If  these  few  sentences  were  scrutinised 
with  the  severity  and  minuteness  of  Bentham's 
Fragment  on  Government,  they  would  be  found 
to  contain  almost  as  many  misremembrances  as 
assertions.  The  principle  of  Utility  is  not  "  men- 
lioned,"  but  fully  discussed,  in  Mr.  Hume's  dis 
course.  It  is  seldom  spoken  of  by  "  name."  In- 
R  2 


198 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


stead  of  charging  the  statements  of  it  with  "  vague-  \ 
ness,"  it  would  be  more  just  to  admire  the  preci 
sion  which  it  combines  with  beauty.    Instead  of 
being  ''defective  in  practical  application,1'  per-  j 
haps  the  desire  of  rendering  it  popular  has  crowd-  ; 
ed  it  with  examples  and  illustrations  taken  from  > 
life.     To  the  assertion  that  "  it  was  opposed  to  the  j 
moral  sense,"  no  reply  can  be  needful  but  the  fol-  j 
lowing  words  extracted  from  the  discourse  itself:  \ 
"I  am  apt  to  suspect  that  reason  and  sentiment  ] 
concur  in  almost  all   moral  determinations  and  j 
conclusions.     The  final  sentence  which  pronounces  j 
characters  and  actions  amiable  or  odious,  probably  j 
depend*  on  some  internal  sense  or  feeling,  which 
nature  has  made  universal  in  the  whole  species."  — 
Inquiry  concerning  the  Principles  of  Morals,  sect. 
i.      The  phrase  "  made  universal,"  which  is  here 
used  instead  of  the  more  obvious  and   common 
word  "  implanted,"  shows  the  anxious  and  perfect 
precision   of  language,  by   which  a  philosopher 
avoids  the  needless  decision  of  a  controversy  not 
at  the  moment  before  him. 

[Dr.  Whewell  puts  the  case  against  the  present 
mis-denomination  assumed  by  the  disciples  of  Mr. 
Bentham  thus  neatly  :  —  "  If  the  word  from  which 
Deontology  is  derived  had  borrowed  its  meaning 
from  the  notion  of  utility  alone,  it  is  not  likely  that 
it  would  have  become  more  intelligible  by  being 
translated  out  of  Latin  into  Greek.  But  the  term 
'  Deontology'  expresses  moral  science  (and  ex 
presses  it  well),  precisely  because  it  signifies  the 
science  of  duty,  and  contains  no  reference  to  Utility. 
Mackintosh,  who  held  that  TO  sfsov,  —  what  men 
ought  to  do  —  was  the  fundamental  notion  of  mo 
rality,  might  very  probably  have  termed  the 
science  "  Deontology."  The  system  of  which 
Mr.  Bentham  is  the  representative,  —  that  of  those 
who  make  morality  dependent  on  the  production 
of  happiness,  —  has  long  been  designated  in  Ger 
many  by  the  term  '  Eudemonism,'  derived  from 


the  Greek  word  for  happiness  (a/Jat^uovi*).  If  we 
were  to  adopt  this  term  we  should  have  to  oppose 
the  Deontological  to  the  Eudemonist  school;  and 
we  must  necessarily  place  those  who  hold  a  pecu 
liar  moral  faculty,  —  Butler,  Stewart,  Brown,  and 


Mackintosh, — in  the  former,  and  those  who  are 
usually  called  Utilitarian  philosophers  in  the  latter 
class." — Preface  to  this  Dissertation,  8vo,  Edin- 
burg,  1837.  ED.] 

NOTE  VV.  page  160. 

A  writer  of  consummate  ability,  who  has  failed 
in  little  but  the  respect  due  to  the  abilities  and 
character  of  his  opponents,  has  given  too  much 
countenance  to  the  abuse  and  confusion  of  lan 
guage  exemplified  in  the  well-known  verse  of 
Pope, 

Modes  of  self-love  the  Passions  we  may  call. 

"We  know,"  says  he,  "no  universal  proposition 
respecting  human  nature  which  is  true  but  one, — • 
that  men  always  act  from  self-interest." — Edin 
burgh  Review,  vol.  xlix.  p.  185.  It  is  manifest 
from  the  sequel,  that  the  writer  is  not  the  dupe  of 
the  confusion  ;  but  many  of  his  readers  may  be  so. 
If,  indeed,  the  word  '  self-interest'  could  with  pro- 

Kriety  be  used  for  the  gratification  of  every  preva- 
5nt  desire,  he  has  clearly  shown  that  this  change 
in  the  signification  of  terms  would  be  of  no  ad 
vantage  to  the  doctrine  which  he  controverts.  It 
would  make  as  many  sorts  of  self-interest  as  there 
are  appetites,  and  it  is  irreconcilably  at  variance 
with  the  system  of  association  embraced  by  Mr. 
Mill.  To  the  word  '  self-love'  Hartley  properly 
assigns  two  significations:  —  1.  gross  self-love, 
which  consists  in  the  pursuit  of  the  greatest  plea 
sures,  from  all  those  desires  which  look  to  indi 
vidual  gratification  ;  or,  2.  refined  self-love,  which 
seeks  the  greatest  pleasure  which  can  arise  from 
all  the  desires  of  human  nature, — the  latter  of 
which  is  an  invaluable,  though  inferior  principle. 
The  admirable  writer  whose  language  has  occa 
sioned  this  illustration, — who  at  an  early  age  has 
mastered  every  species  of  composition,  —  will 
doubtless  hold  fast  to  simplicity,  which  survives 
all  the  fashions  of  deviation  from  it,  and  which  a 
man  of  a  genius  so  fertile  has  few  temptations  to 
forsake. 


AN  ACCOUNT 

OF 

THE  PARTITION   OF  POLAND.' 


LITTLE  more  than  fifty  years  have  passed 
since  Poland  occupied  a  high  place  among 
the  Powers  of  Europe.  Her  natural  means 
of  wealth  and  force  were  inferior  to  those  of 
few  states  of  the  second  order.  The  surface 
of  the  country  exceeded  that  of  France ;  and 
the  number  of  its  inhabitants  was  estimated 
at  fourteen  millions, — a  population  probably 
exceeding  that  of  the  British  Islands,  or  of 
the  Spanish  Peninsula,  at  that  time.  The 
climate  was  nowhere  unfriendly  to  health, 
or  unfavourable  to  labour;  the  soil  was  fer- 


*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxxvii.,  p. 
463, 


tile,  the  produce  redundant :  a  large  portion 
of  the  country,  still  uncleared,  afforded  am 
ple  scope  for  agricultural  enterprise.  Great 
rivers  afforded  easy  means  of  opening  an  in 
ternal  navigation  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Mediterranean.  In  addition  to  these  natural 
advantages,  there  were  many  of  those  cir 
cumstances  in  the  history  and  situation  of 
Poland  which  render  a  people  fond  and  proud 
of  their  country,  and  foster  that  national 
spirit  which  is  the  most  effectual  instrument 
either  of  defence  or  aggrandisement.  Till 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  she 
had  been  the  predominating  power  of  the 
North.  With  Hungary,  and  the  ^maritime 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


199 


strength  of  Venice,  she  had  formed  the  east 
ern  defence  of  Christendom  against  the  Turk 
ish  tyrants  of  Greece ;  and,  on  the  north-east, 
she  had  been  long  its  sole  barrier  against  the 
more  obscure  barbarians  of  Muscovy.  A 
nation  which  thus  constituted  a  part  of  the 
vanguard  of  civilization,  necessarily  became 
martial,  and  gained  all  the  renown  in  arms 
which  could  be  acquired  before  war  had  be 
come  a  science.  The  wars  of  the  Poles, 
irregular,  romantic,  full  of  personal  adven 
ture,  depending  on  individual  courage  and 
peculiar  character,  proceeding  little  from  the 
policy  of  Cabinets,  but  deeply  imbued  by 
those  sentiments  of  chivalry  which  may 
pervade  a  nation,  chequered  by  extraordi 
nary  vicissitudes,  and  carried  on  against  bar 
barous  enemies  in  remote  and  wild  provinces, 
were  calculated  to  leave  a  deep  impression 
on  the  feelings  of  the  people,  and  to  give 
every  man  the  liveliest  interest  in  the  glories 
and  dangers  of  his  country.  Whatever  ren 
ders  the  members  of  a  community  more  like 
each  other,  and  unlike  their  neighbours, 
usually  strengthens  the  bonds  of  attachment 
between  them.  The  Poles  were  the  only 
representatives  of  the  Sarmatian  race  in  the 
assembly  of  civilized  nations.  Their  lan 
guage  and  their  national  literature — those 
great  sources  of  sympathy  and  objects  of 
national  pride — were  cultivated  with  no  small 
success.  They  contributed,  in  one  instance, 
signally  to  the  progress  of  science ;  and  they 
took  no  ignoble  part  in  those  classical  studies 
which  composed  the  common  literature  of 
Europe.  They  were  bound  to  their  country 
by  the  peculiarities  of  its  institutions  and 
usages, — perhaps,  also,  by  those  dangerous 
privileges,  and  by  that  tumultuary  indepen 
dence  which  rendered  their  condition  as 
much  above  that  of  the  slaves  of  an  absolute 
monarchy,  as  it  was  below  the  lot  of  those 
who  inherit  the  blessings  of  legal  and  moral 
freedom.  They  had  once  another  singu 
larity,  of  which  they  might  justly  have  been 
proud,  if  they  had  not  abandoned  it  in  times 
which  ought  to  have  been  more  enlightened. 
Soon  after  the  Reformation,  they  had  set  the 
first  example  of  that  true  religious  liberty 
which  equally  admits  the  members  of  all 
sects  to  the  privileges,  the  offices,  and  dig 
nities  of  the  commonwealth.  For  nearly  a 
century  they  had  afforded  a  secure  asylum 
to  those  obnoxious  sects  of  Anabaptists  and 
Unitarians,  whom  all  other  states  excluded 
from  toleration :  and  the  Hebrew  nation, 
proscribed  every  where  else,  found  a  second 
country,  with  protection  for  their  learned  and 
religious  establishments,  in  this  hospitable 
and  tolerant  land.  A  body,  amounting  to 
about  half  a  million,  professing  the  equality 
of  gentlemen  amidst  the  utmost  extremes  of 
affluence  and  poverty,  forming  at  once  the 
legislature  and  the  army,  or  rather  constitut 
ing  the  commonwealth,  were  reproached, 
perhaps  justly,  with  the  parade,  dissipation, 
and  levity,  which  generally  characterise  the 
masters  of  slaves :  but  their  faculties  were 
roused  by  ambition  ]  they  felt  the  dignity  of 


conscious  independence ;  and  they  joined  to 
the  brilliant  valour  of  their  ancestors,  an  un 
common  proportion  of  the  accomplishments 
and  manners  of  a  polished  age.  Even  in  the 
days  of  her  decline,  Poland  had  still  a  part 
allotted  to  her  in  the  European  system.  By 
her  mere  situation,  without  any  activity  on 
her  own  part,  she  in  some  measure  prevent 
ed  the  collision,  and  preserved  the  balance, 
of  the  three  greatest  military  powers  of  the 
Continent.  She  constituted  an  essential  mem 
ber  of  the  federative  system  of  France ;  and, 
by  her  vicinity  to  Turkey,  and  influence  on 
the  commerce  of  the  Baltic,  directly  affected 
the  general  interest  of  Europe.  Her  pre 
servation  was  one  of  the  few  parts  of  conti 
nental  policy  in  which  both  France  and  Eng 
land  were  concerned;  and  all  Governments 
dreaded  the  aggrandisement  of  her  neigh 
bours.  In  these  circumstances,  it  might 
have  been  thought  that  the  dismemberment 
of  the  territory  of  a  numerous,  brave,  an 
cient,  and  renowned  people,  passionately 
devoted  to  their  native  land,  without  colour 
of  right  or  pretext  of  defence,  in  a  period  of 
profound  peace,  in  defiance  of  the  law  of 
nations,  and  of  the  common  interest  of  all 
states,  was  an  event  not  much  more  proba 
ble,  than  that  it  should  have  been  swallowed 
up  by  a  convulsion  of  nature.  Before  that 
dismemberment,  nations,  though  exposed  to 
the  evils  of  war  and  the  chance  of  conquest, 
in  peace  placed  some  reliance  on  each  other's 
faith.  The  crime  has,  however,  been  tri 
umphantly  consummated.  The  principle  of 
the  balance  of  power  has  perished  in  the 
Partition  of  Poland. 

The  succession  to  the  crown  of  Poland 
appears,  in  ancient  times,  to  have  been  go 
verned  by  that  rude  combination  of  inherit 
ance  and  election  which  originally  prevailed 
in  most  European  monarchies,  where  there 
was  a  general  inclination  to  respect  heredi 
tary  claims,  and  even  the  occasional  elec 
tions  were  confined  to  the  members  of  the 
reigning  family.  Had  not  the  male  heirs  of 
the  House  of  Jagellon  been  extinct,  or  had 
the  rule  of  female  succession  been  intro 
duced,  it  is  probable  that  the  Polish  mon 
archy  would  have  become  strictly  heredi 
tary.  The  inconveniences  of  the  elective 
principle  were  chiefly  felt  in  the  admission 
of  powerful  foreign  princes  as  candidates  for 
the  crown :  but  that  form  of  government 
proved  rather  injurious  to  the  independence, 
than  to  the  internal  peace  of  the  country. 
More  than  a  century,  indeed,  elapsed  before 
the  mischief  was  felt.  In  spite  of  the  as 
cendant  acquired  by  Sweden  in  the  affairs 
of  the  North,  Poland  still  maintained  her 
high  rank.  Her  last  great  exertion,  when 
John  Sobieski,  in  1683,  drove  the  Turks 
from  the  gates  of  Vienna,  was  worthy  of  her 
ancient  character  as  the  guardian  of  Chris 
tendom. 

His  death,  in  1696,  first  showed  that  the 
admission  of  such  competition  might  lead 
to  the  introduction  of  foreign  influence,  and 
even  arms.  The  contest  which  then  oc- 


200 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


curred  between  the  Prince  of  Conti  and  Au 
gustus,  Elector  of  Saxony,  had  been  decided 
in  favour  of  the  latter  by  his  own  army,  and 
by  Russian  influence,  when  Charles  XII., 
before  he  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty, 
having  already  compelled  Denmark  to  sub 
mit,  and  defeated  a  great  Russian  army,  en 
tered  Warsaw  in  triumph,  deposed  him  as 
an  usurper  raised  to  the  royal  dignity  by 
foreign  force,  and  obliged  him,  by  express 
treaty,  to  renounce  his  pretensions  to  the 
crown.  Charles  was  doubtless  impelled  to 
these  measures  by  the  insolence  of  a  youth 
ful  conqueror,  and  by  resentment  against  the 
Elector ;  but  he  was  also  influenced  by  those 
rude  conceptions  of  justice,  sometimes  de 
generating  into  cruelty,  which  were  blended 
with  his  irregular  ambition.  He  had  the 
generosity,  however,  to  spare  the  territory 
of  the  republic,  and  the  good  sense  to  pro 
pose  the  son  of  the  great  Sobieski  to  fill  the 
vacant  throne  ; — a  proposal  which,  had  it 
been  successful,  might  have  banished  for 
eign  factions,  by  gradually  conferring  on  a 
Polish  family  an  hereditary  claim  to  the 
crown.  But  the  Saxons,  foreseeing  such  a 
measure,  carried  away  young  Sobieski  a 
prisoner.  Charles  then  bestowed  it  on  Sta 
nislaus  Leczinski,  a  Polish  gentleman  of 
worth  and  talent,  but  destitute  of  the  genius 
and  boldness  which  the  public  dangers  re 
quired,  and  by  the  example  of  a  second  king 
enthroned  by  a  foreign  army,  struck  another 
blow  at  the  independence  of  Poland.  The 
treaty  of  Alt-Ranstadt  was  soon  after  an 
nulled  by  the  battle  of  Pultowa;  and  Au 
gustus,  renewing  the  pretensions  which  he 
had  solemnly  renounced,  returned  triumph 
antly  to  Warsaw.  The  ascendant  of  the 
Czar  was  for  a  moment  suspended  by  the 
treaty  of  Pruth.  in  1711,  where  the  Turks 
compelled  Peter  to  swear  that  he  would 
withdraw  his  troops  from  Poland,  and  never 
to  interfere  in  its  internal  affairs ;  but  as  soon 
as  the  Porte  were  engaged  in  a  war  with 
Austria,  he  marched  an  army  into  it ;  and 
the  first  example  of  a  compromise  between 
the  King  and  the  Diet,  under  the  mediation 
of  a  Russian  ambassador,  and  surrounded  by 
Russian  troops,  was  exhibited  in  1717. 

The  death  of  Augustus,  in  1733,  had  near 
ly  occasioned  a  general  war  throughout  Eu 
rope.  The  interest  of  Stanislaus,  the  deposed 
king,  was  espoused  by  France,  partly  per 
haps  because  Louis  XV.  had  married  his 
daughter,  but  chiefly  because  the  cause  of 
the  new  Elector  of  Saxony,  who  was  his 
competitor,  was  supported  by  Austria,  the 
ally  of  England,  and  by  Russia,  then  closely 
connected  with  Austria.  The  court  of  Pe- 
tersburgh  then  set  up  the  fatal  pretext  of  a 
guarantee  of  the  Polish  constitution,  found 
ed  on  the  transactions  of  1717.  A  guarantee 
of  the  territories  and  rights  of  one  indepen 
dent  state  against  others,  is  perfectly  com 
patible  with  justice  :  but  a  guarantee  of  the 
institutions  of  a  people  against  themselves, 
is  but  another  name  for  its  dependence  on  the 
foreign  power  which  enforces  it.  In  pursu 


ance  of  this  pretence,  the  country  was  invad 
ed  by  sixty  thousand  Russians,  who  ravaged 
with  fire  and  sword  every  district  which 
opposed  their  progress;  and  a  handful  of 
gentlemen,  some  of  them  in  chains,  whom 
they  brought  together  in  a  forest  near  War 
saw,  were  compelled  to  elect  Augustus  III. 
Henceforward  Russia  treated  Poland  as  a 
vassal.  She  indeed  disappeared  from  the 
European  system, — was  the  subject  of  wars 
and  negotiations,  but  no  longer  a  party  en 
gaged  in  them.  Under  Augustus  III.,  she 
was  almost  as  much  without  government  at 
home  as  without  influence  abroad,  slumber 
ing  for  thirty  years  in  a  state  of  pacific  anar 
chy,  which  is  almost  without  example  in 
history.  The  Diets  were  regularly  assem 
bled,  conformably  to  the  laws ;  but  each  one 
was  dissolved,  without  adopting  a  single 
measure  of  legislation  or  government.  Tins 
extraordinary  suspension  of  public  authority 
arose  from  the  privilege  which  each  nuncio 
possessed,  of  stopping  any  public  measure, 
by  declaring  his  dissent  from  it,  in  the  well 
known  form  of  the  Liberum  Veto.  To  give  a 
satisfactory  account  of  the  origin  and  pro 
gress  of  this  anomalous  privilege,  would 
probably  require  more  industrious  and  criti 
cal  research  than  were  applied  to  the  subject 
when  Polish  antiquaries  and  lawyers  exist 
ed.*  The  absolute  negative  enjoyed  by  each 
member  seems  to  have  arisen  from  the  prin 
ciple,  that  the  nuncios  were  not  representa 
tives,  but  ministers ;  that  their  power  was 
limited  by  the  imperative  instructions  of  the 
provinces ;  that  the  constitution  was  ralher 
a  confederacy  than  a  commonwealth;  and 
that  the  Diet  was  not  so  much  a  deliberative 
assembly,  as  a  meeting  of  delegates,  whose 
whole  duty  consisted  in  declaring  the  deter 
mination  of  their  respective  constituents. 
Of  such  a  state  of  things,  unanimity  seemed 
the  natural  consequence.  But,  as  the  sove 
reign  power  was  really  vested  in  the  gentry, 
they  were  authorised,  by  the  law,  to  inter 
fere  in  public  affairs,  in  a  manner  most  in 
convenient  and  hazardous,  though  rendered 
in  some  measure  necessary  by  the  unreason 
able  institution  of  unanimity.  This  interfer 
ence  was  effected  by  that  species  of  legal 
insurrection  called  a  "  confederation,"  in 
which  any  number  of  gentlemen  subscribing 
the  alliance  bound  themselves  to  pursue,  by 
force  of  arms,  its  avowed  object,  either  of 
defending  the  country,  or  preserving  the 
laws,  or  maintaining  the  privileges  of  any 
class  of  citizens.  It  was  equally  lawful  for 
another  body  to  associate  themselves  against 
the  former;  and  the  war  between  them  was 
legitimate.  In  these  confederations,  the  so 
vereign  power  released  itself  from  the  re 
straint  of  unanimity;  and  in  order  to  obtain 
that  liberty,  the  Diet  sometimes  resolved 
itself  into  a  confederation,  and  lost  little  by 
being  obliged  to  rely  on  the  zeal  of  voluntary 


*  The  information  on  this  subject  in  Lengnich 
(Jus  Publicum  Polonice)  is  vague  and  unsatisfac 
tory. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


201 


adherents,  rather  than  on  the  legal  obedience 
of  citizens. 

On  the  death  of  Augustus  III.,  it  pleased 
the  Empress  Catharine  to  appoint  Stanislaus 
Poniatowski,  a  discarded  lover,  to  the  vacant 
throne, — a  man  who  possessed  many  of  the 
qualities  and  accomplishments  which  are 
attractive  in  private  life  ;  but  who,  when  he 
was  exposed  to  the  tests  of  elevated  station 
and  public  danger,  proved  to  be  utterly  void 
of  all  dignity  and  energy.  Several  circum 
stances  in  the  state  of  Europe  enabled  her 
to  bestow  the  crown  on  him  without  resist 
ance  from  foreign  powers.  France  was  un 
willing  to  expose  herself  so  early  to  the 
hazard  of  a  new  war,  and  was  farther  re 
strained  by  her  recent  alliance  with  Austria; 
and  the  unexpected  death  of  the  Elector  of 
Saxony  deprived  the  Courts  of  Versailles  and 
Vienna  of  the  competitor  whom  they  could 
have  supported  with  most  hope  of  success 
against  the  influence  of  the  Czarina.  Fred 
eric  II.,  abandoned,  or  (as  he  himself  with 
reason  thought)  betrayed  by  England,*  found 
himself,  at  the  general  peace,  without  an 
ally,  exposed  to  the  deserved  resentment  of 
Austria,  and  no  longer  with  any  hope  of  aid 
from  France,  which  had  become  the  friend 
of  his  natural  enemy.  In  this  situation,  he 
thought  it  necessary  to  court  the  friendship 
of  Catharine,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the 
year  1764,  concluded  a  defensive  alliance 
with  her.  the  stipulations  of  which  with  re 
spect  to  Poland  were,  that  they  were  to  op 
pose  every  attempt  either  to  make  that  crown 
hereditary  or  to  strengthen  the  royal  power ; 
that  they  were  to  unite  in  securing  the  elec 
tion  of  Stanislaus;  and  that  they  were  to 
protect  the  Dissidents  of  the  Greek  and  Pro 
testant  communions,  who,  since  the  year 
1717,  had  been  deprived  of  that  equal  admis- 
sibility  to  public  office  which  was  bestowed 
on  them  by  the  liberality  of  the  ancient  laws. 
The  first  of  these  stipulations  was  intended 
to  perpetuate  the  confusions  of  Poland,  and 
to  insure  her  dependence  on  her  neighbours ; 
while  the  last  would  afford  a  specious  pre 
text  for  constant  interference.  In  a  declara 
tion  delivered  at  Warsaw,  Catharine  assert 
ed,  "  that  she  did  nothing  but  in  virtue  of  the 
right  of  vicinage,  acknowledged  by  all  na 
tions  j"t  and,  on  another  occasion,  observed, 
"that  justice  and  humanity  were  the  sole 
rules  of  her  conduct ;  and  that  her  virtues 
alone  had  placed  her  on  the  throne:"!  while 
Frederic  declared,  that  "  he  should  con 
stantly  labour  to  defend  the  states  of  the 
republic  in  their  integrity ;"  and  Maria  The 
resa,  a  sovereign  celebrated  for  piety  and 
justice,  assured  the  Polish  Government  of 

*  Memoiresde  Frederic  II.  1763 — 1775.  Intro 
duction.  Frederick  charges  the  new  Administra 
tion  of  Geo.  III.,  not  with  breach  of  treaty  in 
making  peace  without  him,  but  with  secretly 
offering  to  regain  Silesia  for  Maria  Theresa,  and 
with  labouring  to  embroil  Peter  III.  wiih  Prussia. 

t  Rulhiere,  Histoire  de  1'Anarchie  de  Pologne, 
vol.  ii.  p.  41. 

t  Ibid.  p.  151. 

26 


"her  resolution  to  maintain  the  republic  in 
all  her  rights,  prerogatives,  and  possessions." 
Catharine  again,  when  Poland,  for  the  first 
time,  acknowledged  her  title  of  Empress  of 
all  the  Russias,  granted  to  the  republic  a 
solemn  guarantee  of  all  its  possessions  !* 

Though  abandoned  by  their  allies  and  dis 
tracted  by  divisions,  the  Poles  made  a  gallant 
stand  against  the  appointment  of  the  dis 
carded  lover  of  a  foreign  princess  to  be  their 
King.  One  party,  at  the  head  of  which  was 
the  illustrious  house  of  Czartorinski,  by  sup 
porting  the  influence  of  Russia,  and  the  elec 
tion  of  Stanislaus,  hoped  to  obtain  the  power 
of  reforming  the  constitution,  of  abolishing  the 
veto,  and  giving  due  strength  to  the  crown. 
The  other,  more  generous  though  less  en 
lightened,  spurned  at  foreign  interference, 
and  made  the  most  vigorous  efforts  to  assert 
independence,  but  were  unhappily  averse  to 
reforms  of  the  constitution,  wedded  to  ancient 
abuses,  and  resolutely  determined  to  exclude 
their  fellow-citizens  of  different  religions 
from  equal  privileges.  The  leaders  of  the 
latter  party  were  General  Branicki,  a  veteran 
of  Roman  dignity  and  intrepidity,  arid  Prince 
Radzivil,  a  youth  of  almost  regal  revenue  and 
dignity,  who,  by  a  singular  combination  of 
valour  and  generosity  with  violence  and 
wildness,  exhibited  a  striking  picture  of  a 
Sarmatian  grandee.  The  events  which  pass 
ed  in  the  interregnum,  as  they  are  related 
by  Rulhiere,  form  one  of  the  most  interest 
ing  parts  of  modern  history.  The  variety  of 
character,  the  elevation  of  mind,  and  the 
vigour  of  talent  exhibited  in  the  fatal  strug 
gle  which  then  began,  afford  a  memorable 
proof  of  the  superiority  of  the  worst  aristo 
cracy  over  the  best  administered  absolute 
monarchy.  The  most  turbulent  aristocracy, 
with  all  its  disorders  and  insecurity,  must 
contain  a  certain  number  of  men  who  re 
spect  themselves,  and  who  have  some  scope 
for  the  free  exercise  of  genius  and  virtue. 

In  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  generous  pa 
triotism,  the  Diet,  surrounded  by  a  Russian 
army,  were  compelled  to  elect  Stanislaus. 
The  Princes  Czartorinski  expected  to  reign 
under  the  name  of  their  nephew.  They  had 
carried  through  their  reforms  so  dexterously 
as  to  be  almost  unobserved;  but  Catharine 
had  too  deep  an  interest  in  the  anarchy  of 
Poland  not  to  watch  over  its  preservation. 
She  availed  herself  of  the  prejudices  of  the 
party  most  adverse  to  her,  and  obliged  the 
Diet  to  abrogate  the  reforms.  Her  ambassa 
dors  were  her  viceroys.  Keyserling.  a  crafty 
and  smooth  German  jurist.  Saldern,  a  des 
perate  adventurer,  banished  from  Holstein 
for  forgery,  and  Repnin,  a  haughty  and  brutal 
Muscovite,  were  selected,  perhaps  from  the 
variety  of  their  character,  to  suit  the  fluctu 
ating  circumstances  of  the  country:  but  all 
of  them  spoke  in  that  tone  of  authority  which 
has  ever  since  continued  to  distinguish  Rus 
sian  diplomacy.  Prince  Czartorinski  was 


*  Ferrand,  Histoire  des  trois  Demembrementfl 
de  la  Pologne  (Paris,  1820),  p.  1. 


202 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


desirous  not  to  be  present  in  the  Diet  when 
his  measures  were  repealed  ]  but  Repnin  told 
him,  that  if  he  was  not,  his  palaces  should 
be  burnt,  and  his  estates  laid  waste.  Under 
standing  this  system  of  Muscovite  canvass,  he 
submitted  to  the  humiliation  of  proposing  to 
abrogate  those  reformations  which  he  thought 
essential  to  the  existence  of  the  republic. 

In  September  of  the  same  year,  the  Rus 
sian  and  Prussian  ministers  presented  notes 
in  favour  of  the  Dissidents,*  and  afterwards 
urged  the  claims  of  that  body  more  fully  to 
the  Diet  of  1766,  when  they  were  seconded 
with  honest  intentions,  though  perhaps  with 
a  doubtful  right  of  interference,  by  Great 
Britain,  Denmark,  and  Sweden,  as  parties  to, 
or  as  guarantees  of,  the  Treaty  of  Oliva,  the 
foundation  of  the  political  system  of  the  north 
of  Europe.  The  Diet,  influenced  by  the  un 
natural  union  of  an  intolerant  spirit  with  a 
generous  indignation  against  foreign  interfer 
ence,  rejected  all  these  solicitations,  though 
undoubtedly  agreeable  to  the  principle  of 

of  them 


pro 


the  treaty,  and  though  some 
ceeded  from  powers  which  could  not  be  sus 
pected  of  unfriendly  intention*.  The  Dissi 
dents  were  unhappily  prevailed  upon  to  enter 
into  confederations  for  the  recovery  of  their 
ancient  rights,  and  thus  furnished  a  pretext 
for  the  armed  interference  of  Russia.  Catha 
rine  now  affected  to  espouse  the  cause  of 
the  Republicans,  who  had  resisted  the  elec 
tion  of  Stanislaus.  A  general  confederation 
of  malcontents  was  formed  under  the  au 
spices  of  Prince  Radzivil  at  Radom,  but  sur 
rounded  by  Russian  troops,  and  subject  to 
the  orders  of  the  brutal  Repnin.  This  ca 
pricious  barbarian  used  his  power  with  such 
insolence  as  soon  to  provoke  general  resist 
ance.  He  prepared  measures  for  assembling 
a  more  subservient  Diet  by  the  utmost  ex 
cesses  of  military  violence  at  the  elections, 
and  by  threats  of  banishment  to  Siberia 
held  out  to  every  one  whose  opposition  he 
dreaded. 

This  Diet,  which  met  on  the  4th  of  Octo 
ber,  1767,  showed  at  first  strong  symptoms 
of  independence,!  but  was  at  length  intimi 
dated  ;  and  Repnin  obtained  its  consent  to  a 
treaty}  stipulating  for  the  equal  admission 
of  all  religious  sectaries  to  civil  offices,  con- 
taininga  reciprocal  guarantee  "  of  the  integri 
ty  of  the  territories  of  both  powers  in  the  most 
solemn  and  sacred  manner,"  confirming  the 
constitution  of  Poland,  especially  the  fatal 
law  of  unanimity,  with  a  few  alterations  re 
cently  made  by  the  Diet,  and  placing  this 
£i  constitution,  with  the  government,  liberty, 
and  rights  of  Poland,  under  the  guarantee  of 
her  Imperial  Majesty,  who  most  solemnly 
promises  to  preserve  the  republic  for  ever 
entire."  Thus,  again,  under  the  pretence 
of  enforcing  religious  liberty,  were  the  dis 
order  and  feebleness  of  Poland  perpetuated  ; 
«,nd  by  the  principle  of  the  foreign  guarantee 

*  Martens,  Recueil  de  Traites,  vol.  i.  p.  340. 
t  Rulhiere,  vol.  ii.  pp.  466.  470. 
t  Martens,  vol.  iv.  p.  582. 


was  her  independence  destroyed.  Frederick 
II.,  an  accomplice  in  these  crimes,  describes 
their  immediate  effect  with  the  truth  and 
coolness  of  an  unconcerned  spectator.  aSo 
many  acts  of  sovereignty/'  says  he,  "  exer 
cised  by  a  foreign  power  on  the  territory  of 
the  republic,  at  length  excited  universal  in 
dignation  :  the  offensive  measures  were  not 
softened  by  the  arrogance  of  Prince  Repnin  : 
enthusiasm  seized  the  minds  of  all.  and  the 
grandees  availed  themselves  of  the  fanati 
cism  of  their  followers  and  serfs,  to  throw  off 
a  yoke  which  had  become  insupportable." 
In  this  temper  of  the  nation,  the  Diet  rose  on 
the  6th  of  March  following,  and  with  it  ex 
pired  the  Confederation  of  Radom,  which 
furnished  the  second  example,  within  five 
years,  of  a  Polish  party  so  blind  to  experi 
ence  as  to  become  the  dupes  of  Russia. 

Another  confederation  was  immediately 
formed  at  Bar,  in  Podolia,  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  religion  and  liberty,*  which,  in  a  mo 
ment,  spread  over  the  whole  kingdom.  The 
Russian  officers  hesitated  for  a  moment 
whether  they  could  take  apart  in  this  intes 
tine  war.  Repnin,  by  pronouncing  the  word 
"Siberia,"  compelled  those  members  of  the 
Senate  who  were  at  Warsaw  to  claim  the 
aid  of  Russia,  notwithstanding  the  dissent  of 
the  Czartorinskis  and  their  friends,  who  pro 
tested  against  that  inglorious  and  ruinous 
determination.  The  Mar  that  followed  pre 
sented,  on  the  part  of  Russia,  a  series  of  acts 
of  treachery,  falsehood,  rapacity,  and  cruelty, 
not  unworthy  of  Caesar  Borgia.  The  resist 
ance  of  the  Poles,  an  undisciplined  and  al 
most  unarmed  people,  betrayed  by  their 
King  and  Senate,  in  a  country  without  fast 
nesses  or  fortifications,  and  in  which  the 
enemy  had  already  established  themselves 
at  every  important  point,  forms  one  of  the 
most  glorious,  though  the  most  unfortunate, 
of  the  struggles  of  mankind  for  their  rights. 
The  council  of  the  confederation  established 
themselves  at  Eperies,  within  the  frontier 
of  Hungary,  with  the  connivance  and  secret 
favour  of  Austria.  Some  French  officers,  and 
aid  in  money  from  Versailles  and  Constan 
tinople,  added  something  to  their  strength, 
and  more  to  their  credit.  Repnin  enter 
ed  into  a  negotiation  with  them,  and  pro 
posed  an  armistice,  till  he  cpuld  procure  re 
inforcements.  Old  Pulaski,  the  first  leader 
of  the  confederation,  objected : — "  There  is 
no  word,"  said  he,  "  in  the  Russian  language 
for  honour."  Repnin.  as  soon  as  he  was  re 
inforced,  laughed  at  the  armistice,  fell  upon 
the  confederates,  and  laid  waste  the  lands  of 
all  true  Poles  with  fire  and  sword.  The 
Cossacks  brought  to  his  house  at  Warsaw, 
Polish  gentlemen  tied  to  the  tails  of  their 
horses,  and  dragged  in  this  manner  along 
the  ground.!  A  Russian  colonel,  named 
Drewitz,  seems  to  have  surpassed  all  his 
comrades  in  ferocity.  Not  content  with  mas 
sacring  the  gentlemen  to  whom  quarter  had 


*  See  their  Manifesto,  Martens,  vol.  i.  p.  456. 
t  Rulhiere,  vol.  iii.  p.  55. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


203 


been  given,  he  inflicted  on  them  the  punish 
ments  invented  in  Russia  for  slaves;  some 
times  tying  them  to  trees  as  a  mark  for  his 
soldiers  to  fire  at ;  sometimes  scorching  cer 
tain  parts  of  their  skin,  so  as  to  represent 
the  national  dress  of  Poland  ;  sometimes  dis 
persing  them  over  the  provinces,  after  he  had 
cut  off  their  hands,  arms,  noses,  or  ears,  as 
living  examples  of  the  punishment  to  be  suf 
fered  by  those  who  should  love  their  coun 
try.*  It  is  remarkable,  that  this  ferocious 
monster,  then  the  hero  of  the  Muscovite 
army,  was  deficient  in  the  common  quality 
of  military  courage.  Peter  had  not  civilized 
the  Russians ;  that  was  an  undertaking  be 
yond  his  genius,  and  inconsistent  with  his  fe 
rocious  character :  he  had  only  armed  a  bar 
barous  people  with  the  arts  of  civilized  war. 
But  no  valour  could  have  enabled  the 
Confederates  of  Bar  to  resist  the  power  of 
Russia  for  four  years,  if  they  had  not  been 
seconded  by  certain  important  changes  in 
the  political  system  of  Europe,  which  at  first 
raised  a  powerful  diversion  in  their  favour, 
but  at  length  proved  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  dismemberment  of  their  country. 
These  changes  may  be  dated  from  the  al 
liance  of  France  with  Austria  in  1756.  and 
still  more  certainly  from  the  peace  of  1762. 
On  the  day  on  which  the  Duke  de  Choiseul 
signed  the  preliminaries  of  peace  at  Fontaine- 
bleau,  he  entered  into  a  secret  convention 
with  Spain,  by  which  it  was  agreed,  that  the 
•war  should  be  renewed  against  England  in 
eight  years, — a  time  which  was  thought  suf 
ficient  to  repair  the  exhausted  strength  of 
the  two  Bourbon  monarchies."!"  The  hostility 
of  the  French  Minister  to  England  was  at 
that  time  extreme.  "  If  I  was  master,"  said 
he,  "  we  should  act  towards  England  as  Spain 
did  to  the  Moors.  If  we  really  adopted  that 
system,  England  would,  in  thirty  years,  be 
reduced  and  destroyed."!  Soon  after,  how 
ever,  his  vigilance  was  directed  to  other 
quarters  by  projects  which  threatened  to 
deprive  France  of  her  accustomed  and  due 
influence  in  the  North  and  East  of  Europe. 
He  was  incensed  with  Catharine  for  not  re 
suming  the  alliance  with  Austria,  and  the 
war  which  had  been  abruptly  suspended  by 
the  caprice  of  her  unfortunate  husband. 
She,  on  the  other  hand,  soon  after  she  was 
seated  on  the  throne,  had  formed  one  of 
those  vast  and  apparently  chimerical  plans 
to  which  absolute  power  and  immense  terri 
tory  have  familiarised  the  minds  of  Russian 
sovereigns.  She  laboured  to  counteract  the 
influence  of  France,  which  she  considered 
as  the  chief  obstacle  to  her  ambition,  on  all 
the  frontiers  of  her  empire,  in  Sweden,  Po- 


*  Rulhiere,  vol.  iii.  p.  124. 

t  Ferrand,  vol.  i.  p.  76.  The  failure  of  this 
perfidious  project  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  decline 
of  Choiseul's  influence.  The  affair  of  the  Falk 
land  Islands  wns  a  fragment  of  the  design. 

t  Despatch  from  M.  de  Choiseul  to  M.  D'Os- 
sun  at  Madrid,  5th  April.  Flassan.  Histoire  de 
la  Diplomatic  Fran9aise,  vol.  vi.  p.  466.  About 
thirty  years  afterwards,  the  French  monarchy 
was  destroyed ! 


land,  and  Turkey,  by  the  formation  of  a 
great  alliance  of  the  North,  to  consist  of 
England,  Prussia,  Sweden,  Denmark,  and 
Poland, — Russia  being  of  course  the  head 
of  the  league.*  Choiseul  exerted  himself  in 
every  quarter  to  defeat  this  project,  or  rather 
to  be  revenged  on  Catharine  for  attempts 
which  were  already  defeated  by  their  own 
extravagance.  In  Sweden  his  plan  for  reduc 
ing  the  Russian  influence  was  successfully 
resisted;  but  the  revolution  accomplished 
by  Gustavus  III.  in  1772.  re-established  the 
French  ascendant  in  that  kingdom.  The 
Count  de  Vergennes,  ambassador  at  Con 
stantinople,  opened  the  eyes  of  the  Sultan  to 
the  ambitious  projects  of  Catharine  in  Swe 
den,  in  Poland,  and  in  the  Crimea,  and  held 
out  the  strongest  assurances  of  powerful  aid, 
wh/ch,  had  Choiseul  remained  in  power, 
would  probably  have  been  carried  into  ef 
fect.  By  all  these  means,  Vergennes  per 
suaded  the  Porte  to  declare  war  against 
Russia  on  the  30th  of  October,  1768.t 

The  Confederates  of  Bar,  who  had  esta 
blished  themselves  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Turkish,  as  well  as  of  the  Austrian  pro 
vinces,  now  received  open  assistance  from 
the  Turks.  The  Russian  arms  were  fully 
occupied  in  the  Turkish  war;  a  Russian  fleet 
entered  the  Mediterranean ;  and  the  agents 
of  the  Court  of  St.  Petersburgh  excited  a 
revolt  among  the  Greeks,  whom  they  after 
wards  treacherously  and  cruelly  abandoned 
to  the  vengeance  of  their  Turkish  tyrants. 
These  events  suspended  the  fate  of  Poland. 
French  officers  of  distinguished  merit  and 
gallantry  guided  the  valour  of  the  undis 
ciplined  Confederates:  Austria  seemed  to 
countenance,  if  not  openly  to  support  them. 
Supplies  and  reinforcements  from  France 
passed  openly  through  Vienna  into  Poland  ; 
and  Maria  Theresa  herself  publicly  declared, 
that  there  was  no  principle  or  honour  in  that 
country,  but  among  the  Confederates.  But 
the  Turkish  war.  which  had  raised  up  an 
important  ally  for  the  struggling  Poles,  was 
in  the  end  destined  to  be  the  cause  of  their 
destruction. 

The  course  of  events  had  brought  the  Rus 
sian  armies  into  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Austrian  dominions,  and  began  to  fill  the 
Court  of  Vienna  with  apprehensions  for  the 
security  of  Hungary.  Frederic  had  no  desire 
that  his  ally  should  become  stronger;  while 
both  the  great  powers  of  Germany  were 
averse  to  the  extension  of  the  Russian  terri 
tories  at  the  expense  of  Turkey.  Frederic 
was  restrained  from  opposing  it  forcibly  by 
his  treaty  with  Catharine,  who  continued  to 
be  his  sole  ally ;  but  Kaunitz,  who  ruled  the 
councils  at  Vienna,  still  adhered  to  the  French 
alliance,  seconding  the  French  negotiations 


*  Rulhiere,  vol.  ii.  p.  310.    Ferrand,  vol.  i.  p.  75. 

t  Flassan,  vol.  iii.  p.  83.  Vergennes  was  im 
mediately  recalled,  notwithstanding  this  success, 
for  having  lowered  (deconsidere)  himself  by  mar 
rying  the  daughter  of  a  physician.  He  brought 
back  with  him  the  three  millions  which  had  been 
remitted  to  him  to  bribe  the  Divan.  Catharine 
called  him  "  Mustapha's  Prompter." 


204 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


at  Constantinople.  Even  so  late  as  the  month, 
of  July,  1771,  he  entered  into  a  secret  treaty 
with  Turkey,  by  which  Austria  bound  her 
self  to  recover  from  Russia,  by  negotiation 
or  by  force,  all  the  conquests  made  by  the 
latter  from  the  Porte.  But  there  is  reason 
to  think  that  Kaunitz,  distrusting  the  power 
and  the  inclination  of  France  under  the  fee 
ble  government  of  Louis  XV.,  and  still  less 
disposed  to  rely  on  the  councils  of  Versailles 
after  the  downfal  of  Choiseul  in  December, 
1770,  though  he  did  not  wish  to  dissolve  the 
alliance,  was  desirous  of  loosening  its  ties, 
and  became  gradually  disposed  to  adopt  any 
expedient  against  the  danger  of  Russian  ag 
grandisement,  which  might  relieve  him  from 
the  necessity  of  engaging  in  a  war,  in  which 
his  chief  confidence  must  necessarily  have 
rested  on  so  weak  a  stay  as  the  French  Go 
vernment.  Maria  Theresa  still  entertained 
a  rooted  aversion  for  Frederic,  whom  she 
never  forgave  for  robbing  her  of  Silesia; 
and  openly  professed  her  abhorrence  of  the 
vices  and  crimes  of  Catharine,  whom  she 
never  spoke  of  but  in  a  tone  of  disgust,  as 
''•that  woman."  Her  son  Joseph,  however, 
affected  to  admire,  and,  as  far  as  he  had 
power,  to  imitate  the  King  of  Prussia ;  and 
in  spite  of  his  mother's  repugnance,  found 
means  to  begin  a  personal  intercourse  with 
him.  Their  first  interview  occurred  at  Neiss, 
in  Silesia,  in  August,  1769,  where  they  en 
tered  into  a  secret  engagement  to  prevent 
the  Russians  from  retaining  Moldavia  and 
Wallachia.  In  September,  1770,  a  second 
took  place  at  Neustadt  in  Moravia,  where 
the  principal  subject  seems  also  to  have 
been  the  means  of  staying  the  progress  of 
Russian  conquest,  and  where  despatches 
were  received  from  Constantinople,  desiring 
the  mediation  of  both  Courts  in  the  nego 
tiations  for  peace.*  But  these  interviews, 
though  lessening  mutual  jealousies,  do  not 
appear  to  have  directly  influenced  their  sys 
tem  respecting  Poland. t  The  mediation, 
however,  then  solicited,  ultimately  gave  rise 
to  that  fatal  proposition. 

*  Memoires  de  Frederic  II. 

t  It  was  at  one  lime  believed,  that  .the  project 
of  Partition  was  first  suggested  to'  Joseph  by 
Frederic  at  Neustadt,  if  not  at  Neiss.  Goertz's 
papers  (Memoires  et  Actes  Authentiques  relatifs 
aux  Negotiations  qui  out  precedees  le  Partage  de 
la  Pologne,  Weimar,  1810)  demonstrate  the  con 
trary.  These  papers  are  supported  by  Viomenil 
(Lettres),^  by  the  testimony  of  Prince  Henry, 
by  Rulhiere,  and  by  the  narrative  of  Frederic. 
Dohm  (Denkwiirdigkeiten  meiner  Zeit)  and 
Schoell  (Histoire  Abregee  des  Traites  des  Paix) 
have  also  shown  the  impossibility  of  this  supposi 
tion.  Mr.  Coxe  (History  of  the  House  of  Austria, 
vol.  iii.  p.  499)  has  indeed  adopted  it,  and  endea 
vours  to  support  it  by  the  declarations  of  Hertz- 
berg  to  himself:  but  when  he  examines  the 
above  authorities,  the  greater  part  of  which  have 
appeared  since  his  work,  he  will  probably  be 
satisfied  that  he  must  have  misunderstood  the 
Prussian  minister;  and  he  may  perhaps  follow 
the  example  of  the  excellent  abbreviator  Koch, 
who,  in  the  last  edition  of  his  useful  work,  has 
altered  that  part  of  his  narrative  which  ascribed 
the  first  plan  of  partition  to  Frederic. 


Frederic  had  proposed  a  plan  for  the  paci 
fication  of  Poland,  on  condition  of  reasonable 
terms  being  made  with  the  Confederates, 
and  of  the  Dissidents  being  induced  to  mo 
derate  their  demands.  Austria  had  assented 
to  this  plan,  and  was  willing  that  Russia 
should  make  an  honourable  peace,  but  insist 
ed  on  the  restitution  of  Moldavia  and  Walla- 
chia,  and  declared,  that  if  her  mediation  were 
slighted,  she  must  at  length  yield  to  the 
instances  of  France,  and  take  an  active  part 
for  Poland  and  Turkey.  These  declarations 
Frederic  communicated  to  the  Court  of  Pe- 
tersburgh  j*  and  they  alone  seem  sufficient 
to  demonstrate  that  no  plan  of  partition  was 
then  contemplated  by  that  monarch.  To 
these  communications  Catharine  answei-jsd, 
in  a  confidential  letter  to  the  King,  by  a  plan 
of  peace,  in  which  she  insisted  on  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  Crimea,  the  acquisition  of 
a  Greek  island,  and  of  a  pretended  indepen 
dence  for  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  which 
should  make  her  the  mistress  of  these  pro 
vinces.  She  spoke  of  Austria  with  great 
distrust  and  alienation;  but;  on  the  other 
hand,  intimated  her  readiness  to  enter  into  a 
closer  intimacy  with  that  Court,  if  it  were 
possible  to  disengage  her  from  her  present 
absurd  system,  and  to  make  her  enter  into 
their  views ;  by  which  means  Germany 
would  be  restored  to  its  natural  state,  and 
the  House  of  Austria  would  be  diverted,  by 
other  prospects,  from  those  views  on  his 
Majesty's  possessions,  which  her  present  con 
nections  kept  up.t  This  correspondence  con 
tinued  during  January  and  February,  1771 ; 
Frederic  objecting,  in  very  friendly  language, 
to  the  Russian  demands,  and  Catharine  ad 
hering  to  them.!'  In  January,  Panin  notified 
to  the  Court  of  Vienna  his  mistress'  accept 
ance  of  the  good  offices  of  Austria  towards 
the  pacification,  though  she  declined  a  for 
mal  mediation.  This  despatch  is  chiefly 
remarkable  for  a  declaration,§  "  that  the  Em 
press  had  adopted^  as  an  invariable  maxim? 
never  to  desire  any  aggrandisement  of  her 
states."  When  the  Empress  communicated 
her  plan  of  peace  to  Kaunitz  in  May,  that 
minister  declared  that  his  Court  could  not 
propose  conditions  of  peace,  which  must  be 
attended  with  ruin  to  the  Porte,  and  with 
great  danger  to  the  Austrian  monarchy. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1770,  Maria 
Theresa  had  caused  her  troops  to  take  pos 
session  of  the  county  of  Zipps,  a  district  an 
ciently  appertaining  to  Hungary,  but  which 
had  been  enjoyed  by  Poland  for  about  three 
hundred  and  sixty  years,  under  a  mortgage 
made  by  Sigismond,  king  of  Hungary,  on  the 
strange  condition  that  if  it  was  not  redeemed 
•by  a  fixed  time,  it  could  only  be  so  by  pay 
ment  of  as  many  times  the  original  sum  as 
there  had  years  elapsed  since  the  appointed 


*  Frederic  to  Count  Solms,  his  Minister  at  Pe- 
tersburgh,  12th  Sept.  and  13th  Oct.  1770.  Goertz, 
pp.  100—105. 

t  Ibid.  pp.  107.  128.  The  French  alliance  is 
evidently  meant. 

t  Ibid.  pp.  129—146.  $  Ibid.  p.  9. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


205 


term.  So  unceremonious  an  adjudication  to 
herself  of  this  territory,  in  defiance  of  such 
an  ancient  possession,  naturally  produced  a 
remonstrance  even  from  the  timid  Stanis 
laus,  which,  however,  she  coolly  overruled. 
In  the  critical  state  of  Poland,  it  was  impos 
sible  that  such  a  measure  should  not  excite 
observation ;  and  an  occasion  soon  occurred, 
when  it  seems  to  have  contributed  to  pro 
duce  the  most  important  effects. 

Frederic,  embarrassed  and  alarmed  by  the 
difficulties  of  the  pacification,  resolved  to 
send  his  brother  Henry  to  Petersburgh.  with 
no  other  instructions  than  to  employ  all  his 
talents  and  address  in  bringing  Catharine  to 
such  a  temper  as  might  preserve  Prussia 
from  a  new  war.  Henry  arrived  in  that 
capital  on  the  9th  December;  and  it  seems 
now  to  be  certain,  that  the  first  open  pro 
posal  of  a  dismemberment  of  Poland  arose 
in  his  conversations  with  the  Empress, 
and  appeared  to  be  suggested  by  the  diffi 
culty  of  making  peace  on  such  terms  as 
would  be  adequate  to  the  successes  of  Rus 
sia,  without  endangering  the  safety  of  her 
neighbours.*  It  would  be  difficult  to  guess 
who  first  spoke  out  in  a  conversation  about 
such  a  matter  between  two  persons  of  great 
adroitness,  and  who  were,  doubtless,  both 
equally  anxious  to  throw  the  blame  on  each 
other.  Unscrupulous  as  both  were,  they 
were  not  so  utterly  shameless  that  each  party 
would  not  use  the  utmost  address  to  bring 
the  dishonest  plan  out  of  the  mouth  of  the 
other.  A  look,  a  smile,  a  hint,  or  a  question 
were  sufficiently  intelligible,  The  best  ac 
counts  agree,  that  in  speaking  of  the  entrance 
of  the  Austrian  troops  into  Poland,  and  of  a 
report  that  they  had  occupied  the  fortress  of 
Czentokow,  Catharine  smiling,  and  casting 
down  her  eyes,  said  to  Henry,  "It  seems 
that  in  Poland  you  have  only  to  stoop  and 
take;"  that  he  seized  on  the  expression ;  and 
that  she  then,  resuming  an  air  of  indiffer 
ence,  turned  the  conversation  to  other  sub 
jects.  At  another  time,  speaking  of  the  sub 
sidy  which  Frederic  paid  to  her  by  treaty, 
she  said,  "  I  fear  he  will  be  weary  of  this 
burden,  and  will  leave  me.  I  wish  I  could 
secure  him  by  some  equivalent  advantage." 
"Nothing,"  replied  Henry,  "will  be  more 
easy.  You  have  only  to  give  him  some  ter 
ritory  to  which  he  has  pretensions,  and  which 
will  facilitate  the  communication  between 
his  dominions."  Catharine,  without  appear 
ing  to  understand  a  remark,  the  meaning  of 
which  could  not  be  mistaken,  adroitly  re 
joined,  "  that  she  would  willingly  consent,  if 
the  balance  of  Europe  was  not  disturbed  ; 
and  that  she  wished  for  nothing."!  In  a 
conversation  with  Baron  Saldern  on  the  terms 
of  peace,  Henry  suggested  that  a  plan  must 
be  contrived  which  would  detach  Austria 
from  Turkey,  and  by  which  the  three  powers 
would  gain.  "Very  well,"  replied  the  for 
mer,  "  provided  that  it  is  not  at  the  expense 


of  Poland ;" — "as  if,"  said  Henry  afterwards, 
when  he  told  the  story,  "there  were  any 
other  country  about  which  such  plans  could 
be  formed."  Catharine,  in  one  of  the  con 
ferences  in  which  she  said  to  the  Prince,  "I 
will  frighten  Turkey  and  flatter  England ;  it 
is  your  business  to  gain  Austria,  that  she 
may  lull  France  to  sleep,"  became  so  eager, 
that  she  dipped  her  finger  into  ink,  and  drew 
with  it  the  lines  of  partition  on  a  map  of  Po 
land  which  lay  before  them.  "The  Em 
press,"  says  Frederic,  "indignant  that  any 
other  troops  than  her  own  should  give  la  >\*  to 
Poland,  said  to  Prince  Henry,  that  if  the 
Court  of  Vienna  wished  to  dismember  Po 
land,  the  other  neighbours  had  a  right  to  do 
as  much."*  Henry  said  that  there  were  no 
other  means  of  preventing  a  general  war; — 
"  Pour  prevenir  ce  malheur  il  n'y  a  qu'un 
moyen^ — de  mettre  trois  tetes  dans  un  bonnet  ; 
et  cela  ne  pent  pas  se  faire  qu'aux  depens  d'un 
quart."  It  is  hard  to  settle  the  order  and 
time  of  these  fragments  of  conversation. 
,vhich,  in  a  more  or  less  imperfect  state,  have 
found  their  way  to  the  public.  The  proba 
bility  seems  to  be,  that  Henry,  who  was  not 
inferior  in  address,  and  who  represented  the 
weaker  party,  would  avoid  the  first  proposal 
in  a  case  where,  if  it  was  rejected,  the  at 
tempt  might  prove  fatal  to  the  objects  of  his 
mission.  However  that  may  be,  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  before  he  left  Petersburg  on 
the  30th  of  January,  1771,  Catharine  and  he 
had  agreed  on  the  general  outline  to  be  pro 
posed  to  his  brother. 

On  his  return  to  Berlin,  he  accordingly  dis 
closed  it  to  the  King,  who  received  it  at  first 
with  displeasure,  and  even  with  indignation, 
as  either  an  extravagant  chimera,  or  a  snare 
held  out  to  him  by  his  artful  and  dangerous 
ally.  For  twenty-four  hours  this  anger  lasted. 
It  is  natural  to  believe  that  a  ray  of  con 
science  shot  across  so  great  a  mind,  during 
one  honest  day ;  or,  if  then  too  deeply  tainted 
by  habitual  king-craft  for  sentiments  worthy 
of  his  native  superiority,  that  he  shrunk  for 
a  moment  from  disgrace,  and  felt  a  transient, 
but  bitter,  foretaste  of  the  lasting  execration 
of  mankind.  On  the  next  day,  however,  he 
embraced  his  brother,  as  if  inspired,  and  de 
clared  that  he  was  a  second  time  the  saviour 
of  the  monarchy.!  He  was  still,  however, 
not  without  apprehensions  from  the  incon 
stant  councils  of  a  despotic  government,  in 
fluenced  by  so  many  various  sorts  of  favour 
ites,  as  that  of  Russia.  Orlow,  who  still  held 
the  office  of  Catharine's  lover,  was  desirous 
of  continuing  the  war.  Panin  desired  peace, 
but  opposed  the  Partition,  which  he  probably 


*  Rulhiere,  vol.  iv.  p.  209. 
t  Ferrand,  vol.  i.  p.  140. 


*  Memoires.  This  account  is  very  much  con 
firmed  by  the  well-informed  writer  who  has  pre 
fixed  his  Recollections  to  the  Letters  of  Viomenit, 
who  probably  was  General  Grimouard.  His  ac 
count  is  from  Prince  Henry,  who  told  it  to  him  at 
Paris  in  1788,  calling  the  news  of  the  Austrian 
proceedings  in  Poland,  and  Catharine's  observa 
tions  on  it,  a  fortunate  accident,  which  suggested 
the  plan  of  partition. 

t  Ferrand,  vol.  i.  p.  149. 
S 


206 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


considered  as  the  division  of  a  Russian  pro 
vince.  But  the  great  body  of  lovers  and 
courtiers  who  had  been  enriched  by  grants 
of  forfeited  estates  in  Poland,  were  favoura 
ble  to  a  project  which  would  secure  their  for 
mer  booty,  and,  by  exciting  civil  war,  lead 
to  new  and  richer  forfeitures.  The  Czernit- 
cheffs  were  supposed  not  to  confine  their 
hopes  to  confiscation,  but  to  aspire  to  a  prin 
cipality  to  be  formed  out  of  the  ruins  of  the 
republic.  It  appears  that  Frederic,  in  his 
correspondence  with  Catharine,  urged,  per 
haps  sincerely,  his  apprehension  of  general 
censure  :  her  reply  was, — "  I  take  all  the 
blame  upon  myself."* 

The  consent  of  the  Court  of  Vienna,  how 
ever,  was  still  to  be  obtained  ;  where  the 
most  formidable  and  insuperable  obstacles 
were  still  to  be  expected  in  the  French  alli 
ance,  in  resentment  towards  Prussia,  and  in 
the  conscientious  character  of  Maria  Theresa. 
Prince  Henry,  on  the  day  of  his  return  to 
Berlin,  in  a  conversation  with  Van'  Swieten 
the  Austrian  minister,  assured  him,  on  the 
part  of  Catharine,  "that  if  Austria  w'ould  fa 
vour  her  negotiations  with  Turkey,  she  would 
consent  to  a  considerable  augmentation  of 
the  Austrian  territory."  On  Van  Swieten 
asking  "  where  ?"  Henry  replied.  "You  know 
as  well  as  I  do  what  your  Court  might  take, 
and  what  it  is  in  the  power  of  Russia  and 
Prussia  to  cede  to  her."  The  cautious  min 
ister  was  silent }  but  it  was  impossible  that 
he  should  either  have  mistaken  the  meaning 
of  Henry,  or  have  failed  to  impart  such  a  de 
claration  to  his  Court. t  As  soon  as  the  Court 
of  Petersburgh  had  vanquished  the  scruples 
or  fears  of  Frederic,  they  required  that  he 
should  sound  that  of  Vienna,  which  he  im 
mediately  did  through  Van  Swieten. j  The 
state  of  parties  there  was  such,  that  Kaunitz 
thought  it  ..necessary  to  give  an  ambiguous 
answer.  That  celebrated  coxcomb,  who  had 
growrn  old  in  the  ceremonial  of  courts  and 
the  intrigues  of  cabinets,  and  of  whom  we 
are  told  that  the  death  of  his  dearest  friend 
never  shortened  his  toilet  nor  retarded  his 
dinner,  still  felt  some  regard  to  the  treaty 
with  France,  which  was  his  own  work ;  and 
was  divided  between  his  habitual  submis 
sion  to  the  Empress  Queen  and  the  court 
which  he  paid  to  the  young  Emperor.  It 
was  a  difficult  task  to  minister  to  the  ambi 
tion  of  Joseph,  without  alarming  the  con 
science  of  Maria  Theresa.  That  Princess 
had,  since  the  death  of  her  husband,  "  passed 
several  hours  of  every  day  in  a  funeral  apart- 

*  This  fact  was  communicated  by  Sabatier,  the 
French  resident  at  Petersburgh,  to  his  Court  in  a 
despatch  of  ihe  llth  February,  1774.  (Ferrand, 
vol.  i.  p.  152.)  It  transpired  at  that  time,  on  occa 
sion  of  an  angry  correspondence  between  the  two 
Sovereigns,  in  which  the  King  reproached  the 
Empress  with  having  desired  the  Partition,  and 
quoted  the  letter  in  which  she  had  offered  to  take 
on  herself  the  whole  blame. 

t  Ferrand,  vol.  i.  p.  149. 

t  Memoires  de  Frederic  II.  The  Kins  does 
not  give  the  dates  of  this  communication.  It  pro 
bably  was  in  April.  1771. 


ment,  adorned  by  crucifixes  and  death's 
heads,  and  by  a  portrait  of  the  late  Empe 
ror,  painted  when  he  had  breathed  his  last, 
and  by  a  picture  of  herself,  as  it  was  sup 
posed  she  would  appear,  when  the  paleness 
and  cold  of  death  should  take  from  her  coun 
tenance  the  remains  of  that  beauty  which 
made  her  one  of  the  finest  women  of  her 
age."*  Had  it  been  possible,  in  any  case,  to 
rely  on  the  influence  of  the  conscience  of  a 
sovereign  over  measures  of  state,  it  might 
be  supposed  that  a  princess,  occupied  in  the 
practice  of  religious  austerities,  and  in  the 
exercise  of  domestic  affections,  advanced 
in  years,  loving  peace,  beloved  by  her  sub 
jects,  respected  in  other  countries,  professing 
remorse  for  the  bloodshed  which  her  wars 
had  occasioned,  and  with  her  children  about 
to  ascend  the  greatest  thrones  of  Europe, 
would  not  have  tarnished  her  name  by  co 
operating  with  one  monarch  whom  she  de 
tested,  and  another  whom  she  scorned  and 
disdained,  in  the  most  faithless  and  shame 
less  measures  which  had  ever  dishonoured 
the  Christian  world.  Unhappily,  she  was  des 
tined  to  be  a  signal  example  of  the  insecu 
rity  of  such  a  reliance.  But  she  could  not 
instantly  yield  ]  and  Kaunitz  was  obliged  to 
temporize.  On  the  one  hand,  he  sent  Prince 
Lobkowitz  on  an  embassy  to  Petersburgh, 
where  no  minister  of  rank  had  of  late  repre 
sented  Austria ;  while,  on  the  other,  he  con 
tinued  his  negotiation  for  a  defensive  alliance 
with  Turkey.  After  having  first  duly  noti 
fied  to  Frederic  that  his  Court  disapproved 
the  impracticable  projects  of  Partition,  and 
was  ready  to  withdraw  their  troops  from  the 
district  which  they  had  occupied  in  virtue  of 
an  ancient  claim, t  he  soon  after  proposed 
neutrality  to  him,  in  the  event  of  a  war  be 
tween  Austria  and  Russia.  Frederic  an 
swered,  that  he  was  bound  by  treaty  to  sup 
port  Russia ;  but  intimated  that  Russia  might 
probably  recede  from  her  demand  of  Molda 
via  and  Wallachia.  Both  parts  of  the  an 
swer  seemed  to  have  produced  the  expected 
effect  on  Kaunitz,  who  now  saw  his  country 
placed  between  a  formidable  war  and  a  profit 
able  peace.  Even  then,  probably,  if  he  could 
have  hoped  for  effectual  aid  from  France,  he 
might  have  chosen  the  road  of  honour.  But 
the  fall  of  the  Due  de  Choiseul,  and  the  pu 
sillanimous  rather  than  pacific  policy  of  his 
successors,  destroyed  all  hope  of  French  suc 
cour,  and  disposed  Kaunitz  to  receive  more 
favourably  the  advances  of  the  Courts  of  Ber 
lin  and  Petersburgh.  He  seems  to  have  em 
ployed  the  time,  from  June  to  October,  in 
surmounting  the  repugnance  of  his  Court  to 
the  new  system. 

The  first  certain  evidence  of  a  favourable 
disposition  at  Vienna  towards  the  plan  of  the 


*  Rulhiere,  vol.  iv.  p.  167. 

t  The  want  of  dates  in  the  King  of  Prussia's 
narrative  is  the  more  unfortunate,  because  the 
Count,  de  Goertz  has  not  published  the  papers  re 
lating  to  the  negotiations  between  Austria  and 
Prussia, — an  omission  which  must  be  owned  to 
be  somewhat  suspicious. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


207 


two  Powers,  is  in  a  despatch  of  Prince  Galit- 
zin  at  Vienna  to  Count  Panin,  on  the  25th  of 
October,*  in  which  he  gives  an  account  of  a 
conversation  with  Kaunitz  on  the  day  before. 
The  manner  of  the  Austrian  minister  was 
more  gracious  and  cordial  than  formerly ; 
and,  after  the  usual  discussions  about  the 
difficulties  of  the  terms  of  peace.  Galitzin  at 
last  asked  him — "What  equivalent  do  you 
propose  for  all  that  you  refuse  to  allow  us  1 
It  seems  to  me  that  there  can  be  none/' 
Kaunitz,  suddenly  assuming  an  air  of  cheer 
fulness,  pressed  his  hand,  and  said  "Sir, 
since  you  point  out  the  road,  I  will  tell  you, 
— but  in  such  strict  comidence,  that  it  must 
be  kept  a  profound  secret  at  your  Court ;  for 
if  it  were  to  transpire  and  be  known  even 
to  the  ally  and  friend  of  Russia,  my  Court 
would  solemnly  retract  and  disavow  this 
communication."  He  then  proposed  a  mo 
derate  plan  of  peace,  but  added,  that  the 
Court  of  Vienna  could  not  use  its  good  offices 
to  cause  it  to  be  adopted,  unless  the  Court 
of  Petersburgh  would  give  the  most  positive 
assurances  that  she  would  not  subject  Poland 
to  dismemberment  for  her  own  advantage, 
or  for  that  of  any  other ;  provided  always, 
that  their  Imperial  Majesties  were  to  retain 
the  county  of  Zipps,  but  to  evacuate  every 
other  part  of  the  Polish  territory  which  the 
Austrian  troops  might  have  occupied.  Galit 
zin  observed,  that  the  occupation  of  Zipps 
had  much  the  air  of  a  dismemberment.  This 
Kaunitz  denied;  but  said,  that  his  Court 
would  co-operate  with  Russia  in  forcing  the 
Poles  to  put  an  end  to  their  dissensions.  The 
former  observed,  that  the  plan  of  pacification 
showed  the  perfect  disinterestedness  of  her 
Imperial  Majesty  towards  Poland,  and  that 
no  idea  of  dismemberment  had  ever  entered 
into  her  mind,  or  into  that  of  her  ministers. 
"I  am  happy,"  said  Kaunitz,  "to  hear  you 
say  so."  Panin,  in  his  answer,  on  the  16th 
of  December,!  to  Galitzin,  seems  to  have 
perfectly  well  understood  the  extraordinary 
artifice  of  the  Austrian  minister.  "The 
Court -of  Vienna,"  says  he,  "claims  the  thir 
teen  towns,  and  disclaims  dismemberment  : 
but  there  is  no  state  which  does  not  keep 
claims  open  against  its  neighbours,  and  the 
right  to  enforce  them  when  there  is  an  op 
portunity;  and  there  is  none  which  does  not 
feel  the  necessity  of  the  balance  of  power  to 
secure  the  possession  of  each.  To  be  sincere, 
we  must  not  conceal  that  Russia  is  also  in  a 
condition  to  produce  well-grounded  claims 
against  Poland,  and  that  we  can  with  con 
fidence  say  the  same  of  our  ally  the  King 
of  Prussia ;  and  if  the  Court  of  Vienna  finds 
it  expedient  to  enter  into  measures  with  us 
and  our  ally  to  compare  and  arrange  our 
claims,  we  are  ready  to  agree."  The  fears 
of  Kaunitz  for  the  union  of  France  and  Eng 
land  were  unhappily  needless.  These  great 
Powers,  alike  deserters  of  the  rights  of  na 
tions,  and  betrayers  of  the  liberties  of  Europe, 


*  Goertz,  p.  75. 


t  Ibid.  p.  153. 


saw  the  crime  consummated  without  stretch 
ing  forth  an  arm  to  prevent  it. 

In  the  midst  of  the  conspiracy,  a  magnifi 
cent  embassy  from  France  arrived  at  Vienna 
early  in  January,  1772.*  At  the  head  of  it 
was  the  Prince  de  Rohan,  then  appointed  to 
grace  the  embassy  by  his  high  birth ;  while 
the  business  continued  to  be  in  the  hands  of 
M.  Durand,  a  diplomatist  of  experience  and 
ability.  Contrary  to  all  reasonable  expecta 
tion,  the  young  prince  discovered  the  secret 
which  had  escaped  the  sagacity  of  the  vete 
ran  minister.  Durand.  completely  duped  by 
Kaunitz,  warned  Rohan  to  hint  no  suspicions 
of  Austria  in  his  despatches  to  Versailles. 
About  the  end  of  February,  Rohan  received 
information  of  the  treachery  of  the  Austrian 
court  so  secretly,t  that  he  was  almost  obliged 
to  represent  it  as  a  discovery  made  by  his 
own  penetration.  He  complained  to  Kaunitz, 
that  no  assistance  was  given  to  the  Polish 
confederates,  \vho  had  at  that  moment  bril 
liantly  distinguished  themselves  by  the 
capture  of  the  Castle  of  Cracow.  Kaunitz 
assured  him,  that  "the  Empress  Queen 
never  would  suffer  the  balance  of  power  to 
be  disturbed  by  a  dismemberment  which 
would  give  too  much  preponderance  to  neigh 
bouring  and  rival  Courts."  The  ambassador 
suspected  the  intentions  that  lurked  beneath 
this  equivocal  and  perfidious  answer,  and 
communicated  them  to  his  Court,  in  a  des 
patch  on  the  2d  of  March,  giving  an  account 
of  the  conference.  But  the  Due  d'Aiguillon, 
either  deceived,  or  unwilling  to  appear  sor 
rebuked  the  Prince  for  his  officiousness,  ob 
serving,  that  "  the  ambassador's  conjectures 
being  incompatible  with  the  positive  assur 
ances  of  the  Court  of  Vienna,  constantly 
repeated  by  Count  Mercy,  the  ambassador 
at  Paris,  and  with  the  promises  recently 
made  to  M.  Durand,  the  thread  which  could 
only  deceive  must  be  quitted."  In  a  private 
letter  to  M.  d'Aiguillon,  to  be  shown  only  to 
the  King,  referring  to  a  private  audience 
with  the  Empress,  he  says  : — "  I  have  indeed 
seen  Maria  Theresa  weep  over  the  misfor 
tunes  of  oppressed  Poland  :  but  that  Princess, 
practised  in  the  art  of  concealing  her  design sr 
has  tears  at  command.  With  one  hand  she 
lifts  her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes  to  wipe 
away  tears  j  with  the  other  she  wields  the 
sword  for  the  Partition  of  Poland. "t 


*  Memoiresde  1'Abbe  Georgel,  vol.  i.  p.  219. 

t  The  Abbe  Georgel  ascribes  the  detection  to 
his  master  the  ambassador ;  but  it  is  more  pro 
bably  ascribed  by  M.  Shoell  (Histoire  de  Traites, 
vol.  xiv.  p.  76,)  to  a  young  native  of  Strasburg, 
named  Earth,  the  second  secretary  of  the  French 
Legation,  who,  by  his  knowledge  of  German,  and 
intimacy  with  persons  in  inferior  office,  detected 
the  project,  but  required  the  ambassador  to  con 
ceal  it  even  from  Georgel.  Schoell  quotes  a 
passage  of  a  letter  from  Barth  to  a  friend  at  Stras 
burg,  which  puts  his  early  knowledge  of  it  beyond 
dispute. 

t  Georgel.  vol.  i.  p.  264.  The  letter  produced 
some  remarkable  effects.  Madame  du  Barri  got 
possession  of  it,  and  read  the  above  passage  aloud 
at  one  of  her  supper  parties.  An  enemy  of  Rohan, 


208 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


In  February  and  March,  1772,  the  three 
Powers  exchanged  declarations,  binding 
themselves  to  adhere  to  the  principle  of 
equality  in  the  Partition.  In  August  follow 
ing,  the  treaties  of  dismemberment  were 
executed  at  Petersburgh ;  and  in  September, 
the  demands  and  determinations  of  the  com 
bined  Courts  were  made  known  at  Warsaw. 
It  is  needless  to  characterize  papers  which 
have  been  universally  regarded  as  carried  to 
the  extremity  of  human  injustice  and  effront 
ery.  An  undisputed  possession  of  centu 
ries,  a  succession  of  treaties,  to  which  all 
the  European  states  were  either  parties 
or  guarantees, — nay,  the  recent,  solemn,  and 
repeated  engagements  of  the  three  Govern 
ments  themselves,  were  considered  as  form 
ing  no  title  of  dominion.  In  answer,  the 
Empress  Queen  and  the  King  of  Prussia 
appealed  to  some  pretensions  of  their  pre 
decessors  in  the  thirteenth  century :  the 
Empress  of  Russia  alleged  only  the  evils 
suffered  by  neighbouring  states  from  the 
anarchy  of  Poland.*  The  remonstrances 
of  the  Polish  Government,  and  their  appeals 
to  all  those  states  who  were  bound  to  protect 
them  as  guarantees  of  the  Treaty  of  Olivia, 
were  equally  vain.  When  the  Austrian  am 
bassador  announced  the  Partition  at  Ver 
sailles,  the  old  King  said,  '{ If  the  other  man 
(Choiseul)  had  been  here,  this  would  not 
have  happened. "t  But  in  truth,  both  France 
and  Great  Britain  had,  at  that  time,  lost  all 

who  was  present,  immediately  told  theDauphiness 
of  this  attack  on  her  mother.  The  young  Princess 
was  naturally  incensed  at  such  language,  espe 
cially  as  she  had  been  given  to  understand  that  the 
letter  was  written  to  Madame  du  Barri.  She 
became  the  irreconcilable  enemy  of  the  Prince, 
afterwards  Cardinal  de  Rohan,  who,  in  hopes  of 
conquering  her  hostility,  engaged  in  the  strange 
adventure  of  the  Diamond  Necklace,  one  of  the 
secondary  agents  in  promoting  the  French  Revo 
lution,  and  not  the  least  considerable  source  of 
the  popular  prejudices  against  the  Queen. 

*  Martens,  vol.  i.  p.  461. 

t  It  has  been  said  that  Austria  did  not  accede  to 
the  Partition  till  France  had  refused  to  co-operate 
against  it.  Of  this  M.  de  Segur  tells  us,  that  he 
was  assured  by  Kaunitz,  Cobentzel,  and  Vergen- 
nes.  The  only  circumstance  which  approaches  to 
a  confirmation  of  his  statement  is,  that  there  are 
traces  in  Ferrand  of  secret  intimations  conveyed 
by  D'Aiguillon  to  Frederic,  that  there  was  no 
likelihood  of  France  proceeding  to  extremities  in 
favour  of  Poland.  This  clandestine  treachery  is, 
however,  very  different  from  a  public  refusal.  It 
has,  on  the  other  hand,  been  stated  (Coxe,  vol.  ii. 
p.  516.)  that  the  Due  d'Aiguillon  proposed  to 
Lord  Rochfort,  that  an  English  or  French  fleet 
.should  be  sent  to  the  Baltic  to  prevent  the  dis 
memberment.  But  such  a  proposal,  it' it  occurred 
at  all,  must  have  related  to  transactions  long  an 
tecedent  to  the  Partition,  and  to  the  administration 
of  D'Aiguillon,  for  Lord  Rochfort  was  recalled 
from  the  French  embassy  in  1768,  to  be  made 
Secretary  of  State,  on  the  resignation  of  Lord 
Shelburne.  Neither  can  the  application  have 
been  to  him  as  Secretary  of  State  ;  for  France 
was  not  in  his  department.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  Mr.  Coxe  should,  in  the  same  place,  have 
quoted  a  writer  so  discredited  as  the  Abbe  Soulavie 
(M6moires  de  Louis  XVI.),  from  whom  he  quotes 
A  memorial,  without  doubt  altogether  imaginary, 
of  D'Aiguillon  to  Louis  XV. 


influence  in  the  affairs  of  Europe : — France, 
from  the  imbecility  of  her  Government,  and 
partly,  in  the  case  of  Poland,  from  reliance 
on  the  Court  of  Vienna  j  Great  Britain,  in 
consequence  of  her  own  treachery  to  Prus 
sia,  but  in  a  still  greater  degree  from  the 
unpopularity  of  her  Government  at  home, 
and  the  approaches  of  a  revolt  in  the  noblest 
part  of  her  colonies.  Had  there  been  a 
spark  of  spirit,  or  a  ray  of  wise  policy  in  the 
councils  of  England  and  France,  they  would 
have  been  immediately  followed  by  all  the 
secondary  powers  whose  very  existence  de 
pended  on  the  general  reverence  for  justice. 

The  Poles  made" a  gallant  stand.  The  Go 
vernment  was  compelled  to  call  a  Diet  j  and 
the  three  Powers  insisted  on  its  unanimity 
in  the  most  trivial  act.  In  spite,  however, 
of  every  species  of  corruption  and  violence, 
the  Diet,  surrounded  as  it  was  by  foreign 
bayonets,  gave  powers  to  deputies  to  negoti 
ate  with  the  three  Powers,  by  a  majority  of 
only  one;  and  it  was  not  till  September, 
1773,  that  it  was  compelled  to  cede,  by  a 
pretended  treaty,  some  of  her  finest  provin 
ces,  with  nearly  five  millions  of  her  popula 
tion.  The  conspirators  were  resolved  to  de 
prive  the  remains  of  the  Polish  nation  of  all 
hope  of  re-establishing  a  vigorous  govern 
ment,  or  attaining  domestic  tranquillity; 
and  the  Liberum  Veto,  the  elective  monar 
chy,  and  all  the  other  institutions  which 
tended  to  perpetuate  disorder,  were  again 
imposed. 

Maria  Theresa  had  the  merit  of  confessing 
her  fault.  On  the  19th  of  February,  1775. 
when  M.  de  Breteuil,  the  ambassador  of 
Louis  XVI.,  had  his  first  audience,  after  some 
embarrassed  remarks  on  the  subject  of  Po 
land,  she  at  length  exclaimed,  in  a  tone  of 
sorrow,  "  I  know.  Sir,  that  I  have  brought  a 
deep  stain  on  my  reign,  by  what  has  been 
done  in  Poland  ;  but  I  am  sure  that  I  should 
be  forgiven,  if  it  could  be  known  what  re 
pugnance  I  had  to  it,  and  how  many  circum 
stances  combined  against  my  principles."* 
The  guilt  of  the  three  parties  to  the^artition 
was  very  unequal.  Frederic,  the  weakest, 
had  most  to  apprehend,  both  from  a  rupture 
with  his  ally,  and  from  the  accidents  of  a 
general  war;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  somo 
enlargement  seemed  requisite  to  the  defence 
of  his  dominions.  The  House  of  Austria  en 
tered  late  and  reluctantly  into  the  conspira 
cy,  which  she  probably  might  have  escaped, 
if  France  had  been  under  a  more  vigorous 
Government.  Catharine  was  the  great  crimi 
nal.  She  had  for  eight  years  oppressed,  be 
trayed,  and  ravaged  Poland, — had  imposed 
on  her  King, — had  prevsnted  all  reformation 
of  the  government, — had  fomented  divisions 
among  the  nobility, — in  a  word,  had  created 
and  maintained  that  anarchy,  which  she  at 
length  used  as  a  pretence  for  the  dismem 
berment.  Her  vast  empire  needed  no  acces 
sion  of  territory  for  defence,  or,  it  might 
have  been  hoped,  even  for  ambition.  Yet, 
by  her  insatiable  avidity,  was  occasioned  the 


*  Flassan.  vol.  vii.  p.  125. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


209 


pretended  necessity  for  the  Partition.  To 
prevent  her  from  acquiring  the  Crimea,  Mol 
davia,  and  Wallachia,  the  Courts  of  Vienna 
and  Berlin  agreed  to  allow  her  to  commit  an 
equivalent  robbery  on  Poland.  Whoever 
first  proposed  it,  Catharine  was  the  real  cause 
and  author  of  the  whole  monstrous  transac 
tion  ;  and,  should  any  historian, — dazzled  by 
the  splendour  of  her  reign,  or  more  excusa 
bly  seduced  by  her  genius,  her  love  of  letters, 
uer  efforts  in  legislation,  and  her  real  servi 
ces  to  her  subjects. — labour  to  palliate  this 
great  offence,  he  will  only  share  her  infamy 
in  the  vain  attempt  to  extenuate  her  guilt. 

The  defects  of  the  Polish  government  pro 
bably  contributed  to  the  loss  of  independ 
ence  most  directly  by  their  influence  on  the 
military  system.  The  body  of  the  gentry 
retaining  the  power  of  the  sword,  as  well  as 
the  authority  of  the  state  in  their  own  hands, 
were  too  jealous  of  the  Crown  to  strengthen 
the  regular  army;  though  even  that  body 
was  more  in  the  power  of  the  great  officers 
named  by  the  Diet,  than  in  that  of  the  King. 
They  continued  to  serve  on  horseback  as  in 
ancient  times,  and  to  regard  the  Pospolite,  or 
general  armament  of  the  gentry,  as  the  im 
penetrable  bulwark  of  the  commonwealth. 
Nor,  indeed,  unless  they  had  armed  their 
slaves,  would  it  have  been  possible  to  have 
established  a  formidable  native  infantry. 
Their  armed  force  was  adequate  to  the  short 
irruptions  or  sudden  enterprises  of  ancient 
war;  but  a  body  of  noble  cavalry  was  alto 
gether  incapable  of  the  discipline,  which  is 
of  the  essence  of  modern  armies;  and  their 
military  system  was  irreconcilable  with  the 
acquisition  of  the  science  of  war.  In  war 
alone,  the  Polish  nobility  were  barbarians; 
while  war  was  the  only  part  of  civilization 
which  the  Russians  had  obtained.  In  one 
country,  the  sovereign  nobility  of  half  a  mil 
lion  durst  neither  arm  their  slaves,  nor  trust 
a  mercenary  army :  in  the  other,  the  Czar 
naturally  employed  a  standing  army,  re 
cruited,  without  fear,  from  the  enslaved  pea 
santry.  To  these  military  conscription  was 
a  reward,  and  the  station  of  a  private  soldier 
a  preferment ;  and  they  were  fitted  by  their 
previous  condition  to  be  rendered,  by  mili 
tary  discipline,  the  most  patient  and  obedient 
of  soldiers, — without  enterprise,  but  without 
fear,  and  equally  inaccessible  to  discontent 
and  attachment,  passive  and  almost  insensi 
ble  members  of  the  great  military  machine. 
There  are  many  circumstances  in  the  insti 
tutions  and  destiny  of  a  people,  which  seem 
to  arise  from  original  pecularities  of  national 
character,  of  which  it  is  often  impossible  to 
explain  the  origin,  or  even  to  show  the  nature. 
Denmark  and  Sweden  are  countries  situated 
in  the  same  region  of  the  globe,  inhabited 
by  nations  of  the  same  descent,  language, 
and  religion,  and  very  similar  in  their  man 
ners,  their  ancient  institutions,  and  modern 
civilization:  yet  he  would  be  a  bold  specu 
lator  who  should  attempt  to  account  for  the 
talent,  fame,  turbulence,  and  revolutions  of 
the  former ;  and  for  the  quiet  prosperity  and 
27 


obscure  mediocrity,  which  have  formed  the 
character  of  the  latter. 

There  is  no  political  doctrine  more  false  or 
more  pernicious  than  that  which  represents 
vices  in  its  internal  government  as  an  ex 
tenuation  of  unjust  aggression  against  a  coun 
try,  and  a  consolation  to  mankind  for  the 
destruction  of  its  independence.     As  no  go 
vernment  is  without  great  faults,  such  a  doc 
trine  multiplies  the  grounds  of  war,  gives  an 
unbounded  scope  to  ambition,  and  furnishes 
benevolent  pretexts  for  every  sort  of  rapine. 
However  bad  the  government  of  Poland  may 
have  been,  its  bad  qualities  do  not  in  the 
least  degree  abate  the  evil  consequence  of 
the  Partition,  in  weakening,  by  its  example, 
the  security  of  all  other  nations.     An  act  of 
robbery  on  the  hoards  of  a  worthless  miser, 
though  they  be  bestowed  on  the  needy  and 
the  deserving,  does  not  the  less  shake  the 
common   basis   of   property.      The   greater 
number  of  nations  live  under  governments 
which  are  indisputably  bad ;  but  it  is  a  less 
evil  that  they  should  continue  in  that  state, 
than  that  they  should  be  gathered  under  a 
single  conqueror,  even  with  a  chance  of  im 
provement  in  their  internal  administration. 
Conquest  and  extensive  empire  are  among 
the  greatest  evils,  and  the  division  of  man 
kind  into  independent  communities  is  among 
the  greatest  advantages,  which  fall  to  the  lot 
of  men.     The  multiplication  of  such  com 
munities  increases  the  reciprocal  control  of 
opinion,  strengthens  the  principles  of  gene 
rous  rivalship,  makes  every  man   love  his 
own  ancient  and   separate  country  with  a 
warmer  affection,  brings  nearer  to  all  man 
kind  the  objects  of  noble  ambition,  and  adds 
to  the  incentives  to  which  we  owe  works  of 
genius  and  acts  of  virtue.     There  are  some 
peculiarities  in  the  condition  of  every  civili 
zed  country  which  are  peculiarly  favourable 
to  some  talents  or  good  qualities.     To  de 
stroy  the  independence  of  a  people,  is  to  an 
nihilate  a  great  assemblage  of  intellectual 
and  moral  qualities,  forming  the  character 
of  a  nation,  and  distinguishing  it  from  other 
communities,  which  no  human  skill  can  bring 
together.     As  long  as  national  spirit  exists, 
there  is  always  reason  to  hope  that  it  will 
work  real  reformation  :  when  it  is  destroyed, 
though  better  forms  may  be  imposed  by  a 
conqueror,  there  is  no  farther  hope  of  those 
only  valuable  reformations  which  represent 
the  sentiments,  and  issue  from  the  heart  of 
a  people.     The  barons  at  Runnymede  con 
tinued  to  be  the  masters  of  slaves;  but  the 
noble  principles  of  the  charter  shortly  began 
to  release  these  slaves  from  bondage.    Those 
who  conquered  at  Marathon  and  Plataea  were 
the  masters  of  slaves;  yet,  by  the  defeat  of 
Eastern  tyrants,  they  preserved  knowledge, 
liberty,  and  civilization  itself,  and  contributed 
to  that  progress  of  the  human  mind  which 
will  one  day  banish  slavery  from  the  world. 
Had  the  people  of  Scotland  been  conquered 
by  Edward  II.  or  by  Henry  VIII.,  a  common 
observer  would   have   seen  nothing  in  the 
event  but  that  a  race  of  turbulent  barbarian* 
s2 


210 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


was  reduced  to  subjection  by  a  more  civili 
zed  state. 

After  this  first  Partition  was  completed  in 
1776,  Poland  was  suffered  for  sixteen  years 
to  enjoy  an  interval  of  more  undisturbed 
tranquillity  than  it  had  known  for  a  century. 
Russian  armies  ceased  to  vex  it :  the  dispo 
sitions  of  other  foreign  powers  became  more 
favourable.  Frederic  II.  now  entered  on  that 
honourable  portion  of  his  reign,  in  which  he 
made  a  just  war  for  the  defence  of  the  in 
tegrity  of  Bavaria,  and  of  the  independence 
of  Germany.  Still  attempts  were  not  want 
ing  to  seduce  him  into  new  enterprises 
against  Poland.  When,  in  the  year  1782, 
reports  were  current  that  Potemkin  was  to 
be  made  King  of  Poland,  that  haughty  and 
profligate  barbarian  told  the  Count  de  Goertz, 
then  Prussian  ambassador  at  Petersburgh, 
that  he  despised  the  Polish  nation  too  much 
to  be  ambitious  of  reigning  over  them.*  He 
desired  the  ambassador  to  communicate  to 
his  master  a  plan  for  a  new  Partition,  ob 
serving  "  that  the  first  was  only  child's  play, 
and  that  if  they  had  taken  all,  the  outcry 
would  not  have  been  greater."  Every  man 
who  feels  for  the  dignity  of  human  nature, 
will  rejoice  that  the  illustrious  monarch 
firmly  rejected  the  proposal.  Potemkin  read 
over  his  refusal  three  times  before  he  could 
believe  his  eyes,  and  at  length  exclaimed, 
in  language  very  common  among  certain 
politicians,  "I  never  could  have  believed 
that  King  Frederic  was  capable  of  romantic 
ideas. "t  As  soon  as  Frederic  returned  to 
counsels  worthy  of  himself,  he  became  unfit 
for  the  purposes  of  the  Empress,  who,  in 
1780,  refused  to  renew  her  alliance  with 
him,  and  found  more  suitable  instruments  in 
the  restless  character,  and  shallow  under 
standing,  of  Joseph  II.,  whose  unprincipled 
ambition  was  now  released  from  the  restraint 
which  his  mother's  scruples  had  imposed  on 
it.  The  project  of  re-establishing  an  Eastern 
empire  now  occupied  the  Court  of  Peters- 
burgh,  and  a  portion  of  the  spoils  of  Turkey 
was  a  sufficient  lure  to  Joseph.  The  state 
of  Europe  tended  daily  more  and  more  to 
restore  some  degree  of  independence  to  the 
remains  of  Poland.  Though  France,  her 
most  ancient  and  constant  ally,  was  then  ab 
sorbed  in  the  approach  of  those  tremendous 
convulsions  which  have  for  more  than  thirty 
years  agitated  Europe,  other  Powers  now 
adopted  a  policy,  the  influence  of  which  was 
favourable  to  the  Poles.  Prussia,  as  she  re 
ceded  from  Russia,  became  gradually  con 
nected  with  England,  Holland,  and  Sweden ; 
and  her  honest  policy  in  the  case  of  Bavaria 
placed  her  at  the  head  of  all  the  independent 
members  of  the  Germanic  Confederacy.  Tur- 


*  Dohm,  vol.  ii.  p.  45. 

t  It  was  about  this  time  that  Goertz  gave  an  ac 
count  of  the  Court  of  Russia  to  the  Prince  Royal  of 
Prussia,  who  was  about  to  visit  Petersbugh,  of 
which  the  following  passage  is  a  curious  speci 
men  : — "  Le  Prince  Bariatinski  est  reconnu  scele- 
rat,  et  meme  comme  tel  employe  encore  de  terns 
en  terns." — Dohm,  vol.  ii.  p.  32. 


key  declared  war  against  Russia.  The  Aus 
trian  Government  was  disturbed  by  the  dis 
content  and  revolts  which  the  precipitate  in 
novations  of  Joseph  had  excited  in  various 
provinces  of  the  monarchy.  A  formidable 
combination  against  the  power  of  Russia  was 
in  time  formed.  In  the  treaty  between 
Prussia  and  the  Porte,  concluded  at  Constan 
tinople  in  January,  1790,  the  contracting  par 
ties  bound  themselves  to  endeavour  to  obtain 
from  Austria  the  restitution  of  those  Polish 
provinces,  to  which  she  had  given  the  name 
of  Galicia.* 

During  the  progress  of  these  auspicious 
changes,  the  Poles  began  to  entertain  the 
hope  that  they  might  at  length  be  suffered 
to  reform  their  institutions,  to  provide  for 
their  own  quiet  and  safety,  and  to  adopt  that 
policy  which  might  one  day  enable  them  to 
resume  their  ancient  station  among  European 
nations.  From  1778  to  1788,  no  great  mea 
sures  had  been  adopted,  but  no  tumults  dis 
turbed  the  country-  while  reasonable  opi 
nions  made  some  progress,  and  a  national 
spirit  was  slowly  reviving.  The  nobility  pa 
tiently  listened  to  plans  for  the  establishment 
of  a  productive  revenue  and  a  regular  army ; 
a  disposition  to  renounce  their  dangerous 
right  of  electing  a  king  made  perceptible 
advances;  and  the  fatal  law  of  unanimity 
had  been  so  branded  as  an  instrument  of 
Russian  policy,  that  in  the  Diets  of  these  ten 
years,  no  nuncio  was  found  bold  enough  to 
employ  his  negative.  At  the  breaking  out 
of  the  Turkish  war,  the  Poles  ventured  to 
refuse  not  only  an  alliance  offered  by  Catha 
rine,  but  even  permission  to  her  to  raise  a 
body  of  cavalry  in  the  territories  of  the  re 
public. t 

In  the  midst  of  these  excellent  symptoms 
of  public  sense  and  temper,  a  Diet  assem 
bled  at  Warsaw  in  October,  1788,  from  whom 
the  restoration  of  the  republic  was  hoped, 
and  by  whom  it  would  have  been  accom 
plished,  if  their  prudent  and  honest  mea 
sures  had  not  been  defeated  by  one  of  the 
blackest  acts  of  treachery  recorded  in  the 
annals  of  mankind.  Perhaps  the  four  years 
wrhich  followed  present  more  signal  examples 
than  any  other  part  of  history, — of  patience, 
moderation,  wisdom,  and  integrity,  in  a  po 
pular  assembly, — of  spirit  and  unanimity 
among  a  turbulent  people,  —  of  inveterate 
malignity  ift  an  old  oppressor. — and  of  the 
most  execrable  perfidy  in  a  pretended  friend. 
The  Diet  applied  itself  with  the  utmost  dili 
gence  and  caution  to  reform  the  state,  watch 
ing  the  progress  of  popular  opinion,  and  pro 
posing  no  reformation  till  the  public  seemed 
ripe  for  its  reception.  While  the  spirit  of 
the  French  Revolution  was  every  where  pre 
valent,  these  reformers  had  the  courageous 
prudence  to  avoid  whatever  was  visionary 
in  its  principles,  or  violent  in  their  execu 
tion.  They  refused  the  powerful  but  peri 
lous  aid  of  the  enthusiasm  which  it  excited 

*  Schoell,  vol.  xiv.  p.  473. 
t  Ferrand,  vol.  ii.  p.  336. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


211 


long  before  its  excesses  and  atrocities  had 
rendered  it  odious.  They  were  content  to 
be  reproached  by  their  friends  for  the  slow 
ness  of  their  reformatory  measures ;  and  to 
be  despised  for  the  limited  extent  of  these 
by  many  of  those  generous  minds  who  then 
aspired  to  bestow  a  new  and  more  perfect 
liberty  on  mankind.  After  having  taken 
measures  for  the  re-establishment  of  the 
finances  and  the  army,  they  employed  the 
greater  part  of  the  year  1789  in  the"  discus 
sion  of  constitutional  reforms.*  A  committee 
appointed  in  September,  before  the. conclu 
sion  of  the  year,  made  a  report  which  con 
tained  an  outline  of  the  most  necessary  alte 
rations.  No  immediate  decision  was  made 
on  these  propositions;  but  the  sense  of  the 
Diet  was,  in  the  course  of  repeated  discus 
sions,  more  decisively  manifested.  It  was 
resolved,  without  a  division,  that  the  Elector 
of  Saxony  should  be  named  successor  to  the 
crown;  which  determination, — the  prelude 
to  the  establishment  of  hereditary  monar 
chy, — was  confirmed  by  the  Dietines,  or 
electoral  assemblies.  The  elective  franchise, 
formerly  exercised  by  all  the  nobility,  was 
limited  to  landed  proprietors.  Many  other 
fundamental  principles  of  a  new  constitution 
were  perfectly  understood  to  be  generally 
approved,  though  they  were  not  formally 
established.  In  the  mean  time,  as  the  Diets 
were  biennial,  the  assembly  approached  to 
the  close  of  its  legal  duration ;  and  as  it  was 
deemed  dangerous  to  intrust  the  work  of  re 
formation  to  an  entirely  new  one,  and  equally 
so  to  establish  the  precedent  of  an  existence 
prolonged  beyond  the  legal  period,  an  expe 
dient  was  accordingly  adopted,  not  indeed 
sanctioned  by  law,  but  founded  in  constitu 
tional  principles,  the  success  of  which  afford 
ed  a  signal  proof  of  the  unanimity  of  the 
Polish  nation.  New  writs  were  issued  to  all 
the  Dietines  requiring  them  to  choose  the 
same  number  of  nuncios  as  usual.  These 
elections  proceeded  regularly ;  and  the  new 
members  being  received  by  the  old.  formed 
with  them  a  double  Diet.  Almost  all  the 
Dietines  instructed  their  new  representatives 
to  vote  for  hereditary  monarchy,  and  de 
clared  their  approbation  of  the  past  conduct 
of  the  Diet. 

On  the  16th  of  December,  1790,  this  double 
Diet  assembled  with  a  more  direct,  deliber 
ate,  formal,  and  complete  authority,  from  the 


*  Schoell,  vol.  xiv.  p.  117.  On  the  12th  of 
October,  1788,  the  King  of  Prussia  had  offered, 
by  Buckholz,  his  minister  at  Warsaw,  to  guaran 
tee  the  integrity  of  the  Polish  territory. — Ferrand, 
vol.  ii.  p.  452.  On  the  19th  of  November,  he  ad 
vises  them  not  to  be  diverted  from  "  ameliorating 
their  form  of  government ;"  and  declares,  "  that 
he  will  guarantee  their  independence  without 
mixing  in  their  internal  affairs,  or  restraining  the 
liberty  of  their  discussions,  which,  on  the  contrary, 
he  will  guarantee." — Ibid.  p.  457.  The  negotia 
tions  of  Prinre  Czartorinski  at  Berlin,  and  the 
other  notes  of  Buckholz,  seconded  by  Mr.  Hailes, 
the  English  minister,  agree  entirely  in  language 
and  principles  with  the  passages  which  have  been 
cited. 


great  majority  of  the  freemen,  to  reform  the 
abuses  of  the  government,  than  perhaps  any 
other  representative  assembly  in  Europe 
ever  possessed.  They  declared  the  pretend 
ed  guarantee  of  Russia  in  1776  to  be  '•'  null, 
an  invasion  of  national  independence,  incom 
patible  with  the  natural  rights  of  every  civi 
lized  society,  and  with  the  political  privileges 
of  every  free  nation."*  They  felt  the  ne 
cessity  of  incorporating,  in  one  law,  all  the 
reforms  which  had  passed,  and  all  those 
which  had  received  the  unequivocal  sanction 
of  public  approbation.  The  state  of  foreign 
affairs,  as  well  as  the  general  voice  at  home, 
loudly  called  for  the  immediate  adoption  of 
such  a  measure  :  and  the  new  Constitution 
was  presented  to  the  Diet  on  the  3d  of  May 
following,!  after  being  read  and  received  the 
night  before  with  unanimous  and  enthusias 
tic  applause  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
members  of  both  Houses,  at  the  palace  of 
Prince  Radzivil.  Only  twelve  dissentient 
voices  opposed  it  in  the  Diet.  Never  were 
debates  and  votes  more  free ;  these  men,  the 
most  hateful  of  apostates,  were  neither  at 
tacked,  nor  threatened,  nor  insulted.  The 
people,  on  this  great  and  sacred  occasion, 
seemed  to  have  lost  all  the  levity  and  turbu 
lence  of  their  character,  and  to  have  already 
learnt  those  virtues  which  are  usually  the 
slow  fruit  of  that  liberty  which  they  were 
then  only  about  to  plant. 

This  constitution  confirmed  the  rights  of 
the  Established  Church,  together  with  reli 
gious  liberty,  as  dictated  by  the  charity  which 
religion  inculcates  and  inspires.  It  establish 
ed  an  hereditary  monarchy  in  the  Electoral 
House  of  Saxony ;  reserving  to  the  nation  the 
nght  of  choosing  a  new  race  of  Kings,  in 
case  of  the  extinction  of  that  family.  The 
executive  power  was  vested  in  the  King, 
whose  ministers  were  responsible  for  its  ex 
ercise.  The  Legislature  was  divided  into 
two  Houses, — the  Senate  and  the  House  of 
Nuncios,  with  respect  to  whom  the  ancient 
constitutional  language  and  forms  were  pre 
served.  The  necessity  of  unanimity  was 
taken  away,  and,  with  it,  those  dangerous 
remedies  of  confederation  and  confederate 
Diets  which  it  had  rendered  necessary.  Each 
considerable  town  received  new  rights,  with 
a  restoration  of  all  their  ancient  privileges. 
The  burgesses  recovered  the  right  of  elect 
ing  their  own  magistrates.  All  their  pro 
perty  within  their  towns  were  declared  to 
be  inheritable  and  inviolable.  They  were 
empowered  to  acquire  land  in  Poland,  as 
they  always  had  done  in  Lithuania.  All  the 
offices  of  the  state,  the  law,  the  church,  and 
the  army,  were  thrown  open  to  them.  The 
larger  towns  were  empowered  to  send  depu 
ties  to  the  Diet,  with  a  right  to  vote  on  all 

*  Ferrand,  vol.  iii.  p.  55.  The  absence  of  dates 
in  this  writer  obliges  us  to  fix  the  time  of  this  de 
cree  by  conjecture. 

t  The  particular  events  of  the  3d  of  May  are 
related  fully  by  Ferrand,  and  shortly  in  the  An 
nual  Register  of  1791, — a  valuable  narrative, 
though  not  without  considerable  mistakes. 


212 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


local  and  commercial  subjects,  and  to  speak 
on  all  questions  whatsoever.  All  these  depu 
ties  became  noble,  as  did  every  officer  of  the 
rank  of  captain,  and  every  lawyer  who  filled 
the  humblest  office  of  magistracy,  and  every 
burgess  who  acquired  a  property  in  land, 
paying  5/.  of  yearly  taxes.  Two  hundred 
burgesses  were  ennobled  at  the  moment,  and 
a  provision  was  made  for  ennobling  thirty  at 
every  future  Diet.  Industry  was  perfectly 
unfettered.  Immunity  from  arrest  till  after 
conviction  was  extended  to  the  burgesses ; — 
the  extension  of  which  most  inconvenient ' 
privilege  was  well  adapted  to  raise  traders 
to  a  level  with  the  gentry.  The  same  object 
was  promoted  by  a  provision,  that  no  noble 
man,  by  becoming  a  merchant,  a  shopkeeper, 
or  artisan,  should  forfeit  his  privileges,  or  be 
deemed  to  derogate  from  his  rank.  Nume 
rous  paths  to  nobility  were  thus  thrown  open : 
and  every  art  was  employed  to  make  the 
ascent  easy.  The  wisdom  and  liberality  of 
the  Polish  gentry,  if  they  had  not  been  de 
feated  by  flagitious  enemies,  would,  by  a 
single  act  of  legislation,  have  accomplished 
that  fusion  of  the  various  orders  of  society, 
which  it  has  required  the  most  propitious 
circumstances,  in  a  long  course  of  ages,  to 
effect,  in  the  freest  and  most  happy  of  the  Eu 
ropean  nations.  Having  thus  communicated 
political  privileges  to  hitherto  disregarded 
freemen,  the  new  constitution  extended  to 
all  serfs  'the  full  protection  of  law,  which  be 
fore  was  enjoyed  only  by  those  of  the  royal 
demesnes;  while  it  facilitated  and  encour 
aged  voluntary  manumission,  by  ratifying  all 
contracts  relating  to  it, — the  first  step  to  be 
taken  in  every  country  towards  the  acconj- 
plishment  of  the  highest  of  all  the  objects  of 
human  legislation. 

The  course  of  this  glorious  revolution  was 
not  dishonoured  by  popular  tumult,  by  san 
guinary  excesses,  or  by  political  executions. 
So  far  did  the  excellent  Diet  carry  its  wise 
regard  to  the  sacredness  of  property,  that, 
though  it  was  in  urgent  need  of  financial  re 
sources,  it  postponed,  till  after  the  death  of 
present  incumbents,  the  application  to  the 
relief  of  the  state  of  the  income  of  those 
ecclesiastical  offices  which  were  no  longer 
deemed  necessary.  History  will  one  day  do 
justice  to  that  illustrious  body,  and  hold  out 
to  posterity  their  work,  as  the  perfect  model 
of  a  most  arduous  reformation. 

The  storm  which  demolished  this  noble 
edifice  came  from  abroad.  On  the  29th  of 
March,  of  the  preceding  year,  a  treaty  of  alli 
ance  had  been  concluded  at  Warsaw  between 
the  King  of  Prussia  and  the  Republic,  con 
taining,  among  others,  the  following  stipula 
tion  : — "  If  any  foreign  Power,  in  virtue  of 
any  preceding  acts  and  stipulations  whatso 
ever,  should  claim  the  right  of  interfering  in 
the  internal  affairs  of  the  republic  of  Poland, 
at  what  time  or  in  what  manner  soever,  his 
Majesty  the  King  of  Prussia  will  first  employ 
his  good  offices  to  prevent  hostilities  in  con 
sequence  of  such  pretension  j  but,  if  his  good 
offices  should  be  ineffectual,  and  that  hostili 


ties  against  Poland  should  ensue,  his  Majesty 
the  King  of  Prussia,  considering  such  arj 
event  as  a  case  provided  for  in  this  treaty, 
will  assist  the  republic  according  to  the  tenor 
of  the  fourth  article  of  the  present  treaty."* 
The  aid  here  referred  to  was,  on  the  part  of 
Prussia,  twenty-two  thousand  or  thirty  thou 
sand  men,  or,  in  case  of  necessity,  all  its  dis 
posable  force.  The  undisputed  purpose  of 
the  article  had  been  to  guard  Poland  against 
an  interference  in  her  affairs  by  Russia,  un 
der  pretence  of  the  guarantee  of  the  Polish 
constitution  in  1775. 

Though  the  King  of  Prussia  had,  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  treaty,  urgently  pressed  the 
Diet  for  the  cession  of  the  cities  of  Dantzick 
and  Thorn,  his  claim  had  been  afterwards 
withdrawn  and  disavowed.  On  the  13th  of 
May,  in  the  present  year,  Goltz,  then  Prus 
sian  Charge  d' Affaires  at  Warsaw,  in  a  con 
ference  with  the  Deputation  of  the  Diet  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  said,  "  that  he  had  received 
orders  from  his  Prussian  Majesty  to  express 
to  them  his  satisfaction  at  the  happy  revolu 
tion  which  had  at  length  given  to  Poland  a 
wise  and  regular  constitution."!  On  the  23d 
of  May,  in  his  answer  to  the  letter  of  Stanis 
laus,  announcing  the  adoption  of  the  consti 
tution,  the  same  Prince,  after  applauding  the 
establishment  of  hereditary  monarchy  in  the 
House  of  Saxony,  (which,  it  must  be  particu 
larly  borne  in  mind,  was  a  positive  breach 
of  the  constitution  guaranteed  by  Russia  in 
1775,)  proceeds  to  say,  "I  congratulate  my 
self  on  having  contributed  to  the  liberty 
and  independence  of  Poland  ;  and  my  most 
agreeable  care  will  be,  to  preserve  and 
strengthen  the  ties  which  unite  us."  On  the 
21st  of  June,  the  Prussian  minister,  on  occa 
sion  of  alarm  expressed  by  the  Poles  that 
the  peace  with  Turkey  might  prove  danger 
ous  to  them,  declares,  that  if  such  dangers 
were  to  arise,  "  the  king  of  Prussia,  faithful 
to  all  his  obligations,  will  have  it  particularly 
at  heart  to  fulfil  those  xvhich  were  last  year 
contracted  by  him."  If  there  was  any  reli 
ance  in  the  faith  of  treaties,  or  on  the  honour 
of  kings,  Poland  might  have  confidently 
hoped,  that,  if  she  was  attacked  by  Russia, 
in  virtue  of  the  guarantee  of  1775;  her  inde 
pendence  and  her  constitution  would  be  de 
fended  by  the  whole  force  of  the  Prussian 
monarchy. 

The  remaining  part  of  the  year  1791  passed 
in  quiet,  but  not  without  apprehension.  On 
the  9th  of  January,  1792,  Catharine  conclud 
ed  a  peace  with  Turkey  at  Jassy;  and  being 
thus  delivered  from  all  foreign  enemies,  be 
gan  once  more  to  manifest  intentions  of  inter 
fering  in  the  affairs  of  Poland.  Emboldened 
by  the  removal  of  Herztberg  from  the  coun 
cils  of  Prussia,  and  by  the  death  of  the  Em 
peror  Leopold,  a  prince  of  experience  and 


*  Martens,  vol.  iii.  pp.  161 — 165. 

t  Ferrand,  vol.  iii.  p.  121.  See  the  letter  of  the 
King  of  Prussia  to  Goltz,  expressing  his  admira 
tion  and  applause  of  the  new  constitution.  Segur, 
vol.  iii.  p.  252. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


213 


prudence,  she  resolved  to  avail  herself  of  the 
disposition  then  arising  in  all  European  Go 
vernments,  to  sacrifice  every  other  object  to 
a  preparation  for  a  contest  with  the  princi 
ples  of  the  French  Revolution.  A  small 
number  of  Polish  nobles  furnished  her  with 
that  very  slender  pretext,  with  which  she 
was  always  content.  Their  chiefs  were  Rze- 
wuski,  who.  in  1768,  had  been  exiled  to  Si 
beria,  and  Felix  Potocki,  a  member  of  a  po 
tent  and  illustrious  family,  which  was  invio 
lably  attached  to  the  cause  of  the  republic. 
These  unnatural  apostates  deserting  their 
long-suffering  country  at  the  moment  when, 
for  the  first  time,  hope  dawned  on  her,  were 
received  by  Catharine  with  the  honours  due 
from  her  to  aggravated  treason  in  the  per 
sons  of  the  Confederates  of  Targowitz.  On 
the  18th  of  May  the  Russian  minister  at 
Warsaw  declared,  that  the  Empress,  "  called 
on  by  many  distinguished  Poles  who  had  con 
federated  against  the  pretended  constitution 
of  1791,  would,  in  virtue  of  her  guarantee, 
march  an  army  into  Poland  to  restore  the 
liberties  of  the  republic."  The  hope,  mean 
time,  of  help  from  Prussia  was  speedily  and 
cruelly  deceived.  Lucchesini,  the  Prussian 
minister  at  Warsaw,  in  an  evasive  answer  to 
a  communication  made  to  him  respecting  the 
preparations  for  defence  against  Russia,  said 
coldly,  ''  that  his  master  received  the  com 
munication  as  a  proof  of  the  esteem  of  the 
King  and  Republic  of  Poland;  but  that  he 
could  take  no  cognisance  of  the  affairs  which 
occupied  the  Diet."  On  Stanislaus  himself 
claiming  his  aid,  Frederic  on  the  8th  of  June 
answered  : — "In  considering  the  new  consti 
tution  which  the  republic  adopted,  without 
my  knowledge  and  without  my  concurrence, 
I  never  thought  of  supporting  or  protecting 
it."  So  signal  a  breach  of  faith  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  modern  history  of  great  states. 
It  resembles  rather  the  vulgar  frauds  and 
low  artifices,  which,  under  the  name  of 
"  reason  of  state,"  made  up  the  policy  of 
the  petty  tyrants  of  Italy  in  the  fourteenth 
century. 

Assured  of  the  connivance  of  Prussia,  Ca 
tharine  now  poured  an  immense  army  into 
Poland,  along  the  whole  line  of  frontier,  from 
the  Baltic  to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Eux- 
irie.  But  the  spirit  of  the  Polish  nation  was 
unbroken .  A  series  of  brilliant  actions  occu 
pied  the  summer  of  1792,  in  which  the  Po 
lish  army,  under  Poniatowski  and  Kosciusko, 
alternately  victorious  and  vanquished,  gave 
equal  proofs  of  unavailing  gallantry. 

Meantime  Stanislaus,  who  had  remained 
in  his  capital,  willing  to  be  duped  by  the 
Russian  and  Prussian  ambassadors,  whom  he 
still  suffered  to  continue  there,  made  a  vain 
attempt  to  disarm  the  anger  of  the  Empress, 
by  proposing  that  her  grandson  Constantine 
should  be  the  stock  of  the  new  constitutional 
dynasty  ;  to  which  she  haughtily  replied,  that 
he  must  re-establish  the  old  constitution,  and 
accede  to  the  Confederation  of  Targowitz ; — 
"  perhaps,"  says  M.  Ferrand,  "  because  a 
throne  acquired  without  guilt  or  perfidy  might 


have  few  attractions  for  her."*  Having  on 
the  4th  of  July  published  a  proclamation, 
declaring  "that  he  would  not  survive  his 
country,"  on  the  22d  of  the  same  month, 
as  soon  as  he  received  the  commands  of  Ca 
tharine,  this  dastard  prince  declared  his  ac 
cession  to  the  Confederation  of  Targowitz.  and 
thus  threw  the  legal  authority  of  the  republic 
into  the  hands  of  that  band  of  conspirators. 
The  gallant  army,  over  whom  the  Diet  had 
intrusted  their  unworthy  King  with  absolute 
authority,  were  now  compelled,  by  his  trea 
cherous  orders,  to  lay  down  their  arms  amidst 
the  tears  of  their  countrymen,  and  the  inso 
lent  exultation  of  their  barbarous  enemies.t 
The  traitors  of  Targowitz  were,  for  a  mo 
ment,  permitted  by  Russia  to  rule  over  the 
country  which  they  had  betrayed,  to  prose 
cute  the  persons  and  lay  waste  the  property 
of  all  good  citizens,  and  to  re-establish  every 
ancient  abuse. 

Such  was  the  unhappy  state  of  Poland  du 
ring  the  remainder  of  the  year  1792,  a  period 
which  will  be  always  memorable  for  the  in 
vasion  of  France  by  a  German  army,  their 
ignominious  retreat,  the  eruption  of  the 
French  forces  into  Germany  and  Flanders, 
the  dreadful  scenes  which  passed  in  the  in 
terior  of  France,  and  the  apprehension  pro 
fessed  by  all  Governments  of  the  progress  of 
the  opinions  to  which  these  events  were 
ascribed.  The  Empress  of  Russia,  among 
the  rest,  professed  the  utmost  abhorrence  of 
the  French  Revolution,  made  war  against  it 
by  the  most  vehement  manifestoes,  stimula 
ted  every  other  power  to  resist  it.  but  never 
contributed  a  battalion  or  a  ship  to  the  con 
federacy  against  it.  Frederic-William  also 
plunged  headlong  into  the  coalition  against 
the  advice  of  his  wisest  counsellors. £  At  the 
moment  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick's  entry 
into  France,  in  July, — if  we  may  believe  M. 
Ferrand,  himself  a  zealous  royalist,  who  had 
evidently  more  than  ordinary  means  of  in 
formation, — the  ministers  of  the  principal 
European  powers  met  at  Luxemburg,  pro 
vided  with  various  projects  for  new  arrange 
ments  of  territory,  in  the  event  which  they 

*  Ferrand,  vol.  iii.  p.  217. 

t  A  curious  passage  of  De  Thou  shows  the  ap 
prehension  early  entertained  of  the  Russian  power. 
"  Livpnis  prudente  et  reipublicze  Christian®  utili 
consilio  navigatio  illuc  interdicta  fuerat,  ne  com- 
mercio  nostrorum  Barbari  varias  artes  ipsis  ignotas, 
et  quae  ad  rem  navalem  et  militarem  pertinent,  edo- 
cerentur.  Sic  enim  eximistabant  Moscos,  qui 
rnaximam  Septentrionis  partem  tenerent,  Narvae 
condito  emporip,  et  constructp  armamentario,  non 
solum  in  Livoniam,  sed  etiam  in  Germaniam  effuso 
exercim  penetraturos." — Lib.  xxxix.  cap.  8. 

I  Prince  Henry  and  Count  Hertzberg,  who 
agree  perhaps  in  nothing  else. — Vie  du  Prince 
Henri,  p.  297.  In  the  same  place,  we  have  a  very 
curious  extract  from  a  letter  of  Prince  Henry,  of 
the  1st  of  November,  1792,  in  which  he  says, 
that  "  every  year  of  war  will  make  the  conditions 
of  peace  worse  for  the  Allies."  Henry  was  not 
a  Democrat,  nor  even  a  Whig.  His  opinions 
were  confirmed  by  all  the  events  of  the  first  war, 
and  are  certainly  not  contradicted  by  occurrences 
towards  the  close  of  a  second  war,  twenty  years 
afterwards,  and  in  totally  new  circumstances. 


214 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


thought  inevitable,  of  the  success  of  the  in 
vasion.  The  Austrian  ministers  betrayed 
the  intention  of  their  Court,  to  renew  its  at 
tempt  to  compel  the  Elector  of  Bavaria  to 
exchange  his  dominions  for  the  Low  Coun 
ties  ;  which,  by  the  dissolution  of  their  trea 
ties  with  France,  they  deemed  themselves 
entitled  again  to  propose.  The  King  of 
Prussia,  on  this  alarming  disclosure,  showed 
symptoms  of  an  inclination  to  abandon  an 
enterprise,  which  many  other  circumstances 
combined  to  prove  was  impracticable,  at 
least  with  the  number  of  troops  with  which 
he  had  presumptuously  undertaken  it.  These 
dangerous  projects  of  the  Court  of  Vienna 
made  him  also  feel  the  necessity  of  a  closer 
connection  with  Russia;  and  in  an  interview 
with  the  Austrian  and  Russian  ministers  at 
Verdun,  he  gave  them  to  understand,  that 
Prussia  could  not  continue  the  war  without 
being  assured  of  an  indemnity.  Russia 
eagerly  adopted  a  suggestion  which  engaged 
Prussia  more  completely  in  her  Polish 
schemes  :  and  Austria  willingly  listened  to 
a  proposal  which  would  furnish  a  precedent 
and  a  justification  for  similar  enlargements 
of  her  own  dominions  :  while  both  the  Impe 
rial  Courts  declared,  that  they  would  acqui 
esce  in  the  occupation  of  another  portion  of 
Poland  by  the  Prussian  armies.* 

Whether  in  consequence  of 'the  supposed 
agreement  at  Verdun  or  not,  the  fact  at  least 
is  certain,  that  Frederic-William  returned 
from  his  French  disgraces  to  seek  consola 
tion  in  the  plunder  of  Poland.  Nothing  is 
more  characteristic  of  a  monarch  without 
ability,  without  knowledge,  without  resolu 
tion,  whose  life  had  been  divided  between 
gross  libertinism  and  abject  superstition,  than 
that,  after  flying  before  the  armies  of  a  pow 
erful  nation,  he  should  instantly  proceed  to 
attack  an  oppressed,  and,  as  he  thought,  de 
fenceless  people.  In  January.  1793,  he  en 
tered  Poland  ;  .and,  while  Russia  was  charg 
ing  the  Poles  with  the  extreme  of  royalism, 
he  chose  the  very  opposite  pretext,  that  they 
propagated  anarchical  principles,  and  had 
established  Jacobin  clubs.  Even  the  crimi 
nal  Confederates  of  Targowitz  were  indig 
nant  at  these  falsehoods,  and  remonstrated, 
at  Berlin  and  Petersburg^,  against  the  entry 
of  the  Prussian  troops.  But  the  complaints 
of  such  apostates  against  the  natural  results 
of  their  own  crimes  were  heard  with  con 
tempt.  The  Empress  of  Russia,  in  a  Decla 
ration  of  the  9th  of  April,  informed  the  world 
that,  acting  in  concert  with  Prussia,  and 
with  the  consent  of  Austria,  the  only  means 
of  controlling  the  Jacobinism  of  Poland  was 
"  by  confining  it  within  more  narrow  limits, 
and  by  giving  it  proportions  which  better 
suited  an  intermediate  power."  The  King 
of  Prussia,  accordingly,  seized  Great  Poland  ; 
and  the  Russian  army  occupied  all  the  other 
provinces  of  the  republic.  It  was  easy, 
therefore,  for  Catharine  to  determine  the  ex 
tent  of  her  new  robbery. 

*  Ferrand,  vol.  iii.  pp.  252—255 


In  order,  however,  to  give  it  some  shadow 
of  legality,  the  King  was  compelled  to  call  a 
Diet,  from  which  every  one  was  excluded 
who  was  not  a  partisan  of  Russia,  and  an  ac 
complice  of  the  Confederates  of  Targowitz. 
The  unhappy  assembly  met  at  Grodno  in 
June;  and.  in  spite  of  its  bad  composition, 
showed  still  many  sparks  of  Polish  spirit. 
Sieve rs,  the  Russian  ambassador.,  a  man  ap 
parently  worthy  of  his  mission,  had  recourse 
to  threats,  insults,  brutal  violence,  military 
imprisonment,  arbitrary  exile,  and  every 
other  species  of  outrage  and  intimidation 
which,  for  near  thirty  years,  had  constituted 
the  whole  system  of  Russia  towards  the 
Polish  legislature.  In  one  note,  he  tells 
them  that,  unless  they  proceed  more  rapidly, 
"he  shall  be  under  the  painful  necessity  of 
removing  all  incendiaries,  disturbers  of  the 
public  peace,  and  partisans  of  the  3d  of  May, 
from  the  Diet."*  In  another,  he  apprises 
them,  that  he  must  consider  any  longer  de 
lay  "as  a  declaration  of  hostility;  in  which 
case,  the  lands,  possessions,  and  dwellings 
of  the  malcontent  members,  must  be  subject 
to  military  execution."  "If  the  King  ad 
heres  to  the  Opposition,  the  military  execu 
tion  must  extend  to  his  demesnes,  the  pay 
of  the  Russian  troops  will  be  stopped,  and 
they  will  live  at  the  expense  of  the  unhappy 
peasants."'!  Grodno  was  surrounded  by 
Russian  troops:  loaded  cannon  were  pointed 
at  the  palace  of  the  King  and  the  hall  of  the 
Diet;  four  nuncios  were  carried  away  pri 
soners  by  violence  in  the  night ;  and  all  the 
members  were  threatened  with  Siberia.  In 
these  circumstances,  the  captive  Diet  was 
compelled,  in  July  and  September,  to  sign 
two  treaties  with  Russia  and  Prussia,  stipu 
lating  such  cessions  as  the  plunderers  were 
pleased  to  dictate,  and  containing  a  repeti 
tion  of  the  same  insulting  mockery  which 
had  closed  every  former  act  of  rapine, — a 
guarantee  of  the  remaining  possessions  of 
the  republic.}  It  had  the  consolation  of 
being  allowed  to  perform  one  act  of  justice, 
I  — that  of  depriving  the  leaders  of  the  Con 
federation  of  Targowitz.  Felix  Potocki,  Rze- 
wuski,  and  Bianeki,  of  the  great  offices 
which  they  dishonoured.  It  may  hereafter 
be  discovered,  whether  it  be  actually  true 
that  Alsace  and  Lorraine  were  to  have  been 
the  compensation  to  Austria  for  forbearing 
to  claim  her  share  of  the  spoils  of  Poland  at 
this  period  of  the  second  Partition.  It  is  al 
ready  well  known  that  the  allied  army  re 
fused  to  receive  the  surrender  of  Strasburgh 
in  the  name  of  Louis  XVII.,  and  that  Valen 
ciennes  and  Conde  were  taken  in  the  name 
of  Austria. 

In  the  beginning  of  1794,  a  young  officer 
named  Madalinski,  who  had  kept  together, 
at  the  disbanding  of  the  army,  eighty  gentle 
men,  gradually  increased  his  adherents,  till 
they  amounted  to  a  force  of  about  four  thou 
sand  men,  and  began  to  harass  the  Russian 

*  Ferrand,  vol.  iii.  p.  369.          t  Ibid.  p.  372. 
I  Martens,  vol.  v.  pp.  162.  202. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


215 


posts.  The  people  of  Cracow  expelled  the 
Russian  garrison ;  and,  on  the  night  of  the 
28th  of  March,  the  heroic  Kosciusko,  at  the 
head  of  a  small  body  of  adherents,  entered 
that  city,  and  undertook  its  government  and 
defence.  Endowed  with  civil  as  well  as 
military  talents,  he  established  order  among 
the  insurgents,  and  caused  the  legitimate 
constitution  to  be  solemnly  proclaimed  in 
the  cathedral,  where  it  was  once  more  hailed 
with  genuine  enthusiasm.  He  proclaimed  a 
national  confederation,  arid  sent  copies  of 
his  manifesto  to  Petersburgh,  Berlin,  and 
Vienna-  treating  the  two  first  courts  with 
deserved  severity,  but  speaking  amicably  of 
the  third,  whose  territory  he  enjoined  his 
army  to  respect.  These  marks  of  friend 
ship,  the  Austrian  resident  at  Warsaw  pub 
licly  disclaimed,  imputing  to  Kosciusko  and 
his  friends  "  the  monstrous  principles  of  the 
French  Convention;"  —  a  language  which 
plainly  showed  that  the  Court  of  Vienna, 
which  had  only  consented  to  the  last  Parti 
tion,  was  willing  to  share  in  the  next.  Kos 
ciusko  was  daily  reinforced  ;  and  on  the  17th 
of  April  rose  on  the  Russian  garrison  of  War 
saw,  and  compelled  Igelstrom  the  com 
mander,  after  an  obstinate  resistance  of 
thirty-six  hours,  to  evacuate  the  city  with  a 
loss  of  two  thousand  men  wounded.  The 
citizens  of  the  capital,  the  whole  body  of  a 
proud  nobility,  and  all  the  friends  of  their 
country  throughout  Poland,  submitted  to  the 
temporary  dictatorship  of  Kosciusko,  a  pri 
vate  gentleman  only  recently  known  to  the 
public,  and  without  any  influence  but  the 
reputation  of  his  virtue.  Order  and  tran 
quillity  generally  prevailed;  some  of  the 
burghers,  perhaps  excited  by  the  agents  of 
Russia,  complained  to  Kosciusko  of  the  in 
adequacy  of  their  privileges.  But  this  ex 
cellent  chief,  instead  of  courting  popularity, 
repressed  an  attempt  which  might  lead  to 
dangerous  divisions.  Soon  after,  more  crimi 
nal  excesses  for  the  first  time  dishonoured 
the  Polish  revolution,  but  served  to  shed  a 
brighter  lustre  on  the  humanity  and  intre 
pidity  of  Kosciusko.  The  papers  of  the 
Russian  embassy  laid  open  proofs  of  the  ve 
nality  of  many  of  the  Poles  who  had  betray 
ed  their  country.  The  populace  of  Warsaw, 
impatient  of  the  slow  forms  of  law.  appre 
hensive  of  the  lenient  spirit  which  prevailed 
among  the  revolutionary  leaders,  and  instigat 
ed  by  the  incendiaries,  who  are  always  ready 
to  flatter  the  passions  of  a  multitude,  put  to 
death  eight  of  these  persons,  and,  by  their 
clamours,  extorted  from  the  tribunal  a  pre 
cipitate  trial  and  execution  of  a  somewhat 
smaller  number.  Kosciusko  did  not  content 
himself  with  reprobating  these  atrocities. 
Though  surrounded  by  danger,  attacked  by 
the  most  formidable  enemies,  betrayed  by 
his  own  Government,  and  abandoned  by  all 
Europe,  he  flew  from  his  camp  to  the  capi 
tal,  brought  the  ringleaders  of  the  massacre 
to  justice,  and  caused  them  to  be  imme 
diately  executed.  We  learn,  from  very  re 
spectable  authority,  that  during  all  the 


perils  of  his  short  administration,  he  per 
suaded  the  nobility  to  take  measures  for  a 
more  rapid  enfranchisement  of  the  peasant 
ry,  than  the  cautious  policy  of  the  Diet  had 


by   the  advance   of  Austrian, 


hazarded.* 

Harassed 

Prussian,  and"  Russian  armies,  Kosciusko 
concentrated  the  greater  part  of  his  army 
around  Warsaw,  against  which  Frederic- 
William  advanced  at  the  head  of  forty  thou 
sand  disciplined  troops.  With  an  irregular 
force  of  twelve  thousand  he  made  an  obsti 
nate  resistance  for  several  hours  on  the  8th 
of  June,  and  retired  to  his  entrenched  camp 
before  the  city.  The  Prussians  having  taken 
possession  of  Cracow,  summoned  the  capital 
to  surrender,  under  pain  of  all  the  horrors  of 
an  assault.  After  two  months  employed  in 
vain  attempts  to  reduce  it,  the  King  of  Prus 
sia  was  compelled,  by  an  insurrection  in  his 
lately  acquired  Polish  province,  to  retire  with 
precipitation  and  disgrace.  But  in  the  mean 
time,  the  Russians  were  advancing,  in  spite 
of  the  gallant  resistance  of  General  Count 
Joseph  Sierakowski,  one  of  the  most  faithful 
friends  of  his  country;  and  on  the  4th  of 
October,  Kosciusko,  with  only  eighteen  thou 
sand  men,  thought  it  necessary  to  hazard  a 
battle  at  Macciowice,  to  prevent  the  junction 
of  the  two  Russian 'divisions  of  Suwarrow 
and  Fersen.  Success  was  long  and  valiantly 
contested.  According  to  some  narrations, 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  Poles  would  have  pre 
vailed,  but  for  the  treachery  or  incapacity 
of  Count  Poninski.t  Kosciusko,  after  the 
most  admirable  exertions  of  judgment  and 
courage,  fell,  covered  with  wounds;  and  the 
Polish  army  fled.  The  Russians  and  Cos 
sacks  were  melted  at  the  sight  of  their  gal 
lant  enemy,  who  lay  insensible  on  the  field. 
When  he  opened  his  eyes,  and  learnt  the 
full  extent  of  the  disaster,  he  vainly  im 
plored  the  enemy  to  put  an  end  to  his  suf 
ferings.  The  Russian  officers,  moved  with 
admiration  and  compassion,  treated  him 
with  tenderness,  and  sent  him,  with  due 
respect,  a  prisoner  of  war  to  Petersburgh, 
where  Catharine  threw  him  into  a  dungeon ; 
from  which  he  was  released  by  Paul  on  his 
succession,  perhaps  partly  from  hatred  to  his 
mother,  and  partly  from  one  of  those  par 
oxysms  of  transient  generosity,  of  which  that 
brutal  lunatic  was  not  incapable. 

From  that  moment  the  farther  defence  of 
Poland  became  hopeless.  Suwarrow  ad 
vanced  to  the  capital,  and  stimulated  his 
army  to  the  assault  of  the  great  suburb  of 
Praea,  by  the  barbarous  promise  of  a  license 
to  pillage  for  forty-eight  hours.  A  dreadful 
contest  ensued  on  the  4th  of  November,  in 
which  the  inhabitants  performed  prodigies  of 
useless  valour,  making  a  stand  in  every  street, 
and  almost  at  every  house.  All  the  hor- 


*  Segur,  Regne  de  Frederic- Guillaume  II., 
tome  iii.  p.  169.  These  important  measures  are 
not  mentioned  in  any  other  narration  which  I 
have  read. 

t  Segur,  vol.  iii.  p.  171. 


216 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS, 


rors  of  war,  which  the  most  civilized  armies 
practised  on  such  occasions,  were  here  seen 
with  tenfold  violence.  No  age  or  sex,  or 
condition,  was  spared  ;  the  murder  of  chil 
dren  forming  a  sort  of  barbarous  sport  for  the 
assailants.  The  most  unspeakable  outrages 
were  offered  to  the  living  and  the  dead. 
The  mere  infliction  of  death  was  an  act  of 
mercy.  The  streets  streamed  with  blood. 
Eighteen  thousand  human  carcasses  were 
carried  away  after  the  massacre  had  ceased. 
Many  were  burnt  to  death  in  the  flames 
which  consumed  the  town.  Multitudes 
were  driven  by  the  bayonet  into  the  Vistula. 
A  great  body  of  fugitives  perished  by  the 
fall  of  the  great  bridge  over  which  they  fled. 
These  tremendous  scenes  closed  the  resist 
ance  of  Poland,  and  completed  the  triumph 
of  her  oppressors.  The  Russian  army  en 
tered  Warsaw  on  the  9th  of  November.  1794. 
Stanislaus  was  suffered  to  amuse  himself 
with  the  formalities  of  royalty  for  some 
months  longer,  till,  in  obedience  to  the  order 
of  Catharine,  he  abdicated  on  the  25th  of 
November,  1795, — a  day  which,  being  the 
anniversary  of  his  coronation,  seemed  to  be 
chosen  to  complete  his  humiliation.  Quar 
rels  about  the  division  of  the  booty  retarded 
the  complete  execution  of  the  formal  and 
final  Partition,  till  the  beginning  of  the  next 
year. 

Thus  fell  the  Polish  people,  after  a  wise 
and  virtuous  attempt  to  establish  liberty, 
and  a  heroic  struggle  to  defend  it,  by  the  fla 
gitious  wickedness  of  Russia,  by  the  foul 
treachery  of  Prussia,  by  the  unprincipled  ac 
cession  of  Austria,  and  by  the  short-sighted, 
as  well  as  mean-spirited,  acquiescence  of  all 
the  other  nations  of  Europe.  Till  the  first 
Partition,  the  right  of  every  people  to  its 
own  soil  had  been  universally  regarded  as 
the  guardian  principle  of  European  inde 
pendence.  But  in  the  case  of  Poland,  a  na 
tion  was  robbed  of  its  ancient  territory  with 
out  the  pretence  of  any  wrong  which  could 
justify  war.  and  without  even  those  forms 
of  war  which  could  bestow  on  the  acquisi 
tion  the  name  of  conquest.  It  is  a  cruel 
and  bitter  aggravation  of  this  calamity,  that 
the  crime  was  perpetrated,  under  the  pre 
tence  of  the  wise  and  just  principle  of  main 
taining  the  balance  of  power; — as  if  that 
principle  had  any  value  but  its  tendency  to 
prevent  such  crimes; — as  if  an  equal  divi 
sion  of  the  booty  bore  any  resemblance  to  a 
joint  exertion  to  prevent  the  robbery.  In  the 
case  of  private  highwaymen  and  pirates,  a 
fair  division  of  the  booty  tends,  no  doubt,  to 
the  harmony  of  the  gang  and  the  safety  of 
its  members,  but  renders  them  more  formi 
dable  to  the  honest  and  peaceable  part  of 
mankind.* 

For  about  eleven  years  the  name  of  Po 
land  was  erased  from  the  map  of  Europe. 

*  The  sentiments  of  wise  men  on  the  first  Par 
tition  are  admirably  stated  in  the  Annual  Register 
of  1772,  in  the  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Eu 
rope,  which  could  scarcely  have  been  written  by 
any  man  but  Mr.  Burke. 


By  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit,  in  1807,  the  Prussian 
part  of  that  unfortunate  country  was  re 
stored  to  as  much  independence  as  could 
then  be  enjoyed,  under  the  name  of  the 

rand  Duchy  of  Warsaw  ;  and  this  revived 
state  received  a  considerable  enlargement 
n  1809,  by  the  treaty  of  Shoenbrunn,  at  the 
expense  of  Austria. 

When  Napoleon  opened  the  decisive  cam 
paign  of  1812,  in  what  he  called  in  his  pro 
clamations  "the  Second  Polish  War,"  he 
published  a  Declaration,  addressed  to  the 
Poles,  in  which  he  announced  that  Poland 
would  be  greater  than  she  had  been  under 
Stanislaus,  and  that  the  Archduke,  who  then 
governed  Wurtsburg,  was  to  be  their  sove 
reign  ;  and  when  on  the  12th  of  July  in  that 
year,  Wybicki,  at  the  head  of  a  deputation 
of  the  Diet,  told  him,  at  Wilna,  with  truth, 

The  interest  of  your  empire  requires  the 
re-establishment  of  Poland;  the  honour  of 
France  is  interested  in  it," — he  replied, 

that  he  had  done  all  that  duty  to  his  sub 
jects  allowed  him  to  restore  their  country ; 
that  he  would  second  their  exertions ;  and 
that  he  authorized  them  to  take  up  arms, 
every  where  but  in  the  Austrian  provinces, 
of  which  he  had  guaranteed  the  integrity, 
and  which  he  should  not  suffer  to  be  dis 
turbed."  In  his  answer, — too  cold  and 
guarded  to  inspire  enthusiasm, — he  pro 
mised  even  less  than  he  had  acquired  the 
the  power  of  performing ;  for,  by  the  secret 
articles  of  his  treaty  with  Austria,  concluded 
in  March,  provision  had  been  made  for  an 
exchange  of  the  Illyrian  provinces  (which 
he  had  retained  at  his  own  disposal)  for 
such  a  part  of  Austrian  Poland  as  would  be 
equivalent  to  them.*  What  his  real  designs 
respecting  Poland  were,  it  is  not  easy  to  con 
jecture.  That  he  was  desirous  of  re-esta 
blishing  its  independence,  and  that  he  looked 
forward  to  such  an  event  as  the  result  of  his 
success,  cannot  be  doubted.  But  he  had 
probably  grown  too  much  of  a  politician  and 
an  emperor,  to  trust,  or  to  love  that  national 
feeling  and  popular  enthusiasm  to  which  he 
had  owed  the  splendid  victories  of  his  youth. 
He  was  now  rather  willing  to  owe  every  thing 
to  his  policy  and  his  army.  Had  he  thrown 
away  the  scabbard  in  this  just  cause, — had 
he  solemnly  pledged  himself  to  the  restora 
tion  of  Poland, — had  he  obtained  the  ex 
change  of  Galicia  for  Dalmatia,  instead  of 
secretly  providing  for  it, — had  he  considered 
Polish  independence,  not  merely  as  the  con 
sequence  of  victory,  but  as  one  of  the  most 
powerful  means  of  securing  it, — had  he,  in 
short,  retained  some  part  of  his  early  faith 
in  the  attachment  of  nations,  instead  of  rely 
ing  exclusively  on  the  mechanism  of  armies, 
perhaps  the  success  of  that  memorable  cam 
paign  might  have  been  more  equally  ba 
lanced.  Seventy  thousand  Poles  were  then 
fighting  under  his  banners. t  Forty  thousand 
are  supposed  to  have  fallen  in  ihe  French 
armies  from  the  destruction  of  Poland  to  the 

*  Schoell,  vol.  x.  p.  129.        t  Ibid.  p.  139. 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  PARTITION  OF  POLAND. 


217 


battle  of  Waterloo.*  There  are  few  instances 
of  the  affection  of  men  for  their  country  more 
touching  than  that  of  these  gallant  Poles, 
who,  in  voluntary  exile,  amidst  every  priva 
tion,  without  the  hope  of  fame,  and  when 
all  the  world  had  become  their  enemies, 
daily  sacrificed  themselves  in  the  battles  of 
a  foreign  nation,  in  the  faint  hope  of  its  one 
day  delivering  their  own  from  bondage. 
Kosciusko  had  originally  encouraged  his 
countrymen  to  devote  themselves  to  this 
chance ;  but  when  he  was  himself  offered  a 
command  in  1807.  this  perfect  hero  refused 
to  quit  his  humble  retreat,  unless  Napoleon 
would  pledge  himself  for  the  restoration  of 
Poland. 

When  Alexander  entered  France  in  1814; 
as  the  avowed  patron  of  liberal  institutions, 
Kosciusko  addressed  a  letter  to  him,t  in  which 
he  makes  three  requests, — that  the  Emperor 
would  grant  an  universal  amnesty,  a  free  con 
stitution,  resembling,  as  nearly  as  possible, 
that  of  England,  with  means  of  general  edu 
cation,  and,  after  the  expiration  of  ten  years, 
an  emancipation  of  the  peasants.  It  is  but 
justice  to  Alexander  to  add,  that  when  Kos- 
cinsko  died,  in  1817,  after  a  public  and  pri 
vate  life,  worthy  of  the  scholar  of  Washing 
ton,  the  Emperor,  on  whom  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  had  then  bestowed  the  greater  part 
of  the  duchy  of  Warsaw,  with  the  title  of 
King  of  Poland,  allowed  his  Polish  subjects 


Julien,  Notice  Biographique  sur  Kosciusko. 
r  Published  in  M.   Julien's  interesting  little 


t  Published  in  M. 
work. 


to  pay  due  honours  to  the  last  of  their  heroes ; 
and  that  Prince  Jablonowski  was  sent  to 
attend  his  remains  from  Switzerland  to  Cra 
cow,  there  to  be  interred  in  the  only  spot  of 
the  Polish  territory  w^hich  is  now  not  dis 
honoured  by  a  foreign  master.  He  might  have 
paid  a  still  more  acceptable  tribute  to  his 
memory,  by  executing  his  pure  intentionsj 
and  acceding  to  his  disinterested  prayers. 

The  Partition  of  Poland  was  the  model  of 
all  those  acts  of  rapine  which  have  been  com 
mitted  by  monarchs  or  republicans  during, 
the  wars  excited  by  the  French  Revolution. 
No  single  cause  has  contributed  so  much  to 
alienate  mankind  from  ancient  institutions, 
and  loosen  their  respect  for  established  go 
vernments.  When  monarchs  show  so  signal 
a  disregard  to  immemorial  possession  and 
legal  right,  it  is  in  vain  for  them  to  hope  that 
subjects  will  not  copy  the  precedent.  The 
law  of  nations  is  a  code  without  tribunals, 
without  ministers,  and  without  arms,  which 
rests  only  on  a  general  opinion  of  its  useful 
ness,  and  on  the  influence  of  that  opinion  in 
the  councils  of  states,  and  most  of  all,  per 
haps,  on  a  habitual  reverence,  produced  by 
the  constant  appeal  to  its  rules  even  by  those 
who  did  not  observe  them,  and  strengthened 
by  the  elaborate  artifice  to  which  the  proud 
est  tyrants  deigned  to  submit,  in  their  at 
tempts  to  elude  an  authority  which  they  did 
not  dare  to  dispute.  One  signal  triumph  over 
such  an  authority  was  sufficient  to  destroy  its 
power.  Philip  II.  and  Louis  XIV.  had  often 
violated  the  law  of  nations ;  but  the  spoilers 
of  Poland  overthrew  it. 


SKETCH 


OF 


THE  ADMINISTRATION  AND  FALL 

OF 

STRUENSEE.* 


ON  the  arrival  of  Charles  VII.  of  Sweden, 
at  Altona,  in  need  of  a  physician, — an  atten 
dant  whom  his  prematurely  broken  constitu 
tion  made  peculiarly  essential  to  him  even 
at  the  age  of  nineteen, — Struensee,  the  son 
of  a  Lutheran  bishop  in  Holstein.  had  just 
begun  to  practise  medicine,  after  having  been 
for  some  time  employed  as  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper  in  that  city.  He  was  now  ap 
pointed  physician  to  the  King,  at  the  moment 

*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xliv.  p. 
366.— ED. 

28 


when  he  was  projecting  a  professional  esta 
blishment  at  Malaga,  or  a  voyage  to  India, 
which  his  imagination,  excited  by  the  peru 
sal  of  the  elder  travellers,  had  covered  with 
"barbaric  pearl  and  gold."  He  was  now 
twenty-nine  years  old,  arid  appears  to  have 
jbeen  recommended  to  the  royal  favour  by 
an  agreeable  exterior,  pleasing  manners,  and 
some  slight  talents  and  superficial  know 
ledge,  with  the  subserviency  indispensable 
in  a  favourite,  and  the  power  of  amusing 
his  listless  and  exhausted  master.  His  name 
T 


218 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


appears  in  the  publications  of  the  time  as 
"  Doctor  Struensee,"  among  the  attendants 
of  his  Danish  Majesty  in  England ;  and  he 
received,  in  that  character,  the  honorary 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  from,  the  Uni 
versity  of  Oxford. 

Like  all  other  minions,  his  ascent  was 
rapid,  or  rather  his  flight  to  the  pinnacle  of 
power  was  instantaneous ;  for  the  passion  of 
an  absolute  prince  on  such  occasions  knows 
no  bounds,  and  brooks  no  delay.  Immedi 
ately  after  the  King's  return  to  Copenhagen. 
Struensee  was  appointed  a  Cabinet  Minister'. 
While  his  brother  was  made  a  counsellor  of 
justice,  he  appointed  Brandt,  another  adven 
turer,  to  superintend  the  palace  and  the  im 
becile  King ;  and  intrusted  Ranlzau,  a  dis 
graced  Danish  minister,  who  had  been  his 
colleague  in  the  editorship  of  the  Altona 
Journal,  with  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs. 
He  and  his  friend  Brandt  were  created  Earls. 
Stolk,  his  predecessor  in  favour,  had  fomented 
and  kept  up  an  animosity  between  the  King 
and  Queen:  Struensee  (unhappily  for  him 
self  as  well  as  for  her)  gained  the  confidence 
of  the  Queen,  by  restoring  her  to  the  good 
graces  of  her  husband.  Caroline  Matilda, 
sister  of  George  III.,  who  then  had  the  mis 
fortune  to  be  Queen  of  Denmark,  is  described 
by  Falkenskiold*  as  the  handsomest  woman 
of  the  Court,  as  of  a  mild  and  reserved  cha 
racter,  and  as  one  who  was  well  qualified  to 
enjoy  and  impart  happiness,  if  it  had  been 
her  lot  to  be  united  to  an  endurable  husband. 
Brandt  seems  to  have  been  a  weak  coxcomb, 
and  Rantzau  a  turbulent  and  ungrateful  in 
triguer. 

The  only  foreign  business  which  Struensee 
found  pending  on  his  entrance  into  office, 
was  a  negotiation  with  Russia,  concerning 
the  pretensions  of  that  formidable  competitor 
to  a  part  of  Holstein,  which  Denmark  had 
unjustly  acquired  fifty  years  before.  Peter 
III.,  the  head  of  the  house  of  Holstein,  was 
proud  of  his  German  ancestry,  and  ambitious 
of  recovering  their  ancient  dominions.  After 
his  murder,  Catharine  claimed  these  posses 
sions,  as  nominal  Regent  of  Holstein,  during 
the  minority  of  her  son.  The  last  act  of 
Bernstorff's  administration  had  been  a  very 

*  General  Falkenskiold  was  a  Danish  gentle 
man  of  respectable  family,  who,  after  having 
served  in  the  French  army  during  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  and  in  the  Russian  army  during  the 
first  war  of  Catharine  II.  against  the  Turks,  was 
recalled  to  his  country  under  the  administration 
of  Struensee,  to  take  a  part  in  the  reform  of  the 
military  establishment,  and  to  conduct  the  nego 
tiation  at  Petersburgh,  respecting  the  claims  of  the 
Imperial  family  to  the  dutchy  of  Holstein.  He 
was  involved  in  the  fall  of  Siruensee,  and  was, 
without  trial,  doomed  to  imprisonment  for  life  at 
Munkholm,  a  fortress  situated  on  a  rock  opposite 
to  Drontheim.  After  five  years'  imprisonment  he 
was  released,  and  permitted  to  live,  first  at  Mont- 
pellier,  and  afterwards  at  Lausanne,  at  which  last 
city  (wilh  the  exception  of  one  journey  to  Copen 
hagen)  he  past  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  and  where 
he  died  in  September,  1820.  in  the  eighty-third 
year  of  his  age.  He  left  his  Memoirs  for  publica 
tion  to  his  friend,  M.  Secretan,  First  Judge  of  the 
canton  of  Vaud. 


prudent  accommodation,  in  which  Russia 
agreed  to  relinquish  her  claims  on  Holstein, 
in  consideration  of  the  cession  to  her  by  Den 
mark  of  the  small  principality  of  Oldenburg, 
the  very  ancient  partimoriy  of  the  Danish 
Royal  Family.  Rantzau.  who  in  his  exile 
had  had  some  quarrel  wilh  the  Russian  Go 
vernment,  prevailed  on  the  inexperienced 
Struensee  to  delay  the  execution  of  this  po 
litic  convention,  and  aimed  at  establishing 
the  influence  of  France  and  Sweden  at  Co 
penhagen  instead  of  that  of  Russia,  which 
was  then  supported  by  England.  He  even 
entertained  the  chimerical  project  of  driving 
the  Empress  from  Petersbuigh.  Falken 
skiold,  who  had  been  sent  on  a  mission  to 
Petersburgh,  endeavoured,  after  his  return, 
to  disabuse  Struensee,  and  to  show  him  the 
ruinous  tendency  of  such  rash  counsels,  pro 
posing  to  him  even  to  recall  Bernstorff,  to  fa 
cilitate  the  good  understanding  which  could 
hardly  be  re-restored  as  long  as  Counts  Osten 
and  Rantzau,  the  avowed  enemies  of  Russia, 
were  in  power.  Struensee,  like  most  of 
those  who  must  be  led  by  others,  was  ex 
ceedingly  fearful  of  being  thought  to  be  so. 
When  Falkenskiold  warned  him  against 
yielding  to  Rantzau,  his  plans  were  shaken  : 
out  when  the  same  weapon  was  turned 
against  Falkenskiold,  Struensee  returned  to 
his  obstinacy.  Even  after  Rantzau  had  be 
come  his  declared  enemy,  he  adhered  to  the 
plans  of  that  intriguer,  lest  he  should  be  sus 
pected  of  yielding  to  Falkenskiold.  Where- 
ever  there  were  only  two  roads,  it  was  easy 
to  lead  Struensee,  by  exciting  his  fear  of  be 
ing  led  by  the  opposite  party. 

Struensee's  measures  of  internal  policy  ap 
pear  to  have  been  generally  well-meant,  but 
often  ill-judged.  Some  of  his  reforms  were 
in  themselves  excellent:  but  he  showed,  on 
the  whole,  a  meddling  and  restless  spirit,  im 
patient  of  the  necessary  delay,  often  employ 
ed  in  petty  change,  choosing  wrong  means, 
braving  prejudices  that  might  have  been  sof 
tened,  and  offending  interests  that  might  have 
been  conciliated.  He  was  a  sort  of  inferior 
Joseph  II. ;  like  him,  rather  a  servile  copyist 
than  an  enlightened  follower  of  Frederic  II. 
His  dissolution  of  the  Guards  (in  itself  a  pru 
dent  measure  of  economy)  turned  a  numer 
ous  body  of  volunteers  into  the  service  of  his 
enemies.  The  removal  of  Bernstorff  was  a 
very  blamable  means  of  strengthening  him 
self.  The  suppression  of  the  Privy  Council, 
the  only  feeble  restraint  on  despotic  power, 
was  still  more  reprehensible  in  itself,  and 
excited  the  just  resentment  of  the  Danish 
nobility.  The  repeal  of  a  barbarous  law,  in 
flicting  capital  punishment  on  adultery,  was 
easily  misrepresented  to  the  people  as  a 
mark  of  approbation  of  that  vice. 

Both  Struensee  and  Brandt  had  embraced 
the  infidelity  at  that  time  prevalent  among 
men  of  the  world,  which  consisted  in  little 
more  than  a  careless  transfer  of  implied  faith 
from  Luther  to  Voltaire.  They  had  been  ac 
quainted  with  the  leaders  of  the  Philosophi 
cal  party  at  Paris,  and  they  introduced  the 


ADMINISTRATION  AND  FALL  OF  STRUENSEE. 


219 


conversation  of  their  masters  at  Copenhagen. 
In  the  same  school  they  were  taught  to  see 
clearly  enough  the  distempers  of  European 
society;  but  they  were  not  taught  (for  their 
teachers  did  not  know)  which  of  these  ma 
ladies  were  to  be  endured,  which  were  to  be 
palliated,  and  what  were  the  remedies  and 
regimen  by  which  the  remainder  might,  in 
due  time,  be  effectually  and  yet  safely  re 
moved.  The  dissolute  manners  of  the  Court 
contributed  to  their  unpopularity;  rather,  per 
haps,  because  the  nobility  resented  the  in 
trusion  of  upstarts  into  the  sphere  of  their 
priviledged  vice,  than  because  there  was  any 
real  increase  of  licentiousness. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Struensee 
was  the  first  minister  of  an  absolute  monar 
chy  who  abolished  the  torture;  and  that  he 
patronized  those  excellent  plans  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  enslaved  husbandmen, 
which  were  first  conceived  by  Reverdil,  a 
Swiss,  and  the  adoption  of  which  by  the  se 
cond  Bernstorff  has  justly  immortalized  that 
statesman.  He  will  be  honoured  by  after 
ages  for  what  offended  the  Lutheran  clergy, 
— the  free  exercise  of  religious  worship  grant 
ed  to  Calvinists,  to  Moravians,  and  even  to 
Catholics;  for  the  Danish  clergy  were  ambi 
tious  of  retaining  the  right  to  persecute,  not 
only  long  after  it  was  impossible  to  exercise 
it,  but  even  after  they  had  lost  the  disposi 
tion  to  do  so ; — at  first  to  overawe,  afterwards 
to  degrade  non-conformists ;  in  both  stages, 
as  a  badge  of  the  privileges  and  honour  of  an 
established  church. 

No  part,  however,  of  Struensee's  private 
or  public  conduct  can  be  justly  considered 
as  the  cause  of  his  downfall.  His.irreligion, 
his  immoralities,  his  precipitate  reforms,  his 
parade  of  invidious  favour,  were  only  the  in 
struments  or  pretexts  by  which  his  competi 
tors  for  office  were  able  to  effect  his  destruc 
tion.  Had  he  either  purchased  the  good-will, 
or  destroyed  the  power  of  his  enemies  at 
Court,  he  might  long  have  governed  Den 
mark,  and  perhaps  have  been  gratefully  re 
membered  by  posterity  as  a  reformer  of  politi 
cal  abuses.  He  fell  a  victim  to  an  intrigue  for 
a  change  of  ministers,  which,  under  such  a 
King,  was  really  a  struggle  for  the  sceptre. 

His  last  act  of  political  imprudence  illus 
trates  both  the  character  of  his  enemies,  and 
the  nature  of  absolute  government.  When 
he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  the  Cabinet, 
he  was  empowered  to  execute  such  orders 
as  were  very  urgent,  without  the  signature 
of  the  King,  on  condition,  however,  that  they 
should  be  weekly  laid  before  him,  to  be  con 
firmed  or  annulled  under  his  own  hand.  This 
liberty  had  been  practised  before  his  admin 
istration  ;  and  it  was  repeated  in  many  thou 
sand  instances  after  his  downfall.  Under 
any  monarchy,  the  substantial  fault  would 
have  consisted  rather  in  assuming  an  inde 
pendence  of  his  colleagues,  than  in  encroach 
ing  on  any  royal  power  which  was  real  or 
practicable.  Under  so  wretched  a  pageant 
as  the  King  of  Denmark,  Struensee  showed 
his  folly  in  obtaining,  by  a  formal  order,  the 


power  which  he  might  easily  have  continued 
to  execute  without  it.  But  this  order  was 
the  signal  of  a  clamour  against  him,  as  an 
usurper  of  royal  prerogative.  The  Guards 
showed  symptoms  of  mutiny :  the  garrison 
of  the  capital  adopted  their  resentment.  The 
populace  became  riotous.  Rantzau,  partly 
stimulated  by  revenge  against  Struensee,  for 
having  refused  a  protection  to  him  against  his 
creditors,  being  secretly  favoured  by  Count 
Osten.  found  means  of  gaining  overGuldberg, 
an  ecclesiastic  of  obscure  birth,  full  of  pro 
fessions  of  piety,  the  preceptor  of  the  King's 
brother,  who  prevailed  on  that  prince  and  the 
Queen-Dowager  to  engage  in  the  design  of 
subverting  the  Administration.  Several  of 
Struensee's  friends  warned  him  of  his  dan 
ger;  but,  whether  from  levity  or  magnanimi 
ty,  he  neglected  their  admonitions.  Rant 
zau  himself,  either  jealous  of  the  ascendant 
acquired  by  Guldberg  among  the  conspira 
tors,  or  visited  by  some  compunctious  remem 
brances  of  friendship  and  gratitude,  spoke 
to  Falkenskiold  confidentially  of  the  preva 
lent  rumours,  and  tendered  his  services  for 
the  preservation  of  his  former  friend.  Fal 
kenskiold  distrusted  the  advances  of  Rant 
zau,  and  answered  coldly,  "  Speak  to  Stru 
ensee:"  Rantzau  turned  away,  saying,  "He 
will  not  listen  to  me." 

Two  days  afterwards,  on  the  16th  of  Janu 
ary,  1772,  there  was  a  brilliant  masked  ball 
at  Court,  where  the  conspirators  and  their 
victims  mingled  in  the  festivities  (as  was 
observed  by  some  foreign  ministers  present) 
with  more  than  usual  gaiety.  At  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  the  Queen-Dowager,  who 
was  the  King's  step-mother,  her  son,  and 
Count  Rantzau,  entered  the  King's  bedcham 
ber,  compelled  his  valet  to  awaken  him,  and 
required  him  to  sign  an  order  to  apprehend 
the  Queen,  the  Counts  Struensee  and  Brandt, 
who,  with  other  conspirators,  they  pretended 
were  then  engaged  in  a  plot  to  depose,  if  not 
to  murder  him.  Christian  is  said  to  have 
hesitated,  from  fear  or  obstinacy, — perhaps 
from  some  remnant  of  humanity  and  moral 
restraint:  but  he  soon  yielded  ;  and  his  ver 
bal  assent,  or  perhaps  a  silence  produced  by 
terror,  was  thought  a  sufficient  warrant. 
Rantzau,  with  ^three  officers,  rushed  with 
his  sword  drawn  into  the  apartment  of  the 
Queen,  compelled  her  to  rise  from  her  bed, 
and.  in  spite  of  her  tears  and  threats,  sent 
her,  half-dressed,  a  prisoner  to  the  fortress  of 
Cronenbourg,  together  with  her  infant  daugh 
ter  Louisa,  whom  she  was  then  suckling,  and 
Lady  Mostyn,  an  English  lady  who  attended 
her.  Struensee  and  Brandt  were  in  the  same 
night  thrown  into  prison,  and  loaded  with 
irons.  On  the  next  day,  the  King  was  pa 
raded  through  the  streets  in  a  carriage  drawn 
by  eight  milk-white  horses,  as  if  triumphing 
after  a  glorious  victory  over  his  enemies,  in 
which  he  had  saved  his  country:  the  city 
was  illuminated.  The  preachers  of  the  Es 
tablished  Church  are  charged  by  several 
concurring  witnesses  with  inhuman  and  un 
christian  invectives  from  the  pulpit  against 


220 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  Queen  and  the  fallen  ministers ;  the  good, 
doubtless,  believing  too  easily  the  tale  of  the 
victors,  the  base  paying  court  to  the  dispen 
sers  of  preferment,  and  the  bigoted  greedily 
swallowing  the  most  incredible  accusations 
against  unbelievers.  The  populace,  inflamed 
by  these  declamations,  demolished  or  pil 
laged  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  houses. 

The  conspirators  distributed  among  them 
selves  the  chief  offices.  The  King  was  suf 
fered  to  fall  into  his  former  nullity:  the  for 
mality  of  his  signature  was  dispensed  with ; 
and  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  were  conducted 
in  his  name,  only  till  his  son  was  of  an  age 
to  assume  the  regency.  Guldberg,  under 
the  modest  title  of  "  Secretary  of  the  Cabi 
net,"  became  Prime  Minister.  Kantzau  was 
appointed  a  Privy  Councillor;  and  Osten  re 
tained  the  department  of  Foreign  £ffairs: 
but  it  is  consolatory  to  add,  that,  after  a  few 
months,  both  were  discarded  at  the  instance 
of  the  Court  of  Petersburgh,  to  complete  the 
desired  exchange  of  Holstein  for  Oldenburgh. 

The  object  of  the  conspiracy  being  thus 
accomplished,  the  conquerors  proceeded,  as 
usual,  to  those  judicial  proceedings  against 
the  prisoners,  which  are  intended  formally 
to  justify  the  violence  of  a  victorious  faction, 
but  substantially  aggravate  its  guilt.  A  com 
mission  was  appointed  to  try  the  accused : 
its  leading  members  were  the  chiefs  of  the 
conspiracy.  Guldberg,  one  of  them,  had  to 
determine,  by  the  sentence  which  he  pro 
nounced,  whether  he  was  himself  a  rebel. 
General  Eichstedt,  the  president,  had  per 
sonally  arrested  several  of  the  prisoners,  and 
•was,  by  his  judgment  on  Struensee,  who  had 
been  his  benefactor,  to  decide,  that  the  crimi 
nality  of  that  minister  was  of  so  deep  a  die 
as  to  cancel  the  obligations  of  gratitude.  To 
secure  his  impartiality  still  more,  he  was  ap 
pointed  a  minister,  and  promisee!  the  office 
of  preceptor  of  the  hereditary  prince, — the 
permanence  of  which  appointments  must 
have  partly  depended  on  the  general  con 
viction  that  the  prisoners  were  guilty. 

The  charges  against  Struensee  and  Brandt 
are  dated  on  the  21st  of  April.  The  defence 
of  Struensee  was  drawn  up  by  his  counsel 
on  the  22d  ;  that  of  Brandt  was  prepared  on 
the  23d.  Sentence  was  pronounced  against 
both  on  the  23d.  On  the  27th,  it  was  ap 
proved,  and  ordered  to  be  executed  by  the 
King.  On  the  28th,  after  their  right  hands  had 
been  cut  off  on  the  scaffold,  they  were  be 
headed.  For  three  months  they  had  been 
closely  and  very  cruelly  imprisoned.  The 
proceedings  of  the  commission  were  secret : 
the  prisoners  were  not  confronted  with  each 
other;  they  heard  no  witnesses:  they  read 
no  depositions;  they  did  not  appear  to  have 
seen  any  counsel  till  they  had  received  the 
indictments.  It  is  characteristic  of  this  scene 
to  add,  that  the  King  went  to  the  Opera  on 
the  25th,  after  signifying  his  approbation  of 
the  sentence  j  and  that  on  the  27th,  the  day  of 
its  solemn  confirmation,  there  was  a  masked 
ball  at  Court.  On  the  day  of  the  execution, 
the  King  again  went  to  the  Opera.  The  pas 


sion  which  prompts  an  absolute  monarch  to 
raise  an  unworthy  favourite  to  honour,  is 
still  less  disgusting  than  the  levity  and  hard 
ness  with  which,  on  the  first  alarm,  he  always 
I  abandons  the  same  favourite  to  destruction. 
It  may  be  observed,  that  the  very  persons 
who  had  represented  the  patronage  of  operas 
and  masquerades  as  one  of  the  offences  of 
Struensee,  were  the  same  nvho  thus  unsea 
sonably  paraded  their  unhappy  Sovereign 
through  a  succession  of  such  amusements. 

The  Memoirs  of  Falkenskiold  contain  the 
written  answers  of  Struensee  to  the  prelimi 
nary  questions  of  the  commission,  the  sub 
stance  of  the  charges  against  him,  and  the 
defence  made  by  his  counsel.  The  first 
were  written  on  the  14th  of  April,  when  he 
was  alone  in  a  dungeon,  with  irons  on  his 
hands  and  feet,  and  an  iron  collar  fastened 
to  the  wall  round  his  neck.  The  Indictment 
is  prefaced  by  a  long  declamatory  invective 
against  his  general  conduct  and  character; 
such  as  still  dishonour  the  criminal  proceed 
ings  of  most  nations,  and  from  which  Eng 
land  has  probably  been  saved  by  the  scho 
lastic  subtlety  and  dryness  of  her  system 
of  what  is  called  "special  pleading."  Lay 
ing  aside  his  supposed  connection  with  the 
Queen,  which  is  reserved  for  a  few  separate 
remarks,  the  charges  are  either  perfectly 
frivolous,  or  sufficiently  answered  by  his 
counsel,  in  a  defence  which  he  was  allowed 
only  one  day  to  prepare,  and  which  bears 
evident  marks  of  being  written  with  the  fear 
of  the  victorious  faction  before  the  eyes  of 
the  feeble  advocate.  One  is,  that  he  caused 
the  young  Prince  to  be  trained  so  hardily  as 
to  endanger  his  life  ;  in  answer  to  which,  he 
refers  to  the  judgment  of  physicians,  appeals 
to  the  restored  health  of  the  young  Prince, 
and  observes,  that  even  if  he  had  been  wrong, 
his  fault  could  have  been  no  more  than  an 
error  of  judgment.  The  truth  is,  that  he  was 
guilty  of  a  ridiculous  mimicry  of  the  early 
education  of  Emile,  at  a  time  when  all  Eu 
rope  was  intoxicated  by  the  writings  of 
.Rousseau.  To  the  second  charge,  that  he 
had  issued,  on  the  21st  of  December  preced 
ing,  unknown  to  the  King,  an  order  for  the 
incorporation  of  the  Foot  Guards  with  the 
troops  of  the  line,  and  on  their  refusal  to 
obey,  had,  on  the  24th,  obtained  an  order 
from  him  for  their  reduction,  he  answered, 
that  the  draught  of  the  order  had  been  read 
and  approved  by  the  King  on  the  21st,  signed 
and  sealed  by  him  on  the  23d,  and  finally 
confirmed  by  the  order  for  reducing  the  re 
fractory  Guards,  as  issued  by  his  Majesty  on 
the  24th ;  so  that  he  could  scarcely  be  said  to 
have  been  even  in  form  guilty  of  a  two  days* 
usurpation.  It  might  have  been  added,  that 
it  was  immediately  fully  pardoned  by  the 
royal  confirmation  :  that  Rantzau,  and  others 
of  his  enemies,  had  taken  an  active  share  in 
it  \  and  that  it  was  so  recent,  that  the  con 
spirators  must  have  resolved  on  their  mea 
sures  before  its  occurrence.  He  was  further 
charged  with  taking  or  granting  exorbitant 
pensions ;  and  he  answeredj  seemingly  wilk 


ADMINISTRATION  AND  FALL  OF  STRUENSEE. 


221 


truth,  that  they  were  not  higher  than  those 
of  his  predecessors.  He  was  accused  also 
of  having  falsified  the  public  accounts ;  to 
which  his  answer  is  necessarily  too  detailed 
for  our  purpose,  but  appears  to  be  satisfac 
tory.  Both  these  last  offences,  if  they  had 
been  committed,  could  not  have  been  treated 
as  high  treason  in  any  country  not  wholly 
barbarous;  and  the  evidence  on  which  the 
latter  and  more  precise  of  the  charges  rested, 
was  a  declaration  of  the  imbecile  and  im 
prisoned  King  on  an  intricate  matter  of  ac 
count  reported  to  him  by  an  agent  of  the 
enemies  of  the  prisoner. 

Thus  stands  the  case  of  the  unfortunate 
Struensee  on  all  the  charges  but  one,  as  it 
appears  in  the  accusation  which  his  enemies 
had  such  time  and  power  to  support,  and  on 
the  defence  made  for  him  under  such  cruel 
disadvantages.  That  he  was  innocent  of 
the  political  offences  laid  to  his  charge,  is 
rendered  highly  probable  by  the  Narrative 
of  his  Conversion,  published  soon  after  his 
execution  by  Dr.  Munter,  a  divine  of  Copen 
hagen,  appointed  by  the  Danish  Government 
to  attend  him  :*  a  composition,  which  bears 
the  strongest  marks  of  the  probity  and  sin 
cerity  of  the  writer,  and  is  a  perfect  model 
of  the  manner  in  which  a  person,  circum 
stanced  like  Struensee,  ought  to  be  treated 
by  a  kind  and  considerate  minister  of  religion. 
Men  of  all  opinions,  who  peruse  this  narra 
tive,  must  own  that  it  is  impossible,  with 
more  tenderness,  to  touch  the  wounds  of  a 
sufferer,  to  reconcile  the  agitated  penitent  to 
himself,  to  present  religion  as  the  consoler, 
not  as  the  disturber  of  his  dying  moments, 

fently  to  dispose  him  to  try  his  own  actions 
y  a  higher  test  of  morality,  to  fill  his  mind 
with  indulgent  benevolence  towards  his  fel 
low-men,  and  to  exalt  it  to  a  reverential  love 
of  boundless  perfection.  Dr.  Munter  deserved 
the  confidence  of  Struensee,  and  seems  en 
tirely  to  have  won  it.  The  unfortunate  man 
freely  owned  his  private  licentiousness,  his 
success  in  corrupting  the  principles  of  the 
victims  of  his  desires,  his  rejection  not  only 
of  religion,  but  also  in  theory,  though  not 
quite  in  feeling,  of  whatever  ennobles  and 
elevates  the  mind  in  morality,  the  impru 
dence  and  rashness  by  which  he  brought 
ruin  on  his  friends,  and  plunged  his  parents 
in  deep  affliction,  and  the  ignoble  and  im 
pure  motives  of  all  his  public  actions,  which, 
in  the  eye  of  reason,  deprived  them  of  that 
pretension  to  virtuous  character,  to  which 
their  outward  appearance  might  seem  to 
entitle  them.  He  felt  for  his  friends  with 
unusual  tenderness.  Instead  of  undue  con 
cealment  from  Munter,  he  is,  perhaps,  charge 
able  with  betraying  to  him  secrets  which 
were  not  exclusively  his  own  :  but  he  denies 
the  truth  of  the  political  charges  against  him 
— more  especially  those  of  peculation  anc 
falsification  of  accounts. 

The  charges  against  Brandt  would  be  alto- 


*  Reprinted  by  the  late  learned  and  exemplary 
Mr.  Rennell  of  Kensington.     London,  1824. 


gether  unworthy  of  consideration,  were  it 
lot  for  the  light  which  one  of  them  throws 
n  the  whole  of  this  atrocious  procedure. 
?he  main  accusation  against  him  was,  that 
le  had  beaten,  flogged,  and  scratched  the 
acred  person  of  the  King.  His  answer  was, 
hat  the  King,  who  had  a  passion  for  wrest 
ing  and  boxing,  had  repeatedly  challenged 
iim  to  a  match,  ^and  had  severely  beaten 
lim  five  or  six  times ;  that  he  did  not  gratify 
lis  master's  taste  till  after  these  provoca- 
ions;  that  two  of  the  witnesses  against  him, 
servants  of  the  King,  had  indulged  their  mas- 
er  in  the  same  sport ;  and  that  he  received 
iberal  gratifications,  and  continued  to  enjoy 
he  royal  favour  for  months  after  this  pre- 
ended  treason.  The  King  inherited  this 
perverse  taste  in  amusements  from  his  father, 

hose  palace  had  been  the  theatre  of  the  like 
dngly  sports.  It  is  impossible  to  entertain 
he  least  doubt  of  the  truth  of  this  defence : 
t  affords  a  natural  and  probable  explanation 
)f  a  fact  which  would  be  otherwise  incom 
prehensible. 

A  suit  for  divorce  was  commenced  against 
he  Queen,  on  the  ground  of  criminal  con 
nection  with  Struensee,  vyho  was  himself 

onvicted  of  high  treason  for  that  connec 
tion.  This  unhappy  princess  had  been  sac 
rificed,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  to  the  brutal 
caprices  of  a  husband  who,  if  he  had  been 
a  private  man,  would  have  been  deemed  in 
capable  of  the  deliberate  consent  which  is 
essential  to  marriage.  She  had  early  suf 
fered  from  his  violence,  though  she  so  far 
complied  with  his  fancies  as  to  ride  with 
him  in  male  apparel, — an  indecorum  for 
which  she  had  been  sharply  reprehended  by 
her  mother,  the  Princess-Dowager  of  Wales, 
in  a  short  interview  between  them,  during  a 
visit  which  the  latter  had  paid  to  her  brother 
at  Gotha,  after  an  uninterrupted  residence 
of  thirty-four  years  in  England.  The  King 
had  suffered  the  Russian  minister  at  Copen 
hagen  to  treat  her  with  open  rudeness ;  and 
had  disgraced  his  favourite  cousin,  the  Prince 
of  Hesse,  for  taking  her  part.  He  had  never 
treated  her  with  common  civility,  till  they 
were  reconciled  by  Struensee,  at  that  period 
of  overflowing  good-nature  when  that  minis 
ter  obtained  the  recall  from  banishment  of 
the  ungrateful  Rantzau. 

The  evidence  against  her  consisted  of  a 
number  of  circumstances  (none  of  them  in 
capable  of  an  innocent  explanation)  sworn  to 
by  attendants,  who  had  been  employed  as 
spies  on  her  conduct.  She  owned  that  she 
had  been  guilty  of  much  imprudence;  but 
in  her  dying  moments  she  declared  to  M. 
Roques,  pastor  of  the  French  church  at  Zell, 
that  she  never  had  been  unfaithful  to  her 
husband.*  It  is  true,  that  her  own  signature 
affixed  to  a  confession  was  alleged  against 
her :  but  if  General  Falkenskiold  was  rightly 
informed  (for  he  has  every  mark  of  honest 
intention),  that  signature  proves  nothing  but 


*  Communicated  by  him  to  M.  Secretan  on  the 


7th  of  March,  1780. 


T  2 


222 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  malice  and  cruelty  of  her  enemies. 
Schack,  the  counsellor  sent  to  interrogate 
her  at  Cronenbourg,  was  received  by  her 
with  indignation  when  he  spoke  to  her  of 
connection  with  Struensee.  YVhen  he  showed 
Struensee's  confession  to  her,  he  artfully  in 
timated  that  the  fallen  minister  would  be 
subjected  to  a  very  cruel  death  if  he  was 
found  to  have  falsely  criminated  the  Queen. 
'•'What!"  she  exclaimed,  "do  you  believe 
that  if  I  was  to  confirm  this  declaration,  I 
should  save  the  life  of  that  unfortunate 
man1?"  Schack  answered  by  a  profound 
bow.  The  Queen  took  a  pen,  wrote  the  first 
syllable  of  her  name,  and  fainted  away. 
Schack  completed  the  signature,  and  carried 
away  the  fatal  document  in  triumph. 

Struensee  himself,  however,  had  confessed 
his  intercourse  to  the  Commissioners.  It  is 
said  that  this  confession  was  obtained  by 
threats  of  torture,  facilitated  by  some  hope 
of  life,  and  influenced  by  a  knowledge  that 
the  proceeding  against  the  Queen  could  not 
be  carried  beyond  divorce.  But  his  repeated 
and  deliberate  avowals  to  Dr.  Munter  do  not 
(it  must  be  owned)  allow  of  such  an  expla 
nation.  Scarcely  any  supposition  favourable 
to  this  unhappy  princess  remains,  unless  it 
should  be  thought  likely,  that  as  Dr.  Mun- 
ter's  Narrative  was  published  under'the  eye 
of  her  oppressors,  they  might  have  caused 
the  confessions  of  Struensee  to  be  inserted 
in  it  by  their  own  agents,  without  the  con 
sent — perhaps  without  the  knowledge — of 
Munter ;  whose  subsequent  life  is  so  little 
known,  that  we  cannot  determine  whether 
he  ever  had  the  means  of  exposing  the  falsi 
fication.  It  must  be  confessed,  that  internal 
evidence  does  not  favour  this  hypothesis ; 
for  the  passages  of  the  Narrative,  which*  con 
tain  the  avowals  of  Struensee.  have  a  striking 
appearance  of  genuineness.  '  If  Caroline  be 
trayed  her  sufferings  to  Struensee, — if  she 
was  led  to  a  dangerous  familiarity  with  a 
pleasing  young  man  who  had  rendered  es 
sential  services  to  her, — if  mixed  motives  of 
confidence,  gratitude,  disgust,  and  indigna 
tion,  at  last  plunged  her  into  an  irretrievable 
fault,  the  reasonable  and  the  virtuous  will 
reserve  their  abhorrence  for  the  conspirators 
who,  for  the  purposes  of  their  own  ambition, 
punished  her  infirmity  by  ruin,  endangered 
the  succession  to  the  crown,  and  disgraced 
their  country  in  the  eyes  of  Europe.  It  is 
difficult  to  contain  the  indignation  which 
naturally  arises  from  the  reflection,  that  at 
this  very  time,  and  with  a  full  knowledge  of 
the  fate  of  the  Queen  of  Denmark,  the  Royal 
Marriage  Act  was  passed  in  England,  for  the 
avowed  purpose  of  preventing  the  only  mar 
riages  of  preference,  which  a  princess,  at 
least,  has  commonly  the  opportunity  of  form 
ing.  Of  a  monarch,  who  thought  so  much 
more  of  the  pretended  degradation  of  his 
brother  than  of  the  cruel  misfortunes  of  his 
sister,  less  cannot  be  said  than  that  he  must 
have  had  more  pride  than  tenderness.  Even 
the  capital  punishment  of  Struensee,  for  such 
an  offence  will  be  justly  condemned  by  all 


but  English  lawyers,  who  ought  to  be  silenced 
by  the  consciousness  that  the  same  barbar 
ous  disproportion  of  a  penalty  to  an  offence  is 
sanctioned  in  the  like  case  by  their  own  Jaw. 

Caroline  Matilda  died  at  Zell  about  three 
years  after  her  imprisonment.  The  last 
tidings  which  reached  the  Princess-Dowa 
ger  of  Wales  on  her  death-bed,  was  the  im 
prisonment  of  this  ill-fated  daughter,  which 
was  announced  to  her  in  a  letter  dictated  to 
the  King  of  Denmark  by  his  new  masters, 
and  subscribed  with  his  own  hand.  Two 
days  before  her  death,  though  in  a  state  of 
agony,  she  herself  wrote  a  letter  to  the  nomi 
nal  sovereign,  exhorting  him  to  be  at  least 
indulgent  and  lenient  towards  her  daughter. 
After  hearing  the  news  from  Copenhagen  she 
scarcely  swallowed  any  nourishment.  The 
intelligence  was  said  to  have  accelerated  her 
death;  but  the  dreadful  malady*  under 
which  she  suffered,  neither  needed  the  co 
operation  of  sorrow,  nor  was  of  a  nature  to 
be  much  affected  by  it. 

What  effects  were  produced  by  the  inter 
ference  of  the  British  Minister  for  the  Queen  ? 
— How  far  the  conspirators  were  influenced 
by  fear  of  the  resentment  of  King  George  III.'? 
— and.  In  what  degree  that  monarch  himself 
may  have  acquiesced  in  the  measures  finally 
adopted  towards  his  sister?  —  are  questions 
which  must  be  answered  by  the  historian 
from  other  sources  than  those  from  which  we 
reason  on  the  present  occasion.  The  only 
legal  proceeding  ever  commenced  against 
the  Queen  was  a  suit  for  a  divorce,  which 
was  in  form  perfectly  regular :  for  in  all 
Protestant  countries  but  England,  the  offend 
ed  party  is  entitled  to  release  from  the  bands 
of  marriage  by  the  ordinary  tribunals.  It 
is  said  that  two  legal  questions  were  then 
agitated  in  Denmark,  and  "even  occasioned 
great  debates  among  the  Commissioners : — 
1st.  Whether  the  Queen,  as  a  sovereign, 
could  be  legally  tried  by  her  subjects  ~}  and, 
2dly,  Whether,  as  a  foreign  princess,  she 
was  amenable  to  the  law  of  Denmark?" 
But  it  is  quite  certain  on  general  principles, 
(assuming  thai  no  Danish  law  had  made  their 
Queen  a  partaker  of  the  sovereign  power,  or 
otherwise  expressly  exempted  her  from  legal 
responsibility.)  that  however  high  in  dignity 
and  honour,  she  was  still  a  subject ;  and  that 
as  such,  she,  as  well  as  every  other  person 
wherever  born,  resident  in  Denmark,  was, 
during  her  residence  at  least,  amenable  to 
the  laws  of  that  country. 

It  was  certain  that  there  was  little  proba 
bility  of  hostility  from  England.  Engaged 
in  a  contest  with  the  people  at  home,  and 
dreading  the  approach  of  a  civil  \var  with 
America,  Lord  North  was  not  driven  from  an 
inflexible  adherence  to  his  pacific  system  by 
the  Partition  of  Poland  itself.  An  address 
for  the  production  of  the  diplomatic  corres 
pondence  respecting  the  French  conquest, 
or  purchase  of  Corsica,  was  moved  in  the 

*  An  affection  of  the  throat  which  precluded 
the  passage  of  all  nourishment. — ED. 


ADMINISTRATION  AND  FALL  OF  STRUENSEE. 


223 


House  of  Commons  on  the  17th  of  November, 
1768,  for  the  purpose  of  condemning  that 
unprincipled  transaction,  and  with  a  view 
indirectly  to  blame  the  supineness  of  the 
English  ministers  respecting  it.  The  motion 
•was  negatived  by  a  majority  of  230  to  84,  on 
the  same  ground  as  that  on  which  the  like 
motions  respecting  Naples  and  Spain  were 
resisted  in  1822  and  1823  ; — that  such  pro 
posals  were  too  little  if  war  was  intended, 
and  too  much  if  it  was  not.  The  weight  ot 
authority,  however,  did  not  coincide  with 
the  power  of  numbers.  Mr.  Greenville,  the 
most  experienced  statesman,  and  Mr.  Burke, 
the  man  of  greatest  genius  and  wisdom  in 
the  House,  voted  in  the  minority,  and  argued 
in  support  of  the  motion.  (  Such,7  said  the 
latter,  '  was  the  general  zeal  for  the  Corsican, 
that  if  the  Ministers  would  withdraw  the 
Proclamation  issued  by  Lord  Bute's  Govern 
ment,  forbidding  British  subjects  to  assist 
the  Corsican  "  rebels,"  '  (a  measure  similar 
to  our  Foreign  Enlistment  Act),  i  private  in 
dividuals  would  supply  the  brave  insurgents 
with  sufficient  means  of  defence.'  The 
young  Duke  of  Devonshire,  then  at  Florence, 
had  sent  400L  to  Corsica,  and  raised  2000/. 
more  for  the  same  purpose  by  a  subscription 
among  the  English  in  Italy.*  A  Government 
which  looked  thus  passively  at  such  breaches 
of  the  system  of  Europe  on  occasions  when 
the  national  feeling  wras  favourable  to  a  more 
generous,  perhaps  a  more  wise  policy,  would 
hardly  have  been  diverted  from  its  course  by 
any  indignities  or  outrages  which  a  foreign 
Government  could  offer  to  an  individual  of 
however  illustrious  rank.  Little,  however, 
as  the  likelihood  of  armed  interference  *by 
England  was,  the  apprehension  of  it  might 
have  been  sufficient  to  enable  the  more  wary 
of  the  Danish  conspirators  to  contain  the  rage 
of  their  most  furious  accomplices.  The  abi 
lity  and  spirit  displayed  by  Sir  Robert  Mur 
ray  Keith  on  behalf  of  the  Queen  was  soon 
after  rewarded  by  his  promotion  to  the  em 
bassy  at  Vienna,  always  one  of  the  highest 
places  in  English  diplomacy.  His  vigorous 
remonstrances  in  some  measure  compensated 
for  the  timidity  of  his  Government ;  and  he 
powerfully  aided  the  cautious  policy  of  Count 
Osten,  who  moderated  the  passions  of  his 
colleagues,  though  giving  the  most  specious 
colour  to  their  acts  in  his  official  correspon 
dence  with  foreign  Powers. 

Contemporary  observers  of  enlarged  minds 
considered  these  events  in  Denmark  not  so 
much  as  they  affected  individuals,  or  were 
connected  with  temporary  policy,  as  in  the 
higher  light  in  which  they  indicated  the 
character  of  nations,  and  betrayed  the  pre 
valence  of  dispositions  inauspicious  to  the 

*  These  particulars  are  not  to  be  found  in  the 
printed  debate,  which  copies  the  account  of  this 
discussion  given  in  the  Annual  Register  by  Mr. 
Burke,  written,  like  his  other  abstracts  of  Parlia 
mentary  proceedings,  with  the  brevity  and  reserve, 
produced  by  his  situation  as  one  of  the  most  im 
portant  parties  in  the  argument,  and  by  the  severe 
notions  then  prevalent  on  such  publications. 


prospects  of  mankind.  None  of  the  un- 
avowed  writings  of  Mr.  Burke,  and  perhaps 
few  of  his  acknowledged  ones,  exhibit  more 
visible  marks  of  his  hand  than  the  History 
of  Europe  in  the  Annual  Register  of  1772; 
which  opens  with  a  philosophical  and  elo 
quent  vindication  of  the  policy  which  watch 
ed  over  the  balance  of  power,  and  with  a 
prophetic  display  of  the  evils  which  were  to 
flow  from  the  renunciation  of  that  policy  by 
France  and  England,  in  suffering  the  parti 
tion  of  Poland.  The  little  transactions  of 
Denmark,  which  were  despised  by  many  as 
a  petty  and  obscure  intrigue,  and  affected 
the  majority  only  as  a  part  of  the  romance 
or  tragedy  of  real  life,  appeared  to  the  phi 
losophical  statesman  pregnant  with  melan 
choly  instruction.  "It  has,"  says  he,  "been 
too  hastily  and  too  generally  received  as  an 
opinion  with  the  most  eminent  writers,  and 
from  them  too  carelessly  received  by  the 
world,  that  the  Northern  nations,  at  all  times 
and  without  exception,  have  been  passionate 
admirers  of  liberty,  and  tenacious  to  an  ex 
treme  of  their  rights.  A  little  attention  will 
show  that  this  opinion  ought  to  be  received 
with  many  restrictions.  Sweden  and  Den 
mark  have,  within  little  more  than  a  century, 
given  absolute  demonstration  to  the  contrary ; 
and  the  vast  nation  of  the  Russes,  who  over 
spread  so  great  a  part  of  the  North,  have, 
at  all  times,  so  long  as  their  name  has  been 
known,  or  their  acts  remembered  by  history, 
been  incapable  of  any  other  than  a  despotic 
government.  And  notwithstanding  the  con 
tempt  in  which  we  hold  the  Eastern  nations, 
and  the  slavish  disposition  we  attribute  to 
them,  it  may  be  found,  if  we  make  a  due 
allowance  for  the  figurative  style  and  man 
ner  of  the  Orientals,  that  the  official  papers, 
public  acts,  and  speeches,  at  the  Courts  of 
Petersburgn,  Copenhagen,  and  Stockholm, 
are  in  as  unmanly  a  strain  of  servility  and 
adulation  as  those  of  the  most  despotic  of  the 
Asiatic  governments." 

It  was  doubtless  an  error  to  class  Russia 
with  the  Scandinavian  nations,  merely  be 
cause  they  were  both  comprehended  within 
the  same  parallels  of  latitude.  The  Russians 
differ  from  them  in  race. — a  circumstance 
always  to  be  considered,  though  more  liable 
to  be  exaggerated  or  underrated,  than  any 
other  which  contributes  to  determine  the 
character  of  nations.  No  Sarmatian  people 
has  ever  been  free.  The  Russians  profess  a 
religion,  founded  on  the  blindest  submission 
of  the  understanding,  which  is,  in  their  mo 
dern  modification  of  it,  directed  to  their 
temporal  sovereign.  They  were  for  ages  the 
slaves  of  Tartars ;  the  larger  part  of  their 
dominions  is  Asiatic;  and  they  were,  till 
lately,  with  justice,  more  regarded  as  an 
Eastern  than  as  a  Western  nation.  But  the 
nations  of  Scandinavia  were  of  that  Teutonic 
race,  who  were  the  founders  of  civil  liberty: 
they  early  embraced  the  Reformation,  which 
ought  to  have  taught  them  the  duty  of  exer 
cising  reason  freely  on  every  subject:  and 
their  spirit  has  never  been  broken  by  a 


224 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


foreign  yoke.  Writing  in  the  year  when 
despotism  w£s  established  in  Sweden,  and 
its  baneful  effects  so  strikingly  exhibited  in 
Denmark,  Mr.  Burke  may  be  excused  for 
comparing  these  then  unhappy  countries 
with  those  vast  regions  of  Asia  which  have 
been  the  immemorial  seat  of  slavery.  The 
revolut'on  which  we  have  been  considering, 
shows  the  propriety  of  the  parallel  in  all  its 
parts.  If  it  only  proved  that  absolute  power 
corrupts  the  tyrant,  there  are  many  too  de 
based  to  dread  it  on  that  account.  But  it 
shows  him  at  Copenhagen,  as  at  Ispahan, 
reduced  to  personal  insignificance,  a  pageant 
occasionally  exhibited  by  his  ministers,  or 
a  tool  in  their  hands,  compelled  to  do  what 
ever  suits  their  purpose,  without  power  to 
save  the  life  even  of  a  minion,  and  without 
security,  in  cases  of  extreme  violence,  for 
his  own.  Nothing  can  more  clearly  prove 
that  under  absolute  monarchy,  good  laws, 
if  they  could  by  a  miracle  be  framed,  must 
always  prove  utterly  vain  ;  that  civil  cannot 
exist  without  political  liberty;  and  that  the 
detestable  distinction,  lately  attempted  in 
this  country  by  the  advocates  of  intolerance,* 
between  freedom  and  political  power,  never 
can  be  allowed  in  practice  without,  in  the 
first  instance,  destroying  all  securities  for 
good  government,  and  very  soon  introducing 
every  species  of  corruption  and  oppression. 

The  part  of  Mr.  Burke's  History,  which 
we  have  quoted,  is  followed  by  a  memorable 
passage  which  seems,  in  later  times,  to  have 
escaped  the  notice  both  of  his  opponents  and 
adherents,  and  was  probably  forgotten  by 
himself,  After  speaking  of  the  final  victory 
of  Louis  XV.  over  the  French  Parliaments, 
of  whom  he  says,  '•'  that  their  fate  seems  to 
be  finally  decided, t  and  the  few  remains  of 
public  liberty  that  were  preserved  in  these 
illustrious  bodies  are  now  no  more,"  he  pro 
ceeds  to  general  reflection  on  the  condition 
and  prospects  of  Europe.  "In  a  word,  if 
we  seriously  consider  the  mode  of  support 
ing  great  standing  armies,  which  becomes 
daily  more  prevalent,  it  will  appear  evident, 
that  nothing  less  than  a  convulsion  that  will 
shake  the  globe  to  its  centre,  can  ever  restore 
the  European  nations  to  that  liberty  by  which 
they  were  once  so  much  distinguished.  The 
Western  world  was  its  seat  until  another 
more  western  was  discovered  :  and  that  other 
will  probably  be  its  asylum  when  it  is  hunted 
down  in  every  other  part  of  the  world.  Happy 
it  is  that  the  worst  of  times  may  have  one 
refuge  left  for  humanity." 

This  passage  is  not  so  much  a  prophecy 
of  the  French  Revolution,  as  a  declaration 
that  without  a  convulsion  as  deep  and  dread 
ful  as  that  great  event,  the  European  nations 
had  no  chance  of  being  restored  to  their  an- 

*  This  was  written  in  1826. — ED. 

$  They  were  re-established  four  years  after- 
"wards  :  but  as  this  arose,  not  from  the  spirit  of 
the  nation,  but  from  the  advisers  of  the  young 
King,  who  had  full  power  to  grant  or  withhold 
their  lestoration,  the  want  of  foresight  is  rather 
apparent  than  substantial. 


cient  dignity  and  their  natural  rights.  Had 
it  been  written  after,  or  at  least  soon  after 
the  event,  it  might  have  been  blamed  as  in 
dicating  too  litile  indignation  against  guilt, 
and  compassion  for  suffering.  Even  when  con 
sidered  as  referring  to  the  events  of  a  distant 
futurity,  it  may  be  charged  with  a  pernicious 
exaggeration,  which  seems  to  extenuate  re 
volutionary  horrors  by  representing  them  as 
inevitable,  and  by  laying  it  down  falsely  that 
Wisdom  and  Virtue  can  find  no  other  road  to 
Liberty.  It  would,  however,  be  very  unjust 
to  charge  such  a  purpose  on  Mr.  Burke,  or 
indeed  to  impute  such  a  tendency  to  his  de 
sponding  anticipations.  He  certainly  appears 
to  have  foreseen  that  the  progress  of  despo 
tism  would  at  length  provoke  a  general  and 
fearful  resistance,  the  event  of  which,  with 
a  wise  scepticism,  he  does  not  dare  to  foretel; 
rather,  however,  as  a  fond,  and  therefore 
fearful,  lover  of  European  liberty,  foreboding 
that  she  will  be  driven  from  her  ancient 
seats,  and  leave  the  inhabitants  of  Europe 
to  be  numbered  with  Asiatic  slaves.  The 
fierceness  of  the  struggle  he  clearly  saw, 
and  most  distinctly  predicts;  for  he  Itnew 
that  the  most  furious  passions  of  human  na 
ture  would  be  enlisted  on  both  sides.  He 
does  not  conclude,  from  this  dreadful  pros 
pect,  that  the  chance  of  liberty  ought  to  be 
relinquished  rather  than  expose  a  country  to 
the  probability  or  possibility  of  such  a  con 
test;  but,  on  the  contrary,  very  intelligibly 
declares  by  the  melancholy  tone  in  which  he 
adverts  to  the  expulsion  of  Liberty,  that 
every  evil  is  to  be  hazarded  for  her  preser 
vation.  It  would  be  well  if  his  professed 
adherents  would  bear  in  mind,  that  such  is 
the  true  doctrine  of  most  of  those  whom 
they  dread  and  revile  as  incendiaries.  The 
friends  of  freedom  only  profess  that  those 
who  have  recourse  to  the  only  remaining 
means  of  preserving  or  acquiring  liberty, 
are  not  morally  responsible  for  the  evils 
which  may  arise  in  an  inevitable  combat. 

The  Danish  dominions  continued  to  be 
administered  in  the  name  of  Christian  VII., 
for  the  long  period  of  thirty-six  years  after 
the  deposition  of  Struensee.  The  mental 
incapacity  under  which  he  always  laboured, 
was  not  formally  recognised  till  the  associa 
tion  of  his  son,  now  King  of  Denmark,  with 
him  in  the  government.  He  did  not  cease 
to  breathe  till  1808,  after  a  nominal  reign  of 
forty-three  years,  and  an  animal  existence 
of  near  sixty.  During  the  latter  part  of  that 
period,  the  real  rulers  of  the  country  were 
wise  and  honest  men.  It  enjoyed  a  consi 
derable  interval  of  prosperity  under  the  ad 
ministration  of  BernstorfT,  whose  merit  in 
forbearing  to  join  the  coalition  against  France 
in  1793,  is  greatly  enhanced  by  his  personal 
abhorrence  of  the  Revolution.  His  adoption 
of  ReverdiPs  measures  of  enfranchisement, 
sheds  the  purest  glory  on  his  name. 

The  fate  of  Denmark,  after  the  ambition 
of  Napoleon  had  penetrated  into  the  North, — 
the  iniquity  with  which  she  was  stripped  by 
Russia  of  Norway,  for  adherence  to  an  al- 


CASE  OF  DONNA  MARIA. 


225 


liance  which  Russia  had  compelled  her  to 
join,  and  as  a  compensation  to  Sweden  for 
Finland,  of  which  Sweden  had  been  robbed 
by  Russia,  are  events  too  familiarly  known 
to  be  recounted  here.  She  is  now  no  more 
than  a  principality,  whose  arms  are  still  sur 
mounted  by  a  royal  crown.  A  free  and  po 
pular  government,  under  the  same  wise  ad 
ministration,  might  have  arrested  many  of 
these  calamities,  and  afforded  a  new  proof 
that  the  attachment  of  a  people  to  a  govern 
ment  in  which  they  have  a  palpable  interest 
and  a  direct  share,  is  the  most  secure  foun 
dation  of  defensive  strength. 

The  political  misfortunes  of  Denmark  dis 
prove  the  commonplace  opinion,  that  all  en 
slaved  nations  deserve  their  fate :  for  the 
moral  and  intellectual  qualities  of  the  Danes 
seem  to  qualify  them  for  the  firm  and  pru 
dent  exercise  of  the  privileges  of  freemen. 
All  those  by  whom  they  are  well  known,, 


commend  their  courage,  honesty,  and  indus 
try.  The  information  of  the  labouring  classes 
has  made  a  considerable  progress  since  their 
enfranchisement.  Their  literature,  like  that 
of  the  Northern  nations,  has  generally  been 
dependent  on  that  of  Germany,  with  which 
country  they  are  closely  connected  in  lan 
guage  and  religion.  In  the  last  half  century, 
they  have  made  persevering  efforts  to  build 
up  a  national  literature.  The  resistance  of 
their  fleet  in  180],  has  been  the  theme  of 
many  Danish  poets ;  but  we  believe  that 
they  have  been  as  unsuccessful  in  their  bold 
competition  with  Campbell,  as  their  mariners 
in  their  gallant  contest  with  Nelson.  How 
ever,  a  poor  and  somewhat  secluded  country, 
with  a  small  and  dispersed  population,  which 
has  produced  Tycho  Brahe,  Oehlenschlaeger, 
and  Thorwaldsen,  must  be  owned  to  have 
contributed  her  full  contingent  to  the  intel 
lectual  greatness  of  Europe. 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  CASE 


DONNA  MARIA  DA    GLORIA, 


AS 


A  CLAIMANT  TO  THE  CROWN  OF  PORTUGAL.* 


BEFORE  the  usurpation  of  Portugal  by 
Philip  II.  of  Spain  in  1580,  the  Portuguese 
nation,  though  brilliantly  distinguished  in 
arts  and  arms,  and  as  a  commercial  and 
maritime  power,  in  some  measure  filling  up 
the  interval  between  the  decline  of  Venice 
and  the  rise  of  Holland,  had  not  yet  taken  a 
place  in  the  political  system  of  Europe. 
From  the  restoration  of  her  independence 
under  the  House  of  Braganza  in  1640,  to  the 
peace  of  Utrecht,  Spain  was  her  dangerous 
enemy,  and  France,  the  political  opponent 
of  Spain,  was  her  natural  protector.  Her  re 
lation  to  France  was  reversed  as  soon  as  a 
Bourbon  King  was  seated  on  the  throne  of 
Spain.  From  that  moment  the  union  of  the 
two  Bourbon  monarchies  gave  her  a  neigh 
bour  far  more  formidable  than  the  Austrian 
princes  who  had  slumbered  for  near  a  cen 
tury  at  the  Escurial.  It  became  absolutely 
necessary  for  her  safety  that  she  should 
strengthen  herself  against  this  constantly 
threatening  danger  by  an  alliance,  which, 
being  founded  in  a  common  and  permanent 
interest,  might  be  solid  and  durable.  Eng 
land,  the  political  antagonist  of  France, 

*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xlv.  p. 
202.— ED. 

29 


whose  safety  would  be  endangered  by  every 
aggrandizement  of  the  House  of  Bourbon, 
and  who  had  the  power  of  rapidly  succour 
ing  Portugal,  without  the  means  of  oppress 
ing  her  independence,  was  evidently  the 
only  state  from  which  friendship  and  aid,  at 
once  effectual,  safe,  and  lasting,  could  be 
expected  : — hence  the  alliance  between  Eng 
land  and  Portugal,  and  the  union,  closer  than 
can  be  created  by  written  stipulations,  be 
tween  these  two  countries. 

The  peril,  however,  was  suspended  during 
forty  years  of  the  dissolute  and  unambitious 
government  of  Louis  XV.  till  the  year  1761, 
when,  by  the  treaty  known  under  the  name 
of  the  '  Family  Compact,'  the  Due  de  Choiseul 
may  be  justly  said  (to  borrow  the  language 
of  Roman  ambition)  to  have  reduced  Spain 
to  the  form  of  a  province.  A  separate  and 
secret  convention  was  executed  on  the  same 
day  ( 15th  of  August),  by  which  it  was  agreed , 
that  if  England  did  not  make  peace  with 
France  by  the  1st  of  May,  1762,  Spain  should 
then  declare  war  against  the  former  power. 
The  sixth  article  fully  disclosed  the  magni 
tude  of  the  danger  which,  from  that  moment 
to  this,  has  hung  over  the  head  of  Portugal. 
His  Most  Faithful  Majesty  was  to  be  desired 
to  accede  to  the  convention ;  "  it  not  being 


226 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


•just,"  in  the  judgment  of  these  royal  jurists, 
"  that  he  should  remain  a  tranquil  spectator 
of  the  disputes  of  the  two  Courts  with  Eng 
land,  and  continue  to  enrich  the  enemies  of 
the  two  Sovereigns,  by  keeping  his  ports 
open  to  them."  The  King  of  Portugal  re 
fused  to  purchase  a  temporary  exemption 
from  attack  by  a  surrender  of  his  independ 
ence.  The  French  and  Spanish  Ministers 
declared,  "  that  the  Portuguese  alliance  with 
England,  though  called  '  defensive.'  became 
in  reality  offensive,  from  the  situation  of  the 
Portuguese  dominions,  and  from  the  nature 
of  the  English  power."*  A  war  ensued, — 
being  probably  the  first  ever  waged  against 
a  country,  on  the  avowed  ground  of  its  geo 
graphical  position.  It  was  terminated  by 
the  Treaty  of  Paris  in  1763,  without,  how 
ever,  any  proposition  on  the  part  of  France 
and  Spain  that  Portugal  should  be  cut  away 
from  the  Continent,  and  towed  into  the 
neighbourhood  of  Madeira, — where  perhaps 
she  might  re-enter  on  her  right  as  an  inde 
pendent  state  to  observe  neutrality,  and  to 
provide  for  her  security  by  defensive  alli 
ances.  This  most  barefaced  act  of  injustice 
might  be  passed  over  here  in  silence,  if  it 
did  not  so  strongly  illustrate  the  situation  of 
Portugal,  since  Spain  became  a  dependent 
ally  of  France ;  and  if  we  could  resist  the 
temptation  of  the  occasion  to  ask  whether 
the  authors  of  such  a  war  were  as  much  less 
ambitious  than  Napoleon,  as  they  were  be 
neath  him  in  valour  and  genius. 

In  the  American  war,  it  does  not  appear 
that  any  attempt  was  made,  on  principles  of 
geography,  to  compel  Portugal  to  make  war 
on  England.!  The  example  of  the  Family 
Compact,  however,  was  not  long  barren.  As 
soon  as  the  French  Republic  had  re-esta 
blished  the  ascendant  of  France  at  Madrid, 
they  determined  to  show  that  they  inherited 
the  principles  as  well  as  the  sceptre  of  their 
monarchs.  Portugal,  now  overpowered,  was 
compelled  to  cede  Olivenza  to  Spain,  and  to 
shut  her  ports  on  English  ships.!  Thus  ter 
minated  the  second  war  made  against  her 
to  oblige  her  to  renounce  the  only  ally  capa 
ble  of  assisting  her,  and  constantly  interested 
in  her  preservation.  But  these  compulsory 
treaties  were  of  little  practical  importance, 
being  immediately  followed  by  the  Peace  of 
Amiens.  They  only  furnished  a  new  proof 
that  the  insecurity  of  Portugal  essentially 
arose  from  the  dependence  of  Spain  on  France, 
and  could  not  be  lessened  by  any  change  in 
the  government  of  the  latter  country. 

When  the  war,  or  rather  wars,  against 
universal  monarchy  broke  out,  the  Regent 
of  Portugal  declared  the  neutrality  of  his  do- 


*  Note  of  Don  Joseph  Torrero  and  Don  Jac 
ques  O'Dun,  Lisbon,  1st  April,  1762.— Annual 
Register. 

t  Portugal  did  indeed  accede  to  the  Armed 
Neutrality  ;  but  it  was  not  till  the  15th  of  July, 
1782,  on  the  eve  of  a  general  peace. — Martens, 
Recueil  de  Traites,  vol.  ii.  p.  208. 

t  By  the  Treaty  between  France  and  Spain  of 
the  19th  August,  1796.— Martens,  vol.  vi.  p.  656. 


minions.*  For  four  years  he  was  indulged 
in  the  exercise  of  this  right  of  an  independ 
ent  prince,  in  spite  of  the  geographical  posi 
tion  of  the  kingdom.  At  the  end  of  that 
period  the  'geographical  principle'  was  en 
forced  against  him  more  fully  and  vigor 
ously  than  on  the  former  instances  of  its  ap 
plication.  The  Portuguese  monarchy  was 
confiscated  and  partitioned  in  a  secret  con 
vention  between  France  and  Spain,  executed 
at  Fontainebleau  on  the  27th  of  October, 
1807,  by  which  considerable  parts  of  its  con 
tinental  territory  were  granted  to  the  Prince 
of  the  Peace,  and  to  the  Spanish  Princess, 
then  called  Queen  of  Etruria,  in  sovereignty, 
but  as  feudatories  of  the  crown  of  Spain. f 
A  French  army  under  Junot  marched  against 
Portugal,  arid  the  Royal  Family  were  com 
pelled,  in  November  following,  to  embark  for 
Brazil;  a  measure  which  was  strongly  sug 
gested  by  the  constant  insecurity  to  which 
European  Portugal  was  doomed  by  the  Fa 
mily  Compact,  and  which  had  been  seriously 
entertained  by  the  Government  since  the 
treaty  of  Badajoz. 

The  events  which  followed  in  the  Spanish 
Peninsula  are  too  memorable  to  be  more 
than  alluded  to.  Portugal  was  governed  by 
a  Regency  nominated  by  the  King.  The 
people  caught  .the  generous  spirit  of  the 
Spaniards,  took  up  arms  against  the  con 
querors,  and  bravely  aided  the  English  army 
to  expel  them.  The  army,  delivered  from 
those  unworthy  leaders  to  whom  the  abuses 
of  despotism  had  subjected  them,  took  an 
ample  share  in  the  glorious  march  from 
Torres  Vedras  to  Toulouse,  which  forms  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  pages  in  history. 

The  King  opened  the  ports  of  his  American 
territories  to  all  nations ; — a  measure  in  him 
of  immediate  necessity,  but  fraught  with  mo 
mentous  consequences.  He  cemented  his 
ancient  relations  with  Great  Britain  (which 
geography  no  longer  forbade)  by  new  trea 
ties  ;  and  he  bestowed  on  Brazil  a  separate 
administration,  with  the  title  of  a  kingdom. 
The  course  of  events  in  the  spring  of  1814 
had  been  so  rapid,  that  there  was  no  minis 
ter  in  Europe  authorized  to  represent  the 
Court  of  Rio  Janeiro  at  the  Treaty  of  Paris  : 
but  so  close  was  the  alliance  with  England 
then  deemed,  that  Lord  Castlereagh  took  it 
upon  him,  on  the  part  of  Portugal,  to  stipu 
late  for  the  restoration  of  French  Guiana, 
which  had  been  conquered  by  the  Portuguese 
arms.  At  the  Congress  of  Vienna  in  the  fol 
lowing  year,  the  Portuguese  plenipotentiaries 
protested  against  the  validity  of  this  restora 
tion,  and  required  the  retrocession  of  Oliven 
za,  which  had  been  wrested  from  them  at 
Badajoz,  in  a  war  in  which  they  had  been 
the  allies  of  England.  The  good  offices  of 
the  European  powers  to  obtain  this  last  resto- 


*  Treaties  of  Badajoz,  6th  of  June;  of  Madrid, 
20th  of  September,  1801.— Martens,  Supplement, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  340,  539. 

t  Schoell,  Histoire  Abregee  des  Traites  de 
Paix,  &c.,  vol.  ix.  p.  110. 


CASE  OF  DONNA  MARIA. 


227 


ration  were  then  solemnly  promised,  but  have 
hitherto  been  in  vain. 

In  1816,  John  VI.  refused  to  return  to  Lis 
bon,  though  a  squadron  under  Sir  John  Be- 
resford  had  been  sent  to  convey  him  thither ; 
partly  because  he  was  displeased  at  the  dis 
regard  of  his  rights,  shown  by  the  Congress 
of  Vienna;  partly  because  the  unpopularity 
of  the  Commercial  Treaty  had  alienated  him 
from  England ;  but  probably  still  more,  be 
cause  he  was  influenced  by  the  visible 
growth  of  a  Brazilian  party  which  now  aimed 
at  independence.  Henceforward,  indeed,  the 
separation  manifestly  approached.  The  Por 
tuguese  of  Europe  began  to  despair  of  seeing 
the  seat  of  the  monarchy  at  Lisbon  ;  the  Re 
gency  were  without  strength;  all  appoint 
ments  were  obtained  from  the  distant  Court 
of  Rio  Janeiro  ;  men  and  money  were  drawn 
away  for  the  Brazilian  war  on  the  Rio  de  la 
Plata  ;  the  army  left  behind  was  unpaid  :  in 
fine,  all  the  materials  of  formidable  discon 
tent  were  heaped  up  in  Portugal,  when,  in 
the  beginning  of  1820,  the  Spanish  Revolu 
tion  broke  out.  Six  months  elapsed  without 
a  spark  having  fallen  in  Portugal.  Marshal 
Beresford  went  to  Rio  Janeiro  to  solicit  the 
interference  of  the  King :  but  that  Prince 
made  no  effort  to  prevent  the  conflagration ; 
and  perhaps  no  precaution  would  then  have 
been  effectual. 

In  August,  the  garrison  of  Oporto  declared 
for  a  revolution  ;  and  being  joined  on  their 
march  to  the  Capital  by  all  the  troops  on 
their  line,  were  received  with  open  arms  by 
the  garrison  of  Lisbon.  It  was  destined  to 
bestow  on  Portugal  a  still  more  popular  con 
stitution  than  that  of  Spain.  With  what 
prudence  or  justice  the  measures  of  the 
popular  leaders  in  the  south  of  Europe  were 
conceived  or  conducted,  it  is  happily  no  part 
of  our  present  business  to  inquire.  Those 
who  openly  remonstrated  against  their  errors 
when  they  seemed  to  be  triumphant,  are 
under  no  temptation  to  join  the  vulgar  cry 
against  the  fallen.  The  people  of  Portugal, 
indeed,  unless  guided  by  a  wise  and  vigor 
ous  Government,  were  destined  by  the  very 
nature  of  things,  in  any  political  change  made 
at  that  moment,  to  follow  the  course  of  Spain. 
The  Regency  of  Lisbon,  by  the  advice  of  a 
Portuguese  Minister,*  at  once  faithful  to  his 
Sovereign,  and  friendly  to  the  liberty  of  his 
country,  made  an  attempt  to  stem  the  tor 
rent,  by  summoning  an  assembly  of  the 
Cortes.  The  attempt  was  too  late;  but  it 
pointed  to  the  only  means  of  saving  the 
monarchy. 

The  same  Minister,  on  his  arrival  in  Bra 
zil,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  advised  the  King 
to  send  his  eldest  son  to  Portugal  as  Viceroy, 
with  a  constitutional  charter;  recommend 
ing  also  the  assembling  of  the  most  respect 
able  Brazilians  at  Rio  Janeiro,  to  consider  of 
the  improvements  which  seemed  practicable 
in  Brazil.  But  while  these  honest,  and  not 
unpromising  counsels,  were  the  objects  of 


Count  Palmella— ED. 


onger  discussions  than  troublous  times  allow, 
a  revolution  broke  out  in  Brazil,  in  the  spring 
of  1821,  the  first  professed  object  of  which 
was,  not  the  separation  of  that  country,  but 
the  adoption  of  the  Portuguese  Constitution, 
[t  was  acquiesced  in  by  the  King,  and  es 
poused  with  the  warmth  of  youth,  by  his 
eldest  son  Don  Pedro.  But  in  April,  trie  King, 
disquieted  by  the  commotions  which  encom 
passed  him,  determined  to  return  to  Lisbon, 
and  to  leave  the  conduct  of  the  American 
revolution  to  his  son.  Even  on  the  voyage 
he  was  advised  to  stop  at  the  Azores,  as  a 
place  where  he  might  negotiate  with  more 
independence  :  but  he  rejected  this  counsel ; 
and  on  his  arrival  in  the  Tagus,  on  the  3d  of 
July,  nothing  remained  but  a  surrender  at 
discretion.  The  revolutionary  Cortes  were 
as  tenacious  of  the  authority  of  the  mother 
country,  as  the  Royal  Administration ;  and 
they  accordingly  recalled  the  Heir-apparent 
to  Lisbon.  But  the  spirit  of  independence 
arose  among  the  Brazilians,  who,  encouraged 
by  the  example  of  the  Spanish-Americans, 
presented  addresses  to  the  Prince,  beseech 
ing  him  not  to  yield  to  the  demands  of  the 
Portuguese  Assembly,  who  desired  to  make 
him  a  prisoner,  as  they  had  made  his  father; 
but,  by  assuming  the  crown  of  Brazil,  to  pro 
vide  for  his  own  safety,  as  well  as  for  their 
liberty.  In  truth  it  is  evident,  that  he  neither 
could  have  continued  in  Brazil  without  ac 
ceding  to  the  popular  desire,  nor  could  have 
then  left  it  without  insuring  the  destruction 
of  monarchy  in  that  country.  He  acquiesced 
therefore  in  the  prayer  of  these  flattering 
petitions :  the  independence  of  Brazil  was 
proclaimed ;  and  the  Portuguese  monarchy 
was  finally  dismembered. 

In  the  summer  of  1823,  the  advance  of  the 
French  army  into  Spain,  excited  a  revolt  of 
the  Portuguese  Royalists.  The  infant  Don 
Miguel,  the  King's  second  son.  attracted 
notice,  by  appearing  at  the  head  of  a  bat 
talion  who  declared  against  the  Constitution ; 
and  the  inconstant  soldiery,  equally  ignorant 
of  the  object  of  their  revolts  against  the  King 
or  the  Cortes,  were  easily  induced  to  over 
throw  the  slight  work  of  their  own  hands. 
Even  in  the  moment  of  victory,  however, 
John  VI.  solemnly  promised  a  free  govern 
ment  to  the  Portuguese  nation.*  A  few 
weeks  afterwards,  he  gave  a  more  delibe 
rate  and  decisive  proof  of  what  was  then 
thought  necessary  for  the  security  of  the 
throne,  and  the  well-being  of  the  people,  by 
a  Royal  Decree,f  which,  after  pronouncing 
the  nullity  of  the  constitution  of  the  Cortes, 
proceeds  as  follows: — "Conformably  to  my 
feelings,  and  the  sincere  promises  of  my 
Proclamations,  and  considering  that  the  an 
cient  fundamental  laws  of  the  monarchy  can 
not  entirely  answer  my  paternal  purposes, 
without  being  accommodated  to  the  present 
state  of  civilization,  to  the  mutual  relations 


*  Proclamations  from  Villa  Francha  of  the  31s* 
of  May  and  3d  of  June. 
t  Of  the  18th  of  June. 


228 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  the  different  parts  which  compose  the 
monarchy,  and  to  the  form  of  representative 
governments  established  in  Europe,  I  have 
appointed  a  Junta  to  prepare  the  plan  of  a 
charter  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  Portu 
guese  monarchy,  which  shall  be  founded  on 
the  principles  of  public  law,  and  open  the 
way  to  a  progressive  reformation  of  the  ad 
ministration. '; 

Count  Palmella  was  appointed  President 
of  this  Junta,  composed  of  the  most  dis 
tinguished  men  in  the  kingdom.  They  com 
pleted  their  work  in  a  few  months  ]  and  pre 
sented  to  the  King  the  plan  of  a  Constitu 
tional  Charter,  almost  exactly  the  same  with 
that  granted  in  1826  by  Don  Pedro.  John 
VI.  was  favourable  to  it,  considering  it  as 
an  adaptation  of  the  ancient  fundamental 
laws  to  present  circumstances.  While  the 
revolution  was  triumphant,  the  more  reason 
able  Royalists  regretted  that  no  attempt  had 
been  made  to  avoid  it  by  timely  concession  ] 
and  in  the  first  moment  of  escape,  the  re 
mains  of  the  same  feelings  disposed  the 
Court  to  concede  something.  But  after  a 
short  interval  of  quiet,  the  possessors  of  au 
thority  relapsed  into  the  ancient  and  fatal 
error  of  their  kind, — that  of  placing  their 
security  in  maintaining  the  unbounded  power 
which  had  proved  their  ruin.  A  resistance 
to  the  form  of  the  constitution,  which  grew 
up  in  the  interior  of  the  Court,  was  fostered 
by  foreign  influence,  and  after  a  struggle  of 
some  months,  prevented  the  promulgation 
of  the  charter. 

In  April  1824,  events  occurred  at  Lisbon, 
on  which  we  shall  touch  as  lightly  as  possi 
ble.  It  is  well  known  that  part  of  the  gar 
rison  of  Lisbon  surrounded  the  King's  palace, 
and  hindered  the  access  of  his  servants  to 
him ;  that  some  of  his  ministers  were  im 
prisoned  ;  that  the  diplomatic  body,  including 
the  Papal  Nuncio,  the  French  Ambassador, 
and  the  Russian  as  well  as  English  Ministers, 
wrere  the  means  of  restoring  him  to  some 
degree  of  liberty,  which  was  however  so 
imperfect  and  insecure,  that,  by  the  advice 
of  the  French  Ambassador,  the  King  took 
refuge  on  board  an  English  ship  of  war  lying 
in  the  Tagus,  from  whence  he  was  at  length 
able  to  assert  his  dignity  and  re-establish  his 
authority.  Over  the  part  in  these  transac 
tions,  into  which  evil  counsellors  betrayed 
the  inexperience  of  Don  Miguel,  it  is  pecu 
liarly  proper  to  throw  a  veil,  in  imitation  of 
his  father,  who  forgave  these  youthful  faults 
as  '  involuntary  errors.'  This  proof  of  the 
unsettled  state  of  the  general  opinion  and 
feeling  respecting  the  government,  suggest 
ed  the  necessity  of  a  conciliatory  measure, 
which  might  in  some  measure  compensate 
for  the  defeat  of  the  Constitutional  Charter  in 
the  preceding  year.  The  Minister  who, 
both  in  Europe  and  in  America,  had  attempt 
ed  to  avert  revolution  by  reform,  was  not 
wanting  to  his  sovereign  arid  his  country  at 
this  crisis.  Still  counteracted  by  foreign  in 
fluence,  and  opposed  by  a  colleague  who 
was  a  personal  favourite  of  the  King,  he 


could  not  again  propose  the  Charter,  nor 
even  obtain  so  good  a  substitute  for  it  as 
he  desired :  but  he  had  the  merit  of  being 
always  ready  to  do  the  best  practicable.  By 
his  counsel,  the  King  issued  a  Proclamation 
on  the  4th  of  June,  for  restoring  the  ancient 
constitution  of  the  Portuguese  monarchy, 
with  assurances  that  an  assembly  of  the 
Cortes,  or  Three  Estates  of  the  Realm,  should 
be  speedily  held  with  all  their  legal  rights, 
and  especially  with  the  privilege  of  laying 
before  the  King,  for  his  consideration,  the 
heads  of  such  measures  as  they  might  deem 
necessary  for  the  public  good.  To  that  as 
sembly  was  referred  the  consideration  of  the 
periodical  meetings  of  succeeding  Cortes, 
and  'the  means  of  progressively  ameliorating 
the  administration  of  the  state.'  The  pro 
clamation  treats  this  re-establishment  of  the 
ancient  constitution  as  being  substantially 
the  same  with  the  Constitutional  Charter 
drawn  up  by  the  Junta  in  the  preceding 
year ;  and  it  was  accordingly  followed  by  a 
Decree,  dissolving  that  Junta,  as  having  per 
formed  its  office.  Though  these  represen 
tations  were  not  scrupulously  true,  yet  when 
we  come  to  see  what  the  rights  of  the  Cortes 
were  in  ancient  times,  the  language  of  the 
Proclamation  will  riot  be  found  to  deviate 
more  widely  into  falsehood  than  is  usual  in 
the  preambles  of  Acts  of  State.  Had  the 
time  for  the  convocation  of  the  Cortes  been 
fixed,  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  constitu 
tion  might,  without  much  exaggeration,  have 
been  called  the  establishment  of  liberty.  For 
this  point  the  Marquis  Palmella  made  a 
struggle  :  but  the  King  thought  that  he  had 
done  enough,  in  granting  such  a  pledge  to 
the  Constitutionalists,  and  was  willing  to 
soothe  the  Absolutists,  by  reserving  to  him 
self  the  choice  of  a  time.  On  the  next  day 
he  created  a  Junta,  to  prepare,  c  without  loss 
of  time,'  the  regulations  necessary  ( for  the 
convocation  of  the  Cortes,  and  for  the  elec 
tion  of  the  members.'  As  a  new  proof  of 
the  growing  conviction  that  a  free  constitu 
tion  was  necessary,  and  as  a  solemn  promise 
that  it  should  be  established,  the  Declaration 
of  the  4th  of  June  is  by  no  means  inferior  in 
force  to  its  predecessors.  Nay,  in  that  light, 
it  may  be  considered  as  deriving  additional 
strength  from  those  appearances  of  reserve 
and  reluctance  which  distinguish  it  from  the 
more  ingenious,  and  really  more  politic  De 
clarations  of  1823.  But  its  grand  defect  was 
of  a  practical  nature,  and  consisted  in  the 
opportunity  which  indefinite  delay  affords, 
for  evading  the  performance  of  a  promise. 

Immediately  after  the  counter-revolution 
in  1823,  John  VI.  had  sent  a  mission  to  Rio 
Janeiro,  requiring  the  submission  of  his  son 
and  his  Brazilian  subjects.  But  whatever 
might  be  the  wishes  of  Don  Pedro,  he  had 
no  longer  the  power  to  transfer  the  allegiance 
of  a  people  wrho  had  tasted  independence, — 
who  were  full  of  the  pride  of  their  new  ac 
quisition, — who  valued  it  as  their  only  secu 
rity  against  the  old  monopoly,  and  who  may 
well  be  excused  for  thinking  it  more  advan- 


CASE  OF  DONNA  MARIA. 


229 


tageous  to  name  at  home  the  officers  of  their 
own  government,  than  to  receive  rulers  and 
magistrates  from  the  intrigues  of  courtiers  at 
Lisbon.  Don  Pedro  could  not  restore  to 
Portugal  her  American  empire  ;  but  he  might 
easily  lose  Brazil  in  the  attempt.  A  nego 
tiation  was  opened  at  London,  .in  the  year 
1825,  under  the  mediation  of  Austria  and 
England.  The  differences  between  the  two 
branches  of  the  House  of  Braganza  were,  it 
must  be  admitted,  peculiarly  untractable. 
Portugal  was  to  surrender  her  sovereignty, 
or  Brazil  to  resign  her  independence.  Union, 
on  equal  terms,  was  equally  objected  to  by 
both.  It  was  evident  that  no  amicable  issue 
of  such  a  negotiation  was  possible,  which  did 
not  involve  acquiescence  in  the  separation ; 
and  the  very  act  of  undertaking  the  media 
tion,  sufficiently  evinced  that  this  event  was 
contemplated  by  the  mediating  Powers. 
The  Portuguese  minister  in  London,  Count 
Villa-Real,  presented  projects  wrhich  seemed 
to  contain  every  concession  short  of  inde 
pendence  :  but  the  Brazilian  deputies  who, 
though  not  admitted  to  the  conference,  had 
an  unofficial  intercourse  with  the  British 
Ministers,  declared,  as  might  be  expected, 
that  nothing  short  of  independence  could  be 
listened  to.  It  was  agreed,  therefore,  that 
Sir  Charles  Stuart,  who  was  then  about  to 
go  to  Rio  Janeiro  to  negotiate  a  treaty  be 
tween  England  and  Brazil,  should  take  Lis 
bon  on  his  way,  and  endeavour  to  dispose 
the  Portuguese  Government  to  consent  to  a 
sacrifice  which  could  no  longer  be  avoided. 
He  was  formally  permitted  by  his  own  Go 
vernment  to  accept  the  office  of  Minister 
Plenipotentiary  from  Portugal  to  Brazil,  if  it 
should  be  proposed  to  him  at  Lisbon.  Cer 
tainly  no  man  could  be  more  fitted  for  this 
delicate  mediation,  both  by  his  extraordinary 
knowledge  of  the  ancient  constitution  of 
Portugal,  and  by  the  general  confidence 
which  he  had  gained  while  a  minister  of  the 
Regency  during  the  latter  years  of  the  war. 
After  a  series  of  conferences  with  the  Count 
de  Porto  Santo,  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
which  continued  from  the  5th  of  April  to  the 
23d  of  May,  and  in  the  course  of  which  two 
points  were  considered  as  equally  under 
stood, — that  John  VI.  should  cede  to  Don 
Pedro  the  sovereignty  of  Brazil,  and  that 
Don  Pedro  should  preserve  his  undisputed 
right  as  heir  of  Portugal, — he  set  sail  for  Rio 
Janeiro,  furnished  with  full  powers,  as  well 
as  instructions,  and  more  especially  with 
Royal  Letters- Patent  of  John  VI.,  to  be  de 
livered  on  the  conclusion  of  an  amicable  ar 
rangement,  containing  the  following  import 
ant  and  decisive  clause  : — "  And  as  the  suc 
cession  of  the  Imperial  and  Royal  Crowns 
belongs  to  my  beloved  son  Don  Pedro,  I  do, 
by  these  Letters- Patent,  cede  and  transfer  to 
him  the  full  exercise  of  sovereignty  in  the 
empire  of  Brazil,  which  is  to  be  governed  by 
him ;  nominating  him  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
and  Prince  Royal  of  Portugal  and  the  Al- 
garves." 
A  treaty  was  concluded  on  the  29th  of 


August,  by  Sir  Charles  Stuart,  recognising 
the  independence  and  separation  of  Brazil ; 
acknowledging  the  sovereignty  of  that  coun 
try  to  be  vested  in  Don  Pedro ;  allowing  the 
King  of  Portugal  also  to  assume  the  Imperial 
title;  binding  the  Emperor  of  Brazil  to  reject 
the  offer  of  any  Portuguese  colony  to  be  in 
corporated  with  his  dominions  ;  and  contain 
ing  some  other  stipulations  usual  in  treaties 
of  peace.  It  \vas  ratified  at  Lisbon,  on  the  5th 
of  November  following,  by  Letters- Patent,* 
from  which,  at  the  risk  of  some  repetition,  it 
is  necessary  to  extract  two  clauses,  the  de 
cisive  importance  of  which  will  be  shortly 
seen.  "  I  have  ceded  and  transferred  to  my 
beloved  son  Don  Pedro  de  Alcantara,  heir 
and  successor  of  these  kingdoms,  all  my 
rights  over  that  country,  recognising  its  in 
dependence  with  the  title  of  empire."  "We 
recognise  our  said  son  Don  Pedro  de  Alcan 
tara,  Prince  of  Portugal  and  the  Algarves,  as 
Emperor,  and  having  the  exercise  of  sove 
reignty  in  the  whole  empire." 

The  part  of  this  proceeding  which  is  in 
tended  to  preserve  the  right  of  succession  to 
the  crown  of  Portugal  to  Don  Pedro,  is 
strictly  conformable  to  diplomatic  usage,  and 
to  the  principles  of  the  law  of  nations. 
Whatever  relates  to  the  cession  of  a  claim  is 
the  proper  subject  of  agreement  between 
the  parties,  and  is  therefore  inserted  in  the 
treaty.  The  King  of  Portugal,  the  former 
Sovereign  of  Brazil,  cedes  his  rights  or  pre 
tensions  in  that  country  to  his  son.  He  re 
leases  all  his  former  subjects  from  their  alle 
giance.  He  abandons  those  claims  which 
alone  could  give  him  any  colour  or  pretext 
for  interfering  in  the  internal  affairs  of  that 
vast  region.  Nothing  could  have  done  this 
effectually,  solemnly,  and  notoriously,  but 
the  express  stipulation  of  a  treaty.  Had  Don 
Pedro  therefore  been  at  the  same  time  un 
derstood  to  renounce  his  right  of  succession 
to  the  crown  of  Portugal,  an  explicit  stipula 
tion  in  the  treaty  to  that  effect  would  have 
been  necessary:  for  such  a  renunciation 
would  have  been  the  cession  of  a  right.  Had 
it  even  been  understood,  that  the  recognition 
of  his  authority  as  an  independent  monarch 
implied  the  abdication  of  his  rights  as  heir- 
apparent  to  the  Portuguese  crown,  it  would 
have  been  consonant  to  the  general  tenor  of 
the  treaty,  explicitly  to  recognise  this  abdica 
tion.  The  silence  of  the  treaty  is  a  proof 
that  none  of  the  parties  to  it  considered  these 
rights  as  taken  away  or  impaired,  by  any- 
previous  or  concomitant  circumstance.  Sti 
pulations  \vere  necessary  when  the  state  of 
regal  rights  was  to  be  altered;  but  they 
would  be  at  least  impertinent  where  it  re 
mained  unchanged.  Silence  is  in  the  latter 
case  sufficient:  since,  where  nothing  is  to 
be  done,  nothing  needs  be  said.  There  is 
no  stipulation  in  the  treaty,  by  which  Don 
Pedro  acknowledges  the  sovereignty  of  his 
father  in  Portugal;  because  that  sovereignty 
is  left  in  the  same  condition  in  which  it  was 


Gazeta  de  Lisbon,  of  the  15th  of  November, 
U 


230 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


before.  For  the  very  same  reason  the  treaty 
has  no  article  for  the  preservation  of  Don 
Pedro's  right  of  succession  to  Portugal.  Had 
Don  Pedro  required  a  stipulation  in  the  treaty 
for  the  maintenance  of  these  rights,  he  would 
have  done  an  act  which  would  have  tended 
more  to  bring  them  into  question,  than  to 
strengthen  them.  As  they  were  rights  which 
John  VI.  could  not  take  away,  it  was  fit  and 
wise  to  treat  them  also  as  rights  which  no 
act  of  his  could  bestow  or  confirm. 

But  though  a  provision  for  the  preservation 
of  these  rights  in  the  treaty  was  needless, 
and  would  have  been  altogether  misplaced, 
there  were  occasions  on  which  the  recogni 
tion  of  them  was  fit,  and,  as  a  matter  of 
abundant  caution,  expedient.  These  occa 
sions  are  accordingly  not  passed  over.  The 
King  of  Portugal  styles  Don  Pedro  the  heir 
of  Portugal,  both  in  the  first  Letters-Patent, 
addressed  to  his  Brazilian  subjects,  in  which 
he  recognises  the  independence  of  Brazil, 
and  in  the  second,  addressed  to  his  Portu 
guese  subjects,  where  he  ratifies  the  treaty 
which  definitively  established  that  independ 
ence.  Acknowledged  to  be  the  monarch, 
and  for  the  time  the  lawgiver  of  Portugal^ 
and  necessarily  in  these  acts,  claiming  the 
same  authority  in  Brazil,  he  announces  to 
the  people  of  both  countries  that  the  right 
of  his  eldest  son  to  inherit  the  crown  was,  in 
November  1525,  inviolate,  unim paired,  un 
questioned. 

The  ratifications  are,  besides,  a  portion  of 
the  treaty ;  and  when  they  are  exchanged, 
they  become  as  much  articles  of  agreement 
between  the  parties,  as  any  part  of  it  which 
bears  that  name.  The  recognition  repeated 
in  this  Ratification  proceeded  from  John  VI., 
and  was  accepted  by  Don  Pedro.  Nothing 
but  express  words  could  have  taken  away 
so  important  a  right  as  that  of  succession  to 
the  crown  :  in  this  case,  there  are  express 
words  which  recognise  it.  Though  it  has 
been  shown  that  silence  would  have  been 
sufficient,  the  same  conclusion  would  un 
answerably  follow,  if  the  premises  were  far 
more  scanty.  The  law  of  nations  has  no 
established  forms,  a  deviation  from  which  is 
fatal  to  the  validity  of  the  trasactions  to  which 
they  are  appropriated.  It  admits  no  merely 
technical  objections  to  conventions  formed 
under  its  authority,  and  is  bound  by  no  .posi 
tive  rules  in  the  interpretation  of  them. 
Wherever  the  intention  of  contracting  par 
ties  is  plain,  it  is  the  sole  interpreter  of  a 
contract.  Now,  it  is  needless  to  say  that,  in 
the  Treaty  of  Rio  Janeiro,  taken  with  the 
preceding  and  following  Letters-Patent,  the 
manifest  intention  of  John  VI.  was  not  to  im 
pair,  but  to  recognise  the  rights  of  his  eldest 
son  to  the  inheritance  of  Portugal. 

On  the  10th  of  March  1826,  John  VI.  died 
at  Lisbon.  On  his  death-bed,  however,  he 
had  made  provision  for  the  temporary  admi 
nistration  of  the  government.  By  a  Royal 
Decree,  of  the  6th,*  he  committed  the  go- 

*  Gazeta  de  Lisbon,  of  the  7th  of  March. 


vernment  to  his  daughter,  the  Infanta  Donna 
Isabella  Maria,  assisted  by  a  council  during 
his  illness,  or,  in  the  event  of  his  death,  till 
"  the  legitimate  heir  and  successor  to  the  crown 
should  make  other  provision  in  this  respect." 
These  words  have  no  ambiguity.  In  every 
hereditary  monarchy  they  must  naturally, 
and  almost  necessarily,  denote  the  eldest  son 
of  the  King,  when  he  leaves  a  son.  It  would, 
in  such  a  case,  require  the  strongest  evidence 
to  warrant  the  application  of  them  to  any 
other  person.  It  is  clear  that  the  King  must 
have  had  an  individual  in  view,  unless  we 
adopt  the  most  extravagant  supposition  that, 
as  a  dying  bequest  to  his  subjects,  he  meant 
to  leave  them  a  disputed  succession  arid  a 
civil  war.  Who  could  that  individual  be, 
but  Don  Pedro,  his  eldest  son,  whom,  ac 
cording  to  the  ancient  order  of  succession  to 
the  crown  of  Portugal,  he  had  himself  called 
"  heir  and  successor^  on  the  13th  of  May  and 
5th  of  November  preceding.  Such,  accord 
ingly,  was  the  conviction,  and  the  corres 
pondent  conduct  of  all  whose  rights  or  in 
terests  were  concerned.  The  Regency  was 
immediately  installed,  and  universally  obey 
ed  at  home,  as  well  as  acknowledged,  with 
out  hesitation  or  delay,  by  all  the  Powers  of 
Europe.  The  Princess  Regent  acted  in  the 
name,  and  on  the  behalf  of  her  brother,  Don 
Pedro.  It  was  impossible  that  the  succession 
of  any  Prince  to  a  throne  could  be  more  quiet 
and  undisputed. 

The  Regency,  without  delay,  notified  the 
demise  of  the  late  King  to  their  new  Sove 
reign  :  and  then  the  difficulties  of  that 
Prince's  situation  began  to  show  themselves. 
Though  the  treaty  had  not  weakened  his 
hereditary  right  to  Portugal,  yet  the  main 
object  of  it  was  to  provide,  not  only  for  the 
independence  of  Brazil,  but  for  its  "separa 
tion"  from  Portugal,  which  undoubtedly  im 
ported  a  separation  of  the  crowns.  Possess 
ing  the  government  of  Brazil,  and  inheriting 
that  of  Portugal,  he  became  bound  by  all  the 
obligations  of  the  treaty  between  the  two 
states.  Though  he  inherited  the  crown  of 
Portugal  by  the  laws  of  that  country,  yet  he 
was  disabled  by  treaty  from  permanently 
continuing  to  hold  it  with  that  of  Brazil.  But 
if,  laying  aside  unprofitable  subtilties,  we 
consult  only  conscience  and  common  sense, 
we  shall  soon  discover  that  these  rights  and 
duties  are  not  repugnant,  but  that,  on  the 
contrary,  the  legal  right  is  the  only  means 
of  performing  the  federal  duty.  The  treaty 
did  not  expressly  determine  which  of  the 
two  crowns  Don  Pedro  was  bound  to  re 
nounce  j  it  therefore  left  him  to  make  an 
option  between  them.  For  the  implied  obli 
gations  of  a  contract  extend  only  to  those 
acts  of  the  parties  which  are  necessary  to 
the  attainment  of  its  professed  object.  If 
he  chose, — as  he  has  chosen, — to  retain  the 
crown  of  Brazil,  it  could  not,  by  reasonable 
implication,  require  an  instantaneous  abdica 
tion  of  that  of  Portugal-  because  such  a 
limitation  of  time  was  not  necessary,  and 
might  have  been  very  injurious  to  the  object. 


CASE  OF  DONNA  MARIA. 


231 


It  left  the  choice  of  time,  manner,  and  con 
ditions  to  himself,  requiring  only  good  faith, 
and  interdicting  nothing  bin  fraudulent  delay. 
Had  he  not  (according  to  the  principle  of 
all  hereditary  monarchs)  become  King  of 
Portugal  at  the  instant  of  his  father's  demise, 
there  would  have  been  no  person  possessed 
of  the  legal  and  actual  power  i.i  both  coun 
tries  necessary  to  carry  the  treaty  of  separa 
tion  into  effect.  If  the  Portuguese  had  not 
acquiesced  in  his  authority,  they  must  have 
voluntarily  chosen  anarchy  ;  for  no  one  could 
have  the  power  to  discharge  the  duty  im 
posed  by  treaty,  or  to  provide  for  any  of  the 
important  changes  which  it  might  occasion. 
The  most  remarkable  example  of  this  latter 
sort,  was  the  order  of  succession.  The  sepa 
ration  of  the  two  crowns  rendered  it  abso 
lutely  impossible  to  preserve  that  order  in 
both  monarchies;  for  both  being  hereditary, 
the  legal  order  required  that  both  crowns 
should  descend  to  the  same  person,  the  eldest 
son  of  Don  Pedro — the  very  union  which  it 
was  the  main  or  sole  purpose  of  the  treaty 
to  prevent.  A  breach  in  the  order  of  suc 
cession  became  therefore  inevitable,  either 
in  Portugal  or  Brazil.  Necessity  required 
the  deviation.  But  the  same  necessity  vested 
in  Don  Pedro,  as  a  king  and  a  father,  the 
power  of  regulating  in  this  respect,  the  rights 
of  his  family ;  and  the  permanent  policy  of 
monarchies  required  that  he  should  carry 
the  deviation  no  farther  than  the  necessity. 

As  the  nearer  female  would  inherit  before 
the  more  distant  male,  Don  Miguel  had  no 
right  which  was  immediately  involved  in 
the  arrangement  to  be  adopted.  It  is  ac 
knowledged,  that  the  two  daughters  of  John 
VI.,  married  and  domiciled  in  Spain,  had 
lost  their  rights  as  members  of  the  Royal 
Family.  Neither  the  Queen,  nor  indeed  any 
other  person,  had  a  legal  title  to  the  regency, 
which  in  Portugal,  as  in  France  and  Eng 
land,  was  a  case  omitted  in  the  constitutional 
laws,  and,  as  no  Cortes  had  been  assembled 
for  a  century,  could  only  be  provided  for  by 
the  King,  who,  of  necessity,  was  the  tempo 
rary  lawgiver.  The  only  parties  who  could 
be  directly  affected  by  the  allotment  of  the 
two  crowns,  were  the  children  of  Don  Pedro, 
the  eldest  of  whom  was  in  her  sixth  year 
The  more  every  minute  part  of  this  case  is 
considered,  the  more  obvious  and  indisputa 
ble  will  appear  to  be  the  necessity,  that  Don 
Pedro  should  retain  the  powers  of  a  King 
of  Portugal,  until  he  had  employed  them 
for  the  quiet  and  safety  of  both  kingdoms 
as  far  as  these  might  be  endangered  by  the 
separation.  He  held,  and  holds,  that  crown 
as  a  trustee  for  the  execution  of  the  treaty 
To  hold  it  after  the  trust  is  performed,  wouk 
be  usurpation :  to  renounce  it  before  tha 
period,  would  be  treachery  to  the  trust. 

That  Don  Pedro  should  have  chosen  Brazil 
must  have  always  been  foreseen ;  for  hi; 
election  was  almost  determined  by  his  pre 
ceding  conduct.  He  preferred  Brazil,  where 
he  had  been  the  founder  of  a  state,  to  Por 
tugalj  where  the  most  conspicuous  measures 


)f  his  life  could  be  viewed  with  no  more 
han  reluctant  acquiescence.  The  next  ques- 
;ion  which  arose  was,  whether  the  inevitable 
Dreach  in  the  order  of  succession  was  to  be 
made  in  Portugal  or  Brazil ;  or,  in  other 
words,  of  which  of  these  two  disjointed  king 
doms,  the  Infant  Don  Sebastian  should  be 
he  heir-apparent.  The  father  made  the 
same  choice  for  his  eldest  son  as  for  himself. 
As  Don  Sebastian  preserved  his  right  of  suc 
cession  in  Brazil,  the  principle  of  the  least 
possible  deviation  from  the  legal  order  re 
quired  that  the  crown  of  Portugal  should 
devolve  on  his  sister  Donna  Maria,  the  next 
n  succession  of  the  Royal  Family. 

After  this  exposition  of  the  rights  and  du 
ties  of  Don  Pedro,  founded  on  the  principles 
of  public  law,  and  on  the  obligations  of 
treaty,  and  of  the  motives  of  policy  which 
have  influenced  him  in  a  case  where  he  was 
left  free  to  follow  the  dictates  of  his  own 
judgment,  let  us  consider  very  shortly  what 
a  conscientious  ruler  W7ould,  in  such  a  case, 
deem  necessary  to  secure  to  both  portions  of 
his  subjects  all  the  advantages  of  their  new 
position.  He  would  be  desirous  of  softening 
the  humiliation  of  one.  of  effacing  the  recent 
animosities  between  them,  and  of  reviving 
their  ancient  friendship,  by  preserving  every 
tie  which  reminded  them  of  former  union 
and  common  descent.  He  would  therefore, 
even  if  he  wrere  impartial,  desire  that  they 
should  continue  under  the  same  Royal  Family 
which  had  for  centuries  ruled  both.  He 
would  labour,  as  far  as  the  case  allowed,  to 
strengthen  the  connections  of  language,  of 
traditions,  of  manners,  and  of  religion,  by 
the  resemblance  of  laws  and  institutions. 
He  would  clearly  see  that  his  Brazilian  sub 
jects  never  could  trust  his  fidelity  to  their 
limited  monarchy,  if  he  maintained  an  abso 
lute  government  in  Portugal ;  and  that  the 
Portuguese  people  would  not  long  endure  to 
be  treated  as  slaves,  while  those  whom  they 
were  not  accustomed  to  regard  as  their  su 
periors  were  thought  worthy  of  the  most 
popular  constitution.  However  much  a  mon 
arch  was  indifferent  or  adverse  to  liberty, 
these  considerations  would  lose  nothing  of 
their  political  importance  :  for  a  single  false 
step  in  this  path  might  overthrow  monarchy 
in  Brazil,  and  either  drive  Portugal  into  a  re 
volution,  or  seat  a  foreign  army  in  her  pro 
vinces,  to  prevent  it.  It  is  evident  that  po 
pular  institutions  can  alone  preserve  mon 
archy  in  Brazil  from  falling  before  the  prin 
ciples  of  republican  America;  and  it  will 
hardly  be  denied,  that,  though  some  have 
questioned  the  advantage  of  liberty,  no  peo 
ple  were  ever  so  mean-spirited  as  not  to  be 
indignant  at  being  thought  unworthy  of  it,  as 
a  privilege.  Viewing  liberty  with  the  same 
cold  neutrality,  a  wise  statesman  would  have 
thought  it  likely  to  give  stability  to  a  new 
government  in  Portugal,  and  to  be  received 
there  as  some  consolation  for  loss  of  dominion. 
Portugal,  like  all  the  other  countries  between 
the  Rhine  and  the  Mediterranean,  had  been 
convulsed  by  conquest  and  revolution.  Am- 


232 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


bition  and  rapacity,  fear  and  revenge,  politi 
cal  fanaticism  and  religious  bigotry, — all  the 
ungovernable  passions  which  such  scenes 
excite,  still  agitated  the  minds  of  those  who 
had  been  actors  or  victims  of  them.  Expe 
rience  has  proved,  that  no  expedient  can  ef 
fectually  allay  these  deep-seated  disorders, 
but  the  institution  of  a  government  in  which 
all  interests  and  opinions  are  represented, — 
which  keeps  up  a  perpetual  negotiation  be 
tween  them, — which  compels  each  in  its 
turn  to  give  up  some  part  of  it?  pretensions, — 
and  which  provides  a  safe  field  of  contest  in 
those  cases  where  a  treaty  cannot  be  con 
cluded.  Of  all  the  stages  in  the  progress  of 
human  society,  the  period  which  succeeds 
the  troubles  of  civil  and  foreign  war  is  that 
which  most  requires  this  remedy:  for  it  is 
that  in  which  the  minds  of  men  are  the  most 
dissatisfied,  the  most  active,  and  the  most 
aspiring.  The  experiment  has  proved  most 
eminently  successful  in  the  Netherlands, 
now  beyond  all  doubt  the  best  governed 
country  of  the  Continent.  It  ought  to  be 
owned,  that  it  has  also  in  a  great  measure 
succeeded  in  France,  Italy,  and  Spain.  Of 
these  countries  we  shall  now  say  nothing 
but  that,  being  occupied  by  foreign  armies, 
they  cannot  be  quoted.  If  any  principle  be 
now  universally  received  in  government,  it 
seems  to  be,  that  the  disorders  of  such  a 
country  must  either  be  contained  by  foreign 
arms,  or  composed  by  a  representative  con 
stitution. 

But  there  were  two  circumstances  which 
rendered  the  use  of  this  latter  remedy  pecu 
liarly  advisable  in  Portugal.  The  first  is, 
that  it  was  so  explicitly,  repeatedly,  and 
solemnly  promised  by  John  VI.  In  the  se 
cond  place,  the  establishment  of  a  free  con 
stitution  in  Portugal,  afforded  an  opportunity 
of  sealing  a  definitive  treaty  of  peace  be 
tween  the  most  discordant  parties,  by  open 
ing  (after  a  due  period  of  probation)  to  the 
Prince  whom  the  Ultra-Royalist  faction  had 
placed  in  their  front,  a  prospect  of  being  one 
day  raised  to  a  higher  station,  under  the 
system  of  liberty,  than  he  could  have  ex 
pected  to  reach  if  both  Portugal  and  Brazil 
had  continued  in  slavery.* 

It  is  unworthy  of  a  statesman,  or  of  a  phi 
losopher,  to  waste  time  in  childishly  regret 
ting  the  faults  of  a  Prince's  personal  character. 
The  rulers  of  Portugal  can  neither  create 
circumstances,  nor  form  men  according  to 
their  wishes.  They  must  take  men  and 
things  as  they  find  them ;  and  their  wisdom 
will  be  shown,  by  turning  both  to  the  best 
account.  The  occasional  occurrence  of  great 
personal  faults  in  princes,  is  an  inconveni 
ence  of  hereditary  monarchy,  which  a  wise 
limitation  of  royal  power  may  abate  and 
mitigate.  Elective  governments  are  not  alto 
gether  exempt  from  the  same  evils,  besides 

*  This  was  written  in  the  month  of  December, 
182G,  before  the  plan  for  conciliating  the  two  op 
posite  political  parties  by  means  of  a  matrimonial 
alliance  between  Donna  Maria  and  her  uncle  was 
Abandoned. — ED. 


being  liable  to  others.  All  comparison  of 
the  two  systems  is,  in  the  present  case,  a 
mere  exercise  of  ingenuity:  for  it  is  appa- 
parent,  that  liberty  has  at  this  time  no  chance 
of  establishment  in  Portugal,  in  any  other 
form  than  that  of  a  limited  monarchy.  The 
situation  of  Don  Miguel  renders  it  possible  to 
form  the  constitution  on  an  union  between 
him,  as  the  representative  of  the  Ultra-Roy 
alists,  and  a  young  Princess,  whose  rights 
will  be  incorporated  with  the  establishment 
of  liberty. 

As  soon  as  Don  Pedro  was  informed  of  his 
father's  death,  he  proceeded  to  the  perform 
ance  of  the  task  which  had  devolved  on  him. 
He  began,  on  the  20th  of  April,  by  granting 
a  Constitutional  Charter  to  Portugal.  On  the 
26th,  he  confirmed  the  Regency  appointed 
by  his  father,  till  the  proclamation  of  the 
constitution.  On  the  2d  of  May  he  abdica 
ted  the  crown  in  favour  of  his  daughter, 
Donna  Maria  ;  on  condition,  however,  -  that 
the  abdication  should  not  be  valid,  and  the 
Princess  should  not  quit  Brazil,  until  it  be 
made  officially  known  to  him,  that  the  con 
stitution  had  been  sworn  to,  according  to  his 
orders;  and  that  the  espousals  of  the  Prin 
cess  with  Don  Miguel  should  have  been 
made,  and  the  marriage  concluded  ;  and  that 
the  abdidation  and  cession  should  not  take 
place  if  either  of  these  two  conditions  should 
fail."*  On  the  26th  of  April.  Letters-Patent, 
or  writs  of  summons,  had  issued,  addressed 
to  each  of  those  who  were  to  form'  the  House 
of  Peers,  of  which  the  Duke  de  Cadaval  was 
named  President,  and  the  Patriarch  Elect  of 
Lisbon  Vice-President.  A  Decree  had  also 
been  issued  on  the  same  day,  commanding 
the  Regency  of  Portugal  to  take  the  neces 
sary  measures  for  the  immediate  election  of 
members  of  the  other  House,  according  to 
the  tenor  of  the  constitutional  law.t  When. 
these  laws  and  decrees  were  received  at 
Lisbon,  the  Regency  proceeded  instantly  to 
put  them  into  execution  ;  in  consequence  of 
which,  the  Constitution  was  proclaimed,  the 
Regency  installed,  the  elections  commenced, 
and  the  Cortes  were  finally  assembled  at 
Lisbon  on  the  30th  of  October. 

Whether  the  Emperor  of  Brazil  had.  by 
the  laws  of  Portugal,  the  power  to  regulate 
the  affairs  of  that  kingdom,  had  hitherto 
given  rise  to  no  question.  All  parties  with 
in  and  without  Portugal  had  treated  his  right 
of  succession  to  his  father  in  the  throne  of 
that  kingdom  as  undisputed.  But  no  sooner 
had  he  exercised  that  right,  by  the  grant  of 
a  free  constitution,  than  it  was  discovered 
by  some  Ultra-Royalists,  that  he  had  for 
feited  the  right  itself;  that  his  power  over 
Portugal  was  an  usurpation,  and  his  constitu 
tional  law  an  absolute  nullity  !  Don  Miguel, 
whose  name  was  perpetually  in  the  mouth 
of  these  writers,  continued  at  Vienna.  The 
Spanish  Government  and  its  officers  breathed 
menace  and  invective.  Foreign  agency 


*  Diario  Fluminense,  of  the  20th  of  May. 
t  Ibid.  3d  of  May. 


CASE  OF  DONNA  MARIA. 


233 


manifested  itself  in  Portugal;  and  some 
bodies  of  troops,  both  on  the  northern  and 
southern  frontier,  were  excited  to  a  sedition 
for  slavery.  "All  foreigners,"  say  the  ob 
jectors,"  are,  by  the  fundamental  laws  of 
Portugal,  excluded  from  the  succession  to 
the  crown.  This  law  passed  at  the  foun 
dation  of  the  monarchy,  by  the  celebrated 
Cortes  of  Lamego,  in  1143,  was  confirmed, 
strengthened,  and  enlarged  by  the  Cortes  of 
1641  ;  and  under  it,  on  the  last  occasion,  the 
King  of  Spain  was  declared  an  usurper,  and 
the  House  of  Braganza  were  raised  to  the 
throne.  Don  Pedro  had,  by  the  treaty  which 
recognised  him  as  Emperor  of  Brazil,  be 
come  a  foreign  sovereign,  and  was  therefore, 
at  the  death  of  his  father,  disqualified  from 
inheriting  the  crown  of  Portugal." 

A  few  years  after  the  establishment  of  the 
Normans  in  England,  Henry,  a  Burgundian 
Prince,  who  served  under  the  King  of  Castile 
in  his  wrars  against  the  Moors,  obtained  from 
that  monarch,  as  a  fief,  the  newly  conquer 
ed  territory  between  the  rivers  Douro  and 
Minho.  '  His  son  Alfonso  threw  off  the  su 
periority  of  Castile,  and,  after  defeating  the 
Moors  at  the  great  battle  of  Campo  Ouriquez, 
in  1139,  was  declared  King  by  the  Pope,  and 
acknowledged  in  that  character  by  an  as 
sembly  of  the  principal  persons  of  the  com 
munity,  held  at  Lamego,  in  1143,  composed 
of  bishops,  nobles  of  the  court,  and,  as  it 
should  seem,  of  procurators  of  the  towns. 
The  crown,  after  much  altercation,  was  made 
hereditary,  first  in  males  and  then  in  females ; 
but  on  condition  -that  the  female  should 
always  marry  a  man  of  Portugal,  that  the 
kingdom  might  not  fall  to  foreigners;  and 
that  if  she  should  marry  a  foreign  prince, 
she  should  not  be  Queen ;" — "  because  we  will 
that  our  kingdom  shall  go  only  to  the  Portu 
guese^  u-ho,  by  their  bravery,  have  made  us 
King  without  foreign  aid.''  On  being  asked 
whether  the  King  should  pay  tribute  to  the 
King  of  Leon,  they  all  rose  up,  and.  with 
naked  swords  uplifted,  and  answered,'  "Our 
King  is  independent ;  our  arms  have  delivered 
us;  the  King  who  consents  to  such  things 
shall  die."  The  King,  with  his  drawn  sword 
in  his  hand,  said,  "If  any  one  consent  to 
such,  let  him  die.  If  he  should  be  my  son, 
let  him  not  reign." 

The  Cortes  of  1641,  renewing  the  laws  of 
Lamego,  determined  that,  according  to  these 
fundamental  institutions,  the  Spanish  Princes 
had  been  usurpers,  and  pronounced  John, 
Duke  of  Braganza,  who  had  already  beeri 
seated  on  the  throne  by  a  revolt  of  the  whole 
people,  to  be  the  rightful  heir.  This  Prince, 
though  he  appears  not  to  have  had  any  pre 
tensions  as  a  male  heir,  yet  seems  to  have 
been  the  representative  of  the  eldest  female 
who  had  not  lost  the  right  of  succession  by 
marriage  to  a  foreigner ;  and,  consequently, 
he  was  entitled  to  the  crown,  according  to 
the  order  of  succession  established  at  Lame- 
go.  The  Three  Estates  presented  the  Heads 
of  laws  to  the  King,  praying  that  effectual 
means  might  be  taken  to  enforce  the  exclu- 
30 


sion  of  foreigners  from  the  throne,  according 
to  the  laws  passed  at  Lamego.  But  as  the 
Estates,  according  to  the  old  constitution  of 
Portugal,  presented  their  Chapters  severally 
to  the  King,  it  was  possible  that  they  might 
differ;  and  they  did  so,  in  some  respects,  on 
this  important  occasion, — not  indeed  as  to 
the  end,  for  which  they  were  equally  zeal 
ous,  but  as  to  the  choice  of  the  best  means 
of  securing  its  constant  attainment.  The 
answer  of  the  King  to  the  Ecclesiastical  Es 
tate  was  as  follows: — "On  this  Chapter,  for 
which  I  thank  you,  I  have  already  answered 
to  the  Chapters  of 'the  States  of  the  .People 
and  of  the  Nobles,  in  ordaining  a  law  to  be 
made  in  conformity  to  that  ordained  by  Don 
John  IV.,  with  the  declarations  and  modifi 
cations  which  shall  be  most  conducive  to  the 
conservation  and  common  good  of  the  king 
dom."  Lawyers  were  accordingly  appointed 
to  draw  up  the  law ;  but  it  is  clear  that  the 
reserve  of  the  King  left  him  ample  scope  for 
the  exercise  of  his  own  discretion,  even  if  it 
had  not  been  rendered  necessary  by  the  va 
riation  between  the  proposals  of  the  three 
Orders,  respecting  the  means  of  its  execu 
tion.  But,  in  order  to  give  our  opponents 
every  advantage,  as  we  literally  adopt  their 
version,  so  we  shall  suppose  (for  the  sake 
of  argument)  the  royal  assent  to  have  been 
given  to  the  Chapter  of  the  Nobles  without 
alteration,  and  in  all  its  specific  provisions; 
it  being  that  on  which  the  Absolutists  have 
chosen  to  place  their  chief  reliance.  The 
Chapter  stands  thus  in  their  editions : — "  The 
State  of  the  Nobility  prays  your  Majesty  to 
enact  a  law,  ordaining  that  the  succession 
to  the  kingdom  may  never  fall  to  a  foreign 
Prince,  nor  to  his  children,  though  they  may 
be  the  next  to  the  last  in  possession ;  and 
that,  in  case  the  King  of  Portugal  should  be 
called  to  the  succession  of  another  crown,  or 
of  a  greater  empire,  he  be  compelled  to  live 
always  there ;  and  that  if  he  has  two  or  more 
male  children,  the  eldest  son  shall  assume 
the  reins  in  the  foreign  country,  and  the 
second  in  Portugal,  and  the  latter  shall  be 
the  only  recognised  heir  and  legitimate  suc 
cessor  :  and,  in  case  there  should  be  only 
one  child  to  inherit  these  two  kingdoms, 
these  said  kingdoms  shall  be  divided  be 
tween  the  children  of  the  latter,  in  the  order 
and  form  above  mentioned.  In  case  there 
shall  be  daughters  only,  the  eldest  shall  suc 
ceed  in  this  kingdom,  with  the  declaration 
that  she  marry  here  with  a  native  of  the 
country,  chosen  and  named  by  the  Three 
Estates  assembled  in  Cortes :  should  she 
marry  without  the  consent  of  the  States,  she 
and  her  descendants  shall  be  declared  in 
capable,  and  be  ousted  of  the  succession; 
and  the  Three  Estates  shall  be  at  liberty  to 
choose  a  King  from  among  the  natives,  if 
there  be  no  male  relation  of  the  Royal  Fami 
ly  to  whom  the  succession  should  devolve." 
Now  the  question  is,  whether  Pedro  IV.  as 
the  monarch  of  Brazil,  a  country  separated 
from  Portugal  by  treaty,  became  a  foreign 
prince,  in  the  sense  intended  by  these  an- 
u2 


234 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


cient  Jaws,  and  was  thereby  disabled  from 
inheriting  the  crown  of  Portugal  on  the  de 
cease  of  John  VI.  ? 

This  question  is  not  to  be  decided  by  ver 
bal  chicane.  The  mischief  provided  against 
in  these  laws  was  twofold: — the  supposed 
probability  of  mal-administ ration  through  the 
succession  of  a  foreigner,  ignorant  of  the 
country  and  not  attached  to  it ;  and  the  loss 
of  domestic  government,  if  it  fell  by  inheri 
tance  to  the  sovereign  of  another,  especially 
a  greater  country.  The  intention  of  the  law 
giver  to  guard  against  both  these  occurrences 
affords  the  only  sure  means  of  ascertaining 
the  meaning  of  his  words.  But  the  present 
case  has  not- even  the  slightest  tendency  to 
expose  the  country  to  either  danger.  Pedro 
IV.  is  a  native  Portuguese,  presumed  to  have 
as  much  of  the  knowledge  and  feelings  be 
longing  to  that  character  as  any  of  his  pre 
decessors.  The  danger  to  Portuguese  inde 
pendence  arises  from  the  inheritance  of  the 
crown  devolving  in  perpetuity,  and  without 
qualification,  to  a  foreign  sovereign.  Such 
was  the  evil  actually  experienced  under 
Philip  II.  King  of  Spain,  and  his  two  succes 
sors;  and  the  most  cursory  glance  over  the 
law  of  1641  shows  that  the  Cortes  had  that 
case  in  view.  Had  the  present  resembled  it 
in  the  important  quality  of  a  claim  to  un 
conditional  inheritance,  the  authority  would 
have  been  strong.  But,  instead  of  being  an 
nexed  to  a  foreign  dominion,  Pedro  IV.  takes 
it  only  for  the  express  purpose  of  effectually 
and  perpetually  disannexing  his  other  terri 
tories  from  it ; — a  purpose  which  he  imme 
diately  proceeds  to  carry  into  execution,  by 
establishing  a  different  line  of  succession 
for  the  crowns  of  both  countries,  and  by  an 
abdication,  which  is  to  take  effect  as  soon  as 
he  has  placed  the  new  establishment  in  a 
state  of  security.  The  case  provided  against 
by  the  law  is,  that  of  permanent  annexation 
to  a  foreign  crown :  the  right  exercised  by 
Pedro  IV.  is,  that  of  a  guardian  and  adminis 
trator  of  the  kingdom,  during  an  operation 
which  is  necessary  to  secure  it  against  such 
annexation.  The  whole  transaction  is  con 
formable  to  the  spirit  of  the  two  laws,  and 
not  repugnant  to  their  letter. 

That  a  temporary  administration  is  per 
fectly  consistent  with  these  laws,  is  evident 
from  the  passage  : — -If  the  King  of  Portugal 
should  be  called  to  the  succession  of  another 
crown,  and  there  should  be  only  one  child  to 
inherit  the  two  kingdoms,  these  said  king 
doms  shall  be  divided  among  the  children 
of  the  latter" — meaning  after  his  death,  and 
if  he  should  leave  children.  Here  then  is  a 
case  of  temporary  administration  expressly 
provided  for.  The  father  is  to  rule  both  king 
doms,  till  there  should  be  at  least  two  chil 
dren  to  render  the  division  practicable.  He 
becomes,  for  an  uncertain,  and  possibly  a 
long  period,  the  provisional  sovereign  of 
both ;  merely  because  he  is  presumed  to  be 
the  most  proper  regulator  of  territories  which 
are  to  be  divided  between  his  posterity. 
Now,  the  principle  of  such  an  express  excep 


tion  is,  by  the  rules  of  fair  construction,  ap 
plicable  to  every  truly  and  evidently  parallel 
case ;  and  there  is  precisely  the  same  reason 
for  the  tutelary  power  of  Pedro  IV.  as  there 
would  be  for  that  of  a  father,  in  the  event 
contemplated  by  the  law  of  1641. 

The  effect  of  the  Treaty  of  Rio  Janeiro 
cannot  be  inconsistent  with  this  temporary 
union.  Even  on  the  principle  of  our  oppo 
nents,  it  must  exist  for  a  shorter  or  longer 
time.  The  Treaty  did  not  deprive  Pedro  of 
his  option  between  Portugal  and  Brazil :  he 
must  have  possessed  both  crowns,  when  he 
was  called  upon  to  determine  which  of  them 
he  would  lay  down.  But  if  it  be  acknow 
ledged  that  a  short  but  actual  union  is  ne 
cessary,  in  order  to  effect  the  abdication, 
how  can  it  be  pretended  that  a  longer  union 
may  not  be  equally  justifiable,  for  the  honest 
purpose  of  quiet  and  amicable  separation  ? 

The  Treaty  of  Rio  de  Janeiro  would  have 
been  self-destructive,  if  it  had  taken  from 
Pedro  the  power  of  sovereignty  in  Portugal 
immediately  on  the  death  of  his  father  :  for 
in  that  case  no  authority  would  exist  capable 
of  carrying  the  Treaty  into  execution.  It 
must  have  been  left  to  civil  war  to  determine 
who  was  to  govern  the  kingdom ;  while,  if 
we  adopt  the  principle  of  Pedro's  hereditary 
succession  by  law,  together  with  his  obliga 
tion  by  treaty  to  separate  the  kingdoms,  the 
whole  is  consistent  with  itself,  and  every 
measure  is  quietly  and  regularly  carried  into 
effect. 

To  these  considerations  we  must  add  the 
recognition  of  Pedro  "as  heir  and  successor" 
in  the  Ratification.  Either  John  VI.  had 
power  to  decide  this  question,  or  he  had  not. 
If  he  had  not.  the  Treaty  is  null ;  for  it  is 
impossible  to  deny  that  the  recognition  is 
really  a  condition  granted  to  Brazil,  which  is 
a  security  for  its  independence,  and  the 
breach  of  which  would  annul  the  whole 
contract.  In  that  case,  Portugal  and  Brazil 
are  not  legally  separated.  Pedro  IV.  cannot 
be  called  a  "foreign  prince;"  and  no  law 
forbids  him  to  reside  in  the  American  pro 
vinces  of  the  Portuguese  dominions.  In  that 
case  also,  exercising  all  the  power  of  his  im 
mediate  predecessors,  his  authority  in  Por 
tugal  becomes  absolute  ;  he  may  punish  the 
Absolutists  as  rebels,  according  to  their  own 
principles ;  and  it  will  be  for  them  to  show, 
that  his  rights,  as  supreme  lawgiver,  can 
be  bounded  by  laws  called  ( fundamental.' 
But. — to  take  a  more  sober  view, — can  it  bo 
doubted,  that,  in  a  country  where  the  mo 
narch  had  exercised  the  whole  legislative 
power  for  more  than  a  century,  his  authori 
tative  interpretation  of  the  ancient  laws,  es 
pecially  if  it  is  part  of  a  compact  with  another 
state,  must  be  conclusive?  By  repeatedly 
declaring  in  the  introduction  to  the  Treaty, 
and  in  the  Ratification  of  it,  that  Pedro  IV. 
was  "heir  and  successor"  of  Portugal,  and 
that  he  was  not  divested  of  that  character  by 
the  Treaty,  which  recognised  him  as  Sove 
reign  of  Brazil,  John  VI.  did  most  deliber 
ately  and  solemnly  determine;  that  his  eldest 


CHARLES,  FIRST  MARQUIS  CORNWALLIS. 


235 


son  was  not  a  "foreign  prince"  in  the  sense 
in  which  these  words  are  used  by  the  ancient 
laws.  Such  too  seems  to  have  been  the 
sense  of  all  parties,  even  of  those  the  most 
bitterly  adverse  to  Pedro  IV.,  and  most  deep 
ly  interested  in  disputing  his  succession,  till 
he  granted  a  Constitutional  Charter  to  the 
people  of  Portugal. 

John  VI.,  by  his  decree  for  the  re-esta 
blishment  of  the  ancient  constitution  of  Por 
tugal,  had  really  abolished  the  absolute  mo 
narchy,  and  in  its  stead  established  a  govern 
ment,  which,  with  all  its  inconveniences  and 
defects,  was  founded  on  principles  of  liberty. 
For  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  the  ancient 
constitution  of  Portugal  had  become  forgot 
ten  or  unknown  by  disuse  for  centuries,  like 
those  legendary  systems,  under  cover  of 
which  any  novelty  'may  be  called  a  restora 
tion.  It  was  perfectly  well  known;  it  was 
long  practised;  and  never  legally  abrogated. 
Indeed  the  same  may  be  affirmed,  with 
equal  truth,  of  the  ancient  institutions  of 
the  other  inhabitants  of  the  Peninsula,  who 
were  among  the  oldest  of  free  nations,  but 
who  have  so  fallen  from  their  high  estate  as 
to  be  now  publicly  represented  as  delighting 
in  their  chains  and  glorying  in  their  shame. 
In  Portugal,  however,  the  usurpation  of  ab 
solute  power  was  not  much  older  than  a  cen 
tury.  We  have  already  seen,  that  the  Cortes 
of  Lamego,  the  founders  of  the  monarchy, 
proclaimed  the  right  of  the  nation  in  a  spirit 
as  generous,  and  in  a  Latinity  not  much 
more  barbarous,  than  that  of  the  authors  of 
Ma/rna  Charta  about  seventy  years  later. 

The  Infant  Don  Miguel  has  sworn  to  ob 


serve  and  maintain  the  constitution.  In  the 
act  of  his  espousals  he  acknowledges  the  so 
vereignty  of  the  young  Queen,  and  describes 
himself  as  only  her  first  subject.  The  muti 
nies  of  the  Portuguese  soldiers  have  ceased  ; 
but  the  conduct  of  the  Court  of  Madrid  still 
continues  to  keep  up  agitation  and  alarm : 
for  no  change  was  ever  effected  which  did 
not  excite  discontent  and  turbulence  enough 
to  serve  the  purposes  of  a  neighbour  strain 
ing  every  nerve  to  vex  and  disturb  a  country. 
The  submission  of  Don  Miguel  to  his  brother 
and  sovereign  are,  we  trust,  sincere.  He 
will  observe  his  oath  to  maintain  the  consti 
tution,  and  cheerfully  take  his  place  as  the 
first  subject  of  a  limited  monarchy.  The 
station  to  which  he  is  destined,  and  the  in 
fluence  which  must  long,  and  may  always 
belong  to  it,  form  together  a  more  attractive 
object  of  ambition  than  any  thing  which  he 
could  otherwise  have  hoped  peaceably  and 
lawfully  to  attain.  No  man  of  common  pru 
dence,  whatever  may  be  his  political  opi 
nions,  will  advise  the  young  Prince  to  put 
such  desirable  prospects  to  hazard.  He  will 
be  told  by  all  such  counsellors  of  every  party 
that  he  must  now  adapt  himself  to  occur 
rences  which  he  may  learn  to  consider  as 
fortunate;  that  loyalty  to  his  brother  and 
his  country  would  now  be  his  clearest  inter 
est,  if  they  were  not  his  highest  duty ;  that 
he  must  forget  all  his  enmities,  renounce  all 
his  prejudices,  and  even  sacrifice  some  of  his 
partialities ;  and  that  he  must  leave  full  time 
to  a  great  part  of  the  people  of  Portugal  to 
recover  from  those  prepossessions  and  re 
pugnances  which  they  may  have  contracted. 


CHARACTER 

OF 

CHARLES,  FIRST  MARQUIS  CORNWALLIS.' 


CHARLES,  Marquis  Cornwall  is,  the  repre 
sentative  of  a  family  of  ancient  distinction, 
and  of  no  modern  nobility,  had  embraced 
in  early  youth  the  profession  of  arms.  The 
sentiments  which  have  descended  to  us  from 
ancient  times  have  almost  required  the  sa 
crifice  of  personal  ease,  and  the  exposure 
of  personal  safety,  from  those  who  inherit 
distinction.  All  the  superiority  conferred 
by  society  must  either  be  earned  by  pre 
vious  services,  or  at  least  justified  by  subse 
quent  merit.  The  most  arduous  exertions 


*  This  character  formed  the  chief  part  of  a  dis 
course  delivered  at  Bombay  soon  after  the  de 
cease  of  Lord  Cornwallis. 


are  therefore  imposed  on  those  who  enjoy 
advantages  which  they  have  not  earn  eel. 
Noblemen  are  required  to  devote  themselves 
to  danger  for  the  safety  of  their  fellow-citi 
zens,  and  to  spill  their  blood  more  readily 
than  others  in  the  public  cause.  Their 
choice  is  almost  limited  to  that  profession 
which  derives  its  dignity  from  the  contempt 
of  danger  and  death,  and  which  is  preserved 
from  mercenary  contamination  by  the  severe 
but  noble  renunciation  of  every  reward  ex 
cept  honour. 

In  the  early  stages  of  his  life  there  were 
no  remarkable  events.  His  sober  and  well- 
regulated  mind  probably  submitted  to  that 
industry  which  is  the  excellence  of  a  subor 


236 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


dinate  station,  and  the  basis  of  higher  useful 
ness  in  a  more  elevated  sphere.  The  bril 
liant  irregularities  which  are  the  ambiguous 
distinctions  of  the  youth  of  others  found  no 
place  in  his.  He  first  appeared  in  the  eye 
of  the  public  during  the  unhappy  civil  \var 
between  Great  Britain  and  her  Colonies, 
which  terminated  in  the  division  of  the  em 
pire.  His  share  in  that  contest  was  merely 
military :  in  that,  as  well  as  in  every  subse 
quent  part  of  his  life,  he  was  happily  free 
from  those  conflicts  of  faction  in  which  the 
hatred  of  one  portion  of  our  fellow-citizens  is 
insured  by  those  acts  wrhich  are  necessary 
to  purchase  the  transient  and  capricious  at 
tachment  of  the  other.  A  soldier,  more  for 
tunate,  deserves,  and  generally  receives,  the 
unanimous  thanks  of  his  country. 

It  would  be  improper  here  to  follow  him 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  that  eventful 
war.  There  is  one  circumstance,  however, 
which  forms  too  important  a  part  of  his  cha 
racter  to  be' omitted, — he  was  unfortunate. 
But  the  moment  of  misfortune  was,  perhaps, 
the  most  honourable  moment  of  his  life. 
So  unshaken  was  the  respect  felt,  that  ca 
lamity  did  not  lower  him  in  the  eyes  of  that 
public  which  is  so  prone  to  estimate  men 
merely  by  the  effect  of  their  councils.  He 
was  not  received  with  those  frowns  which 
often  undeservedly  await  the  return  of  the 
unsuccessful  general :  his  country  welcomed 
him  with  as  much  honour  as  if  fortune  had 
attended  his  virtue,  and  his  sovereign  be 
stowed  on  him  new  marks  of  confidence  and 
favour.  This  was  a  most  signal  triumph. 
Chance  mingles  with  genius  and  science  in 
the  most  renowned  victories  j  but  merit  and 
well-earned  reputation  alone  can  preserve 
an  unfortunate  general  from  sinking  in  popu 
lar  estimation. 

In  1786  his  public  life  became  more  con 
nected  with  that  part  of  the  British  Empire 
which  we  now  inhabit.  This  choice  was 
made  under  circumstances  which  greatly 
increased  the  honour.  No  man  can  recollect 
the  situation  of  India  at  that  period,  or  the 
opinions  concerning  it  in  Great  Britain,  with 
out  remembering  the  necessity,  universally 
felt  and  acknowledged,  for  committing  the 
government  of  our  Asiatic  territories  to  a 
person  peculiarly  and  conspicuously  distin 
guished  for  prudence,  moderation,  integrity, 
and  humility.  On  these  grounds  he  was 
undoubtedly  selected;  and  it  will  not  be 
disputed  by  any  one  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  India  that  his  administration  justi 
fied  the  choice. 

Among  the  many  wise  and  honest  mea 
sures  which  did  honour  to  his  government, 
there  are  two  which  are  of  such  importance 
that  they  cannot  be  passed  over  in  silence. 
The  first  was,  the  establishment  of  a  fixed 
land-rent  throughout  Bengal,  instead  of  those 
annually  varying,  and  often  arbitrary,  exac 
tions  to  which  the  landholders  of  that  great 
province  had  been  for  ages  subject.  This 
reformation,  one  of  the  greatest,  perhaps, 
ever  peaceably  effected  in  an  extensive  and 


opulent  country,  has  since  been  followed  in 
the  other  British  territories  in  the  East ;  and 
it  is  the  first  certain  example  in  India  of  a 
secure  private  property  in  land,  which  the 
extensive  and  undefined  territorial  claims  of 
Indian  Princes  had,  in  former  times,  render 
ed  a  subject  of  great  doubt  and  uncertainty. 
The  other  distinguishing  measure  of  his  go 
vernment  was  that  judicial  system  which 
was  necessary  to  protect  and  secure  the  pro 
perty  thus  ascertained,  and  the  privileges 
thus  bestowed.  By  the  combined  influence 
of  these  two  great  measures,  he  may  confi 
dently  be  said  to  have  imparted  to  the  sub 
jects  of  Great  Britain  in  the  East  a  more 
perfect  security  of  person  and  property,  and 
a  fuller  measure  of  all  the  advantages  of  civil 
society,  than  had  been  enjoyed  by  the  natives 
of  India  within  the  period  of  authentic  histo 
ry  j — a  portion  of  these  inestimable  benefits 
larger  than  appears  to  have  been  ever  pos 
sessed  by  any  people  of  Asia,  and  probably 
not  much  inferior  to  the  share  of  many  flour 
ishing  states  of  Europe  in  ancient  and  modern 
times.  It  has  sometimes  been  objected  to 
these  arrangements,  that  the  revenue  of  the 
sovereign  was  sacrificed  to  the  comfort  and 
prosperity  of  the  subject.  This  would  have 
been  impossible :  the  interests  of  both  are 
too  closely  and  inseparably  connected.  The 
security  of  the  subject  will  always  enrich 
him ;  and  his  wealth  will  always  overflow 
into  the  coffers  of  his  sovereign.  But  if  the 
objection  were  just  in  point  of  policy,  it 
would  be  the  highest  tribute  to  the  virtue  of 
the  governor.  To  sacrifice  revenue  to  the 
well-being  of  a  people  is  a  blame  of  which 
Marcus  Aurelius  would  have  been  proud  !* 

The  war  in  which  he  was  engaged  during 
his  Indian  government  it  belongs  to  the  his 
torian  to  describe:  in  this  place  it  is  suffi 
cient  to  say  that  it  was  founded  in  the  just 
defence  of  an  ally,  that  it  was  carried  on 
with  vigour,  and  closed  with  exemplary  mo 
deration. 

In  1793  Lord  Cornwall's  returned  to  Eu 
rope,  leaving  behind  him  a  greater  and  purer 
name  than  that  of  any  foreigner  who  had 
ruled  over  India  for  centuries. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  circum 
stances  in  the  history  of  his  life,  that  great 


*  The  facility  with  which  he  applied  his  sound 
and  strong  understanding  to  subjects  the  most  dis 
tant  from  those  which  usually  employed  it  is  prov 
ed  in  a  very  striking  manner  by  a  fact  which  ought 
not  to  be  forgotten  by  those  who  wish  to  form  an 
accurate  estimate  of  this  venerable  nobleman.  The 
Company's  extensive  investment  from  Bengal  de 
pended  in  a  great  measure  on  manufactures,  which 
had  fallen  into  such  a  state  of  decay  as  to  be  al 
most  hopeless.  The  Court  of  Directors  warmly 
recommended  this  very  important  part  of  their  in 
terest  to  Marquis  Cornwallis.  He  applied  his 
mind  to  the  subject  with  that  conscientious  zeal 
which  always  distinguished  him  as  a  servant  of  the 
public.  He  became  as  familiarly  acquainted  with 
its  most  minute  details  as  most  of  those  who  had 
made  it  the  business  of  their  lives  ;  and  he  has  the 
undisputed  merit  of  having  retrieved  these  manu 
factures  from  a  condition  in  which  they  were 
thought  desperate. 


CHARLES,  FIRST  MARQUIS  CORNWALLIS. 


237 


offices  were  scarcely  ever  bestowed  on  him 
in  times  when  they  could  be  mere  marks  of 
favour,  or  very  desirable  objects  of  pursuit ; 
but  that  he  was  always  called  upon  to  under 
take  them  in  those  seasons  of  difficulty  when 
the  acceptance  became  a  severe  and  painful 
duty.  One  of  these  unhappy  occcasions 
arose  in  the  year  1798.  A  most  dangerous 
rebellion  had  been  suppressed  in  Ireland, 
without  extinguishing  the  disaffection  that 
threatened  future  rebellions.  The  prudence, 
the  vigilance,  the  unspotted  humanity,  the 
inflexible  moderation  of  Marquis  Cornwallis. 
pointed  him  out  as  the  most  proper  person 
to  compose  the  dissensions  of  that  generous 
and  unfortunate  people.  He  was  according 
ly  chosen  for  that  mission  of  benevolence, 
and  he  most  amply  justified  the  choice.  Be 
sides  the  applause  of  all  good  men  and  all 
lovers  of  their  country,  he  received  the  still 
more  unequivocal  honour  of  the  censure  of 
violent,  and  the  clamours  of  those  whose  un 
governable  resentments  he  refused  to  gratify. 
He  not  only  succeeded  in  allaying  the  ani 
mosities  of  a  divided  nation,  but  he  was  hap 
py  enough  to  be  instrumental  in  a  measure 
which,  if  it  be  followed  by  moderate  and 
healing  counsels,  promises  permanent  quiet 
and  prosperity :  under  his  administration 
Ireland  was  united  to  Great  Britain.  A  pe 
riod  was  at  length  put  to  the  long  misgovern- 
ment  and  misfortunes  of  that  noble  island, 
and  a  new  era  of  justice,  happiness,  and  se 
curity  opened  for  both  the  great  members  of 
the  British  Empire. 

The  times  were  too  full  of  difficulty  to  suf 
fer  him  long  to  enjoy  the  retirement  which 
followed  his  Irish  administration.  A  war, 
fortunate  and  brilliant  in  many  of  its  sepa 
rate  operations,  but  unsuccessful  in  its  grand 
objects,  was  closed  by  a  treaty  of  peace, 
which  at  first  was  joyfully  hailed  by  the 
feelings  of  the  public,  but  which  has  since 
given  rise  to  great  diversity  of  judgment.  It 
may  be  observed,  without  descending  into 
political  contests,  that  if  the  terms  of  the 
treaty*  were  necessarily  not  flattering  to  na 
tional  pride,  it  was  the  more  important  to 
choose  a  negotiator  who  should  inspire  pub 
lic  confidence,  and  whose  character  might 
shield  necessary  concessions  from  unpopu 
larity.  Such  was  unquestionably  the  prin 
ciple  on  which  Lord  Cornwallis  was  selected  j 
and  such  (whatever  judgment  may  be  form 
ed  of  the  treaty)  is  the  honourable  testimony 
which  it  bears  to  his  character. 

The  offices  bestowed  on  him  were  not 
matters  of  grace :  every  preferment  was  a 
homage  to  his  virtue.  He  was  never  invited 
to  the  luxuries  of  high  station  :  he  was  always 
summoned  to  its  most  arduous  and  perilous 
duties.  India  once  more  needed,  or  was 
thought  to  need,  the  guardian  care  of  him 
who  had  healed  the  wounds  of  conquest,  and 
bestowed  on  her  the  blessings  of  equitable 
and  paternal  legislation.  Whether  the  opi 
nion  held  in  England  of  the  perils  of  our 

*  Of  Amiens. 


Eastern  territories  was  correct  or  exaggera 
ted,  it  is  not  for  us  in  this  place  to  inquire. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  the  alarm  was 
great  and  extensive,  and  that  the  eyes  of  the 
nation  were  once  more  turned  towards  Lord 
Cornwallis.  Whether  the  apprehensions  were 
just  or  groundless,  the  tribute  to  his  charac 
ter  was  equal.  He  once  more  accepted  the 
government  of  these  extensive  dominions, 
with  a  full  knowledge  of  his  danger,  and 
with  no  obscure  anticipation  of  the  probabi 
lity  of  his  fate.  He  obeyed  his  sovereign, 
nobly  declaring,  li  that  if  he  could  render 
service  to  his  country,  it  was  of  small  mo 
ment  to  him  whether  he  died  in  India  or  in 
Europe  ;"  and  no  doubt  thoroughly  convinced 
that  it  was  far  better  to  die  in  the  discharge 
of  great  duties  than  to  add  a  few  feeble  in 
active  years  to  life.  Great  Britain,  divided 
on  most  public  questions,  was  unanimous  in 
her  admiration  of  this  signal  sacrifice ;  and 
British  India,  however  various  might  be  the 
political  opinions  of  her  inhabitants,  welcom 
ed  the  Governor  General  with  only  one  sen 
timent  of  personal  gratitude  and  reverence. 

Scarcely  had  he  arrived  when  he  felt  the 
fatal  influence  of  the  climate  which,  with  a 
a  clear  view  of  its  terrors,  he  had  resolved  to 
brave.  But  he  neither  yielded  to  the  lan 
guor  of  disease,  nor  to  the  infirmity  of  age. 
With  all  the  ardour  of  youth,  he  flew  to  the 
post  where  he  was  either  to  conclude  an 
equitable  peace,  or,  if  that  were  refused,  to 
prosecute  necessary  hostilities  with  rigour. 
His  malady  became  more  grievous,  and  for 
some  time  stopped  his  progress.  On  the 
slightest  alleviation  of  his  symptoms  he  re 
sumed  his  journey,  though  little  hope  of  re 
covery  remained,  with  an  inflexible  resolu 
tion  to  employ  wrhat  was  left  of  life,  in  the 
performance  of  his  duty  to  his  country.  He 
declared  to  his  surrounding  friends,  :-that  he 
knew  no  reason  to  fear  death ;  and  that  if  he 
could  remain  in  the  world  but  a  short  time 
longer  to  complete  the  plans  of  public  service 
in  which  he  was  engaged,  he  should  then 
cheerfully  resign  his  life  to  the  Almighty 
Giver;" — a  noble  and  memorable  declara 
tion,  expressive  of  the  union  of  every  private, 
and  civil,  and  religious  excellence,  in  which 
the  consciousness  of  a  blameless  and  meri 
torious  life  is  combined  with  the  affectionate 
zeal  of  a  dying  patriot,  and  the  meek  sub 
mission  of  a  pious  Christian.  But  it  pleased 
God,  "  whose  ways  are  not  as  our  ways,"  to 
withdraw  him  from  this  region  of  the  uni 
verse  before  his  honest  wishes  of  usefulness 
could  be  accomplished,  though  doubtless  not 
before  the  purposes  of  Providence  were  ful 
filled.  He  expired  at  Gazeepore,  in  the  pro 
vince  of  Benares,  on  the  5th  of  October,  1805, 
— supported  by  the  remembrance  of  his  vir 
tue,  and  by  the  sentiments  of  piety  which 
had  actuated  his  whole  life. 

His  remains  are  interred  on  the  spot  where 
he  died,  on  the  banks  of  that  famous  river, 
which  washes  no  country  not  either  blessed 
by  his  government,  or  visited  by  his  renown  ; 
and  in  the  heart  of  that  province  so  long  the 


238 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


chosen  seat  of  religion  and  learning  in  India, 
which  under  the  influence  of  his  beneficent 
system,  and  under  the  administration  of 
good  men  whom  he  had  chosen,  had  risen 
from  a  state  of  decline  and  confusion  to  one 
of  prosperity  probably  unrivalled  in  the  hap 
piest  times  of  its  ancient  princes.  -'His 
body  is  buried  in  peace,  and  his  name  liveth 
for  evermore." 

The  Christian  religion  is  no  vain  supersti 
tion,  which  divides  The  worship  of  God  from 
the  service  of  man.  Every  social  duty  is  a 
Christian  grace.  Public  and  private  virtue 
is  considered  by  Christianity  as  the  purest 
arid  most  acceptable  incense  which  can  as 
cend  before  the  Divine  Throne.  Political 
duties  are  a  most  momentous  part  of  morali 
ty,  and  morality  is  the  most  momentous  part 
of  religion.  When  the  political  life  of  a 
great  man  has  been  guided  by  the  rules  of 
morality,  and  consecrated  by  the  principles 
of  religion,  it  may,  and  it  ought  to  be  com 
memorated,  that  the  survivors  may  admire 
and  attempt  to  copy,  not  only  as  men  and 
citizens,  but  as  Christians.  It  is  due  to  the 
honour  of  Religion  and  Virtue, — it  is  fit  for 
the  confusion  of  the  impious  and  the  de 
praved,  to  show  that  these,  sacred  principles 
are  not  to  be  hid  in  the  darkness  of  humble 
life  to  lead  the  prejudiced  and  amuse  the 
superstitious,  but  that  they  appear  with  their 
proper  lustre  at  the  head  of  councils,  of 
armies,  and  of  empires, — the  supports  of  va 
lour, — the  sources  of  active  and  enlightened 
beneficence, —  the  companions  of  all  real 
policy, — and  the  guides  to  solid  and  durable 
glory. 

A  distinction  has  been  made  in  our  times 
among  statesmen,  between  Public  and  Pri 
vate  Virtue  :  they  have  been  supposed  to  be 
separable.  The  neglect  of  every  private  ob 
ligation,  has  been  supposed  to  be  compatible 
with  public  virtue,  and  the  violation  of  the 
most  sacred  public  trust  has  been  thought 


not  inconsistent  with  private  worth : — a  de 
plorable  distinction,  the  creature  of  corrupt 
sophistry,  disavowed  by  Reason  and  Morals, 
and  condemned  by  all  the  authority  of  Reli 
gion.  No  such  disgraceful  inconsistency,  or 
flagrant  hypocrisy,  disgraced  the  character  of 
the  venerable  person  of  whom  I  speak, — of 
whom  we  may,  without  suspicion  of  exagge 
ration,  say,  that  he  performed  with  equal 
strictness  every  office  of  public  or  private 
life ;  that  his  public  virtue  was  not  put  on 
for  parade,  like  a  gaudy  theatrical  dress,  but 
that  it  was  the  same  integrity  and  benevo 
lence  which  attended  his  most  retired  mo 
ments;  that  with  a  simple  and  modest  cha 
racter,  alien  to  ostentation,  and  abhorrent 
from  artifice, — with  no  pursuit  of  popularity, 
and  no  sacrifice  to  court  favour, — by  no 
other  means  than  an  universal  reputation  for 
good  sense,  humanity,  and  honesty,  he  gain 
ed  universal  confidence,  and  was  summoned 
to  the  highest  offices  at  every  call  of  danger. 
He  has  left  us  an  useful  example  of  the 
true  dignity  of  these  invaluable  qualities, 
and  has  given  us  new  reason  to  thank  God 
that  we  are  the  natives  of  a  country  yet  so 
uncorrupted  as  to  prize  them  thus  highly. 
He  has  left  us  an  example  of  the  pure  states 
man, — of  a  paternal  governor, — of  a  warrior 
who  loved  peace, — of  a  hero  without  ambi 
tion, — of  a  conqueror  who  showed  unfeigned 
moderation  in  the  moment  of  victory, — and 
of  a  patriot  who  devoted  himself  to  death  for 
his  country.  May  this  example  be  as  fruit 
ful,  as  his  memory  will  be  immortal !  May 
the  last  generations  of  Britain  aspire  to  copy 
and  rival  so  pure  a  model !  And  when  the 
nations  of  India  turn  their  eyes  to  his  monu 
ment,  rising  amidst  fields  which  his  paternal 
care  has  restored  to  their  ancient  fertility, 
may  they  who  have  long  suffered  from  the 
violence  of  those  who  are  unjustly  called 
'Great,'  at  length  learn  to  love  and  reve 
rence  the  Good. 


CHARACTER. 


or  THE 


RIGHT  HONOURABLE  GEORGE  CANNING.' 


WITHOUT  invidious  comparison,  it  may  be 
safely  said  that,  from  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  died,  his  death  was  more  gene- 


*  Contributed  to  the  "  Keepsake  of  1828,  under 
the  title  of  ' '  Sketch  of  a  Fragment  of  the  History 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century/'  in  which,  as  the 
Author  announces  in  a  notice  prefixed  to  it,  the 
temper  of  the  future  historian  of  the  present  times 
is  affected. — ED. 


]  rally  interesting  among  civilized  nations  than 
that  of  any  other  English  statesman  had  ever 
been.  It  "was  an  event  in  the  internal  his 
tory  of  every  country.  From  Lima  to  Athens, 
every  nation  struggling  for  independence  or 
existence,  was  filled  by  it  with  sorrow  and 
dismay.  The  Miguelites  of  Portugal,  the 
Apostolicals  of  Spain,  the  Jesuit  faction  m 
France,  and  the  Divan  of  Constantinople, 


CHARACTER  OF  MR.  CANNING. 


239 


raised  a  shout  of  joy  at  the  fall  of  their 
dreaded  enemy.  He  was  regretted  by  all 
who,  heated  by  no  personal  or  party  resent 
ment,  felt  for  genius  struck  down  in  the  act 
of  attempting  to  heal  the  revolutionary  dis 
temper,  and  to  render  future  improvements 
pacific,  on  the  principle  since  successfully 
adopted  by  more  fortunate,  though  not  more 
deserving,  ministers,  — that  of  an  honest 
compromise  between  the  interests  and  the 
opinions, — the  prejudices  and  the  demands, 
— of  the  supporters  of  establishments,  and 
the  followers  of  reformation. 

***** 

The  family  of  Mr.  Canning,  which  for 
more  than  a  century  had  filled  honourable 
stations  in  Ireland,  was  a  younger  branch  of 
an  ancient  one  among  the  English  gentry. 
His  father,  a  man  of  letters,  had  been  disin 
herited  for  an  imprudent  marriage  ;  and  the 
inheritance  went  to  a  younger  brother,  whose 
son  was  afterwards  created  Lord  Garvagh. 
Mr.  Canning  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Ox 
ford,  according  to  that  exclusively  classical 
system,  which,  whatever  may  be  its  defects, 
must  be  owned,  when  taken  with  its  con 
stant  appendages,  to  be  eminently  favourable 
to  the  cultivation  of  sense  and  taste,  as  well 
as  to  the  development  of  wit  and  spirit. 
From  his  boyhood  he  was  the  foremost 
among  very  distinguished  contemporaries, 
and  continued  to  be  regarded  as  the  best 
specimen,  and  the  most  brilliant  representa 
tive,  of  that  eminently  national  education. 
His  youthful  eye  sparkled  with  quickness 
and  arch  pleasantry;  and  his  countenance 
early  betrayed  that  jealousy  of  his  own  dig 
nity,  and  sensibility  to  suspected  disregard, 
which  \vere  afterwards  softened,  but  never 
quite  subdued.  Neither  the  habits  of  a  great 
school,  nor  those  of  a  popular  assembly,  were 
calculated  to  weaken  his  love  of  praise  and 
passion  for  distinction :  but,  as  he  advanced 
in  years,  his  fine  countenance  was  ennobled 
by  the  expression  of  thought  and  feeling; 
he  more  pursued  that  lasting  praise,  which 
is  not  to  be  earned  without  praise  worthiness; 
and,  if  he  continued  to  be  a  lover  of  fame, 
he  also  passionately  loved  the  glory  of  his 
country.  Even  he  who  almost  alone  was 
entitled  to  look  down  on  fame  as  l  that  last 
infirmity  of  noble  minds,'  had  not  forgotten 
that  it  was — 

"  The  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise, 
To  scorn  delights,  and  live  laborious  days."* 

The  natural  bent  of  character  is,  perhaps, 
better  ascertained  from  the  undisturbed  and 
unconscious  play  of  the  mind  in  the  common 
intercourse  of  society,  than  from  its  move 
ments  under  the  power  of  strong  interest  or 
warm  passions  in  public  life.  In  social  in 
tercourse  Mr.  Canning  was  delightful.  Hap 
pily  for  the  true  charm  of  his  conversation 
he  was  too  busy  not  to  treat  society  as  more 
fitted  for  relaxation  than  for  display.  It  is 
but  little  to  say,  that  he  was  neither  disputa 
tious,  declamatory,  nor  sententious, — neither 


Lycidas. 


a  dictator  nor  a  jester.  His  manner  was 
simple  and  unobtrusive  ;  his  language  always 
quite  familiar.  If  a  higher  thought  stole 
from  his  mind,  it  came  in  its  conversational 
undress.  From  this  plain  ground  his  plea 
santry  sprang  with  the  happiest  effect ;  and 
it  was  nearly  exempt' from  that  alloy  of  taunt 
and  banter,  which  he  sometimes  mixed  with 
more  precious  materials  in  public  contest. 
He  may  be  added  to  the  list  of  those  emi 
nent  persons  who  pleased  most  in  their 
friendly  circle.  He  had  the  agreeable  quality 
of  being  more  easily  pleased  in  society  than 
might  have  been  expected  from  the  keen 
ness  of  his  discernment,  and  the  sensibility 
of  his  temper :  still  he  was  liable  to  be  dis 
composed,  or  even  silenced,  by  the  presence 
of  any  one  whom  he  did  not  like.  His  man 
ner  in  company  betrayed  the  political  vexa 
tions  or  anxieties  which  preyed  on  his  mind : 
nor  could  he  conceal  that  sensitiveness  to 
public  attacks  which  their  frequent  recur 
rence  wears  out  in  most  English  politicians. 
These  last  foibles  may  be  thought  interesting 
as  the  remains  of  natural  character,  not 
destroyed  by  refined  society  and  political 
affairs.  He  was  assailed  by  some  adversa 
ries  so  ignoble  as  to  wound  him  through  his 
filial  affection,  which  preserved  its  respectful 
character  through  the  whole  course  of  his 
advancement. 

The  ardent  zeal  for  his  memory,  which 
appeared  immediately  after  his  death,  attests 
the  warmth  of  those  domestic  affections 
which  seldom  prevail  where  they  are  not 
mutual.  To  his  touching  epitaph  on  his  son, 
parental  love  has  given  a  charm  which  is 
wanting  in  his  other  verses.  It  was  said  of 
him,  at  one  time,  that  no  man  had  so  little 
popularity  and  such  affectionate  friends  ;  and 
the  truth  was  certainly  more  sacrificed  to 
point  in  the  former  than  in  the  latter  mem 
ber  of  the  contrast.  Some  of  his  friendships 
continued  in  spite  of  political  differences 
(which,  by  rendering  intercourse  less  un 
constrained,  often  undermine  friendship:) 
and  others  were  remarkable  for  a  warmth, 
constancy,  and  disinterestedness,  which, 
though  chiefly  honourable  to  those  who 
were  capable  of  so  pure  a  kindness,  yet  re 
dound  to  the  credit  of  him  who  was  the  ob 
ject  of  it.  No  man  is  thus  beloved  who  is 
not  himself  formed  for  friendship. 

Notwithstanding  his  disregard  for  money, 
he  was  not  tempted  in  youth  by  the  exam 
ple  or  the  kindness  of  affluent  friends  much 
to  overstep  his  little  patrimony.  He  never 
afterwards  sacrificed  to  parade  or  personal 
indulgence  ;  though  his  occupations  scarcely 
allowed  him  to  think  enough  of  his  private 
affairs.  Even  from  his  moderate  fortune,  his 
bounty  was  often  liberal  to  suitors  to  whom 
official  relief  could  not  be  granted.  By  a 
sort  of  generosity  still  harder  for  him  to  prac 
tise,  he  endeavoured,  in  cases  where  the 
suffering  was  great,  though  the  suit  could 
not  be  granted,  to  satisfy  the  feelings  of  the 
suitor  by  a  full  explanation  in  writing  of  the 
causes  which  rendered  compliance  impracti- 


240 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


cable.  Wherever  he  took  an  interest,  he 
showed  it  as  much  by  delicacy  to  the  feel 
ings  of  those  whom  he  served  or  relieved,  as 
by  substantial  consideration  for  their  claims ; 
— a  rare  and  most  praiseworthy  merit  among 
men  in  power. 

In  proportion  as  the  opinion  of  a  people 
acquires  influence  over  public  affairs,  the 
faculty  of  persuading  men  to  support  or  op 
pose  political  measures  acquires  importance. 
The  peculiar  nature  of  Parliamentary  debate 
contributes  to  render  eminence  in  that  pro 
vince  not  so  imperfect  a  test  of  political 
ability  as  it  might  appear  to  be.  Recited 
speeches  can  seldom  show  more  than  powers 
of  reasoning  and  imagination;  which  have 
little  connection  with  a  capacity  for  affairs. 
But  the  unforeseen  events  of  debate,  and  the 
necessity  of  immediate  answer  in  unpreme 
ditated  language,  afford  scope  for  the  quick 
ness,  firmness,  boldness,  wariness,  presence 
of  mind,  and  address  in  the  management  of 
men,  which  are  among  the  qualities  most 
essential  to  a  statesman.  The  most  flour 
ishing  period  of  our  Parliamentary  eloquence 
extends  for  about  half  a  century, — from  the 
maturity  of  Lord  Chatham's  genius  to  the 
death  of  Mr.  Fox.  During  the  twenty  years 
•which  succeeded,  Mr.  Canning  was  some 
times  the  leader,  and  always  the  greatest 
orator,  of  the  party  who  supported  the  Ad 
ministration  ;  in  which  there  were  able  men 
•who  supported,  without  rivalling  him,  against 
opponents  also  not  thought  by  him  inconsi 
derable.  Of  these  last,  one,  at  least,  was  felt 
by  every  hearer,  and  acknowledged  in  pri 
vate  by  himself,  to  have  always  forced  his 
faculties  to  their  very  uttermost  stretch.* 

Had  he  been  a  dry  and  meagre  speaker, 
he  would  have  been  universally  allowed  to 
have  been  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of 
argument ;  but  his  hearers  were  so  dazzled 
by  the  splendour  of  his  diction,  that  they  did 
not  perceive  the  acuteness  and  the  occasion 
ally  excessive  refinement  of  his  reasoning ; 
a  consequence  which,  as  it  shows  the  inju 
rious  influence  of  a  seductive  fault,  can  with 
the  less  justness  be  overlooked  in  the  esti 
mate  of  his  understanding.  Ornament,  it 
must  be  owned,  when  it  only  pleases  or 
amuses,  without  disposing  the  audience  to 
adopt  the  sentiments  of  the  speaker,  is  an 
offence  against  the  first  law  of  public  speak 
ing  ;  it  obstructs  instead  of  promoting  its  only 
reasonable  purpose.  But  eloquence  is  a 
\videly  extended  art,  comprehending  many 
sorts  of  excellence ;  in  some  of  which  orna 
mented  diction  is  more  liberally  employed 
than  in  others;  and  in  none  of  which  the 
highest  rank  can  be  attained,  without  an  ex 
traordinary  combination  of  mental  powers. 
Among  our  own  orators,  Mr.  Canning  seems 
to  have  been  the  best  model  of  the  adorned 
style.  The  splendid  and  sublime  descrip 
tions  of  Mr.  Burke, — his  comprehensive  and 
profound  views  of  general  principle,— though 


*  Mr.  (now  Lord)  Brougham  is  the  person  al 
luded  to.— ED. 


they  must  ever  delight  and  instruct  the  rea 
der,  must  be  owned  to  have  been  digressions 
wrhich  diverted  the  mind  of  the  hearer  from 
the  object  on  which  the  speaker  ought  to  have 
kept  it  steadily  fixed.  Sheridan,  a  man  of 
admirable  sense,  and  matchless  wit,  laboured 
to  follow  Burke  into  the  foreign  regions  of  feel 
ing  and  grandeur.  The  specimens  preserved 
of  his  most  celebrated  speeches  show  too 
much  of  the  exaggeration  and  excess  to 
which  those  are  peculiarly  liable  who  seek 
by  art  and  effort  what  nature  has  denied. 
By  the  constant  part  which  Mr.  Canning  took 
in  debate,  he  was  called  upon  to  show  a 
knowledge  which  Sheridan  did  not  possess, 
and  a  readiness  which  that  accomplished 
man  had  no  such  means  of  strengthening  and 
displaying.  In  some  qualities  of  style,  Mr. 
Canning  surpassed  Mr.  Pitt.  His  diction  was 
more  various, — sometimes  more  simple, — 
more  idiomatical,  even  in  its  more  elevated 
parts.  It  sparkled  with  imagery,  and  was 
brightened  by  illustration ;  in  both  of  which 
Mr.  Pitt,  for  so  great  an  orator,  was  defec 
tive. 

No  English  speaker  used  the  keen  and 
brilliant  weapon  of  wit  so  long,  so  often,  or 
so  effectively,  as  Mr.  Canning.'  He  gained 
more  triumphs,  and  incurred  more  enmity, 
by  it  than  by  any  other.  Those  whose  im 
portance  depends  much  on  birth  and  for 
tune  are  impatient  of  seeing  their  own  arti 
ficial  dignity,  or  that  of  their  order,  broken 
down  by  derision;  and  perhaps  few  men 
heartily  forgive  a  successful  jest  against 
themselves,  but  those  who  are  conscious  of 
being  unhurt  by  it.  Mr.  Canning  often  used 
this  talent  imprudently.  In  sudden  flashes 
of  wit,  and  in  the  playful  description  of  men 
or  things,  he  was  often  distinguished  by  that 
natural  felicity  which  is  the  charm  of  plea 
santry  ;  to  which  the  air  of  art  and  labour  is 
more  fatal  than  to  any  other  talent.  Sheri 
dan  was  sometimes  betrayed  by  an  imitation 
of  the  dialogue  of  his  master,  Congreve,  into 
a  sort  of  laboured  and  finished  jesting,  so 
balanced  and  expanded,  as  sometimes  to  vie 
in  tautology  and  monotony  with  the  once 
applauded  triads  of  Johnson ;  and  which, 
even  in  its  most  happy  passages,  is  more 
sure  of  commanding  serious  admiration  than 
hearty  laughter.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
Mr.  Canning's  taste  was,  in  this  respect, 
somewhat  influenced  by  the  example  of  his 
early  friend.  The  exuberance  of  fancy  and 
wit  lessened  the  gravity  of  his  general  man 
ner,  and  perhaps  also  indisposed  the  audi 
ence  to  feel  his  earnestness  where  it  clearly 
showed  itself.  In  that  important  quality  he 
was  inferior  to  Mr.  Pitt, — 

"  Deep  on  whose  front  engraven, 
Deliberation  sat,  and  public  care  ;"* 

and  no  less  inferior  to  Mr.  Fox,  whose  fervid 
eloquence  flowed  from  the  love  of  his  coun 
try,  the  scorn  of  baseness,  and  the  hatred  of 
cruelty,  which  were  the  ruling  passions  of 
his  nature. 

*  Paradise  Lost,  Book  II.— ED. 


CHARACTER  OF  MR.  CANNING. 


241 


On  the  whole,  it  may  be  observed,  that 
the  range  of  Mr.  Canning's  powers  as  an 
orator  was  wider  than  that  in  which  he  usu 
ally  exerted  them.  When  mere  statement 
only  was  allowable,  no  man  of  his  age  was 
more  simple.  When  infirm  health  com 
pelled  him  to  be  brief,  no  speaker  could 
compress  his  matter  with  so  little  sacrifice 
of  clearness,  ease,  and  elegance.  In  his 
speech  on  Colonial  Reformation,  in  1823,  he 
seemed  to  have  brought  down  the  philoso 
phical  principles  and  the  moral  sentiments  of 
Mr.  Burke  to  that  precise  level  where  they 
could  be  happily  blended  with  a  grave  and 
dignified  speech,  intended  as  an  introduction 
to  a  new  system  of  legislation.  As  his  ora 
torical  faults  were  those  of  youthful  genius, 
the  progress  of  age  seemed  to  purify  his  elo 
quence,  and  every  year  appeared  to  remove 
some  speck  which  hid,  or,  at  least,  dimmed, 
a  beauty.  He  daily  rose  to  larger  views, 
and  made,  perhaps,  as  near  approaches  to 
philosophical  principles  as  the  great  dif- 
ence  between  the  objects  of  the  philoso 
pher  and  those  of  the  orator  will  commonly 
allow. 

Mr.  Canning  possessed,  in  a  high  degree, 
the  outward  advantages  of  an  orator.  His 
expressive  countenance  varied  with  the 
changes  of  his  eloquence :  his  voice,  flexi 
ble  and  articulate,  had  as  much  compass  as 
his  mode  of  speaking  required.  In  the  calm 
part  of  his  speeches,  his  attitude  and  gesture 
might  have  been  selected  by  a  painter  to 
represent  grace  rising  towards  dignity. 

When  the  memorials  of  his  own  time, — 
the  composition  of  which  he  is  said  never  to 
have  interrupted  in  his  busiest  moments, — 
are  made  known  to  the  public,  his  abilities 
as  a  writer  may  be  better  estimated.  His 
only  known  writings  in  prose  are  State  Pa 
pers,  which,  when  considered  as  the  compo 
sition  of  a  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  in 
one  of  the  most  extraordinary  periods  of 
European  history,  are  undoubtedly  of  no 
small  importance.  Such  of  these  papers  as 
were  intended  to  be  a  direct  appeal  to  the 
judgment  of  mankind  combine  so  much 
precision,  with  such  uniform  circumspection 
and  dignity,  that  they  must  ever  be  studied 
as  models  of  that  very  difficult  species  of 
composition.  His  Instructions  to  ministers 
abroad,  on  occasions  both  perplexing  and 
momentous,  will  be  found  to  exhibit  a  rare 
union  of  comprehensive  and  elevated  views, 
with  singular  ingenuity  in  devising  means 
of  execution ;  on  which  last  faculty  he  some 
times  relied  perhaps  more  confidently  than 
the  short  and  dim  foresight  of  man  will  war 
rant.  "Great  affairs,"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "are 
commonly  too  coarse  and  stubborn  to  be 
worked  upon  by  the  fine  edges  and  points  of 
wit."*  His  papers  in  negotiation  were  occa 
sionally  somewhat  too  controversial  in  their 
tone :  they  were  not  near  enough  to  the  man 
ner  of  an  amicable  conversation  about  a  dis- 

*  It  may  be  proper  to  remind  the  reader,  that 
here  the  word  "  wit"  is  used  in  its  ancient  sense. 
31 


puted  point  of  business,  in  which  a  negotia 
tor  does  not  so  much  draw  out  his  argument, 
as  hint  his  own  object,  and  sound  the  inten 
tion  of  his  opponent.  He  sometimes  seems 
to  have  pursued  triumph  more  than  advan 
tage,  and  not  to  have  remembered  that  to 
leave  the  opposite  party  satisfied  with  what 
he  has  got,  and  in  good  humour  with  him 
self,  is  not  one  of  the  least  proofs  of  a  nego 
tiator's  skill.  Where  the  papers  were  in 
tended  ultimately  to  reach  the  public  through 
Parliament,  it  might  have  been  prudent  to 
regard  chiefly  the  final  object ;  and  when 
this  excuse  was  wanting,  much  must  be  par 
doned  to  the  controversial  habits  of  a  Parlia 
mentary  life.  It  is  hard  for  a  debater  to  be 
a  negotiator :  the  faculty  of  guiding  public, 
assemblies  is  very  remote  from  the  art  of 
dealing  with  individuals. 

MiOCanning's  power  of  writing  verse  may 
rather  be  classed  with  his  accomplishments, 
than  numbered  among  his  high  and  noble 
faculties.  It  would  have  been  a  distinction 
for  an  inferior  man.  His  verses  were  far 
above  those  of  Cicero,  of  Burke,  and  of  Ba 
con.  The  taste  prevalent  in  his  youth  led 
him  to  feel  more  relish  for  sententious  de- 
claimers  than  is  shared  by  lovers  of  the  true 
poetry  of  imagination  and  sensibility.  In 
some  respects  his  poetical  compositions  were 
also  influenced  by  his  early  intercourse  with 
Mr.  Sheridan,  though  he  was  restrained  by 
his  more  familiar  contemplation  of  classical 
models  from  the  glittering  conceits  of  that 
extraordinary  man.  Something  of  an  artifi 
cial  and  composite  diction  is  discernible  in 
the  English  poems  of  those  who  have  ac 
quired  reputation  by  Latin  verse, — more 
especially  since  the  pursuit  of  rigid  purity 
has  required  so  timid  an  imitation  as  not 
only  to  confine  itself  to  the  words,  but  to 
adopt  none  but  the  phrases  of  ancient  poets. 
Of  this  effect  Gray  must  be  allowed  to  fur 
nish  an  example. 

Absolute  silence  about  JV^jf.  Canning's  writ 
ings  as  a  political  satirist, — which  were  for 
their  hour  so  popular, — might  be  imputed  to 
undue  timidity.  In  that  character  he  yielded 
to  General  Fitzpatrick  in  arch  stateliness  and 
poignant  raillery ;  to  Mr.  Moore  in  the  gay 
prodigality  with  which  he  squanders  his 
countless  stores  of  wit;  and  to  his  own 
friend  Mr.  Frere  in  the  richness  of  a  native 
vein  of  original  and  fantastic  drollery.  In 
that  ungenial  province,  where  the  brightest 
of  laurels  are  apt  very  soon  to  fade,  and 
where  Dryden  only  boasts  immortal  lays,  it 
is  perhaps  hi«  best  praise  to  record  that 
there  is  no  writing  of  his,  which  a  man  of 
honour  might  not  have  avowed  as  soon  a? 
the  first  heat  of  contest  was  past. 

In  some  of  the  amusements  or  tasks  of  his 
boyhood  there  are  passages  which,  without 
much  help  from  fancy,  might  appear  to  con 
tain  allusions  to  his  greatest  measures  of 
policy,  as  well  as  to  the  tenor  of  his  life, 
and  to  the  melancholy  splendour  which  sur 
rounded  his  death.  In  the  concluding  line 
of  the  first  English  verses  written  by  him  at 


242 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Eton,  he  expressed  a  wish,  which  has  been 
singularly  realised,  that  he  might 

"Live  in  a  blaze,  and  in  a  blaze  expire." 

It  is  a  striking  coincidence,  that  the  states 
man,  whose  dying  measure  was  to  mature 
an  alliance  for  the  deliverance  of  Greece, 
should,  when  a  boy,  have  written  English 
verses  on  the  slavery  of  that  country ;  and 
that  in  his  prize  poem  at  Oxford,  on  the  Pil 
grimage  to  Mecca. — a  composition  as  much 
applauded  as  a  modern  Latin  poem  can  as 
pire  to  be — he  should  have  as  bitterly  deplo 
red  the  lot  of  other  renowned  countries,  now 
groaning  under  the  same  barbarous  yoke, — 


"  Nunc  Satrapae  imperio  et  sosvosubditaTurcaj."* 
To  conclude : — he  was  a  man  of  fine  and 
brilliant  genius,  of  warm  affections,  of  a  high 
and  generous  spirit, — a  statesman  who,  at 
home,  converted  most  of  his  opponents  into 
warm  supporters ;  who,  abroad,  was  the  sole 
hope  and  trust  of  all  who  sought  an  orderly  and 
legal  liberty ;  and  who  was  cut  off  in  the  midst 
of  vigorous  and  splendid  measures,  which,  if 
executed  by  himself,  or  with  his  own  spirit, 
promised  to  place  his  name  in  the  first  class 
of  rulers,  among  the  founders  of  lasting  peace? 
and  the  guardians  of  human  improvement. 


*  Iter  ad  Meccam,  Oxford,  1789. 


PREFACE 

TO  A  REPRINT  OF 

THE    EDINBURGH    REVIEW 

OF  1755.* 


IT  is  generally  known  that  two  numbers 
of  a  Critical  Journal  were  published  at  Edin 
burgh  in  the  year  1755,  under  the  title  of  the 
"  Edinburgh  Review1."  The  following  vo 
lume  contains  an  exact  reprint  of  that  Re 
view,  now  become  so  rare  that  it  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  libraries  of  some  of  the  most 
curious  collectors.  To  this  reprint  are  added 
the  names  of  the  writers  of  the  most  impor 
tant  articles.  Care  has  been  taken  to  authen 
ticate  the  list  of  names  by  reference  to  well- 
informed  persons,  and  by  comparison  with 
copies  in  the  possession  of  those  who  have 
derived  their  information  from  distinct  and 
independent  sources.  If  no  part  of  it  should 
be  now  corrected  by  those  Scotchmen  of  let 
ters  still  living,  who  may  have  known  the 
fact  from  the  writers  themselves,  we  may 
regard  this  literary  secret  as  finally  discover 
ed,  with  some  gratification  to  the  curious 
reader,  and  without  either  pain  to  the  feel 
ings,  or  wrong  to  the  character  of  any  one. 
There  are  few  anonymous  writers  the  dis 
covery  of  whose  names  would  be  an  object 
of  curiosity  after  the  lapse  of  sixty  years : 
there  are  perhaps  still  fewer  whose  secret 
might  be  exposed  to  the  public  after  that 
long  period  with  perfect  security  to  their 
reputation  for  equity  and  forbearance. 

The  mere  circumstance  that  this  volume 
contains  the  first  printed  writings  of  Adam 
Smith  and  Robertson,  and  the  only  known 
publication  of  Lord  Chancellor  Rosslyn,  will 

*  Published  in  1816.— ED. 


probably  be  thought  a  sufficient  reason  for 
its  present  appearance. 

Of  the  eight  articles  which  appear  to  have 
been  furnished  by  Dr.  Robertson,  six  are  on 
historical  subjects.    Written  during  the  com 
position  of  the  History  of  Scotland,  they  show 
evident  marks  of  the  wary  understanding, 
the  insight  into  character,  the  right  judgment 
in  affairs,  and  the  union  of  the  sober  specu 
lation   of  a  philosopher  with  the  practical 
prudence   of  a   statesman,  as  well   as   the 
studied  elegance  and  somewhat  ceremonious 
stateliness   of  style  which   distinguish    his 
more   elaborate  writings.     He  had  already 
succeeded   in  guarding  his  diction   against 
the  words  and  phrases  of  the  dialect  which 
he  habitually  spoke  ; — an  enterprise  in  which 
he  had  no  forerunner,  and  of  which  the  diffi 
culty  even  now  can  only  be  estimated  by  a 
'  native  of  Scotland.     The  dread  of  inelegance 
I  in  a  language  almost  foreign  kept  him,  as  it 
has  kept  succeeding  Scotch  writers,  at  a  dis- 
j  tance  from  the  familiar  English,  the  perfect  use 
I  of  which  can  be  acquired  only  by  conversation 
I  from  the  earlist  years.     Two  inaccurate  ex 
pressions  only  are  to  be  found  in  these  early 
!  and  hasty  productions  of  this  elegant  writer. 
Instead  of  "individuals"  he  uses  the  Galli- 
'  cism  " particulars ;"  and  for  "  enumeration" 
he  employs  "induction," — a  term  properly 
j  applicable  only  with  a  view  to  the  general  in 
ference  which  enumeration  affords.     In  the 
review  of  the  History  of  Peter  the  Great  it  is 
not  uninteresting  to  find  it  remarked,  that  the 
violence  and  ferocity  of  that  renowned  barba- 


PREFACE  TO  A  REPRINT  OF  THE  EDINBURGH  REVIEW  OF  1755.      243 


rian  perhaps  partly  fitted  him  to  be  the  reform 
er  of  a  barbarous  people ;  as  it  was  afterwards 
observed  in  the  Histories  of  Scotland  and  of 
Charles  V.,  that  a  milder  and  more  refined 
character  might  have  somewhat  disqualified 
Luther  and  Knox  for  their  great  work.  Two 
articles  being  on  Scottish  affairs  wfere  natu 
ral  relaxations  for  the  historian  of  Scotland. 
In  that  which  relates  to  the  Catalogue  of 
Scottish  Bishops  we  observe  a  subdued  smile 
at  the  eagerness  of  the  antiquary  and  the 
ecclesiastical  partisan,  qualified  indeed  by  a 
just  sense  of  the  value  of  the  collateral  infor 
mation  which  their  toil  may  chance  to  throw 
up,  but  which  he  was  too  cautious  and  de 
corous  to  have  hazarded  in  his  avowed  writ 
ings.  That  he  reviewed  Douglas'  Account 
of  North  America  was  a  fortunate  circum 
stance,  if  we  may  suppose  that  the  recollec 
tion  might  at  a  distant  period  have  contribut 
ed  to  suggest  the  composition  of  the  History 
of  America.  None  of  these  writings  could 
have  justified  any  expectation  of  his  histori 
cal  fame  j  because  they  furnished  no  occa 
sion  for  exerting  the  talent  for  narration, — 
the  most  difficult  but  the  most  necessary 
attainment  for  an  historian,  and  one  in  which 
he  has  often  equalled  the  greatest  masters 
of  his  art.  In  perusing  the  two  essays  of  a 
literary  sort  ascribed  to  him,  it  may  seem 
that  he  has  carried  lenient  and  liberal  criti 
cism  to  an  excess.  His  mercy  to  the  vicious 
style  of  Hervey  may  have  been  in  some 
measure  the  result  of  professional  prudence : 
but  it  musf  be  owned  that  he  does  not  seem 
enough  aware  of  the  interval  between  Gray 
and  Shenstone,  and  that  he  names  versifiers 
now  wholly  forgotten.  Had  he  and  his  asso 
ciates,  however,  erred  on  the  opposite  ex 
treme, — had  they  underrated  and  vilified 
works  of  genius,  their  fault  would  now  ap 
pear  much  more  offensive.  To  overrate 
somewhat  the  inferior  degrees  of  real  merit 
which  are  reached  by  contemporaries  is 
indeed  the  natural  disposition  of  superior 
minds,  when  they  are  neither  degraded  by 
jealousy  nor  inflamed  by  hostile  prejudice. 
The  faint  and  secondary  beauties  of  contem 
poraries  are  aided  by  novelty;  they  are 
brought  near  enough  to  the  attention  by  cu 
riosity  ;  and  they  are  compared  with  their 
competitors  of  fhe  same  time  instead  of  being 
tried  by  the  test  of  likeness  to  the  produce 
of  all  ages  and  nations.  This  goodnatured 
exaggeration  encourages  talent,  and  gives 
pleasure  to  readers  as  well  as  writers,  with 
out  any  permanent  injury  to  the  public  taste. 
The  light  which  seems  brilliant  only  because 
it  is  near  the  eye,  cannot  reach  the  distant 
observer.  Books  which  please  for  a  year, 
which  please  for  ten  years,  and  which  please 
for  ever,  gradually  take  their  destined  sta 
tions.  There  is  little  need  of  harsh  criti 
cism  to  forward  this  final  justice.  The  very 
critic  who  has  bestowed  too  prodigal  praise, 
if  he  long  survives  his  criticism,  will  survive 
also  his  harmless  error.  Robertson  never 
ceased  to  admire  Gray:  but  he  lived  long 
enough  probably  to  forget  the  name  of  Jago. 


In  the  contributions  of  Dr.  Adam  Smith 
it  is  easy  to  trace  his  general  habits  both  of 
thinking  and  writing.  Among  the  inferior 
excellencies  of  this  great  philosopher,  it  is 
not  to  be  forgotten  that  in  his  full  and  flow 
ing  composition  he  manages  the  English 
language  with  a  freer  hand  and  with  more 
native  ease  than  any  other  Scottish  writer. 
Robertson  avoids  Scotticisms:  but  Smith 
might  be  taken  for  an  English  writer  not 
peculiarly  idiomatical.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  the  early  lectures  of  Hutcheson,  an  elo 
quent  native  of  Ireland,  and  a  residence  at 
Oxford  from  the  age  of  seventeen  to  that  of 
twenty-four,  may  have  aided  Smith  in  the 
attainment  of  this  more  free  and  native  style. 
It  must  however  be  owned,  that  his  works, 
confined  to  subjects  of  science  or  specula 
tion,  do  not  afford  the  severest  test  of  a 
writer's  familiarity  with  a  language.  On 
such  subjects  it  is  comparatively  easy,  with 
out  any  appearance  of  constraint  or  parade, 
to  avoid  the  difficulties  of  idiomatical  expres 
sion  by  the  employment  of  general  and  tech 
nical  terms.  His  review  of  Johnson's  Dic 
tionary  is  chiefly  valuable  as  a  proof  that 
neither  of  these  eminent  persons  was  well 
qualified  to  write  an  English  dictionary. 
The  plan  of  Johnson  and  the  specimens  of 
Smith  are  alike  faulty.  At  that  period,  in 
deed,  neither  the  cultivation  of  our  old  litera 
ture,  nor  the  study  of  the  languages  from 
which  the  English  springs  or  to  which  it  is 
related,  nor  the  habit  of  observing  the  gene 
ral  structure  of  language,  was  so  far  advanced 
as  to  render  it  possible  for  this  great  work  to 
approach  perfection.  His  parallel  between 
French  and  English  writers*  is  equally  just 
and  ingenious,  and  betrays  very  little  of  that 
French  taste  in  polite  letters,  especially  in 
dramatic  poetry  to  which  Dr.  Smith  and 
his  friend  Mr.  Hume  were  prone.  The  ob 
servations  on  the  life  of  a  savage,  which 
when  seen  from  a  distance  appears  to  be  di 
vided  between  Arcadian  repose  and  chival 
rous  adventure,  and  by  this  union  is  the  most 
alluring  object  of  general  curiosity  and  the 
natural  scene  of  the  golden  age  both  of  the 
legendary,  and  of  the  paradoxical  sophist, 
are  an  example  of  those  original  speculations 
on  the  reciprocal  influence  of  society  and 
opinions  which  characterize  the  genius  of 
Smith.  The  commendation  of  Rousseau's 
eloquent  Dedication  to  the  Republic  of  Ge 
neva,  for  expressing  "that  ardent  and  passion 
ate  esteem  \vhieh  it  becomes  a  good  citizen  to 
entertain  for  the  government  of  his  country 
and  the  character  of  his  countrymen,"  is  an 
instance  of  the  seeming  exaggeration  of  just 
principles,  arising  from  the  employment  of 
the  language  of  moral  feeling,  as  that  of  ethi 
cal  philosophy,  which  is  very  observable  in 
the  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments. 

Though  the  contributions  of  Alexander 
Wedderburn,  afterwards  Earl  of  Rosslyri.  af 
forded  little  scope  for  the  display  of  mental 
superiority,  it  is  not  uninteresting  to  examino 


*  Letter  to  the  Editor,  at  the  end  of  the  volume, 


244 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  first  essays  in  composition  of  a  man  whose 
powers  of  reason  and  eloquence  raised  him 
to  the  highest  dignity  of  the  state.  A  Greek 
grammar  and  two  law  books  were  allotted  to 
him  as  subjects  of  criticism.  Humble  as 
these  subjects  are,  an  attentive  perusal  will 
discover  in  his  remarks  on  them  a  distinct 
ness  of  conception  and  a  terseness  as  well  as 
precision  of  language  which  are  by  no  means 
common  qualities  of  writing.  One  error  in 
the  use  of  the  future  tense  deserves  notice 
only  as  it  shows  the  difficulties  which  he 
had  to  surmount  in  acquiring  what  costs  an 
Englishman  no  study.  The  praise  bestowed 
in  his  Preface  on  Buchanan  for  an  "  un 
daunted  spirit  of  liberty,"  is  an  instance  of 
the  change  which  sixty  years  have  produced 
in  political  sentiment.  Though  that  great 
writer  was  ranked  among  the  enemies  of 
monarchy,*  the  praise  of  him,  especially  in 
Scotland,  was  a  mark  of  fidelity  to  a  govern 
ment  which,  though  monarchical,  was  found 
ed  on  the  principles  of  the  Revolution,  and 
feared  no  danger  but  from  the  partisans  of 
hereditary  right.  But  the  criticisms  and  the  in 
genious  and  judicious  Preface  show  the  early 
taste  of  a  man  who  at  the  age  of  twenty-two 
withstands  every  temptation  to  unseason 
able  display.  The  love  of  letters,  together 
with  talents  already  conspicuous,  had  in  the 
preceding  year  (1754)  placed  him  in  the 
chair  at  the  first  meeting  of  a  literary  society 
of  which  Hume  and  Smith  were  members. 
The  same  dignified  sentiment  attended  him 
through  a  long  life  of  activity  and  ambition, 
and  shed  a  lustre  over  his  declining  years.  It 
was  respectably  manifested  by  fidelity  to  the 
literary  friends  of  his  youth,  and  it  gave  him 
a  disposition,  perhaps  somewhat  excessive, 
to  applaud  every  shadow  of  the  like  merit  in 
others. 

The  other  writers  are  only  to  be  regarded 
as  respectable  auxiliaries  in  such  an  under 
taking.  Dr.  Blair  is  an  useful  example,  that 
a  station  among  good  writers  may  be  attained 
by  assiduity  and  good  sense,  with  the  help 
of  an  uncorrupted  taste ;  while  for  the  want 
of  these  qualities,  it  is  often  not  reached  by 
others  whose  powers  of  mind  may  be  allied 
to  genius. 

The  delicate  task  of  reviewing  the  theolo 
gical  publications  of  Scotland  was  allotted  to 
Mr.  Jardine,  one  of  the  ministers  of  Edin 
burgh,  whose  performance  of  that  duty 
would  have  required  no  particular  notice,  had 
it  not  contributed  with  other  circumstances 
to  bring  the  work  to  its  sudden  and  unex 
pected  close.  At  the  very  moment  when 
Mr.  Wedderburn  (in  his  note  at  the  end  of 
the  second  number)  had  announced  an  in 
tention  to  enlarge  the  plan,  he  and  his  col 
leagues  were  obliged  to  relinquish  the  work. 

The  temper  of  the  people  of  Scotland  was 
at  that  moment  peculiarly  jealous  on  every 
question  that  approached  the  boundaries  of 
theology.  A  popular  election  of  the  paro- 

*  He  is  usually  placed  with  Languet  and  Althu- 
pen  among  the  Monarchomists. 


chial  clergy  had  been  restored  with  Presby 
tery  by  the  Revolution.  The  rights  of  Pa 
trons  had  been  reimposed  on  the  Scottish 
Church  in  the.  last  years  of  Queen  Anne, 
by  Ministers  who  desired,  if  they  did  not 
meditate,  the  re-establishment  of  Episco 
pacy.  But  for  thirty  years  afterwards  this 
unpopular  right  was  either  disused  by  the 
Patrons  or  successfully  resisted  by  the  people. 
The  zealous  Presbyterians  still  retained  the 
doctrine  and  spirit  of  the  Covenanters;  and 
their  favourite  preachers,  bred  up  amidst  the 
furious  persecutions  of  Charles  the  Second, 
had  rather  learnt  piety  and  fortitude  than  ac 
quired  that  useful  and  ornamental  learning 
which  becomes  their  order  in  times  of  quiet. 
Some  of  them  had  separated  from  the  Church 
on  account  of  lay  Patronage,  among  other 
marks  of  degeneracy.  But  besides  these 
Seceders,  the  majority  of  the  Established 
clergy  were  adverse  to  the  law  of  Patronage, 
and  disposed  to  connive  at  resistance  to  its 
execution.  On  the  other  hand,  the  more 
lettered  and  refined  ministers  of  the  Churctu 
who  had  secretly  relinquished  many  parts  01 
the  Calvinistic  system, — from  the  unpopu 
larity  of  their  own  opinions  arid  modes  of 
preaching,  from  their  connection  with  the 
gentry  who  held  the  rights  of  Patronage, 
and  from  repugnance  to  the  vulgar  and  illite 
rate  ministers  whom  turbulent  elections  had 
brought  into  the  Church, — became  hostile  to 
the  interference  of  the  people,  and  zealously 
laboured  to  enforce  the  execution  of  a  law 
which  had  hitherto  remained  almost  dormant. 
The  Orthodox  party  maintained  the  rights  of 
the  people  against  a  regulation  imposed  on 
them  by  their  enemies;  and  the  party  which 
in  matters  of  religion  claimed  the  distinction 
of  liberality  and  toleration,  contended  for  the 
absolute  authority  of  the  civil  magistrate  to 
the  destruction  of  a  right  which  more  than 
any  other  interested  the  conscience  of  the 
people  of  Scotland.  At  the  head  of  this  last 
party  was  Dr.  Robertson,  one  of  the  contribu 
tors  to  the  present  volume,  who  about  the 
time  of  its  appearance  was  on  the  eve  of 
effecting  a  revolution  in  the  practice  of  the 
Church,  by  at  length  compelling  the  stubborn 
Presbyterians  to  submit  to  the  authority  of  a 
law  which  they  abhorred. 

Another  circumstance  rendered  the  time 
very  perilous  for  Scotch  reviewers  of  eccle 
siastical  publications.  The  writings  of  Mr. 
Hume,  the  intimate  friend  of  the  leader  of 
the  tolerant  clergy,  very  naturally  excited 
the  alarm  of  the  Orthodox  party,  who,  like 
their  predecessors  of  the  preceding  age,  were 
zealous  for  the  rights  of  the  people,  but  con 
fined  their  charity  within  the  pale  of  their 
own  communion,  and  were  much  disposed 
to  regard  the  impunity  of  heretics  and  infidels 
as  a  reproach  to  a  Christian  magistrate.  In 
the  year  1754  a  complaint  to  the  General 
Assembly  against  the  philosophical  writings 
of  Mr.  Hume  and  Lord  Kames  was  with  dif 
ficulty  eluded  by  the  friends  of  free  discus 
sion.  The  writers  of  the  Review  were  aware 
of  the  danger  to  which  they  were  exposed  by 


ON  THE  WRITINGS  OF  MACHIAVEL. 


245 


these  circumstances.  They  kept  the  secret 
of  their  Review  from  Mr.  Hume,  the  most 
intimate  friend  of  some  of  them.  They  for 
bore  to  notice  in  it  his  History  of  the  Stuarts, 
of  which  the  first  volume  appeared  at  Edin 
burgh  two  months  before  the  publication  of 
the  Review  ]  though  it  is  little  to  say  that  it 
was  the  most  remarkable  work  which  ever 
issued  from  the  Scottish  press. 

They  trusted  that  the  moderation  and  well- 
known  piety  of  Mr.  Jardine  would  conduct 
them  safely  through  the  suspicion  and  jeal 
ousy  of  jarring  parties.  Nor  does  it  in  fact  ap 
pear  that  any  part  of  his  criticisms  is  at  va 
riance  with  that  enlightened  reverence  for 
religion  which  he  was  known  to  feel :  but  he 
wras  somewhat  influenced  by  the  ecclesiasti 
cal  party  to  which  he  adhered.  He  seems  to 
have  thought  that  he  might  securely  assail  the 
opponents  of  Patronage  through  the  sides  of 
Erskine,  Boston,  and  other  popular  preachers, 
who  were  either  Seceders,  or  divines  of  the 
same  school.  He  even  ventured  to  use  the 
weapon  of  ridicule  against  their  extravagant 
metaphors,  their  wire-drawn  allegories,  their 
mean  allusions,  and  to  laugh  at  those  who 
complained  of  "  the  connivance  at  Popery, 
the  toleration  of  Prelacy,  the  pretended  rights 
of  Lay  Patrons, — of  heretical  professors  in  the 
universities,  and  a  lax  clergy  in  possession 
of  the  churches."  as  the  crying  evils  of  the 
time. 

This  species  of  attack,  at  a  moment  when 
the  religious  feelings  of  the  public  were  thus 
susceptible,  appears  to  have  excited  general 
alarm.  The  Orthodox  might  blame  the  writ 
ings  criticised  without  approving  the  tone 
assumed  by  the  critic :  the  multitude  were 
exasperated  by  the  scorn  with  which  their 
favourite  writers  were  treated :  and  many 
who  altogether  disapproved  these  writings 
might  consider  ridicule  as  a  weapon  of 
doubtful  propriety  against  language  habitu 


ally  employed  to  convey  the  religious  and 
moral  feelings  of  a  nation.  In  these  circum 
stances  the  authors  of  the  Review  did  not 
think  themselves  bourtd  to  hazard  their  quiet, 
reputation,  and  interest,  by  perseverance  in 
their  attempt  to  improve  the  taste  of  their 
countrymen. 

It  will  not  be  supposed  that  the  remarks 
made  above  on  the  ecclesiastical  parties  in 
'  Scotland  sixty  years  ago  can  have  any  refer- 
I  ence  to  their  political  character  at  the  present 
|  day.     The  principles  of  toleration  now  seem 
j  to  prevail  among  the  Scottish  clergy  more 
than  among  any  other  established  church  in 
Europe.     A  public  act  of  the  General  As- 
|  sembly  may  be  considered  as  a  renunciation 
!  of  that  hostility  to  the  full  toleration  of  Catho 
lics  which  was  for  a  long  time  the  disgrace 
I  of  the  most  liberal  Protestants.     The  party 
called  'Orthodox'  are  purified  from  the  in 
tolerance   which  unhappily  reigned  among 
their   predecessors,    and   have    in    general 
I  adopted  those  principles  of  religious  liberty 
which  the  sincerely  pious,  when  consistent 
J  with  themselves,  must   be  the  foremost  to 
maintain.     Some  of  them  also,  even  in  these 
!  times,  espouse   those  generous  and  sacred 
principles  of  civil  liberty  which  distinguished 
the  old  Puritans,  and  which  in  spite  of  their 
faults  entitle  them  to  be  ranked  among  the 
first  benefactors  of  their  country.* 


*  "  The  precious  spark  of  liberty  had  been  kin 
dled  and  was  preserved  by  the  Puritans  alone  : 
and  it  was  to  this  sect,  whose  principles  appear  so 
frivolous  and  habits  so  ridiculous,  that  the  English 
owe  the  whole  freedom  of  their  constitution." — 
Hume,  History  of  England,  chap.  xl.  This  testi 
mony  to  the  merits  of  the  Puritans,  from  the 
mouth  of  their  enemy,  must  be  owned  to  be 
founded  in  exaggeration.  But  if  we  allow  them 
to  have  materially  contributed  to  the  preservation 
of  English  liberty,  we  must  acknowledge  that  the 
world  owes  more  to  the  ancient  Puritans  than  to 
any  other  sect  or  party  among  men. 


ON    THE 


WETTINGS  OF  MACHIAVEL. 


LITERATURE,  which  lies  much  nearer  to 
the  feelings  of  mankind  than  science,  has 
the  most  important  effect  on  the  sentiments 
with  which  the  sciences  are  regarded,  the 
activity  with  which  they  are  pursued,  and 
the  mode  in  which  they  are  cultivated.  It 
is  the  instrument,  in  particular,  by  which 
ethical  science  is  generally  diffused.  As  the 
useful  arts  maintain  the  general  honour  of 
physical  knowledge,  so  polite  letters  allure 

*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxvii.  p. 
207.-ED. 


the  world  into  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
sciences  of  morals  and  of  mind.  Wherever 
the  agreeable  vehicle  of  literature  does  not 
convey  their  doctrines  to  the  public,  they  re 
main  as  the  occupation  of  a  few  recluses  in 
the  schools,  with  no  root  in  the  general  feel 
ings,  and  liable  to  be  destroyed  by  the  dis 
persion  of  a  handful  of  doctors,  and  the 
destruction  of  their  unlamented  seminaries. 
Nor  is  this  all : — polite  literature  is  not  only 
the  true  guardian  of  the  moral  sciences,  and 
the  sole  instrument  of  spreading  their  bene 
fits  among  men,  but  it  becomes,  from  these 
v  2 


246 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


very  circumstances,  the  regulator  of  their 
cultivation  and  their  progress.  As  long  as 
they  are  confined  to  a  small  number  of  men 
in  scholastic  retirement,  there  is  no  restraint 
upon  their  natural  proneness  to  degenerate 
either  into  verbal  subtilties  or  shadowy 
dreams.  As  long  as  speculation  remained 
in  the  schools,  all  its  followers  were  divided 
into  mere  dialecticians,  or  mystical  visiona 
ries,  both  alike  unmindful  of  the  real  world, 
and  disregarded  by  its  inhabitants.  The  re 
vival  of  literature  produced  a  revolution  at 
once  in  the  state  of  society,  arid  in  the  mode 
of  philosophizing.  It  attracted  readers  from 
the  common  ranks  of  society,  who  were 
gradually  led  on  from  eloquence  and  poetry, 
to  morals  and  philosophy.  Philosophers  and 
moralists,  after  an  interval  of  almost  a  thou 
sand  years,  during  which  they  had  spoken 
only  to  each  other,  once  more  discovered 
that  they  might  address  the  great  body  of 
mankind,  with  the  hope  of  fame  and  of  use 
fulness.  Intercourse  with  this  great  public, 
supplied  new  materials,  and  imposed  new 
restraints:  the  feelings,  the  common  sense, 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  men,  presented  them 
selves  again  to  the  moralist ;  and  philosophers 
were  compelled  to  speak  in  terms  .intelligible 
and  agreeable  to  their  new  hearers.  Before 
this  period,  little  prose  had  been  written  in 
any  modern  language,  except  chronicles  or 
romances.  Boccacio  had  indeed  acquired  a 
classical  rank,  by  compositions  of  the  latter 
kind ;  and  historical  genius  had  risen  in  Frois- 
sart  and  Comines  to  a  height  which  has  not 
been  equalled  among  the  same  nation  in 
times  of  greater  refinement.  But  Latin  was 
still  the  language  in  which  all  subjects  then 
deemed  of  higher  dignity,  and  which  occu 
pied  the  life  of  the  learned  by  profession, 
were  treated.  This  system  continued  till 
the  Reformation,  which,  by  the  employment 
of  the  living  languages  in  public  worship, 
gave  them  a  dignity  unknown  before,  and, 
by  the  versions  of  the  Bible,  and  the  practice 
of  preaching  and  writing  on  theology  and 
morals  in  the  common  tongues,  did  more 
for  polishing  modern  literature,  for  diffusing 
knowledge,  and  for  improving  morality,  than 
all  the  other  events  and  discoveries  of  that 
active  age. 

Machiavel  is  the  first  still  celebrated  writer 
who  discussed  grave  questions  in  a  modern 
language.  This  peculiarity  is  the  more  wor 
thy  of  notice,  because  he  was  not  excited  by 
the  powerful  stimulant  of  the  Reformation. 
That  event  was  probably  regarded  by  him 
as  a  disturbance  in  a  barbarous  country,  pro 
duced  by  the  novelties  of  a  vulgar  monk, 
unworthy  of  the  notice  of  a  man  wholly  oc 
cupied  with  the  affairs  of  Florence,  and  the 
hope  of  expelling  strangers  from  Italy ;  and 
having  reached,  at  the  appearance  of  Luther, 
the  last  unhappy  period  of  his  agitated  life. 

The  Prince  is  an  account  of  the  means  by 
which  tyrannical  power  is  to  be  acquired  and 
preserved :  it  is  a  theory  of  that  class  of 
phenomena  in  the  history  of  mankind.  It  is 
essential  to  its  purpose,  therefore,  that  it 


should  contain  an  enumeration  and  exposi 
tion  of  tyrannical  arts ;  and,  on  that  account, 
it  may  be  viewed  and  used  as  a  manual  of 
such  arts.  A  philosophical  treatise  on  poi 
sons,  would  in  like  manner  determine  the 
quantity  of  each  poisonous  substance  capable 
of  producing  death,  the  circumstances  favour 
able  or  adverse  to  its  operation,  and  every 
other  information  essential  to  the  purpose  of 
the  poisoner,  though  not  intended  for  his  use. 
But  it  is  also  plain,  that  the  calm  statement 
of  tyrannical  arts  is  the  bitterest  of  all  satires 
against  them.  The  Prince  must  therefore 
have  had  this  double  aspect,  though  neither 
of  the  objects  which  they  seem  to  indicate 
had  been  actually  in  the  contemplation  of 
the  author.  It  may  not  be  the  object  of  the 
chemist  to  teach  the  means  of  exhibiting  an 
tidotes,  any  more  than  those  of  administer 
ing  poisons ;  but  his  readers  may  employ  his 
discoveries  for  both  objects.  Aristotle*  had 
long  before  given  a  similar  theory  of  tyranny, 
without  the  suspicion  of  an  immoral  inten 
tion.  Nor  was  it  any  novelty  in  more  recent 
times,  among  those  who  must  have  been  the 
first  teachers  of  Machiavel.  The  School 
men  followed  the  footsteps  of  Aristotle  too 
closely,  to  omit  so  striking  a  passage ;  and 
Aquinas  explains  it,  in  his  commentary,  like 
the  rest,  in  the  unsuspecting  simplicity  of  his 
heart.  To  us  accordingly,  we  confess,  the 
plan  of  Machiavel  seems,  like  those  of  for 
mer  writers,  to  have  been  purely  scientific ; 
and  so  Lord  Bacon  seems  to  have  understood 
him,  where  he  thanks  him  for  an  exposition 
of  immoral  policy.  In  that  singular  passage, 
where  the  latter  lays  down  the  theory  of  the 
advancement  of  fortune  (which,  when  com 
pared  with  his  life,  so  well  illustrates  the 
fitness  of  his  understanding,  and  the  unfitness 
of  his  character  for  the  affairs  of  the  world), 
he  justifies  his  application  of  learning  to  such 
a  subject,  on  a  principle  which  extends  to 
The  Prince : — "  that  there  be  not  any  thing 
in  being  or  action  which  should  not  be  drawn 
and  collected  into  contemplation  and  doc 
trine." 

Great  defects  of  character,  we  readily  ad 
mit,  are  manifested  by  the  writings  of  Ma 
chiavel  :  but  if  a  man  of  so  powerful  a  genius 
had  shown  a  nature  utterly  depraved,  it  would 
have  been  a  painful,  and  perhaps  single,  ex 
ception  to  the  laws  of  human  nature.  And 
no  depravity  can  be  conceived  greater  than 
a  deliberate  intention  to  teach  perfidy  and 
cruelty.  That  a  man  who  was  a  warm  lover 
of  his  country,  who  bore  cruel  sufferings  for 
her  liberty,  and  who  was  beloved  by  the  best 
of  his  countrymen,!  should  fall  into  such  un 
paralleled  wickedness,  may  be  considered 

*  Politics,  lib.  v.  c.  iii. 

t  Among  other  proofs  of  the  esteem  in  which 
he  was  held  by  those  who  knew  his  character,  we 
may  refer  to  the  affectionate  letters  of  Guicciar- 
dini,  who,  however  independent  his  own  opinions 
were,  became,  by  his  employment  under  the  Popes 
of  the  House  of  Medici,  the  supporter  of  their 
authority,  and  consequently  a  political  opponent 
of  Machiavel,  the  most  zealous  of  the  Republi< 


ON  THE  WRITINGS  OF  MACHIAVEL. 


247 


as  wholly  incredible.  No  such  depravity  is 
consistent  with  the  composition  of  the  History 
of  Florence.  It  is  only  by  exciting  moral 
sentiment,  that  the  narrative  of  human  ac 
tions  can  be  rendered  interesting.  Divested 
of  morality,  they  lose  their  whole  dignity, 
and  all  their  power  over  feeling.  History 
would  be  thrown  aside  as  disgusting,  if  it  did 
not  inspire  the  reader  with  pity  for  the  suf 
ferer, — with  anger  against  the  oppressor, — 
with  anxiety  for  the  triumph  of  right  ; — to 
say  nothing  of  the  admiration  for  genius,  and 
valour,  and  energy,  which,  though  it  disturbs 
the  justice  of  our  historical  judgments,  par 
takes  also  of  a  moral  nature.  The  author  of 
The  Prince,  according  to  the  common  notion 
of  its  intention,  could  never  have  inspired 
these  sentiments,  of  which  he  must  have 
utterly  emptied  his  own  heart.  To  pos 
sess  the  power,  however,  of  contemplating 
tyranny  with  scientific  coldness,  and  of  ren 
dering  it  the  mere  subject  of  theory,  must 
be  owned  to  indicate  a  defect  of  moral  sen 
sibility.  The  happier  nature,  or  fortune,  of 
Aristotle,  prompted  him  to  manifest  distinct 
ly  his  detestation  of  the  flagitious  policy  which 
he  reduced  to  its  principles. 

As  another  subject  of  regret,  not  as  an 
excuse  for  Machiavel,  a  distant  approach  to 
the  same  defect  may  be  observed  in  Lord 
Bacon's  History  of  Henry  the  Seventh;  where 
we  certainly  find  too  little  reprehension  of 
falsehood  and  extortion,  too  cool  a  display  of 
the  expedients  of  cunning,  sometimes  digni 
fied  by  the  name  of  wisdom,  and  through 
out,  perhaps,  too  systematic  a  character  given 
to  the  measures  of  that  monarch,  in  order  to 
exemplify,  in  him,  a  perfect  model  of  king 
craft;  pursuing  safety  and  power  by  any 
means, — acting  well  in  quiet  times,  because 
it  was  most  expedient,  but  never  restrained 
from  convenient  crimes.  This  History  would 
have  been  as  delightful  as  it  is  admirable,  if 
he  had  felt  the  difference  between  \visdom 
and  cunning  as  warmly  in  that  work,  as  he 
has  discerned  it  clearly  in  his  philosophy. 

Many  historical  speculators  have  indeed 
incurred  some  part  of  this  fault.  Enamoured 
of  their  own  solution  of  the  seeming  contra 
dictions  of  a  character,  they  become  indul 
gent  to  the  character  itself;  and,  when  they 
have  explained  its  vices,  are  disposed,  un 
consciously,  to  write  as  if  they  had  excused 
them.  A  writer  who  has  made  a  successful 
exertion  to  render  an  intricate  character  in 
telligible,  who  has  brought  his  mind  to  so 
singular  an  attempt  as  a  theory  of  villany, 
and  has  silenced  his  repugnance  and  indig 
nation  sufficiently  for  the  purposes  of  rational 
examination,  naturally  exults  in  his  victory 
over  so  many  difficulties,  delights  in  contem 
plating  the  creations  of  his  own  ingenuity, 
and  the  order  which  he  seems  to  have  intro 
duced  into  the  chaos  of  malignant  passions, 
and  may  at  length  view  his  work  with  that 
complacency  which  diffuses  clearness  and 
calmness  over  the  language  in  which  he 
communicates  his  imagined  discoveries. 

It  should  also  be  remembered,  that  Ma 


chiavel  lived  in  an  age  when  the  events  of 
every  day  must  have  blunted  his  moral  feel 
ings,  and  wearied  out  his  indignation.  In  so 
far  as  we  acquit  the  intention  of  the  writer, 
his  work  becomes  a  weightier  evidence  of 
the  depravity  which  surrounded  him.  In  this 
state  of  things,  after  the  final  disappointment 
of  all  his  hopes,  when  Florence  was  subjected 
to  tyrants,  and  Italy  lay  under  the  yoke  of 
foreigners, — having  undergone  torture  for  the 
freedom  .of  his  country,  and  doomed  to  beg 
gary  in  his  old  age.  after  a  life  of  public  ser 
vice,  it  is  not  absolutely  unnatural  that  he 
should  have  resolved  to  compose  a  theory  of 
the  tyranny  under  which  he  had  fallen,  and 
that  he  should  have  manifested  his  indigna 
tion  against  the  cowardly  slaves  who  had 
yielded  to  it,  by  a  stern  and  cold  description 
of  its  maxims. 

His  last  chapter,  in  which  he  seems  once 
more  to  breathe  a  free  air,  has  a  character 
totally  different  from  all  the  preceding  ones. 
His  exhortation  to  the  Medici  to  deliver  Italy 
from  foreigners,  again  speaks  out  his  ancient 
feelings.  Perhaps  he  might  have  thought  it 
possible  to  pardon  any  means  employed  by 
an  Italian  usurper  to  expel  the  foreign  mas 
ters  of  his  country.  This  ray  of  hope  might 
have  supported  him  in  delineating  the  means 
of  usurpation ;  by  doing  which  he  might  have 
had  some  faint  expectation  that  he  could  en 
tice  the  usurper  to  become  a  deliverer. — 
Knowing  that  the  native  governments  were 
too  base  to  defend  Italy,  and  that  all  others 
were  leagued  to  enslave  her.  he  might,  in  his 
despair  of  all  legitimate  rulers,  have  hoped 
something  for  independence,  and  perhaps  at 
last  even  for  liberty,  from  the  energy  and 
genius  of  an  illustrious  tyrant. 

From  Petrarch,  with  some  of  whose  pa- 
theUic  verses  Machiavel  concludes,  to  Alfieri, 
the  national  feeling  of  Italy  seems  to  have 
taken  refuge  in  the  minds  of  her  writers. 
They  write  more  tenderly  of  their  country 
as  it  is  more  basely  abandoned  by  their  coun 
trymen.  Nowhere  has  so  much  been  well 
said,  or  so  little  nobly  done.  While  we  blame 
the  character  of  the  nation,  or  lament  the 
fortune  which  in  some  measure  produced  it, 
we  must,  in  equity,  excuse  some  irregulari 
ties  in  the  indignation  of  men  of  genius,  when 
they  see  the  ingenious  inhabitants  of  their 
beautiful  and  renowned  country  now  appa 
rently  for  ever  robbed  of  that  independence 
which  is  enjoyed  by  obscure  and  barbarous 
communities. 

The  dispute  about  the  intention  of  The 
Prince  has  thrown  into  the  shade  the  merit 
of  the  Discourses  on  Livy.  The  praise  be- 
stowed  on  them  by  Mr.  Stewart*  is  scanty: 
that  "they  furnish  lights  to  the  school  of 
Montesquieu"  is  surely  inadequate  com 
mendation.  They  are  the  first  attempts  in  a 
new  science — the  philosophy  of  history;  and, 
as  such,  they  form  a  brilliant  point  in  the  pro 
gress  of  reason.  For  this  Lord  Bacon  com- 


*  In  the  Dissertation  prefixed  to  the  EncycJo 
paedia  Britannica. — ED. 


248 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


mends  him  : — "  the  form  of  writing  which  is 
the  fittest  for  this  variable  argument  of  ne 
gotiation,  is  that  which  Machiavel  chose 
wisely  and  aptly  for  government,  namely, 
discourse  upon  histories  or  examples:  for, 
knowledge  drawn  freshly,  and  in  our  view, 
out  of  particulars,  findeth  its  way  best  to 
particulars  again  ;  and  it  hath  much  greater 
life  on  practice  when  the  discourse  attendeth 
upon  the  example,  than  when  the  example 
attendeth  upon  the  discourse."  It  is  ob 
servable,  that  the  Florentine  Secretary  is  the 
only  modern  writer  who  is  named  in  that 
part  of  the  Advancement  of  Learning  which 
relates  to  civil  knowledge.  The  apology  of 
Albericus  Gentilis  for  the  morality  of  The 
Prince,  has  been  often  quoted,  and  is  cer 
tainly  weighty  as  a  testimony,  when  we  con 
sider  that  the  writer  was  born  within  twenty 
years  of  the  death  of  Machiavel,  and  edu 
cated  at  no  great  distance  from  Florence.  It 
is  somewhat  singular,  that  the  context  of  this 
passage  should  never  have  been  quoted: — 
"  To  the  knowledge  of  history  must  be  added 
that  part  of  philosophy  which  treats  of  mo 
rals  and  politics;  for  this  is  the  soul  of  his 
tory,  which  explains  the  causes  of  the  ac 
tions  and  sayings  of  men,  and  of  the  events 
which  befall  them:  and  on  this  subject  I 
am  not  afraid  to  name  Nicholas  Machiavel, 
as  the  most  excellent  of  all  writers,  in  his 
golden  Observations  on  Livy.  He  is  the 
writer  whom  I  now  seek,  because  he  reads 
history  not  with  the  eyes  of  a  grammarian, 
but  with  those  of  a  philosopher/''* 

It  is  a  just  and  refined  observation  of  Mr. 
Hume,  that  the  mere  theory  of  Machiavel 
(to  waive  the  more  important  consideration 
of  morality)  was  perverted  by  the  atrocities 
which,  among  the  Italians,  then  passed  un 
der  the  name  of  'policy.'  The  number  of 
men  who  took  a  part  in  political  measures  in 
the  republican  governments  of  Italy,  spread 
the  taint  of  this  pretended  policy  farther,  and 
made  it  a  more  national  quality  than  in  the 
Transalpine  monarchies.  But  neither  the 
civil  wars  of  France  and  England,  nor  the 
administrations  of  Henry  the  Seventh,  Ferdi 
nand  and  Louis  the  Eleventh  (to  say  nothing 
of  the  succeeding  religious  wars),  will  allow 
us  to  consider  it  as  peculiarly  Italian.  It 
arose  from  the  circumstances  of  Europe  in 
those  times.  In  every  age  in  which  contests 
are  long  maintained  by  chiefs  too  strong,  or 
bodies  of  men  too  numerous  for  the  ordinary 
control  of  law,  for  power,  or  privileges,  or 
possessions,  or  opinions  to  which  they  are 
ardently  attached,  the  passions  excited  by 
such  interests,  heated  by  sympathy,  and  in 
flamed  to  madness  by  resistance,  soon  throw 
off  moral  restraint  in  the  treatment  of  ene 
mies.  Retaliation,  which  deters  individuals, 
provokes  multitudes  to  new  cruelty  :  and  the 
atrocities  which  originated  in  the  rage  of  arn- 
bitiori  and  fanaticism,  are  at  length  thought 
necessary  for  safety.  Each  party  adopts  the 
cruelties  of  the  enemy,  as  we  now  adopt  a 

*  De  Legal,  lib.  iii.  c.  ix. 


1  new  discovery  in  the  art  of  war.  The  craft 
and  violence  thought  necessary  for  existence 
are  admitted  into  the  established  policy  of 
such  deplorable  times. 

But  though  this  be  the  tendency  of  such 
circumstances  in  all  times,  it  must  be  owned 
that  these  evils  prevail  among  different  na 
tions,  and  in  different  ages,  in  a  very  unequal 
degree.  Some  part  of  these  differences  may 
depend  on  national  peculiarities,  which  can 
not  be  satisfactorily  explained  :  but,  in  the 
greater  part  of  them,  experience  is  striking 
and  uniform.  Civil  wars  are  comparatively 
regular  and  humane,  under  circumstances 
that  may  be  pretty  exactly  defined  ; — among 
nations  long  accustomed  to  popular  govern 
ment,  to  free  speakers  and  to  free  writers; 
familiar  with  all  the  boldness  and  turbulence 
of  numerous  assemblies;  not  afraid  of  ex 
amining  any  matter  human  or  divine;  where 
great  numbers  take  an  interest  in  the  con 
duct  of  their  superiors  of  every  sort,  watch 
it,  and  often  censure  it;  where  there  is  a 
public,  and  where  that  public  boldly  utters 
decisive  opinions;  where  no  impassable  lines 
of  demarcation  destine  the  lower  classes  to 
eternal  servitude,  and  the  higher  to  envy 
and  hatred  and  deep  curses  from  their  infe 
riors;  where  the  administration  of  law  is  so 
purified  by  the  participation  and  eye  of  the 
public,  as  to  become  a  grand  school  of  hu 
manity  and  justice ;  and  where,  as  the  con 
sequence  of  all,  there  is  a  general  diffusion 
of  the  comforts  of  life,  a  general  cultivation 
of  reason,  and  a  widely  diffused  feeling  of 
equality  and  moral  pride.  The  species  seems 
to  become  gentler  as  all  galling  curbs  are 
gradually  disused.  Quiet,  or  at  least  com 
parative  order,  is  promoted  by  the  absence 
of  all  the  expedients  once  thought  essential 
to  preserve  tranquillity.  Compare  Asia  with 
Europe; — the  extremes  are  there  seen.  But 
if  all  the  immediate  degrees  be  examined, 
it  will  be  found  that  civil  wars  are  milder, 
in  proportion  to  the  progress  of  the  body  of 
the  people  in  importance  and  well-being. 
Compare  the  civil  wars  of  the  two  Roses 
with  those  under  Charles  the  First :  compare 
these,  again,  with  the  humanity  and  wisdom 
of  the  Revolution  of  sixteen  hundred  and 
eighty-eight.  Examine  the  civil  war  which 
led  to  the  American  Revolution :  we  there 
see  anarchy  without  confusion,  and  govern 
ments  abolished  and  established  without 
spilling  a  drop  of  blood.  Even  the  progress 
of  civilization,  when  unattended  by  the  bless 
ings  of  civil  liberty,  produces  many  of  the 
same  effects.  When  Mr.  Hume  wrote  the 
excellent  observations  quoted  by  Mr.  Stew 
art,  Europe  had  for  more  than  a  century 
been  exempt  from  those  general  convulsions 
which  try  the  moral  character  of  nations, 
and  ascertain  their  progress  towards  a  more 
civilized  state  of  mind.  We  have  since 
been  visited  by  one  of  the  most  tremendous 
of  these  tempests;  and  our  minds  are  yet 
filled  with  the  dreadful  calamities,  and  the 
ambiguous  and  precarious  benefits,  which 
have  sprung  from  it.  The  contemporaries 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LIVES  OF  MITON'S  NEPHEWS. 


249 


of  such  terrific  scenes  are  seldom  in  a  tem 
per  to  contemplate  them  calmly :  and  yet, 
though  the  events  of  this  age  have  disap 
pointed  the  expectations  of  sanguine  bene 
volence  concerning  the  state  of  civilization 
in  Europe,  a  dispassionate  posterity  will  pro 
bably  decide  that  it  has  stood  the  test  of 
general  commotions,  and  proved  its  progress 
by  their  comparative  mildness.  One  period 
of  frenzy  has  been,  indeed,  horribly  distin 
guished,  perhaps  beyond  any  equal  time  in 
history,  by  popular  massacres  and  judicial 
murders,  among  a  people  peculiarly  sus 
ceptible  of  a  momentary  fanaticism.  This 
has  been  followed  by  a  -war  in  which  one 
party  contended  for  universal  dominion,  and 
all  the  rest  of  Europe  struggled  for  exist 
ence.  But  how  soon  did  the  ancient  laws 
of  war  between  European  adversaries  re 


sume  the  ascendant,  which  had  indeed  been 
suspended  more  in  form  than  in  fact !  How 
slight  are  the  traces  which  the  atrocities  of 
faction  and  the  manners  of  twenty  years' 
invasion  and  conquest  have  left  on  the  senti 
ments  of  Europe!  On  a  review  of  the  dis 
turbed  period  of  the  French  Revolution,  the 
|  mind  is  struck  by  the  disappearance  of 
classes  of  crimes  which  have  often  attended 
such  convulsions; — no  charge  of  poison ;  few 
assassinations,  properly  so  called ;  no  case 
hitherto  authenticated  of  secret  execution  ! 
If  any  crimes  of  this  nature  can  be  proved, 
the  truth  of  history  requires  that  the  proof 
should  be  produced.  But  those  who  assert 
them  without  proof  must  be  considered  as 
calumniating  their  age,  and  bringing  into 
question  the  humanizing  effects  of  order 
and  good  government. 


REVIEW  OF  MR.  GODWIN'S  LIVES 


OF 


EDWARD  AND  JOHN  PHILIPS,  &c.  &c/ 


THE  public  would  have  perhaps  welcomed 
Mr.  Godwin's  reappearance  as  an  author, 
most  heartily,  if  he  had  chosen  the  part  of  a 
novelist.  In  that  character  his  name  is  high, 
and  his  eminence  undisputed.  The  time  is 
long  past  since  this  would  have  been  thought 
a  slight,  or  even  secondary  praise.  No  ad 
dition  of  more  unquestionable  value  has 
been  made  by  the  moderns,  to  the  treasures 
of  literature  inherited  from  antiquity,  than 
those  fictions  which  paint  the  manners  and 
character  of  the  body  of  mankind,  and  affect 
the  reader  by  the  relation  of  misfortunes 
which  may  befall  himself.  The  English 
nation  would  have  more  to  lose  than  any 
other,  by  undervaluing  this  species  of  compo 
sition.  Richardson  has  perhaps  lost,  though 
unjustly,  a  part  of  his  popularity  at  home; 
but  he  still  contributes  to  support  the  fame 
of  his  country  abroad.  The  small  blemishes 
of  his  diction  are  lost  in  translation ;  and  the 
changes  of  English  manners,  and  the  occa 
sional  homeliness  of  some  of  his  represen 
tations,  are  unfelt  by  foreigners.  Fielding 
will  for  ever  remain  the  delight  of  his  coun 
try,  and  will  always  retain  his  place  in  the 
libraries  of  Europe,  notwithstanding  the  un 
fortunate  grossness, — the  mark  of  an  un 
cultivated  taste, — which  if  not  yet  entirely 
excluded  from  conversation,  has  been  for 


*  From  the  Edinb.  Rev.  vol.  xxv.  p.  485.— ED. 
32 


some  time  banished  from  our  writings,  where, 
during  the  best  age  of  our  national  genius, 
it  prevailed  more  than  in  those  of  any  other 
polished  nation.  It  is  impossible  in  a  Scot 
tish  journal,  to  omit  Smollett,  even  if  there 
had  not  been  much  better  reasons  for  the 
mention  of  his  name,  than  for  the  sake  of 
observing,  that  he  and  Arbuthnot  are  suffi 
cient  to  rescue  Scotland  from  the  imputation 
of  wanting  talent  for  pleasantry :  though,  it 
must  be  owned,  we  are  grave  people,  hap 
pily  educated  under  an  austere  system  of 
morals ;  possessing,  perhaps,  some  humour, 
in  our  peculiar  dialect,  but  fearful  of  taking 
the  liberty  of  jesting  in  a  foreign  language 
like  the  English  ;  prone  to  abstruse  specula 
tion,  to  vehement  dispute,  to  eagerness  in 
the  pursuit  of  business  and  ambition,  and  to 
all  those  intent  occupations  of  mind  which 
rather  indispose  it  to  unbend  in  easy  play 
fulness. 

Since  the  beautiful  tales  of  Goldsmith  and 
Mackenzie,  the  composition  of  novels  has 
been  almost  left  to  women;  and,  in  the  dis 
tribution  of  literary  labour,  nothing  seems 
more  natural,  than  that,  as  soon  as  the  talents 
of  women  are  sufficiently  cultivated,  this 
task  should  be  assigned  to  the  sex  which 
has  most  leisure  for  the  delicate  observa 
tion  of  manners,  and  whose  importance  de 
pends  on  the  sentiments  which  most  usually 
checker  common  life  with  poetical  incidents. 


250 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


They  have  performed  their  part  with  such 
signal  success,  that  the  literary  works  of 
women,  instead  of  receiving  the  humiliating 
praise  of  being  gazed  at  as  wonders  and  pro 
digies,  have,  for  the  first  lime,  composed  a 
considerable  part  of  the  reputation  of  an 
ingenious  nation  in  a  lettered  age.  It  ought 
to  be  added,  that  their  delicacy,  co-operating 
with  the  progress  of  refinement,  has  contri 
buted  to  efface  from  these  important  fictions 
the  remains  of  barbarism  which  had  dis 
graced  the  vigorous  genius  of  our  ancestors. 
Mr.  Godwin  has  preserved  the  place  of 
men  in  this  branch  of  literature.  Caleb 
Williams  is  probably  the  finest  novel  pro 
duced  by  a  man, — at  least  since  the  Vicar 
of  Wakefield.  The  sentiments,  if  not  the 
opinions,  from  which  it  arose,  were  transient. 
Local  usages  and  institutions  were  the  sub 
jects  of  its  satire,  exaggerated  beyond  the 
usual  privilege  of  that  species  of  writing. 
Yet  it  has  been  translated  into  most  lan 
guages  ]  and  it  has  appeared  in  various  forms, 
on  the  theatres,  not  only  in  England,  but  of 
France  arid  Germany.  There  is  scarcely  a 
Continental  circulating  library  in  which  it  is 
not  one  of  the  books  which  most  quickly  re 
quire  to  be  replaced.  Though  written  with  a 
temporary  purpose,  it  will  be  read  with  intense 
interest,  and  with  a  painful  impatience  for 
the  issue,  long  after  the  circumstances  which 
produced  its  original  composition  shall  cease 
to  be  known  to  all  but  to  those  who  are  well 
read  in  history.  There  is  scarcely  a  fiction  in 
any  language  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  lay  by. 
A  young  person  of  understanding  and  sensi 
bility,  not  familiar  with  the  history  of  its 
origin,  nor  forewarned  of  its  connection  with 
peculiar  opinions,  in  whose  hands  it  is  now 
put  for  the  first  time,  will  peruse  it  with 
perhaps  more  ardent  sympathy  and  trem 
bling  curiosity,  than  those  who  read  it  when 
their  attention  was  divided,  and  their  feel 
ings  disturbed  by  controversy  and  specula 
tion.  A  building  thrown  up  for  a  season,  has 
become,  by  the  skill  of  the  builder,  a  durable 
edifice.  It  is  a  striking,  but  not  a  solitary 
example,  of  the  purpose  of  the  writer  being 
swallowed  up  by  the  interest  of  the  work, 
— of  a  man  of  ability  intending  to  take  part 
in  the  disputes  of  the  moment,  but  led  by 
the  instinct  of  his  talent  to  address  himself 
to  the  permanent  feelings  of  human  nature. 
It  must  not,  however,  be  denied,  that  the 
marks  of  temporary  origin  and  peculiar  opi 
nion,  are  still  the  vulnerable  part  of  the  book. 
A  fiction  contrived  to  support  an  opinion  is 
a  vicious  composition.  Even  a  fiction  con 
trived  to  enforce  a  maxim  of  conduct  is  not 
of  the  highest  class.  And  though  the  vigor 
ous  powers  of  Mr.  Godwin  raised  him  above 
his  own  intention,  still  the  marks  of  that 
intention  ought  to  be  effaced  as  marks  of 
mortality;  and  nothing  ought  to  remain  in 
the  book  which  will  not  always  interest  the 
reader.  The  passages  which  betray  the  me 
taphysician,  more  than  the  novelist,  ought 
to  be  weeded  out  with  more  than  ordinary 
care.  The  character  of  Falkland  is  a  beau 


tiful  invention.  That  such  a  man  could  have 
become  an  assassin,  is  perhaps  an  improba 
bility  ;  and  if  such  a  crime  be  possible  for  a 
soul  so  elevated,  it  may  be  due  to  the  dignity 
of  human  nature  to  throw  a  veil  over  so  hu 
miliating  a  possibility,  except  when  we  are 
compelled  to  expose  it  by  its  real  occurrence. 
In  a  merely  literary  view,  however,  the  im 
probability  of  this  leading  incident  is  more 
than  compensated,  by  all  those  agitating  and 
terrible  scenes  of  which  it  is  the  parent :  and 
if  the  colours  had  been  delicately  shaded,  if 
all  the  steps  in  the  long  progress  from  chi 
valrous  sentiment  to  assassination  had  been 
more  patiently  traced,  and  more  distinctly 
brought  into  view,  more  might  have  been 
lost  by  weakening  the  contrast,  than  would 
have  been  gained  by  softening  or  removing 
the  improbability.  The  character  of  Tyrrel, 
is  a  grosser  exaggeration :  and  his  conduct 
is  such  as  neither  our  manners  would  pro 
duce,  nor  our  laws  tolerate.  One  or  two 
monstrous  examples  of  tyranny,  nursed  and 
armed  by  immense  wealth,  are  no  authority 
for  fiction,  which  is  a  picture  of  general  na 
ture.  The  descriptive  power  of  several  parts 
of  this  novel  is  of  the  highest  order.  The 
landscape  in  the  morning  of  Caleb's  escape 
from  prison,  and  a  similar  escape  from  a  Span 
ish  prison  in  St.  Leon,  are  among  the  scenes 
of  fiction  which  must  the  most  frequently  and 
vividly  reappear  in  the  imagination  of  a  rea 
der  of  sensibility.  His  disguises  and  escapes 
in  London,  though  detailed  at  too  great  length, 
have  a  frightful  reality,  perhaps  nowhere  pa 
ralleled  in  our  language,  unless  it  be  in  some 
paintings  of  Daniel  De  Foe,*  with  whom  it  is 
distinction  enough  to  bear  comparison.  There 
are  several  somewhat  similar  scenes  in  the 
Colonel  Jack  of  that  admirable  writer,  which, 
among  his  novels,  is  indeed  only  the  second  ; 
but  which  could  be  second  to  none  but  Ro 
binson  Crusoe, — one  of  those  very  few  books 
which  are  equally  popular  in  every  country 
of  Europe,  and  which  delight  every  reader 
from  the  philosopher  to  the  child.  Caleb 
Williams  resembles  the  novels  of  De  Foe, 
in  the  austerity  with  which  it  rejects  the 
agency  of  women  and  the  power  of  love. 

It  would  be  affectation  to  pass  over  in 
silence  so  remarkable  a  work  as  the  Inquiry 
into  Political  Justice ;  but  it  is  not  the  time 
to  say  much  of  it.  The  season  of  contro 
versy  is  past,  and  the  period  of  history  is  not 
yet  arrived.  Whatever  may  be  its  mistakes, 
which  we  shall  be  the  last  to  underrate,  it  is 
certain  that  works  in  which  errors  equally 
dangerous  are  maintained  with  far  less  inge 
nuity,  have  obtained  for  their  authors  a  con 
spicuous  place  in  the  philosophical  history 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  tfut  books,  as 
well  as  men,  are  subject  to  what  is  called 
•fortune.'  The  same  circumstances  which 

*  A  great-grandson  of  Daniel  De  Foe,  of  the 
same  name,  is  now  a  creditable  tradesman  in 
Hnngerford  Market  in  London.  His  manners 
give  a  favourable  impression  of  his  sense  and  mo 
rals.  He  is  neither  unconscious  of  his  ancestor's 
fame,  nor  ostentatious  of  it. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LIVES  OF  MILTON'S  NEPHEWS. 


251 


favoured  its  sudden  popularity,  have  since 
unduly  depressed  its  reputation.  Had  it  ap 
peared  in  a  metaphysical  age,  and  in  a  period 
of  tranquillity,  it  would  have  been  discussed 
by  philosophers,  and  might  have  excited  ac 
rimonious  disputes;  but  these  would  have 
ended,  after  the  correction  of  erroneous 
speculations,  in  assigning  to  the  author  that 
station  to  which  his  eminent  talents  had  en 
titled  him.  It  would  soon  have  been  ac 
knowledged,  that  the  author  of  one  of  the 
most  deeply  interesting  fictions  of  his  age, 
and  of  a  treatise  on  metaphysical  morals 
which  excited  general  alarm,  whatever  else 
he  might  be.  must  be  a  person  of  vigorous 
and  versatile  powers.  But  the  circumstances 
of  the  times,  in  spite  of  the  author's  in 
tention,  transmuted  a  philosophical  treatise 
into  a  political  pamphlet.  It  seemed  to  be 
thrown  up  by  the  vortex  of  the  French  Revo 
lution,  and  it  sunk  accordingly  as  that  whirl 
pool  subsided  ;  while  by  a  perverse  fortune, 
the  honesty  of  the  author's  intentions  con 
tributed  to  the  prejudice  against  his  work. 
With  the  simplicity  and  good  faith  of  a  re 
tired  speculator,  conscious  of  no  object  but 
the  pursuit  of  truth,  he  followed  his  reason 
ings  wherever  they  seemed  to  him  to  lead, 
without  looking  up  to  examine  the  array  of 
sentiment  and  institution,  as  well  as  of  in 
terest  and  prejudice,  which  he  was  about  to 
encounter.  Intending  no  mischief,  he  con 
sidered  no  consequences  ;  and,  in  the  eye  of 
the  multitude,  was  transformed  into  an  in 
cendiary,  only  because  he  was  an  undesign- 
ing  speculator.  The  ordinary  clamour  was 
excited  against  him:  even  the  liberal  sacri 
ficed  him  to  their  character  for  liberality. — a 
fate  not  very  uncommon  for  those  who,  in 
critical  times,  are  supposed  to  go  too  far;  and 
many  of  his  own  disciples,  returning  into  the 
world,  and,  as  usual,  recoiling  most  violently 
from  their  visions,  to  the  grossest  worldly- 
mindedness,  offered  the  fame  of  their  master 
as  an  atonement  for  their  own  faults.  For  a 
time  it  required  courage  to  brave  the  pre 
judice  excited  by  his  name.  It  may,  even 
now  perhaps,  need  some  fortitude  of  a  differ 
ent  kind  to  write,  though  in  the  most  impar 
tial  temper,  the  small  fragment  of  literary 
history  which  relates  to  it.  The  moment 
for  doing  full  and  exact  justice  will  come. 

All  observation  on  the  personal  conduct  of 
a  writer,  when  that  conduct  is  not  of  a  pub 
lic  nature,  is  of  dangerous  example ;  and, 
when  it  leads  to  blame,  is  severely  repre 
hensible.  But  it  is  but  common  justice  to 
say,  that  there  are  few  instances  of  more  re 
spectable  conduct  among  writers,  than  is  ap 
parent  in  the  subsequent  works  of  Mr.  God 
win.  He  calmly  corrected  what  appeared  to 
him  to  be  his  own  mistakes ;  and  he  proved 
the  perfect  disinterestedness  of  his  correc 
tions,  by  adhering  to  opinions  as  obnoxious 
to  the  powerful  as  those  which  he  relinquish 
ed.  Untempted  by  the  success  of  his  scho 
lars  in  paying  their  court  to  the  dispensers 
of  favour,  he  adhered  to  the  old  and  rational 
principles  of  liberty, — violently  shaken  as 


:hese  venerable  principles  had  been,  by  the 
:empest  which  had  beaten  down  the  neigh 
bouring  erections  of  anarchy.  He  continued 
to  seek  independence  and  reputation,  with 
that  various  success  to  which  the  fashions 
of  literature  subject  professed  writers;  and 

0  struggle  with  the  difficulties  incident  to 
other  modes  of  industry,  for  which  his  pre 
vious  habits  had  not  prepared  him.     He  has 
thus,  in  our  humble  opinion,  deserved  the 
respect  of  all  those,  whatever  may  be  their 
opinions,  who  still  wish  that  some  men  in 
England  may  think  for  themselves,  even  at 
the  risk  of  thinking  wrong;  but  more  espe 
cially  of  the   friends  of  liberty,  to   whose 
cause  he  has  courageously  adhered. 

The  work  before  us,  is  a  contribution  to 
the  literary  history  of  ihe  seventeenth  cen 
tury.  It  arose  from  that  well-grounded  re 
verence  for  the  morality,  as  well  as  the  ge 
nius,  of  Milton,  which  gives  importance  to 
every  circumstance  connected  with  him. 
After  all  that  had  been  written  about  him,  it 
appeared  to  Mr.  Godwin,  that  there  was  still 
an  unapproached  point  of  view,  from  which 
Milton's  character  might  be  surveyed, — the 
history  of  those  nephews  to  whom  he  had 
been  a  preceptor  and  a  father.  "It  was  ac 
cident."  he  tells  us,  "  that  first  threw  in  my 
way  two  or  three  productions  of  these  wri 
ters,  that  my  literary  acquaintance,*  whom 

1  consulted,  had  never  heard  of.    Dr.  Johnson 
had  told  me,  that  the  pupils  of  Milton  had 
given  to  the  world  '  only  one  genuine  pro 
duction.'     Persons  better  informed  than  Dr. 
Johnson,  could   tell  me   perhaps  of  half  a 
dozen.     How  great  was  my  surprise,  when  I 
found   my    collection   swelling  to   forty   or 
fifty  !"     Chiefly  from  these  publications,  but 
from  a  considerable  variety   of  little-known 
sources,  he  has  collected,  with  singular  in 
dustry,  all  the  notices,  generally  incidental, 
concerning   these   two   persons,    which  are 
scattered  over  the  writings  of  their  age. 

Their  lives  are  not  only  interesting  as  a 
fragment  of  the  history  of  Milton,  but  curi 
ous  as  a  specimen  of  the  condition  of  pro 
fessed  authors  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
If  they  had  been  men  of  genius,  or  con 
temptible  scribblers,  they  would  not  in  either 
case  have  been  fair  specimens  of  their  class. 
Dryden  and  Flecknoe  are  equally  exceptions. 
The  nephews  of  Milton  belonged  to  that 
large  body  of  literary  men  who  are  destined 
to  minister  to  the  general  curiosity  ;  to  keep 
up  the  stock  of  public  information ;  to  com 
pile,  to  abridge,  to  translate ; — a  body  of  im 
portance  in  a  great  country,  being  necessary 
to  maintain,  though  they  cannot  advance,  its 
literature.  'The  degree  of  good  sense,  good 
taste,  and  sound  opinions  diffused  among  this 
class  of  writers,  is  of  no  small  moment  to 


*  This  plural  use  of  '  acquaintance'  is  no  doubt 
abundantly  warranted  by  the  example  of  Dryden, 
the  highest  authority  in  a  case  of  diction,  of  any 
single  English  writer:  but  as  the  usage  is  divided, 
the  convenience  of  distinguishing  the  plural  from 
the  singular  at  first  sight  seems  to  determine,  that 
the  preferable  plural  is  "  acquaintances." 


252 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  public  reason  and  morals;  and  we  know 
not  where  we  should  find  so  exact  a  repre 
sentation  of  the  literary  life  of  two  authors, 
of  the  period  between  the  Restoration  and 
the  Revolution,  as  in  this  volume.  The  com 
plaint,  that  the  details  are  too  multiplied  and 
minute  for  the  importance  of  the  subject,  will 
be  ungracious  in  an  age  distinguished  by  a 
passion  for  bibliography,  and  a  voracious  ap 
petite  for  anecdote.  It  cannot  be  denied, 
that  great  acuteness  is  shown  in  assembling 
and  weighing  all  the  very  minute  circum 
stances,  from  \vhich  their  history  must  often 
be  rather  conjectured  than  inferred.  It  may 
appear  singular,  that  we.  in  this  speculative 
part  of  the  island,  should  consider  the  di 
gressions  from  the  biography,  and  the  pas 
sages  of  general  speculation,  as  the  part  of 
the  work  which  might,  with  the  greatest  ad 
vantage,  be  retrenched  :  but  they  are  cer 
tainly  episodes  too  large  for  the  action,  and 
have  sometimes  the  air  of  openings  of  chap 
ters  in  an  intended  history  of  England. 
These  two  faults,  of  digressions  too  expand 
ed,  and  details  too  minute,  are  the  principal 
defects  of  the  volume ;  which,  however, 
must  be  considered  hereafter  as  a  necessary 
part  of  all  collections  respecting  the  biogra 
phy  of  Milton. 

Edward  and  John  Philips  were  the  sons 
of  Edward  Philips  of  Shrewsbury,  Secondary 
of  the  CrowTn  Office  in  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
by  Anne,  sister  of  John  Milton.  Edward 
was  born  in  London  in  1630,  and  John  in 
1631.  To  this  sister  the  first  original  English 
verses  of  Milton  were  addressed, — which  he 
composed  before  the  age  of  seventeen, — to 
soothe  her  sorrow  for  the  loss  of  an  infant  son. 
His  first  published  verses  were  the  Epitaph  on 
Shakespeare.  To  perform  the  offices  of  do 
mestic  tenderness,  and  to  render  due  honour 
to  kindred  genius,  were  the  noble  purposes  by 
which  he  consecrated  his  poetical  power  at 
the  opening  of  a  life,  every  moment  of  which 
corresponded  to  this  early  promise.  On  his 
return  from,  his  travels,  he  found  his  ne 
phews,  by  the  death  of  their  father,  become 
orphans.  He  took  them  into  his  house,  sup 
porting  and  educating  them  ;  which  he  was 
enabled  to  do  by  the  recompense  which  he 
received  for  the  instruction  of  other  pupils, 
And  for  this  act  of  respectable  industry,  and 
generous  affection,  in  thus  remembering  the 
humblest  claims  of  prudence  and  kindness 
amidst  the  lofty  ambition  and  sublime  con 
templations  of  his  mature  powers,  he  has 
been  sneered  at  by  a  moralist,  in  a  work 
which,  being  a  system  of  our  poetical  bio 
graphy,  ought  especially  to  have  recom 
mended  this  most  moral  example  to  the  imi 
tation  of  British  youth. 

John  published  very  early  a  vindication 
of  his  uncle%s  Defence  of  the  People  of  Eng 
land.  Both  brothers,  in  a  very  few  years, 
Aveary  of  the  austere  morals  of  the  Republi 
cans,  quitted  the  party  of  Milton,  and  adopted 
the  politics,  with  the  wit  and  festivity,  of  the 
young  Cavaliers :  but  the  elder,  a  person 
of  gentle  disposition  and  amiable  manners, 


more  a  man  of  letters  than  a  politician,  retain 
ed  at  least  due  reverence  and  gratitude  for  his 
benefactor,  and  is  conjectured  by  Mr.  God 
win,  upon  grounds  that  do  not  seem  improba 
ble,  to  have  contributed  to  save  his  uncle  at 
the'  Restoration.  Twenty  years  after  the 
death  of  Milton,  the  first  Life  of  him  was 
published  by  Edward  Philips;  upon  which 
all  succeeding  narratives  have  been  built. 
This  Theatrum  Poetarum  will  be  always 
read  with  interest,  as  containing  the  opinions 
concerning  poetry  and  poets,  which  he  pro 
bably  imbibed  from  Milton.  This  amiable 
writer  died  between  1694  and  1698. 

John  Philips,  a  coarse  buffoon,  and  a  vul 
gar  debauchee,  was,  throughout  life,  chiefly 
a  political  pamphleteer,  who  turned  with 
every  change  of  fortune  and  breath  of  popu 
lar  clamour,  but  on  all  sides  preserved  a  con 
sistency  in  violence,  scurrility,  and  servility 
to  his  masters,  whether  they  were  the  fa 
vourites  of  the  Court,  or  the  leaders  of  the 
rabble.  Having  cried  out  for  the  blood  of 
his  former  friends  at  the  Restoration,  he  in 
sulted  the  memory  of  Milton,  within  two 
years  of  his  death.  He  adhered  to  the  cause 
of  Charles  II.  till  it  became  unpopular;  and 
disgraced  the  then  new  name  of  Whig  by 
associating  with  the  atrocious  Titus  Gates. 
In  his  vindication  of  that  execrable  wretch, 
he  adopts  the  maxim,  "that  the  attestations 
of  a  hundred  Catholics  cannot  be  put  in  bal 
ance  with  the  oath  of  one  Protestant  ;"- 
which,  if  '  our  own  party 'were  substituted 
for  'Protestant,'  and  'the  opposite  one'  for 
'  Catholic,' may  be  regarded  as  the  general 
principle  of  the  jurisprudence  of  most  tri 
umphant  factions.  He  was  silenced,  or  driven 
to  literary  compilation,  by  those  fatal  events 
in  1683,  which  seemed  to  be  the  final  tri 
umph  of  the  Court  over  public  liberty.  His 
servile  voice,  however,  hailed  the  accession 
of  James  II.  The  Revolution  produced  a 
new  turn  of  this  weathercock  ;  but,  happily 
for  the  kingdom,  no  second  Restoration  gave 
occasion  to  another  display  of  his  incon 
stancy.  In  1681  he  had  been  the  associate 
of  Oates,  and  the  tool  of  Shaflesbury :  in 
1685  he  thus  addresses  James  II.  in  doggerel 
scurrility : 

;  Must  the  Faith's  true  Defender  bleed  to  death, 
A  sacrifice  to  Cooper's  wrath?" 

In  1695  he  took  a  part  in  that  vast  mass  of 
bad  verse  occasioned  by  the  death  of  Queen 
Mary;  and  in  1697  he  celebrated  King  Wil 
liam  as  Augustus  Britannicus.  in  a  poem  on 
the  Peace  of  Ryswick.  From  the  Revolu 
tion  to  his  death,  about  1704,  he  was  use 
fully  employed  as  editor  of  the  Monthly 
Mercury,  a  journal  which  was  wholly,  or 
principally,  a  translation  from  Le  Mercure 
Historique,  published  at  the  Hague,  by  some 
of  those  ingenious  and  excellent  Protestant 
refugees,  whose  writings  contributed  to  ex- 
ite  all  Europe  against  Louis  XIV.  Mr. 
Godwin  at  last,  very  naturally,  relents  a  lit 
tle  towards  him :  he  is  unwilling  to  part  on 
bad  terms  with  one  who  has  been  so  long  a 


REVIEW  OF  THE  LIVES  OF  MILTON'S  NEPHEWS. 


253 


companion.  All,  however,  that  indulgent 
ingenuity  can  discover  in  his  favour  is,  that 
he  was  an  indefatigable  writer;  and  that, 
during  his  last  years,  he  rested,  after  so 
many  vibrations,  in  the  opinions  of  a  consti 
tutional  Whig.  But,  in  a  man  like  John 
Philips,  the  latter  circumstance  is  only  one 
of  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  proves  no  more 
than  that  the  principles  of  English  liberty 
were  patronized  by  a  government  which 
owed  to  these  principles  its  existence. 

The  above  is  a  very  slight  sketch  of  the 
lives  of  these  two  persons,  which  Mr.  God 
win,  with  equal  patience  and  acuteness  of 
research,  has  gleaned  from  publications,  of 
which  it  required  a  much  more  than  ordi 
nary  familiarity  with  the  literature  of  the  last 
century,  even  to  know  the  existence.  It  is 
somewhat  singular,  that  no  inquiries  seem  to 
have  been  made  respecting  the  history  of  the 
descendants  of  Milton's  brother,  Sir  Christo 
pher  ;  and  that  it  has  not  been  ascertained 
whether  either  of  his  nephews  left  children. 
Thomas  Milton,  the  son  of  Sir  Christopher, 
was,  it  seems,  Secondary  to  the  Crown  Office 
in  Chancery ;  and  it  could  not  be  very  diffi 
cult  fora  resident  in  London  to  ascertain  the 
period  of  his  death,  and  perhaps  to  discover 
his  residence  and  the  state  of  his  family. 

Milton's  direct  descendants  can  only  exist, 
if  they  exist  at  all,  among  the  posterity  of  his 
youngest  and  favourite  daughter  Deborah, 
afterwards  Mrs.  Clarke,  a  woman  of  cultiva 
ted  understanding,  and  not  unpleasing  man 
ners,  who  was  known  to  Richardson  and 
Professor  Ward,  and  was  patronized  by  Ad 
dison.*  Her  affecting  exclamation  is  well 
known,  on  seeing  her  father's  portrait  for  the 
first  time  more  than  thirty  years  after  his 
death: — "Oh  my  father,  my  dear  father!" 
'•  She  spoke  of  him,"  says  Richardson,  "with 
great  tenderness;  she  said  he  was  delight 
ful  company,  the  life  of  the  conversation, 
not  only  by  a  flow  of  subject,  but  by  unaf 
fected  cheerfulness  and  civility."  This  is 
the  character  of  one  whom  Dr.  Johnson  re 
presents  as  a  morose  tyrant,  drawn  by  a 
supposed'victim  of  his  domestic  oppression. 
Her  daughter,  Mrs.  Foster,  for  whose  benefit 
Dr.  Newton  and  Dr.  Birch  procured  Comus 
to  be  acted,  survived  all  her  children.  The 
only  child  of  Deborah  Milton,  of  whom  we 
have  any  accounts  besides  Mrs.  Foster,  was 
Caleb  Clarke,  who  went  to  Madras  in  the 
first  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
who  then  vanishes  from  the  view  of  the  bio 
graphers  of  Milton.  We  have  been  enabled, 
by  accident,  to  enlarge  a  very  little  this  ap 
pendage  to  his  history.  It  appears  from  an 
examination  of  the  parish  register  of  Fort  St. 
George,  that  Caleb  Clarke,  who  seems  to 
have  been  parish-clerk  of  that  place  from 
1717  to  1719,  was  buried  there  on  the  26th 
of  October  of  the  latter  year.  By  his  wife 
Mary,  whose  original  surname  does  not  ap 
pear,  he  had  three  children  born  at  Madras; 

*  Who  intended  to  have  procured  a  permanent 
provision  for  her.  She  was  presented  with  fiity 
guineas  by  Queen  Caroline. 


— Abraham,  baptized  on  the  2d  of  June, 
1703  ;  Mary,  baptized  on  the  17th  of  March, 
1706,  and  buried  on  December  15th  of  the 
same  year;  and  Isaac,  baptized  13th  of  Feb 
ruary,  1711.  Of  Isaac  no  farther  account 
appears.  Abraham,  the  great-grandson  of 
Milton,  in  September,  1725,  married  Anna 
Clarke;  and  the  baptism  of  their  daughter 
Mary  is  registered  on  the  2d  of  April,  1727. 
With  this  all  notices  of  this  family  cease. 
But  as  neither  Abraham,  nor  any  of  his  fami 
ly,  nor  his  brother  Isaac,  died  at  Madras,  and 
as  he  was  only  twenty-four  years  of  age  at 
the  baptism  of  his  daughter,  it  is  probable 
that  the  family  migrated  to  some  other  part 
of  India,  and  that  some  trace  of  them  might 
yet  be  discovered  by  examination  of  the 
parish  registers  of  Calcutta  and  Bombay.  If 
they  had  returned  to  England,  they  could  not 
have  escaped  the  curiosity  of  the  admirers 
and  historians  of  Milton.  We  cannot  apolo 
gize  for  the  minuteness  of  this  genealogy,  or 
for  the  eagerness  of  our  desire  that  it  should 
be  enlarged.  We  profess  that  superstitious 
veneration  for  the  memory  of  the  greatest  of 
poets,  which  would  regard  the  slightest  relic 
of  him  as  sacred ;  and  we  cannot  conceive 
either  true  poetical  sensibility,  or  a  just  sense 
of  the  glory  of  England,  to  belong  to  that 
Englishman,  who  would  not  feel  the  strong 
est  emotions  at  the  sight  of  a  descendant 
of  Milton,  discovered  in  the  person  even  of 
the  most  humble  and  unlettered  of  human 
beings. 

While  the  grandson  of  Milton  resided  at 
Madras,  in  a  condition  so  humble  as  to  make 
the  office  of  parish-clerk  an  object  of  ambi 
tion,  it  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  the 
elder  brother  of  Addison  should  have  been 
the  Governor  of  that  settlement.  The  ho 
nourable  Galston  Addison  died  there  in  the 
year  1709.  Thomas  Pitt,  grandfather  to 
Lord  Chatham,  had  been  his  immediate  pre 
decessor  in  the  government. 

It  was  in  the  same  year  that  Mr.  Addison 
began  those  contributions  to  periodical  es 
says,  which,  as  long  as  any  sensibility  to 
the  beauties  of  English  style  remains,  must 
be  considered  as  its  purest  and  most  perfect 
models.  But  it  was  not  until  eighteen  months 
afterwards, — when,  influenced  by  fidelity  to 
his  friends,  and  attachment  to  the  cause  of 
liberty,  he' had  retired  from  office,  and  when, 
with  his  usual  judgment,  he  resolved  to  re 
sume  the  more  active  cultivation  of  literature, 
as  the  elegant  employment  of  his  leisure, — 
that  he  undertook  the  series  of  essays  on 
Paradise  Lost ; — not,  as  has  been  weakly 
supposed,  with  the  presumptuous  hope  o'f 
exalting  Milton,  but  with  the  more  reasonable 
intention  of  cultivating  the  public  taste,  and 
instructing  the  nation  in  the  principles  of  just 
criticism,  by  observations  on  a  work  already 
acknowledged  to  be  the  first  of  English 
poems.  If  any  doubt  could  be  entertained 
respecting  the  purpose  of  this  excellent  wri 
ter,  it  must  be  silenced  by  the  language  in 
which  he  announces  his  criticism : — "  As  the 
first  place  among  our  English  poets  is  due  to 


254 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Milton,"  says  he,  "I  shall  enter  into  a  regu 
lar  criticism  upon  his  Paradise  Lost."  &c.  It 
is  clear  that  he  takes  for  granted  the  para 
mount  greatness  of  Milton  j  and  that  his  I 
object  was  not  to  disinter  a  poet  who  had 
been  buried  in  unjust  oblivion,  but  to  illus 
trate  the  rules  of  criticism  by  observations 
on  the  writings  of  him  whom  all  his  readers 
revered  as  th.3  greatest  poet  of  their  country. 
This  passage  might  have  been  added  by  Mr. 
Godwin  to  the  numerous  proofs  by  which  he  | 
has  demonstrated  the  ignorance  and  riegii-  | 
gence,  if  not  the  malice,  of  those  who  would 
persuade  us  that  the  English  nation  could 
have  suspended  their  admiration  of  a  poem. 
— the  glory  of  their  country,  and  the  boast 
of  human  genius. — till  they  were  taught  its 
excellences  by  critics,  and  enabled  by  politi 
cal  revolutions  to  indulge  their  feelings  with 
safety.  It  was  indeed  worthy  of  Lord  Somers 
to  have  been  one  of  its  earliest  admirers; 
and  to  his  influence  and  conversation  it  is 
not  improbable  that  we  owe,  though  indi 
rectly,  the  essays  of  Addison.  The  latter's 
criticism  manifests  and  inspires  a  more  genu 
ine  sense  of  poetical  beauty  than  others  of 
more  ambitious  pretensions,  and  now  of 
greater  name.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  Milton  had  subdued  the  adverse  preju 
dices  of  Dryden  and  Atterbury,  long  before 
he  had  extorted  from  a  more  acrimonious 
hostility,  that  unwilling  but  noble  tribute  of 


justice  to  the  poet,  for  which  Dr.  Johnson 
seems  to  have  made  satisfaction  to  his  hatred 
by  a  virulent  libel  on  the  man.* 

It  is  an  excellence  of  Mr.  Godwin's  narra 
tive,  that  he  thinks  and  feels  about  the  men 
and  events  of  the  age  of  Milton,  in  some 
measure  as  Milton  himself  felt  and  thought. 
Exact  conformity  of  sentiment  is  neither  pos 
sible  nor  desirable :  but  a  Life  of  Milton, 
written  by  a  zealous  opponent  of  his  princi 
ples,  in  the  relation  of  events  which  so  much 
exasperate  the  passions,  almost  inevitably 
degenerates  into  a  libel.  The  constant  hos 
tility  of  a  biographer  to  the  subject  of  his 
narrative,  whether  it  be  just  or  not.  is  teazing 
and  vexatious:  the  natural  frailty  of  over- 
partiality  is  a  thousand  times  more  agreeable. 

*  The  strange  misrepresentations,  long  preva 
lent  among  ourselves  respecting  the  slow  "progress 
of  Milton's  reputation,  sanctioned  as  they  were 
both  by  Johnson  and  by  Thomas  Warton,  have 
produced  ridiculous  effects  abroad.  On  the  16ih 
of  November,  1814,  a  Parisian  poet  named  Cam- 
penon  was,  in  the  present  unhappy  state  of  French 
literature,  received  at  the  Academy  as  the  succes 
sor  of  the  Abbe  Delille.  In  his  Discours  de 
Reception,  he  speaks  of  the  Abbe's  translation 
"  de  ce  Paradis  Perdu,  dont  1'Agleterre  est  si 
fiere  depuis  qu'elle  acesse  d'en  ignorer  le  merite." 
The  president  M.  Regnault  de  St.  Jean  d' Angely 
said  that  M.  Delille  repaid  our  hospitality  by  trans 
lating  Milton, — "  en  doublant  ainsi  la  celebrite  du 
Poete  ;  dont  le  genie  a  inspire  a  1'Angleterre  un 
si  tardif  mais  si  Tegitime  orgueil." 


REVIEW 

OF 

ROGERS'  POEMS. 


IT  seems  very  doubtful,  whether  the  pro 
gress  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the  elegant  arts 
can  be  referred  to  the  operation  of  general 
laws,  with  the  same  plausibility  as  the  exer 
tions  of  the  more  robust  faculties  of  the 
human  mind,  in  the  severer  forms  of  science 
and  of  useful  art.  The  action  of  fancy  and 
of  taste  seems  to  be  affected  by  causes  too 
various  and  minute  to  be  enumerated  with 
sufficient  completeness  for  the  purposes  of 
philosophical  theory.  To  explain  them,  may 
appear  to  be  as  hopeless  an  attempt,  as  to 
account  for  one  summer  being  more  warm 
and  genial  than  another.  The  difficulty 
would  be  insurmountable,  even  in  framing 
the  most  general  outline  of  a  theory,  if  the 
various  forms  assumed  by  imagination,  in 
the  fine  arts,  did  not  depend  on  some  of  the 
most  conspicuous,  as  well  as  powerful  agents 
in  the  moral  world.  But  these  arise  from 
revolutions  of  popular  sentiments,  and  are 
connected  with  the  opinions  of  the  age,  and 


with  the  manners  of  the  refined  class,  as 
certainly,  though  not  in  so  great  a  degree,  as 
with  the  passions  of  the  multitude.  The 
comedy  of  a  polished  monarchy  never  can 
be  of  the  same  character  with  that  of  a  bold 
and  tumultuous  democracy.  Changes  of  re 
ligion  and  of  government,  civil  or  foreign 
wars,  conquests  which  derive  splendour  from 
distance,  or  extent,  or  difficulty.  long  tran 
quillity. — all  these,  and  indeed  every  con 
ceivable  modification  of  the  state  of  a  com 
munity,  show  themselves  in  the  tone  of  its 
poetry,  and  leave  long  and  deep  traces  on 
every  part  of  its  literature.  Geometry  is  the 
same,  not  only  at  London  and  Paris,  but  in 
the  extremes  of  Athens  and  Samarcand :  but 
the  state  of  the  general  feeling  in  England, 
at  this  moment,  requires  a  different  poetry 
from  that  which  delighted  our  ancestors  in 
the  time  of  Luther  or  Alfred. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  connection  of  the  character  of 


REVIEW  OF  ROGERS'  POEMS. 


255 


English  poetry  with  the  state  of  the  country, 
was  very  easily  traced.  The  period  which 
extended  from  the  English  to  the  French 
Revolution,  was  the  golden  age  of  authentic 
history.  Governments  were  secure,  nations 
tranquil,  improvements  rapid,  manners  mild 
beyond  the  example  of  any  former  age.  The 
English  nation  which  possessed  the  greatest 
of  all  human  blessings, — a  wisely  constructed 
popular  government,  necessarily  enjoyed  the 
largest  share  of  every  other  benefit.  The 
tranquillity  of  that  fortunate  period  was  not 
disturbed  by  any  of  those  calamitous,  or  even 
extraordinary  events,  which  excite  the  imagi 
nation  and  inflame  the  passions.  No  age 
was  more  exempt  from  the  prevalence  of 
any  species  of  popular  enthusiasm.  Poetry, 
in  this  state  of  things,  partook  of  that  calm, 
argumentative,  moral,  and  directly  useful 
character  into  which  it  naturally  subsides, 
when  there  are  no  events  to  call  up  the 
higher  passions, — when  every  talent  is  al 
lured  into  the  immediate  service  of  a  pros 
perous  and  improving  society, — and  when 
wit,  taste,  diffused  literature,  and  fastidious 
criticism,  combine  to  deter  the  young  writer 
from  the  more  arduous  enterprises  of  poetical 
genius.  In  such  an  age,  every  art  becomes 
rational.  Reason  is  the  power  which  presides 
in  a  calm.  But  reason  guides,  rather  than 
impels;  and,  though  it  must  regulate  every 
exertion  of  genius,  it  never  can  rouse  it  to 
vigorous  action. 

The  school  of  Dryden  and  Pope,  which 
prevailed  till  a  very  lats  period  of  the  last 
century,  is  neither  the  most  poetical  nor  the 
most  national  part  of  our  literary  annals. 
These  great  poets  sometimes  indeed  ventur 
ed  into  the  regions  of  pure  poetry :  but  their 
general  character  is,  that  "not  in  fancy's 
maze  they  wandered  long;"  and  that  they 
rather  approached  the  elegant  correctness  of 
our  Continental  neighbours,  than  supported 
the  daring  flight,  which,  in  the  former  age, 
had  borne  English  poetry  to  a  sublimer  ele 
vation  than  that  of  any  other  modern  people 
of  the  West. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  century,  great, 
though  quiet  changes,  began  to  manifest 
themselves  in  the  republic  of  letters  in  every 
European  nation  which  retained  any  portion 
of  mental  activity.  About  that  time,  the  ex 
clusive  authority  of  our  great  rhyming  poets 
began  to  be  weakened  ;  while  new  tastes  and 
fashions  began  to  show  themselves  in  the 
political  world.  A  school  of  poetry  must 
have  prevailed  long  enough,  to  be  probably 
on  the  verge  of  do\vnfal,  before  its  practice 
is  embodied  in  a  correspondent  system  of 
criticism. 

Johnson  was  the  critic  of  our  second  poet 
ical  school.  As  far  as  his  prejudices  of  a  po 
litical  or  religious  kind  did  not  disqualify  him 
for  all  criticism,  he  was  admirably  fitted  by 
nature  to  be  the  critic  of  this  species  of  poe 
try.  Without  more  imagination,  sensibility, 
or  delicacy  than  it  required,— not  always 
with  perhaps  quite  enough  for  its  higher 
parts, — he  possessed  sagacity,  shrewdness, 


experience,  knowledge  of  mankind,  a  taste 
for  rational  and  orderly  compositions,  and  a 
disposition  to  accept,  instead  of  poetry,  that 
lofty  and  vigorous  declamation  in  harmo 
nious  verse,  of  which  he  himself  was  capa 
ble,  and  to  which  his  great  master  sometimes 
descended.  His  spontaneous  admiration 
scarcely  soared  above  Dryden.  li  Merit  of  a 
loftier  class  he  rather  saw  than  felt."  Shake 
speare  has  transcendent  excellence  of  every 
sort,  and  for  every  critic,  except  those  who 
are  repelled  by  the  faults  which  usually  at 
tend  sublime  virtues, — character  and  man 
ners,  morality  and  prudence,  as  well  as  ima 
gery  and  passion.  Johnson  did  indeed  per 
form  a  vigorous  act  of  reluctant  justice  to 
wards  Milton  ;  but  it  was  a  proof,  to  use  his 
own  words,  that 

"  At  length  our  mighty  Bard's  victorious'Iays 
Fill  the  loud  voice  of  universal  prai?e  ; 
And  bafflt  d  Spite,  with  hopeless  anguish  dumb, 
Yields  to  renown  the  centuries  to  come  '.''* 

The  deformities  of  the  Life  of  Gray  ought 
not  to  be  ascribed  to  jealousy, — for  Johnson's 
mind,  though  coarse,  was  not  mean, — but  to 
the  prejudices  of  his  university,  his  political 
faction,  and  his  poetical  sect :  and  this  last 
bigotry  is  the  more  remarkable,  because  it  is 
exerted  against  the  most  skilful  and  tasteful 
of  innovators,  who,  in  reviving  more  poetical 
subjects  and  a  more  splendid  diction,  has 
employed  more  care  and  finish  than  those 
who  aimed  only  at  correctness. 

The  interval  which  elapsed  between  the 
death  of  Goldsmith  and  the  rise  of  Cowper, 
is  perhaps  more  barren  than  any  other  twelve 
years  in  the  history  of  our  poetry  since  the 
accession  of  Elizabeth.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
fertile  soil  was  at  length  exhausted.  But  it 
had  in  fact  only  ceased  to  exhibit  its  accus 
tomed  produce.  The  established  poetry  had 
worn  out  either  its  own  resources,  or  the  con 
stancy  of  its  readers.  Former  attempts  to 
introduce  novelty  had  been  either  too  weak 
or  too  early.  Neither  the  beautiful  fancy  of 
Collins,  nor  the  learned  and  ingenious  indus 
try  of  Warton,  nor  even  the  union  of  sublime 
genius  with  consummate  art  in  Gray,  had 
produced  a  general  change  in  poetical  com 
position.  But  the  fulness  of  time  was  ap 
proaching  ;  and  a  revolution  has  been  accom 
plished,  of  which  the  commencement  nearly 
coincides — not,  as  we  conceive,  accidental 
ly — with  that  of  the  political  revolution  which 
has  changed  the  character  as  well  as  the 
condition  of  Europe.  It  has  been  a  thousand 
times  observed,  that  nations  become  weary 
even  of  excellence,  and  seek  a  new  way  of 
writing,  though  it  should  be  a  worse.  'But 
besides  the  operation  of  satiety — the  general 
cause  of  literary  revolutions — several  par 
ticular  circumstances  seem  to  have  affected 
the  late  changes  of  our  poetical  taste ;  of 
which,  two  are  more  conspicuous  than  the 
rest. 

In  the  natural  progress  of  society,  the  songs 
which  are  the  effusion  of  the  feelings  of  a 


*  Prologue  to  Comus.— ED. 


256 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


rude  tribe,  are  gradually  polished  into  a  form 
of  poetry  still  retaining  the  marks  of  the  na 
tional  opinions,  sentiments,  and  manners, 
from  which  it  originally  sprang.  The  plants 
are  improved  by  cultivation  ;  but  they  are 
still  the  native  produce  of  the  soil.  The 
only  perfect  example  which  we  know,  of 
this  sort,  is  Greece.  Knowledge  and  useful 
art.  and  perhaps  in  a  great  measure  religion, 
the  Greeks  received  from  the  East :  but  as 
they  studied  no  foreign  language,  it  was  im 
possible  that  any  foreign  literature  should  in 
fluence  the  progress  of  theirs.  Not  even  the 
name  of  a  Persian,  Assyrian,  Phenician,  or 
Egyptian  poet  is  alluded  to  by  any  Greek 
writer:  The  Greek  poetry  was,  therefore, 
wholly  national.  The  Pelasgic  ballads  were 
insensibly  formed  into  Epic,  and  Tragic,  and 
Lyric  poems:  but  the  heroes,  the  opinions, 
and  the  customs,  continued  as  exclusively 
Grecian,  as  they  had  been  when  the  Helle 
nic  minstrels  knew  little  beyond  the  Adriatic 
and  the  JEgean.  The  literature  of  Rome 
was  a  copy  from  that  of  Greece.  When  the 
classical  studies  revived  amid  the  chivalrous 
manners  and  feudal  institutions  of  Gothic 
Europe,  the  imitation  of  ancient  poets  strug 
gled  against  the  power  of  modern  sentiments, 
with  various  event,  in  different  times  and 
countries. — but  every  where  in  such  a  man 
ner,  as  to  give  somewhat  of  an  artificial  and 
exotic  character  to  poetry.  Jupiter  and  the 
Muses  appeared  in  the  poems  of  Christian 
nations.  The  feelings  and  principles  of  de 
mocracies  were  copied  by  the  gentlemen  of 
Teutonic  monarchies  or  aristocracies.  The 
sentiments  of  the  poet  in  his  verse,  were  not 
those  which  actuated  him  in  his  conduct. 
The  forms  and  rules  of  composition  were 
borrowed  from  antiquity,  instead  of  sponta 
neously  arising  from  the  manner  of  thinking 
of  modern  communities.  In  Italy,  when  let 
ters  first  revived,  the  chivalrous  principle 
was  too  near  the  period  of  its  full  vigour,  to 
be  oppressed  by  his  foreign  learning.  An 
cient  ornaments  were  borrowed ;  but  the  ro 
mantic  form  was  prevalent :  arid  wrhere  the 
forms  were  classical,  the  spirit  continued  to 
be  romantic.  The  structure  of  Tasso's  poem 
was  that  of  the  Grecian  epic ;  but  his  heroes 
were  Christian  knights.  French  poetry 
having  been  somewhat  unaccountably  late 
in  its  rise,  and  slow  in  its  progress,  reached 
its  most  brilliant  period,  when  all  Europe  had 
considerably  lost  its  ancient  characteristic 
principles,  and  was  fully  imbued  with  classi 
cal  ideas.  Hence  it  acquired  faultless  ele 
gance  : — hence  also  it  became  less  natural, — 
more  timid  and  more  imitative, — more  like 
a  feeble  translation  of  Roman  poetry.  The 
first  age  of  English  poetry,  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  displayed  a  combination, — fantas 
tic  enough, — of  chivalrous  fancy  and  feeling 
with  classical  pedantry;  but,  upon  the  whole, 
its  native  genius  was  unsubdued.  The  poems 
of  that  age,  with  all  their  faults,  and  partly 
perhaps  from  their  faults,  are  the  most  na 
tional  part  of  our  poetry,  as  they  undoubtedly 
contain  its  highest  beauties.  From  the  ac 


cession  of  James,  to  the  Civil  War,  the  glory 
of  Shakespeare  turned  the  whole  national 
genius  to  the  drama ;  and,  after  the  Restora 
tion,  a  new  and  classical  school  arose,  under 
whom  our  old  and  peculiar  literature  was 
abandoned,  and  almost  forgotten.  But  all 
imported  tastes  in  literature  must  be  in  some 
measure  superficial.  The  poetry  which  once 
grew  in  the  bosoms  of  a  people,  is  always 
capable  of  being  revived  by  a  skilful  hand. 
When  the  brilliant  and  poignant  lines  of 
Pope  began  to  pall  on  the  public  ear,  it  was 
natural  that  we  should  revert  to  the  cultiva 
tion  of  our  indigenous  poetry. 

Nor  was  this  the  sole,  or  perhaps  the  chief 
agent  which  was  working  a  poetical  change. 
As  the  condition  and  character  of  the  former 
age  had  produced  an  argumentative,  di 
dactic,  sententious,  prudential,  and  satirical 
poetry  ]  so  the  approaches  to  a  new  order  (or 
rather  at  first  disorder)  in  political  society, 
were  attended  by  correspondent  movements 
in  the  poetical  world.  Bolder  speculations 
began  to  prevail.  A  combination  of  the 
science  and  art  of  the  tranquil  period,  with 
the  hardy  enterprises  of  that  which  suc 
ceeded,  gave  rise  to  scientific  poems,  in  which 
a  bold  attempt  wras  made,  by  the  mere  force 
of  diction,  to  give  a  political  interest  and 
elevation  to  the  coldest  parts  of  knowledge, 
and  to  those  arts  which  have  been  hitherto 
considered  as  the  meanest.  Having  been 
forced  above  their  natural  place  by  the  won 
der  at  first  elicited,  they  have  not  yet  reco 
vered  from  the  subsequent  depression.  Nor 
will  a  similar  attempt  be  successful,  without 
a  more  temperate  use  of  power  over  style, 
till  the  diffusion  of  physical  knowledge  ren 
ders  it  familiar  to  the  popular  imagination, 
and  till  the  prodigies  worked  by  the  mechani 
cal  arts  shall  have  bestowed  on  them  a  cha 
racter  of  grandeur. 

As  the  agitation  of  men's  minds  approach 
ed  the  period  of  an  explosion,  its  effects  on 
literature  became  more  visible.  The  desire 
of  strong  emotion  succeeded  to  the  solici 
tude  to  avoid  disgust.  Fictions,  both  dra 
matic  and  narrative,  were  formed  according 
to  the  school  of  Rousseau  and  Goethe.  The 
mixture  of  comic  and  tragic  pictures  once 
more  displayed  itself,  as  in  the  ancient  and 
national  drama.  The  sublime  and  energetic 
feelings  of  devotion  began  to  be  more  fre 
quently  associated  with  poetry.  The  ten 
dency  of  political  speculation  concurred  in 
directing  the  mind  of  the  poet  to  the  intense 
and  undisguised  passions  of  the  uneducated ; 
which  fastidious  politeness  had  excluded 
from  the  subjects  of  poetical  imitation.  The 
history  of  nations  unlike  ourselves,  the  fan 
tastic  mythology  and  ferocious  superstition 
of  distant  times  and  countries,  or  the  legends 
of  our  own  antique  faith,  and  the  romances 
of  our  fabulous  and  heroic  ages,  became 
themes  of  poetry.  Traces  of  a  higher  order 
of  feeling  appeared  in  the  contemplations  in 
which  the  poet  indulged,  and  in  the  events 
and  scenes  which  he  delighted  to  describe. 
The  fire  with  which  a  chivalrous  tale  was 


REVIEW  OF  ROGERS'  POEMS. 


257 


told,  made  the  reader  inattentive  to  negli 
gences  in  the  story  or  the  style.  Poetry  be 
came  more  devout,  more  contemplative,  more 
mystical,  more  visionary, — more  alien  from 
the  taste  of  those  whose  poetry  is  only  a 
polished  prosaic  verse, — more  full  of  antique 
superstition,  afld  more  prone  to  daring  inno 
vation, — painting  both  coarser  realities  and 
purer  imaginations,  than  she  had  before  ha 
zarded, — sometimes  buried  in  the  profound 
quiet  required  by  the  dreams  of  fancy, — 
sometimes  turbulent  and  martial, — seeking 
li  fierce  wars  and  faithful  loves"  in  those 
times  long  past,  when  the  frequency  of  the 
most  dreadful  dangers  produced  heroic  ener 
gy  and  the  ardour  of  faithful  affection. 

Even  the  direction  given  to  the  traveller 
by  the  accidents  of  war  has  not  been  with 
out  its  influence.  Greece,  the  mother  of 
freedom  and  of  poetry  in  the  West,  which 
had  long  employed  only  the  antiquary,  the 
artist,  and  the  philologist,  was  at  length  des 
tined,  after  an  interval  of  many  silent  and 
inglorious  ages,  to  awaken  the  genius  of  a 
poet.  Full  of  enthusiasm  for  those  perfect 
forms  of  heroism  and  liberty,  which  his 
imagination  had  placed  in  the 'recesses  of 
antiquity,  he  gave  vent  to  his  impatience  of 
the  imperfections  of  living  men  and  real  in 
stitutions,  in  an  original  strain  of  sublime 
satire,  which  clothes  moral  anger  in  imagery 
of  an  almost  horrible  grandeur ;  and  which, 
though  it  cannot  coincide  with  the  estimate 
of  reason,  yet  could  only  flow  from  that 
wrorship  of  perfection,  which  is  the  soul  of 
all  true  poetry. 

The  tendency  of  poetry  to  become  na 
tional,  was  in  more  than  one  case  remarkable. 
While  the  Scottish  middle  age  inspired  the 
most  popular  poet  perhaps  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  national  genius  of  Ireland  at 
length  found  a  poetical  representative,  whose 
exquisite  ear,  and  flexible  fancy,  wantoned 
in  all  the  varieties  of  poetical  luxury,  from 
the  levities  to  the  fondness  of  love,  from 
polished  pleasantry  to  ardent  passion,  and 
from  the  social  joys  of  private  life  to  a 
tender  and  mournful  patriotism,  taught  by 
the  melancholy  fortunes  of  an  illustrious 
country, — with  a  range  adapted  to  every 
nerve  in  the  composition  of  a  people  sus 
ceptible  of  all  feelings  which  have  the  colour 
of  generosity,  and  more  exempt  probably 
than  any  other  from  degrading  and  unpoeti- 
cal  vices. 

The  failure  of  innumerable  adventurers  is 
inevitable,  in  literary,  as  well  as  in  political, 
revolutions.  The  inventor  seldom  perfects 
his  invention.  The  uncouthness  of  the  no 
velty,  the  clumsiness  with  which  it  is  ma 
naged  by  an  unpractised  hand,  and  the  dog 
matical  contempt  of  criticism  natural  to  the 
pride  and  enthusiasm  of  the  innovator,  com 
bine  to  expose  him  to  ridicule,  and  generally 
terminate  in  his  being  admired  (though 
warmly)  by  a  few  of  his  contemporaries, — 
remembered  only  occasionally  in  after  times, 
— and  supplanted  in  general  estimation  by 
more  cautious  and  skilful  imitators.  With 
33 


the  very  reverse  of  unfriendly  feelings,  we 
observe  that  erroneous  theories  respecting 
poetical  diction, — exclusive  and  prescriptive 
notions  in  criticism,  which  in  adding  new 
provinces  to  poetry  would  deprive  her  of  an 
cient  dominions  and  lawful  instruments  of 
rule, — and  a  neglect  of  that  extreme  regard 
to  general  sympathy,  and  even  accidental 
prejudice,  which  is  necessary  to  guard  poeti 
cal  novelties  against  their  natural  enemy  the 
satirist, — have  powerfully  counteracted  an 
attempt,  equally  moral  and  philosophical. 
made  by  a  writer  of  undisputed  poetical 
genius,  to  enlarge  the  territories  of  art,  by  un 
folding  the  poetical  interest  which  lies  latent 
in  the  common  acts  of  the  humblest  men. 
and  in  the  most  ordinary  modes  of  feeling,  as 
well  as  in  the  most  familiar  scenes  of  nature. 

The  various  opinions  which  may  naturally 
be  formed  of  the  merit  of  individual  writers, 
form  no  necessary  part  of  our  consideration. 
We  consider  the  present  as  one  of  the  most 
flourishing  periods  of  English  poetry :  but 
those  who  condemn  all  contemporary  poets, 
need  not  on  that  account  dissent  from  our 
speculations.  It  is  sufficient  to  have  proved 
the  reality,  and  in  part  perhaps  to  have  ex 
plained  the  origin,  of  a  literary  revolution. 
At  no  time  does  the  success  of  writers  bear 
so  uncertain  a  proportion  to  their  genius,  as 
when  the  rules  of  judging  and  the  habits  of 
feeling  are  unsettled. 

It  is  not  uninteresting,  even  as  a  matter  of 
speculation,  to  observe  the  fortune  of  a  poem 
which,  like  the  Pleasures -of  Memory,  ap 
peared  at  the  commencement  of  this  literary 
revolution,  without  paying  court  to  the  revo 
lutionary  tastes,  or  seeking  distinction  by  re 
sistance  to  them.  It  borrowed  no  aid  either 
from  prejudice  or  innovation.  It  neither  co 
pied  the  fashion  of  the  age  which  was  pass 
ing  away,  nor  offered  any  homage  to  the 
rising  novelties.  It  resembles,  only  in  mea 
sure,  the  poems  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
which  were  written  in  heroic  rhyme.  Neither 
the  brilliant  sententiousness  of  Pope,  nor  the 
frequent  languor  and  negligence  perhaps  in 
separable  from  the  exquisite  nature  of  Gold 
smith,  could  be  traced  in  a  poem,  from  which 
taste  and  labour  equally  banished  mannerism 
and  inequality.  It  was  patronized  by  no  sect 
or  faction.  It  was  neither  imposed  on  the 
public  by  any  literary  cabal,  nor  forced  into 
notice  by  the  noisy  anger  of  conspicuous 
enemies.  Yet,  destitute  as  it  was  of  every 
foreign  help,  it  acquired  a  popularity  origi 
nally  very  great;  and  which  has  not  only 
continued  amidst  extraordinary  fluctuation 
of  general  taste,  but  has  increased  amid  a 
succession  of  formidable  competitors.  No 
production,  so  popular,  wras  probably  ever  so 
little  censured  by  criticism  :  and  thus  is  com 
bined  the  applause  of  conremporaries  with  the 
suffrage  of  the  representatives  of  posterity. 

It  is  needless  to  make  extracts  from  a 
poem  which  is  familiar  to  every  reader.  In 
selection,  indeed,  no  two  readers  would  pro 
bably  agree :  but  the  description  of  the 
Gipsies,— of  the  Boy  quitting  his  Father's 
w2 


258 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


house. — and  of  the  Savoyard  recalling  the 
mountainous  scenery  of  his  country, — and 
the  descriptive  commencement  of  the  tale  in 
Cumberland,  have  remained  most  deeply 
impressed  on  our  minds.  We  should  be  dis 
posed  to  quote  the  following  verses,  as  not 
surpassed,  in  pure  and  chaste  elegance,  by 
any  English  lines  :— 

"  When  Joy's  bright  sun  has  shed  his  evening 

ray. 

And  Hope's  delusive  meteors  cease  to  play  ; 
When  clouds  on  clouds  the  smiling  prospect 

close, 

Still  through  the  gloom  thy  star  serenely  glows  : 
Like  yon  fair  orb  she  gilds  the  brow  of  Night 
With  the  mild  magic  of  reflected  light." 

The  conclusion  of  the  fine  passage  on  the 
Veterans  at  Greenwich  and  Chelsea,  has  a 
pensive  dignity  which  beautifully  corres- 
ponds»\vith  the  scene  : — 

"  Long  have  ye  known  Reflection's  genial  ray 
Gild  the  calm  close  of  Valour's  various  day." 

And  we  cannot  resist  the  pleasure  of  quo 
ting  the  moral,  tender,  and  elegant  lines 
which  close  the  Poem  : — 

"  Lighter  than  air,  Hope's  summer-visions  fly, 
If  but  a  fleeting  cloud  obscure  the  sky  ; 
If  but  a  beam  of  sober  Reason  play, 
Lo,  Fancy's  fairy  frost-work  melts  away  ! 
But  can  the  wiles  of  Art,  the  grasp  of  Power, 
Snatch  the  rich  relics  of  a  well-spent  hour? 
These,   when  the  trembling  spirit  wings  her 

flight, 

Pour  round  her  path  a  stream  of  living  light; 
And  gild  those  pure  and  perfect  realms  of  rest, 
Where  Virtue  triumphs,  and  her  sons  are  blest!" 

The  descriptive  passages  require  indeed  a 
closer  inspection,  and  a  more  exercised  eye, 
than  those  of  some  celebrated  contempora 
ries  who  sacrifice  elegance  to  effect,  and 
whose  figures  stand  out  in  bold  relief,  from 
the  general  roughness  of  their  more  unfin 
ished  compositions :  and  in  the  moral  parts, 
there  is  often  discoverable  a  Virgilian  art, 
which  suggests,  rather  than  displays,  the 
various  and  contrasted  scenes  of  human  life, 
and  adds  to  the  power  of  language  by  a  cer 
tain  air  of  reflection  and  modesty,  in  the 
preference  of  measured  terms  to  those  of 
more  apparent  energy. 

In  the  View  from  the  House.*  the  scene  is 
neither  delightful  from  very  superior  beauty, 
nor  striking  by  singularity,  nor  powerful  from 
reminding  us  of  terrible  passions  or  memo 
rable  deeds.  It  consists  of  the  more  ordinary 
of  the  beautiful  features  of  nature,  neither 
exaggerated  nor  represented  with  curious 
minuteness,  but  exhibited  with  picturesque 
elegance,  in  connection  with  those  tranquil 
emotions  which  they  call  up  in  the  calm 
order  of  a  virtuous  mind,  in  every  condition 
of  society  and  of  life.  The  verses  on  the 
Torso,  are  in  a  more  severe  style.  The 
Fragment  of  a  divine  artist,  which  awakened 
the  genius  of  Michael  Angelo,  seems  to  dis 
dain  ornament.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
name  two  small  poems,  by  the  same  writer, 

*  In  the  Epistle  to  a  Friend.— ED. 


in  which  he  has  attained  such  high  degrees 
of  kinds  of  excellence  so  dissimilar,  as  are 
seen  in  the  Sick  Chamber  and  the  Butterfly. 
The  first  has  a  truth  of  detail,  which,  con 
sidered  merely  as  painting,  is  admirable; 
but  assumes  a  higher  character,  when  it  is 
felt  to  be  that  minute  remembrance,  with 
which  affection  recollects  every  circumstance 
that  could  have  affected  a  beloved  sufferer. 
Though  the  morality  which  concludes  the 
second,  be  in  itself  very  beautiful,  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  verses  would  not  have 
left  a  more  unmixed  delight,  if  the  address 
had  remained  as  a  mere  sport  of  fancy,  with 
out  the  seriousness  of  an  object,  or  an  appli 
cation.  The  verses  written  in  Westminster 
Abbey  are  surrounded  by  dangerous  recol 
lections  ;  they  aspire  to  commemorate  Fox, 
and  to  copy  some  of  the  grandest  thoughts 
in  the  most  sublime  work  of  Bossuet.  No 
thing  can  satisfy  the  expectation  awakened 
by  such  names:  yet  we  are  assured  that 
there  are  some  of  them  which  would  be  en 
vied  by  the  best  writers  of  this  age.  The 
scenery  of  Loch  Long  is  among  the  grandest 
in  Scotland ;  and  the  description  of  it  shows 
the  power  of  feeling  and  painting.  In  this 
island,  the  taste  for  nature  has  grown  with 
the  progress  of  refinement.  It  is  most  alive 
in  those  who  are  most  brilliantly  distinguish 
ed  in  social  and  active  life.  It  elevates  the 
mind  above  the  meanness  which  it  might 
contract  in  the  rivalship  for  praise ;  and  pre 
serves  those  habits  of  reflection  and  sensi 
bility,  which  receive  so  many  rude  shocks 
in  the  coarse  contests  of  the  world.  Not 
many  summer  hours  can  be  passed  in  the 
most  mountainous  solitudes  of  Scotland,  with 
out  meeting  some  who  are  worthy  to  be 
remembered  with  the  sublime  objects  of 
nature,  which  they  had  travelled  so  far  to 
admire. 

The  most  conspicuous  of  the  novelties  of 
this  volume  is  the  poem  or  poems,  entitled 
''Fragments  of  the  Voyage  of  Columbus." 
The  subject  of  this  poem  is,  politically  or 
philosophically  considered,  among  the  most 
important  in  the  annals  of  mankind.  The  in 
troduction  of  Christianity  (humanly  viewed), 
the  irruption  of  the  Northern  barbarians,  the 
contest  between  the  Christian  and  Mussul 
man  nations  in  Syria,  the  two  inventions  of 
gunpowder  and  printing,  the  emancipation 
of  the  human  understanding  by  the  Refor 
mation,  the  discovery  of  America,  and  of  a 
maritime  passage  to  Asia  in  the  last  ten 
years  of  the  fifteenth  century,  are  the  events 
which  have  produced  the  greatest  and  most 
durable  effects,  since  the  establishment  of 
civilization,  and  the  consequent  commence 
ment  of  authentic  history.  But  the  poetical 
capabilities  of  an  event  bear  no  proportion  to 
historical  importance.  None  of  the  conse 
quences  that  do  not  strike  the  senses  or  the 
fancy  can  interest  the  poet.  The  greatest 
of  the  transactions  above  enumerated  is  ob 
viously  incapable  of  entering  into  poetry. 
The  Crusades  were  not  without  permanent 
effects  on  the  state  of  men :  but  their  poeti- 


REVIEW  OF  ROGERS'  POEMS. 


259 


cal  interest  does  not  arise  from  these  effects ; 
and  it  immeasurably  surpasses  them. 

Whether  the  voyage  of  Columbus  be  des 
tined  to  be  for  ever  incapable  of  becoming 
the  subject  of  an  epic  poem,. is  a  question 
which  we  have  scarcely  the  means  of  answer 
ing.  The  success  of  great  writers  has  often 
so  little  corresponded  with  the  promise  of 
their  subject,  that  we  might  be  almost  tempt 
ed  to  think  the  choice  of  a  subject  indifferent. 
The  story  of  Hamlet,  or  of  Paradise  Lost, 
would  beforehand  have  been  pronounced  to 
be  unmanageable.  Perhaps  the  genius  of 
Shakespeare  and  of  Milton  has  rather  com 
pensated  for  the  incorrigible  defects  of  un 
grateful  subjects,  than  conquered  them .  The 
course  of  ages  may  produce  the  poetical 
genius,  the  historical  materials  and  the  na 
tional  feelings,  for  an  American  epic  poem. 
There  is  yet  but  one  state  in  America,  and 
that  state  is  hardly  become  a  nation.  At 
some  future  period,  when  every  part  of  the 
continent  has  been  the  scene  of  memorable 
events,  when  the  discovery  and  conquest 
have  receded  into  that  legendary  dimness 
which  allows  fancy  to  mould  them  at  her 
pleasure,  the  early  history  of  America  may 
afford  scope  for  the  genius  of  a  thousand 
national  poets ;  and  while  some  may  soften 
the  cruelty  which  darkens  the  daring  energy 
of  Cortez  arid  Pizarro, — while  others  may, 
in  perhaps  new  forms  of  poetry,  ennoble  the 
pacific  conquests  of  Penn, — and  while  the 
genius,  the  exploits,  and  the  fate  of  Raleigh, 
may  render  his  establishments  probably  the 
most  alluring  of  American  subjects,  every 
inhabitant  of  the  new  world  will  turn  his 
eyes  with  filial  reverence  towards  Columbus, 
an(fr  regard,  with  equal  enthusiasm,  the 
voyage  which  laid  the  foundation  of  so  many 
states,  and  peopled  a  continent  with  civilized 
men.  Most  epic  subjects,  but  especially 
such  a  subject  as  Columbus,  require  either 
the  fire  of  an  actor  in  the  scene,  or  the  reli 
gious  reverence  of  a  very  distant  posterity. 
Homer,  as  wrell  as  Enjilla  and  Camoens. 
show  what  may  be  done  by  an  epic  poet 
who  himself  feels  the  passions  of  his  heroes. 
It  must  not  be  denied  that  Virgil  has  bor 
rowed  a  colour  of  refinement  from  the  court 
of  Augustus,  in  painting  the  age  of  Priam 
and  of  Dido.  Evander  is  a  solitary  and  ex 
quisite  model  of  primitive  manners,  divest 
ed  of  grossness,  without  losing  their  sim 
plicity.  But  to  an  European  poet,  in  this  age 
of  the  world,  the  Voyage  of  Columbus  is  too 
naked  and  too  exactly  defined  by  history. 
It  has  no  variety, — scarcely  any  succession 
of  events.  It  consists  of  one  scene,  during! 
which  two  or  three  simple  passions  continue  j 
in  a  state  of  the  highest  excitement.  It  is  a  ' 
voyage  with  intense  anxiety  in  every  bosom, 
controlled  by  magnanimous  fortitude  in  the 
leader,  and  producing  among  his  followers 
a  fear, — sometimes  submissive,  sometimes 
mutinous,  always  ignoble,  ft  admits  of  no 
variety  of  character, — no  unexpected  revolu 
tions.  And  even  the  issue,  though  of  un 
speakable  importance,  and  admirably  adapt 


ed  to  some  kinds  of  poetry,  is  not  an  event 
of  such  outward  dignity  and  splendour  as 
ought  naturally  to  close  the  active  and  bril 
liant  course  of  an  epic  poem. 

It  is  natural  that  the  Fragments  should 
give  a  specimen  of  the  marvellous  as  well 
as  of  the  other  constituents  of  epic  fiction. 
We  may  observe,  that  it  is  neither  the  inten 
tion  nor  the  tendency  of  poetical  machinery 
to  supersede  secondary  causes,  to  fetter  the 
will,  and  to  make  human  creatures  appear 
as  the  mere  instruments  of  destiny.  It  is 
introduced  to  satisfy  that  insatiable  demand 
for  a  nature  more  exalted  than  that  wrhich 
we  know  by  experience,  which  creates  all 
poetry,  and  which  is  most  active  in  its  high 
est  species,  and  in  its  most  perfect  produc 
tions.  It  is  not  to  account  for  thoughts  and 
feelings,  that  superhuman  agents  are  brought 
down  upon  earth :  it  is  rather  for  the  con 
trary  purpose,  of  lifting  them  into  a  myste 
rious  dignity  beyond  the  cognizance  of  rea 
son.  There  is  a  material  difference  between 
the  acts  which  superior  beings  perform,  and 
the  sentiments  which  they  inspire.  It  is 
true,  that  when  a  god  fights  against  men, 
there  can  be  no  uncertainty  or  anxiety,  and 
consequently  no  interest  about  the  event, — 
unless  indeed  in  the  rude  theology  of  Homer, 
where  Minerva  may  animate  the  Greeks, 
while  Mars  excites  the  Trojans:  but  it  is 
quite  otherwise  with  these  divine  persons 
inspiring  passion,  or  represented  as  agents  in 
the  great  phenomena  of  nature.  Venus  and 
Mars  inspire  love  or  valour;  they  give  a 
noble  origin  and  a  dignified  character  to 
these  sentiments  :  but  the  sentiments  them 
selves  act  according  to  the  laws  of  our  na 
ture  ;  and  their  celestial  source  has  no  ten 
dency  to  impair  their  power  over  human 
sympathy.  No  event,  which  has  not  too  much 
modern  vulgarity  to  be  susceptible  of  alliance 
with  poetry,  can  be  incapable  of  being  enno 
bled  by  that  eminently  poetical  art  which 
ascribes  it  either  to  the  Supreme  Will,  or  to 
the  agency  of  beings  who  are  greater  than 
human.  The  wisdom  of  Columbus  is  neither 
less  venerable,  nor  less  his  own,  because  it 
is  supposed  to  flow  more  directly  than  that 
of  other  wise  men,  from  the  inspiration  of 
heaven.  The  mutiny  of  his  seamen  is  not 
less  interesting  or  formidable  because  the 
poet  traces  it  to  the  suggestion  of  those  ma- 
ligTiant  spirits,  in  whom  the  imagination?  in 
dependent  of  all  theological  doctrines,  is 
naturally  prone  to  personify  and  embody  the 
causes  of  evil. 

Unless,  indeed,  the  marvellous  be  a  part 
of  the  popular  creed  at  the  period  of  the 
action,  the  reader  of  a  subsequent  age  will 
refuse  to  sympathize  with  it.  His  poetical 
faith  is  founded  in  sympathy  with  that  of  th 3 
poetical  personages.  Still  more  objectionable 
is  a  marvellous  influence,  neither  believed  in 
by  the  reader  nor  by  the  hero ; — like  a  great 
part  of  the  machinery  of  the  Henriade  and 
the  Lusiad,  which  indeed  is  not  only  ab 
solutely  ineffective,  but  rather  disennobles 
heroic  fiction,  by  association  with  light  and 


260 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


frivolous  ideas.  Allegorical  persons  (if  the 
expression  may  be  allowed)  are  only  in  the 
way  to  become  agents.  The  abstraction  has 
received  a  faint  outline  of  form }  but  it  has 
not  yet  acquired  those  individual  marks  and 
characteristic  peculiarities,  which  render  it 
a  really  existing  being.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  more  sublime  parts  of  our  own  religion, 
and  more  especially  those  which  are  common 
to  all  religion,  are  too  awful  and  too  philoso 
phical  for  poetical  effect.  If  we  except  Pa 
radise  Lost,  where  all  is  supernatural,  and 
where  the  ancestors  of  the  human  race  are 
not  strictly  human  beings,  it  must  be  owned 
that  no  successful  attempt  has  been  made  to 
ally  a  human  action  with  the  sublimer  prin 
ciples  of  the  Christian  theology.  Some  opi 
nions,  which  may  perhaps,  without  irrever 
ence,  be  said  to  be  rather  appendages  to  the 
Christian  system,  than  essential  parts  of  it, 
are  in  that  sort  of  intermediate  state  which 
fits  them  for  the  purposes  of  poetry  j — suffi 
ciently  exalted  to  ennoble.the  human  actions 
with  which  they  are  blended,  but  not  so 
exactly  defined,  nor  so  deeply  revered,  as  to 
be  inconsistent  with  the  liberty  of  imagina 
tion.  The  guardian  angels,  in  the  project  of 
Dryden,  had  the  inconvenience  of  having 
never  taken  any  deep  root  in  popular  belief : 
the  agency  of  evil  spirits  was  firmly  believed 
in  the  age  of  Columbus.  With  the  truth  of 
facts  poetry  can  have  no  concern ;  but  the 
truth  of  manners  is  necessary  to  its  persons. 
If  the  minute  investigations  of  the  Notes  to 
this  poem  had  related  to  historical  details, 
they  would  have  been  insignificant ;  but  they 
are  intended  to  justify  the  human  and  the 
supernatural  parts  of  it,  by  an  appeal  to  the 
mariners  and  to  the  opinions  of  the  age. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  volume  in  our  language 
of  which  it  can  be  so  truly  said,  as  of  the 
present,  that  it  is  equally  exempt  from  the 


frailties  of  negligence  and  the  vices  of  affec 
tation.  Exquisite  polish  of  style  is  indeed 
more  admired  by  the  artist  than  by  the  peo 
ple.  The  gentle  and  elegant  pleasure  which 
it  imparts,  can  only  be  felt.by  a  calm  reason, 
an  exercised  taste,  and  a  mind  free  from  tur 
bulent  passions.  But  these  beauties  of  exe 
cution  can  exist  only  in  combination  with 
much  of  the  primary  beauties  of  thought  and 
feeling ;  and  poets  of  the  first  rank  depend 
on  them  for  no  small  part  of  the  perpetuity 
of  their  fame.  In  poetry,  though  not  in  elo 
quence,  it  is  less  to  rouse  the  passions  of  a 
moment,  than  to  satisfy  the  taste  of  all 
ages. 

In  estimating  the  poetical  rank  of  Mr. 
Rogers,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  popu 
larity  never  can  arise  from,  elegance  alone. 
The  vices  of  a  poem  may  render  it  popular  • 
and  virtues  of  a  faint  character  may  be  suffi 
cient  to  preserve  a  languishing  and  cold  re 
putation.  But  to  be  both  popular  poets  and 
classical  writers,  is  the  rare  lot  of  those  few 
who  are  released  from  all  solicitude  about 
their  literary  fame.  It  often  happens  to  suc 
cessful  writers,  that  the  lustre  of  their  first 
productions  throws  a  temporary  cloud  over 
some  of  those  which  follow.  Of  all  literary 
misfortunes,  this  is  the  most  easily  endured, 
and  the  most  speedily  repaired.  It  is  gene 
rally  no  more  than  a  momentary  illusion 
produced  by  disappointed  admiration,  which 
expected  more  from  the  talents  of  the  ad 
mired  writer  than  any  talents  could  perform. 
Mr.  Rogers  has  long  passed  that  period  of 
probation,  during  which  it  may  be  excusable 
to  feel  some  painful  solicitude  about  the  re 
ception  of  every  new  work.  Whatever  may 
be  the  rank  assigned  hereafter  to  his  ^Til 
ings,  when  compared  with  each  other,  the 
writer  has  most  certainly  taken  his  place 
among  the  classical  poets  of  his  country. 


REVIEW 


MADAME  DE  STAEL'S  'DE  L'ALLEMAGNE 


TILL  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
Germany  was,  in  one  important  respect,  sin 
gular  among  the  great  nations  of  Christendom . 
She  had  attained  a  high  rank  in  Europe  by 
discoveries  and  inventions,  by  science,  by 
abstract  speculation  as  well  as  positive  know 
ledge,  by  the  genius  and  the  art  of  war, 
and  above  all,  by  the  theological  revolution, 
which  unfettered  the  understanding  in  one 


*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxii.  p. 
168. — ED. 


part  of  Europe,  and  loosened  its  chains  in 
the  other;  but  she  was  without  a  national 
literature.  The  country  of  Guttenberg,  of 
Copernicus,  of  Luther,  of  Kepler,  and  of 
Leibnitz,  had  no  writer  in  her  own  language, 
whose  name  was  known  to  the  neighbouring 
nations.  German  captains  and  statesmen, 
philosophers  and  scholars,  were  celebrated ; 
but  German  writers  were  unknown.  The 
nations  of  the  Spanish  peninsula  formed  the 
exact  contrast  to  Germany.  '  She  had  every 
mark  of  mental  cultivation  but  a  vernacular 


REVIEW  OF  DE  L'ALLEMAGNE. 


261 


literature :  they,  since  the  Reformation;  had  | 
ceased  to  exercise  their  reason  ]  and  they  j 
retained  only  their  poets,  whom  they  were  ; 
content  to  admire,  without  daring  any  longer  j 
to  emulate.  In  Italy,  Metastasio  was  the  ' 
only  renowned  poet  j  and  sensibility  to  the 
arts  of  design  had  survived  genius :  but  the 
monuments  of  ancient  times  still  kept  alive 
the  pursuits  of  antiquities  and  philology ;  and 
the  rivalship  of  small  states,  and  the  glory 
of  former  ages,  preserved  an  interest  in  lite 
rary  history.  The  national  mind  retained 
that  tendency  towards  experimental  science, 
which  it  perhaps  principally  owed  to  the 
fame  of  Galileo  ;  and  began  also  to  take  some 
part  in  those  attempts  to  discover  the  means 
of  bettering  the  human  condition,  by  inquiries 
into  the  principles  of  legislation  and  political 
economy,  which  form  the  most  honourable 
distinction  of  the  eighteenth  century.  France 
and  England  abated  nothing  of  their  activity. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  purity  of 
taste,  or  of  the  soundness  of  opinion  of  Mon 
tesquieu  and  Voltaire,  Buffon  and  Rousseau, 
no  man  will  dispute  the  vigour  of  their  genius. 
The  same  period  among  us  was  not  marked 
by  the  loss  of  any  of  our  ancient  titles  to 
fame;  and  it  was  splendidly  distinguished 
by  the  rise  of  the  arts,  of  history,  of  oratory, 
and  (shall  we  not  add?)  of  painting.  But 
Germany  remained  a  solitary  example  of  a 
civilized,  learned,  and  scientific  nation,  with 
out  a  literature.  The  chivalrous  ballads  of 
the  middle  age,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Silesian 
poets  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  were  just  sufficient  to  render  the 
general  defect  more  striking.  French  was 
the  language  of  every  court ;  and  the  number 
of  courts  in  Germany  rendered  this  circum 
stance  almost  equivalent  to  the  exclusion  of 
German  from  every  society  of  rank.  Phi 
losophers  employed  a  barbarous  Latin, — as 
they  had  throughout  all  Europe,  till  the 
Reformation  had  given  dignity  to  the  ver 
nacular  tongues,  by  employing  them  in  the 
service  of  Religion,  and  till  Montaigne,  Gali 
leo,  and  Bacon,  broke  down  the  barrier 
between  the  learned  and  the  people,  by  phi 
losophizing  in  a  popular  language ;  and  the 
German  language  continued  to  be  the  mere 
instrument  of  the  most  vulgar  intercourse  of 
life.  Germany  had,  therefore,  no  exclusive 
mental  possession :  for  poetry  and  eloquence 
may,  and  in  some  measure  must  be  national ; 
but  knowledge,  which  is  the  common  patri 
mony  of  civilized  men,  can  be  appropriated 
by  no  people. 

A  great  revolution,  however,  at  length 
began,  which  in  the  course  of  half  a  century 
terminated  in  bestowing  on  Germany  a  litera 
ture,  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  pos 
sessed  by  any  European  nation.  It  had  the 
important  peculiarity  of  being  the  first  which 
had  its  birth  in  an  enlightened  age.  The 
imagination  and  sensibility  of  an  infant  poe 
try  were  in  it  singTilarly  blended  with  the 
refinements  of  philosophy.  A  studious  and 
learned  people,  familiar  with  the  poets  of 
other  nations,  with  the  first  simplicity  of 


nature  and  feeling,  were  too  .often  tempted 
to  pursue  the  singular,  the  excessive,  and  the 
monstrous.  Their  fancy  was  attracted  to 
wards  the  deformities  and  diseases  of  moral 
nature ; — the  wildness  of  an  infant  literature, 
combined  with  the  eccentric  and  fearless 
speculations  of  a  philosophical  age.  Some 
of  the  qualities  of  the  childhood  of  art  were 
united  to  others  which  usually  attend  its  de 
cline.  German  literature,  various,  rich,  bold, 
and  at  length,  by  an  inversion  of  the  usual 
progress,  working  itself  into  originality,  was 
tainted  with  the  exaggeration  natural  to  the 
imitator,  and  to  all  those  who  know  the  pas 
sions  rather  by  study  than  by  feeling. 

Another  cause  concurred  to  widen  the 
chasm  which  separated  the  German  writers 
from  the  most  polite  nations  of  Europe. 
While  England  and  France  had  almost  re 
linquished  those  more  abstruse  speculations 
which  had  employed  them  in  the  age  of 
Gassendi  and  Hobbes,  and.  with  a  confused 
mixture  of  contempt  and  despair,  had  tacitly 
abandoned  questions  which  seemed  alike 
inscrutable  and  unprofitable,  a  metaphysical 
passion  arose  in  Germany,  stronger  and  more 
extensive  than  had  been  known  in  Europe 
since  the  downfall  of  the  Scholastic  philoso 
phy.  A  system  of  metaphysics  appeared, 
which,  with  the  ambition  natural  to  that 
science,  aspired  to  dictate  principles  to  every 
part  of  human  knowledge.  It  was  for  a  long 
time  universally  adopted.  Other  systems, 
derived  from  it,  succeeded  each  other  with 
the  rapidity  of  fashions  in  dress.  Metaphy 
sical  publications  were  multiplied  almost  to 
the  same  degree,  as  political  tracts  in  the 
most  factious  period  of  a  popular  government. 
The  subject  was  soon  exhausted,  and  the 
metaphysical  passion  seems  to  be  nearly  ex 
tinguished:  for  the  small  circle  of,  dispute 
respecting  first  principles,  must  be  always 
rapidly  described ;  and  the  speculator,  who 
thought  his  course  infinite,  finds  himself  al 
most  instantaneously  returned  to  the  point 
from  which  he  began.  But  the  language 
of  abstruse  research  spread  over  the  v.  hole 
German  style.  Allusions  to  the  most  subtile 
speculations  were  common  in  popular  writ 
ings.  Bold  metaphors,  derived  from  their 
peculiar  philosophy,  became  familiar  in  ob 
servations  on  literature  and  manners.  The 
style  of  Germany  at  length  differed  from 
that  of  France,  and  even  of  England,  more 
as  the  literature  of  the  East  differs  from  that 
of  the  West,  than  as  that  of  one  European 
people  from  that  of  their  neighbours. 

Hence  it  partly  arose,  that  while  physical 
and  political  Germany  was  so  familiar  to 
foreigners,  intellectual  and  literary  Germany 
continued  almost  unknown.  Thirty  years 
ago,*  there  were  probably  in  London  as 
many  Persian  as  German  scholars.  Neither 
Goethe  nor  Schiller  conquered  the  repug 
nance.  Political  confusions,  a  timid  and 
exclusive  taste,  and  the  habitual  neglect  of 
foreign  languages,  excluded  German  litera- 


*  Written  in  1813.— ED. 


262 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ture  from  France.  Temporary  and  permanent 
causes  contributed  to  banish  it;  after  a  short  pe 
riod  of  success,  from  England.  Dramas,  more 
remarkable  for  theatrical  effect,  than  dramati 
cal  genius,  exhibited  scenes  and  characters  of 
a  paradoxical  morality  (on  which  no  writer 
has  animadverted  with  more  philosophical 
and  moral  eloquence  than  Mad.  de  Stael), — 
unsafe  even  in  the  quiet  of  the  schools,  but 
peculiarly  dangerous  in  the  theatre,  where 
it  comes  into  contact  with  the  inflammable 
passions  of  ignorant  multitudes, — and  justly 
alarming  to  those  who,  with  great  reason, 
considered  domestic  virtue  as  one  of  the 
privileges  and  safeguards  of  the  English  na 
tion.  These  moral  paradoxes,  which  were 
chiefly  found  among  the  inferior  poets  of 
Germany,  appeared  at  the  same  time  with 
the  political  novelties  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  and  underwent  the  same  fate.  German 
literature  was  branded  as  the  accomplice  of 
freethinking  philosophy  and  revolutionary 
politics.  It  happened  rather  whimsically, 
that  we  now  began  to  throw  out  the  same 
reproaches  against  other  nations,  which  the 
French  had  directed  against  us  in  the  begin 
ning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  We  were 
then  charged  by  our  polite  neighbours  with 
the  vulgarity  and  turbulence  of  rebellious 
upstarts,  who  held  nothing  sacred  in  religion, 
or  stable  in  government  j  whom — 

"  No  king   could  govern,    and  no   God  could 
please  ;''* 

and  whose  coarse  and  barbarous  literature 
could  excite  only  the  ridicule  of  cultivated 
nations.  The  political  part  of  these  charges 
we  applied  to  America,  which  had  retained  as 
much  as  she  could  of  our  government  and 
laws ;  and  the  literary  part  to  Germany,  where 
literature  had  either  been  formed  on  our  mo 
dels,  or  moved  by  a  kindred  impulse,  even 
where  it  assumed  somewhat  of  a  different 
form.  The  same  persons  who  applauded 
wit,  and  pardoned  the  shocking  licentious 
ness  of  English  comedy,  were  loudest  in 
their  clamours  against  the  immorality  of  the 
German  theatre.  In  our  zeal  against  a  few 
scenes,  dangerous  only  by  over-refinement, 
we  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  vulgar 
grossness  which  tainted  the  whole  brilliant 
period  from  Fletcher  to  Congreve.  Nor  did 
we  sufficiently  remember,  that  the  most 
daring  and  fantastical  combinations  of  the 
German  stage,  did  not  approach  to  that  union 
of  taste  and  sense  in  the  thought  and  expres 
sion,  with  wildness  and  extravagance  in  the 
invention  of  monstrous  character  and  horrible 
incident,  to  be  found  in  some  of  our  earlier 
dramas,  which,  for  their  energy  and  beauty, 
the  public  taste  has  lately  called  from  oblivion. 
The  more  permanent  causes  of  the  slow 
and  small  progress  of  German  literature  in 
France  and  England,  are  philosophically  de 
veloped  in  two  beautiful  chapters  of  the 
present  work.!  A  translation  from  German 


*  Absalom  and  Achitophel. — ED. 
t  Partii.,  chap.  1,  2. 


into  a  language  so  different  in  its  structure 
and  origin  as  French,  fails,  as  a  piece  of 
music  composed  for  one  sort  of  instrument 
when  performed  on  another.  In  Germany, 
style,  and  even  language,  are  not  yet  fixed. 
In  France,  rules  are  despotic  :  "  the  reader 
will  not  be  amused  at  the  expense  of  his 
literary  conscience;  there  alone  he  is  scru 
pulous."  A  German  writer  is  above  his 
public,  and  forms  it:  a  French  writer  dreads 
a  public  already  enlightened  and  severe  ;  he 
constantly  thinks  of  immediate  effect ;  he  is 
in  society,  even  while  he  is  composing  ;  and 
never  loses  sight  of  the  effect  of  his  writings 
on  those  whose  opinions  and  pleasantries  he 
is  accustomed  to  fear.  The  German  writers 
have,  in  a  higher  degree,  the  first  requisite 
for  writing — the  power  of  feeling  with  viva 
city  and  force.  In  France,  a  book  is  read 
to  be  spoken  of,  and  must  therefore  catch 
the  spirit  of  society  :  in  Germany,  it  is  read 
by  solitary  students,  who  seek  instruction  or 
emotion  j  and,  -''in  the  silence  of  retirement, 
nothing  seems  more  melancholy  than  the 
spirit  of  the  world."  The  French  require  a 
clearness  which  may  sometimes  render  their 
writers  superficial :  arid  the  Germans,  in  the 
pursuit  of  originality  and  depth,  often  convey 
obvious  thoughts  in  an  obscure  style.  In 
the  dramatic  art,  the  most  national  part  of 
literature,  the  French  are  distinguished  in 
whatever  relates  to  the  action,  the  intrigue, 
and  the  interest  of  events  :  but  the  Germans 
surpass  them  in  representing  the  impressions 
of  the  heart,  and  the  secret  storms  of  the 
strong  passions. 

This  work  will  make  known  to  future  ages 
the  state  of  Germany  in  the  highest  degree 
of  its  philosophical  and  poetical  activity,  at 
the  moment  before  the  pride  of  genius  was 
humbled  by  foreign  conquest,  or  the  national 
mind  turned  from  literary  enthusiasm  by 
struggles  for  the  restoration  of  independence. 
The  fleeting  opportunity  of  observation  at  so 
extraordinary  a  moment,  has  happily  been 
seized  by  one  of  those  very  few  persons, 
who  are  capable  at  once  of  observing  and 
painting  manners, — of  estimating  and  ex 
pounding  philosophical  systems, — of  feeling 
the  beauties  of  the  most  dissimilar  forms  of 
literature, — of  tracing  the  peculiarities  -of 
usages,  arts,  and  even  speculations,  to  their 
common  principle  in  national  character, — 
and  of  disposing  them  in  their  natural  place 
as  features  in  the  great  portrait  of  a  people. 

The  attainments  of  a  respectable  travel 
ler  of  the  second  class,  are,  in  the  present 
age,  not  uncommon.  Many  persons  are  per 
fectly  well  qualified  to  convey  exact  infor 
mation,  wherever  the  subject  can  be  exactly 
known.  But  the  most  important  objects  in 
a  country  can  neither  be  numbered  nor 
measured.  The  naturalist  gives  no  picture 
of  scenery  by  the  most  accurate  catalogue 
of  mineral  and  vegetable  produce ;  and,  after 
all  that  the  political  arithmetician  can  tell  us 
of  wealth  and  population,  we  continue  igno 
rant  of  the  spirit  which  actuates  them,  and 
of  the  character  which  modifies  their  appli- 


REVIEW  OF  DE  L'ALLEMAGNE. 


263 


cation.  The  genius  of  the  philosophical  and 
poetical  traveller  is  of  a  higher  order.  It  is 
founded  in  the  power  of  catching,  at  a  rapid 
glance,  the  physiognomy  of  man  and  of  na 
ture.  It  is,  in  one  of  its  parts,  an  expansion 
of  that  sagacity  which  seizes  the  character 
of  an  individual,  in  his  features,  in  his  ex 
pression,  in  his  gestures,  in  his  tones, — in 
every  outward  sign  of  his  thoughts  and  feel 
ings.  The  application  of  this  intuitive  power 
to  the  varied  mass  called  a  "nation,"  is  one 
of  the  most  rare  efforts  of  the  human  intel 
lect.  The  mind  and  the  eye  must  co-ope 
rate,  with  electrical  rapidity,  to  recall  what 
a  nation  has  been,  to  sympathize  with  their 
present  sentiments  and  passions,  and  to  trace 
the  workings  of  national  character  in  amuse 
ments,  in  habits,  in  institutions  and  opinions. 
There  appears  to  be  an  extemporaneous  fa 
cility  of  theorizing,  necessary  to  catch  the 
first  aspect  of  a  new  country, — the  features 
of  which  would  enter  the  mind  in  absolute 
confusion,  if  they  were  not  immediately  re 
ferred  to  some  principle,  and  reduced  to 
some  system.  To  embody  this  conception, 
there  must  exist  the  power  of  painting  both 
scenery  and  character, — of  combining  the 
vivacity  of  first  impression  with  the  accuracy 
of  minute  examination, — of  placing  a  nation, 
strongly  individualized  by  every  mark  of  its 
mind  and  disposition,  in  the  midst  of  ancient 
monuments,  clothed  in  its  own  apparel,  en 
gaged  in  its  ordinary  occupations  and  pas 
times  amidst  its  native  scenes,  like  a  grand 
historical  painting,  with  appropriate  drapery, 
and  with  the  accompaniments  of  architecture 
and  landscape,  which  illustrate  and  charac 
terize,  as  well  as  adorn. 

The  voice  of  Europe  has  already  applaud 
ed  the  genius  of  a  national  painter  in  the 
author  of  Corinne.  But  it  was  there  aided 
by  the  power  of  a  pathetic  fiction,  by  the 
variety  and  opposition  of  national  character, 
and  by  the  charm  of  a  country  which  unites 
beauty  to  renown.  In  the  work  before  us, 
she  has  thrown  off  the  aid  of  fiction  ;  she  de 
lineates  a  less  poetical  character,  and  a  coun 
try  more  interesting  by  expectation  than  by 
recollection.  But  it  is  not  the  less  certain 
that  it  is  the  most  vigorous  effort  of  her 
genius,  and  probably  the  most  elaborate  and 
masculine  production  of  the  faculties  of  wo 
man.  What  other  woman,  indeed,- (and  we 
may  add  how  many  men,)  could  have  pre 
served  all  the  grace  and  brilliancy  of  Parisian 
society  in  analyzing  its  nature, — explained 
the  most  abstruse  metaphysical  theories  of 
Germany  precisely,  yet  perspicuously  and 
agreeably, — and  combined  the  eloquence 
which  inspires  exalted  sentiments  of  virtue, 
with  the  enviable  talent  of  gently  indicating 
the  defects  of  men  or  of  nations,  by  the  skil 
fully  softened  touches  of  a  polite  and  merci 
ful  pleasantry "? 

In  a  short  introduction,  the  principal  na 
tions  of  Europe  are  derived  from  three  races, 
— the  Sclavonic,  the  Latin,  and  the  Teutonic 
The  imitative  'and  feeble  literature, — the 
recent  precipitate  and  superficial  civilization 


of  the  Sclavonic  nations,  sufficiently  distin 
guish  them  from  the  two  great  races.  The 
Latin  nations,  who  inhabit  the  south  of  Eu 
rope,  are  the  most  anciently  civilized  :  social 
"nstitutions,  blended  with  Paganism,  pre 
ceded  their  reception  of  Christianity.  They 
have  less  disposition  than  their  northern 
icighbours  to  abstract  reflection ;  they  un 
derstand  better  the  business  arid  pleasures 
of  the  world ;  they  inherit  the  sagacity  of 
he  Eomans  in  civil  affairs ;  and  "  they  alone, 
like  those  ancient  masters,  know  how  to 
practice  the  art  of  domination."  The  Ger 
manic  nations,  who  inhabit  the  north  of  Eu 
rope  and  the  British  islands,  received  their 
ivilization  with  Christianity  :  chivalry  and 
the  middle  ages  are  the  subjects  of  their 
traditions  and  legends;  their  natural  genius 
is  more  Gothic  than  classical;  they  are  dis 
tinguished  by  independence  and  good  faith, 

by  seriousness  both  in  their  talents  and 
character,  rather  than  by  address  or  vivacity. 
"  The  social  dignity  which  the  English  owe 
to  their  political  constitution,  places  them  at 
the  head  of  Teutonic  nations,  but  does  not 
exempt  them  from  the  character  of  the  race." 
The  literature  of  the  Latin  nations  is  copied 
from  the  ancients,  and  retains  the  original 
colour  of  their  polytheism:  that  of  the  na 
tions  of  Germanic  origin  has  a  chivalrous 
basis,  and  is  modified  by  a  spiritual  religion. 
The  French  and  Germans  are  at  the  two  ex 
tremities  of  the  chain;  the  French  con 
sidering  outward  objects,  and  the  Germans 
thought  and  feeling,  as  the  prime  movers  of 
the  moral  world.  "The  French,  the  most 
cultivated  of  Latin  nations,  inclines  to  a  clas 
sical  poetry :  the  English,  the  most  illustri 
ous  of  Germanic  ones,  delights  in  a  poetry 
more  romantic  and  chivalrous." 

The  theory  which  \ve  have  thus  abridged 
is  most  ingenious,  and  exhibits  in  the  live 
liest  form  the  distinction  between  different 
systems  of  literature  and  manners.  It  is 
partly  true ;  for  the  principle  of  race  is 
doubtless  one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
history  of  mankind ;  and  the  first  impressions 
on  the  susceptible  character  of  rude  tribes 
may  be  traced  in  the  qualities  of  their  most 
civilized  descendants.  But,  considered  as 
an  exclusive  and  universal  theory,  it  is  not 
secure  against  the  attacks  of  sceptical  inge 
nuity.  The  facts  do  not  seem  entirely  to 
correspond  with  it.  It  was  among  the  Latin 
nations  of  the  South,  that  chivalry  and  ro 
mance  first  flourished.  Provence  was  the 
earliest  seat  of  romantic  poetry.  A  chival 
rous  literature  predominated  in  Italy  during 
the  most  brilliant  period  of  Italian  genius. 
The  poetry  of  the  Spanish  peninsula  seems 
to  have  been  more  romantic  and  less  sub 
jected  to  classical  bondage  than  that  of  any 
other  part  of  Europe.  On  the  contrary,  chi 
valry,  which  was  the  refinement  of  the  mid 
dle  age,  penetrated  more  slowly  into  the 
countries  of  the  North.  In  general,  the 
character  of  the  literature  of  each  European 
nation  seems  extremely  to  depend  upon  the 
period  at  which  it  had  reached  its  highest 


264 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


point  of  cultivation.  Spanish  and  Italian 
poetry  flourished  while  Europe  was  still  chi 
valrous.  French  literature  attained  its  high 
est  splendour  after  the  Grecian  and  Roman 
writers  had  become  the  object  of  universal 
reverence.  The  Germans  cultivated  their 
poetry  a  hundred  years  later,  when  the  study 
of  antiquity  had  revived  the  knowledge  of 
the  Gothic  sentiments  and  principles.  Na 
ture  produced  a  chivalrous  poetry  in  the  six 
teenth  century; — learning  in  the  eighteenth. 
Perhaps  the  history  of  English  poetry  reflects 
the  revolution  of  European  taste  more  dis 
tinctly  than  that  of  any  other  nation.  We 
have  successively  cultivated  a  Gothic  poetry 
from  nature,  a  classical  poetry  from  imita 
tion,  and  a  second  Gothic  from  the  study  of 
our  own  ancient  poets. 

To  this  consideration  it  must  be  added, 
that  Catholic  and  Protestant  nations  must 
differ  in  their  poetical  system.  The  festal 
shows  and  legendary  polytheism  of  the  Ca 
tholics  had  the  effect  of  a  sort  of  Christian 
Paganism.  The  Protestant  poetry  was  spirit 
ualized  by  the  genius  of  their  worship,  and 
was  undoubtedly  exalted  by  the  daily  peru 
sal  of  translations  of  the  sublime  poems  of 
the  Hebrews. — a  discipline,  without  which  it 
is  probable  that  the  nations  of  the  West 
never  could  have  been  prepared  to  endure 
Oriental  poetry.  In  justice,  however,  to  the 
ingenious  theory  of  Mad.  de  Stael,  it  ought 
to  be  observed,  that  the  original  character 
ascribed  by  her  to  the  Northern  nations, 
must  have  disposed  them  to  the  adoption  of 
a  Protestant  faith  and  worship:  while  the 
Popery  of  the  South  was  naturally  preserved 
by  an  early  disposition  to  a  splendid  ceremo 
nial,  and  a  various  and  flexible  mythology. 

The  work  is  divided  into  four  parts: — on 
Germany  and  German  Manners;  on  Litera 
ture  and  the  Arts;  on  Philosophy  and  Mo 
rals;  on  Religion  and  Enthusiasm. 

The  first  is  the  most  perfect  in  its  kind, 
belongs  the  most  entirely  to  the  genius  of 
the  writer,  and  affords  the  best  example  of 
the  talent  for  painting  nations  which  we 
have  attempted  to  describe.  It  seems  also. 
as  far  as  foreign  critics  can  presume  to  de 
cide,  to  be  in  the  most  finished  style  of  any 
composition  of  the  author,  and  more  se 
curely  to  bid  defiance  to  that  minute  criti 
cism,  which,  in  other  works,  her  genius 
rather  disdained  than  propitiated.  The  Ger 
mans  are  a  just,  constant,  and  sincere  peo 
ple  ;  with  great  power  of  imagination  and 
reflection  ;  without  brilliancy  in  society,  or 
address  in  affairs;  slow,  and  easily  intimi 
dated  in  action  ;  adventurous  and  fearless  in 
speculation ;  often  uniting  enthusiasm  for 
the  elegant  arts  with  little  progress  in  the 
manners  and  refinements  of  life;  more  ca 
pable  of  being  inflamed  by  opinions  than  by 
interests;  obedient  to  authority,  rather  from 
an  orderly  and  mechanical  character  than 
from  servility ;  having  learned  to  value  li 
berty  neither  by  the  enjoyment  of  it.  nor  by 
severe  oppression;  divested  by  the  nature 
of  their  governments^  and  the  division  of 


their  territories,  of  patriotic  pride  :  too  prone 
in  the  relations  of  domestic  life,  to  substitute 
fancy  and  feeling  for  positive  duty  ;  not  un- 
frequently  combining  a  natural  character 
writh  artificial  manners,  and  much  real  feel 
ing  with  affected  enthusiasm:  divided  by 
the  sternness  of  feudal  demarcation  into  an 
unlettered  nobility,  unpolished  scholar,  and  a 
depressed  commonalty;  and  exposing  them 
selves  to  derision,  when,  with  their  grave  and 
clumsy  honesty,  they  attempt  to  copy  the 
lively  and  dexterous  profligacy  of  their  South 
ern  neighbours. 

In  the  plentiful  provinces  of  Southern  Ger 
many,  where  religion,  as  well  as  government, 
shackle  the  activity  of  speculation,  the  peo 
ple  have  sunk  into  a  sort  of  lethargic  comfort 
and  stupid  enjoyment.  It  is  a  heavy  and 
monotonous  country,  with  no  arts,  except  the 
national  art  of  instrumental  music. — no  lite 
rature, — a  rude  utterance, — no  society,  or 
only  crowded  assemblies,  which  seemed  to 
be  brought  together  for  ceremonial,  more 
than  for  pleasure, — "an  obsequious  polite 
ness  towards  an  aristocracy  without  ele 
gance."  In  Austria,  more  especially,  are 
seen  a  calm  and  languid  mediocrity  in  sensa 
tions  and  desires, — a  people  mechanical  in 
their  very  sports,  "  whose  existence  is  neither 
disturbed  nor  exalted  by  guilt  or  genius,  by 
intolerance  or  enthusiasm," — a  phlegmatic 
administration,  inflexibly  adhering  to  its  an 
cient  course,  and  repelling  knowledge,  on 
\vhich  the  vigour  of  states  must  now  depend, 
— great  societies  of  amiable  and  respectable 
persons — which  suggest  the  reflection,  that 
"  in  retirement  monotony  composes  the  soul; 
but  in  the  world  it  wearies  the  mind.'" 

In  the  rigorous  climate  and  gloomy  towns 
of  Protestant  Germany  only,  the  national 
mind  is  displayed.  There  the  whole  litera 
ture  and  philosophy  are  assembled.  Berlin 
is  slowly  rising  to  be  the  capital  of  enlight 
ened  Germany.  The  Duchess  of  Weimar, 
who  compelled  Napoleon  to  respect  her  in 
the  intoxication  of  victory,  has  changed  her 
little  capital  into  a  seat  of  knowledge  and 
elegance,  under  the  auspices  of  Goethe, 
Wieland,  and  Schiller.  No  European  pa 
lace  has  assembled  so  refined  a  society  since 
some  of  the  small  Italian  courts  of  the  six 
teenth  century.  It  is  only  by  the  Protestant 
province's  of  the  North  that  Germany  is  known 
as  a  lettered  and  philosophical  country. 

Moralists  and  philosophers  have  often  re 
marked,  that  licentious  gallantry  is  fatal  to 
love,  and  destructive  of  the  importance  of 
women.  "I  will  venture  to  assert,"  says 
Mad.  de  Stael,  "against  the  received  opinion, 
that  France  was  perhaps,  of  all  the  countries 
of  the  world,  that  in  which  women  had  the 
least  happiness  in  love.  It  was  called  the 
'paradise'  of  women,  because  they  enjoyed 
the  greatest  liberty;  but  that  liberty  arose 
from  the  negligent  profligacy  of  the  other 
sex."  The  observations*  which  follow  this 
remarkable  testimony  are  so  beautiful  and 

*  Part  i.  chap.  4. 


REVIEW  OF  DE  L'ALLEMAGNE. 


265 


forcible,  that  they  ought  to  be  engraven  on 
the  mind  of  every  woman  disposed  to  mur 
mur  at  those  restraints  which  maintain  the 
dignity  of  womanhood. 

Some  enthusiasm,  saj-s  Mad.  de  Stael,  or, 
in  other  words,  some  high  passion,  capable 
of  actuating  multitudes,  has  been  felt  by 
every  people,  at  those  epochs  of  their  na 
tional  existence,  which  are  distinguished  by 
great  acts.  Four  periods  are  very  remark 
able  in  the  progress  of  the  European  world  : 
the  heroic  ages  which  founded  civilization  j 
republican  patriotism,  which  was  the  glory 
of  antiquity;  chivalry,  the  martial  religion 
of  Europe  ;  and  the  love  of  liberty,  of  which 
the  history  began  about  the  period  of  the 
Reformation.  The  chivalrous  impression  is 
worn  out  in  Germany;  and,  in  future,  says 
this 'jf.'nerous  and  enlightened  writer,  "no 
thing  great  will  be  accomplished  in  that 
country,  but  by  the  liberal  impulse  which 
has  in  Europe  succeeded  to  chivalry." 

The  society  and  manners  of  Germany  are 
continually  illustrated  by  comparison  or  con 
trast  with  those  of  France.  Some  passages 
and  chapters  on  this  subject,  together  with 
the  author's  brilliant  preface  to  the  thoughts 
of  the  Prince  de  Ligne.  may  be  considered 
as  the  first  contributions  towards  a  theory  of 
the  talent — if  we  must  not  say  of  the  art — 
of  conversation,  which  affords  so  considerable 
a  part  of  the  most  liberal  enjoyments  of  re 
fined  life.  Those,  indeed,  who  affect  a  Spar 
tan  or  monastic  severity  in  their  estimate  of 
the  society  of  capitals,  may  almost  condemn 
a  talent,  which  in  their  opinion  only  adorns 
vice.  But  that  must  have  a  moral  tendency 
which  raises  society  from  slander  or  intoxi 
cation,  to  any  contest  and  rivalship  of  mental 
power.  Wit  and  grace  are  perhaps  the  only 
means  which  could  allure  the  thoughtless 
into  the  neighbourhood  of  reflection,  and 
inspire  them  with  some  admiration  for  supe 
riority  of  mind.  Society  is  the  only  school 
in  which  the  indolence  of  the  great  will 
submit  to  learn.  Refined  conversation  is  at 
least  sprinkled  with  literature,  and  directed, 
more  often  than  the  talk  of  the  vulgar,  to 
objects  of  general  interest.  That  talent  can 
not  really  be  frivolous  which  affords  the 
channel  through  which  some  knowledge,  or 
even  some  respect  for  knowledge,  may  be'in- 
sinuated  into  minds  incapable  of  labour,  and 
whose  tastes  so  materially  influence  the  com 
munity.  Satirical  pictures  of  the  vices  of  a 
great  society  create  a  vulgar  prejudice  against 
their  most  blameless  and  virtuous  pleasures. 
But,  whatever  may  be  the  vice  of  London  or 
Paris,  it  is  lessened,  not  increased,  by  the 
cultivation  of  every  liberal  talent  which  in 
nocently  fills  their  time,  and  tends,  in  some 
measure,  to  raise  them  above  malice  and  sen 
suality.  And  there  is  a  considerable  illusion 
in  the  provincial  estimate  of  the  immoralities 
of  the  capital.  These  immoralities  are  public, 
from  the  rank  of  the  parties ;  and  they  are 
rendered  more  conspicuous  by  the  celebrity, 
or  perhaps  by  the  talents,  of  some  of  them. 
Men  of  letters,  and  women  of  wit.  describe 
34 


their  own  sufferings  with  eloquence, — the 
faults  of  others,  and  sometimes  their  own, 
with  energy :  their  descriptions  interest  every 
reader,  and  are  circulated  throughout  Eu 
rope.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  mise 
ries  or  the  faults  are  greater  or  more  frequent 
than  those  of  obscure  and  vulgar  persons, 
whose  sufferings  and  vices  are  known  to 
nobody,  and  would  be  uninteresting  if  they 
were  known. 

The  second,  and  most  generally  amusing, 
as  well  as  the  largest  part  of  this  work,  is 
an  animated  sketch  of  the  literary  history 
of  Germany,  with  criticisms  on  the  most 
celebrated  German  poets  and  poems,  inter 
spersed  with  reflections  equally  original  and 
beautiful,  tending  to  cultivate  a  comprehen 
sive  taste  in  the  fine  arts,  and  to  ingraft  the 
love  of  virtue  on  the  sense  of  beauty.  Of  the 
poems  criticised,  some  are  well  known  to 
most  of  our  readers.  The  earlier  pieces  of 
Schiller  are  generally  read  in  translations  of 
various  merit,  though,  except  the  Robbers, 
they  are  not  by  the  present  taste  of  German v 
placed  in  the  first  class  of  his  works,  luo 
versions  of  Leonora,  of  Oberon,  of  Wallen- 
stein,  of  Nathan,  and  of  Iphigenia  in  Tauris, 
are  among  those  which  do  the  most  honour 
to  English  literature.  Goetz  of  Berlichingen 
has  been  vigorously  rendered  by  a  writer, 
whose  chivalrous  genius,  exerted  upon  some 
what  similar  scenes  of  British  history,  has 
since  rendered  him  the  most  popular  poet  of 
his  age. 

An  epic  poem,  or  a  poetical  romance,  has 
lately  been  discovered  in  Germany,  entitled 
1  Niebelungen,'  on  the  Destruction  of  the 
Burgundians  by  Attila;  and  it  is  believed, 
that  at  least  some  parts  of  it  were  composed 
not  long  after  the  event,  though  the  whole 
did  not  assume  its  present  shape  till  the 
completion  of  the  vernacular  languages  about 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Lu 
ther's  version  of  the  Scriptures  was  an  epoch 
in  German  literature.  One  of  the  innumera 
ble  blessings  of  the  Reformation  was  to 
make  reading  popular  by  such  translations, 
and  to  accustom  the  people  to  weekly  at 
tempts  at  some  sort  of  argument  or  declama 
tion  in  their  native  tongue.  The  vigorous 
mind  of  the  great  Reformer  gave  to  his  trans 
lation  an  energy  and  conciseness,  which  made 
it  a  model  in  style,  as  well  as  an  authority 
in  language.  Hagedorn,  Weiss,  and  Gellert, 
copied  the  French  without  vivacity ;  and 
Bodrner  imitated  the  English  without  genius. 

At  length  Klopstock,  an  imitator  of  Milton, 
formed  a  German  poetry,  and  Wieland  im 
proved  the  language  and  versification :  though 
this  last  accomplished  writer  has  somewhat 
suffered  in  his  reputation,  by  the  recent  zeal 
of  the  Germans  against  the  imitation  of  any 
foreign,  but  especially  of  the  French  school, 
"  The  genius  of  Klopstock  was  inflamed  by 
the  perusal  of  Milton  and  Young."  This 
combination  of  names  is  astonishing  to  an 
English  ear.  It  creates  a  presumption  against 
the  poetical  sensibility  of  Klopstock,  to  find 
that  he  combined  two  poets,  placed  at  an 


266 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


immeasurable  distance  from  each  other ;  and 
whose  whole  superficial  resemblance  arises 
from  some  part  of  Milton's  subject,  and  from 
the  doctrines  of  their  theology,  rather  than 
the  spirit  of  their  religion.  Through  all  the 
works  of  Young,  written  with  such  a  variety 
of  temper  and  manner,  there  predominates 
one  talent. — inexhaustible  wit,  \vith  little 
soundness  of  reason  or  depth  of  sensibility. 
His  melancholy  is  artificial :  and  his  combi 
nations  are  as  grotesque  and  fantastic  in  his 
Night  Thoughts  as  in  his  Satires.  How  ex 
actly  does  a  poet  characterise  his  own  talent, 
who  opens  a  series  of  poetical  meditations 
on  death  and  immortality,  by  a  satirical  epi 
gram  against  the  selfishness  of  the  world  ? 
Wit  and  ingenuity  are  the  only  talents  which 
Milton  disdained.  He  is  simple  in  his  con 
ceptions,  even  when  his  diction  is  overloaded 
with  gorgeous  learning.  He  is  never  gloomy 
but  when  he  is  grand.  He  is  the  painter  of 
love,  as  well  as  of  terror.  He  did  not  aim  at 
mirth;  but  he  is  cheerful  whenever  he  de 
scends  from  higher  feelings:  and  nothing 
tenus  more  to  inspire  a  calm  and  constant 
delight,  than  the  contemplation  of  that  ideal 
purity  and  grandeur  which  he,  above  all 
poets,  had  the  faculty  of  bestowing  on  every 
form  of  moral  nature.  Klopstock's  ode  on 
the  rivalship  of  the  muse  of  Germany  with 
the  muse  of  Albion,  is  elegantly  translated 
by  Mad.  de  Stael :  and  we  applaud  her  taste 
for  preferring  prose  to  verse  in  French  trans 
lations  of  German  poems. 

After  having  spoken  of  Winkelmann  and 
Lessing,  the  most  perspicuous,  concise,  and 
lively  of  German  prose-\vriters;  she  proceeds 
to  Schiller  and  Goethe,  the  greatest  of  Ger 
man  poets.  Schiller  presents  only  the  genius 
of  a  great  poet,  and  the  character  of  a  vir 
tuous  man.  The  original,  singular,  and  rather 
admirable  than  amiable  mind  of  Goethe, — 
his  dictatorial  power  over  national  literature, 
— his  inequality,  caprice,  originality,  and  fire 
in  conversation, — his  union  of  a  youthful 
imagination  with  exhausted  sensibility,  and 
the  impartiality  of  a  stern  sagacity,  neither 
influenced  by  opinions  nor  predilections,  are 
painted  with  extraordinary  skill. 

Among  the  tragedies  of  Schiller  which 
have  appeared  since  we  have  ceased  to  trans 
late  German  dramas,  the  most  celebrated  are, 
Mary  Stuart,  Joan  of  Arc,  and  William  Tell. 
Such  subjects  as  Mary  Stuart  generally  ex 
cite  an  expectation  which  cannot  be  grati 
fied.  We  agree  with  Madame  de  Stael  in 
admiring  many  scenes  of  Schiller's  Mary, 
and  especially  her  noble  farewell  to  Leices 
ter.  But  the  tragedy  would  probably  dis 
please  English  readers,  to  say  nothing  of  spec 
tators.  Our  political  disputes  have  given  a 
more  inflexible  reality  to  the  events  of  Eliza 
beth's  reign,  than  history  would  otherwise 
have  bestowed  on  facts  equally  modern. 
Neither  of  our  parties  could  endure  a  Mary 
who  confesses  the  murder  of  her  husband,  or 
an  Elizabeth  who  instigates  the  assassination 
of  her  prisoner.  In  William  Tell,  Schiller 
has  avoided  the  commonplaces  of  a  repub 


lican  conspiracy,  and  faithfully  represented 
the  indignation  of  an  oppressed  Helvetian 
Highlander. 

Egmont  is  considered  by  Mad.  de  Stael  as 
the  finest  of  Goethe's  tragedies,  written,  like 
Werther,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  youth.  It 
is  rather  singular  that  poets  have  availed 
themselves  so  little  of  the  chivalrous  charac 
ter,  the  illustrious  love,  and  the  awful  mala 
dy  of  Tasso.  The  Torquato  Tasso  of  Goethe 
is  the  only  attempt  to  convert  this  subject  to 
the  purposes  of  the  drama.  Two  men  of  ge 
nius,  of  very  modern  times,  have  suffered  in 
a  somewhat  similar  manner:  but  the  habits 
of  Rousseau's  life  were  vulgar,  and  the  suf 
ferings  of  Cowper  are  both  recent  and  sacred. 
The  scenes  translated  from  Faust  well  repre 
sent  the  terrible  energy  of  that  most  odious 
of  the  works  of  genius,  in  which  the  whole 
power  of  imagination  is  employed  to  dispel 
the  charms  which  poetry  bestows  on  human 
life, — where  the  punishment  of  vice  proceeds 
from  cruelty  without  justice,  and  "where 
the  remorse  seems  as  infernal  as  the  guilt." 

Since  the  death  of  Schiller,  and  the  deser 
tion  of  the  drama  by  Goethe,  several  tragic 
writers  have  appeared,  the  most  celebrated 
of  whom  are  Werner,  the  author  of  Luther 
and  of  Attila,  Gerstenberg,  Klinger,  Tieck, 
Collin,  and  Oehlenschlager,  a  Dane,  who  has 
introduced  into  his  poetry  the  terrible  my 
thology  of  Scandinavia. 

The  result  of  the  chapter  on  Comedy 
seems  to  be,  that  the  comic  genius  has  not 
yet  arisen  in  Germany.  German  novels  have 
been  more  translated  into  English  than  other 
works  of  literature  j  and  a  novel  by  Tieck, 
entitled  'Sternbald,'  seems  to  deserve  trans 
lation.  Jean  Paul  Richter.  a  popular  novel 
ist,  but  too  national  to  bear  translation,  said, 
"  that  the  French  had  the  empire  of  the  land, 
the  English  that  of  the  sea,  and  the  Germans 
that  of  the  air." 

Though  Schiller  wrote  the  History  of  the 
Belgic  Revolt,  and  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
with  eloquence  and  the  spirit  of  liberty,  the 
only  classical  writer  in  this  department  is 
J.  de  Muller,  the  historian  of  Switzerland. 
Though  born  in  a  speculative  age,  he  has 
chosen  the  picturesque  and  dramatic  manner 
of  ancient  historians  :  and  his  minute  erudi 
tion  in  the  annals  of  the  Middle  Aires  sup 
plies  his  imagination  with  the  particulars 
which  characterise  persons  and  actions.  He 
abuses  his  extent  of  knowledge  and  power 
of  detail;  he  sometimes  affects  the  senten- 
tiousness'  of  Tacitus;  and  his  pursuit  of 
antique  phraseology  occasionally  degenerates 
into  affectation.  But  his  diction  is  in  general 
grave  and  severe ;  and  in  his  posthumous 
Abridgment  of  Universal  History,  he  has 
I  shown  great  talents  for  that  difficult  sort  of 
composition, — the  powder  of  comprehensive 
outline,  of  compression  without  obscurity,  of 
painting  characters  by  few  and  grand  strokes, 
and  of  disposing  events  so  skilfully,  that 
their  causes  and  effects  are  seen  without 
being  pointed  out.  Like  Sallust,  another 
affecter  of  archaism,  and  declaimer  against 


REVIEW  OF  DE  L'ALLEMAGNE. 


267 


his  age,  his  private  and  political  life  is  said 
to  have  been  repugnant  to  his  historical  mo 
rality.  "The  reader  of  Muller  is  desirous 
of  believing  that  of  all  the  virtues  which  he 
strongly  felt  in  the  composition  of  his  works, 
there  were  at  least  some  which  he  perma 
nently  possessed." 

The  estimate  of  literary  Germany  wxrnld 
not  be  complete,  without  the  observation  that 
it  possesses  a  greater  number  of  laborious 
scholars,  and  of  useful  books,  than  any  other 
country.  The  possession  of  other  languages 
may  open  more  literary  enjoyment :  the  Ger 
man  is  assuredly  the  key  to  most  knowledge. 
The  works  of  Fulleborn,  Buhle,  Tiedemann, 
and  Tennemann,  are  the  first  attempts  to 
form  a  philosophical  history  of  philosophy,  of 
which  the  learned  compiler  Brucker  had  no 
more  conception  than  a  monkish  annalist  of 
rivalling  Hume.  The  philosophy  of  literary 
history  is  one  of  the  most  recently  opened 
fields  of  speculation.  A  few  beautiful  frag 
ments  of  it  are  among  the  happiest  parts  of 
Hume's  Essays.  The  great  work  of  Madame 
de  Stael  On  Literature,  was  the  first  attempt 
on  a  bold  and  extensive  scale.  In  the  neigh 
bourhood  of  her  late  residence,*  and  perhaps 
not  uninfluenced  by  her  spirit,  two  writers  of 
great  merit,  though  of  dissimilar  character, 
have  very  recently  treated  various  parts  of 
this  wide  subject;  M.  de  Sismondi,  in  his 
History  of  the  Literature  of  the  South,  and 
M.  de  Barante,  in  his  Picture  of  French 
Literature  during  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Sismondi,  guided  by  Bouterweck  and  Schle- 
gel,  hazards  larger  views,  indulges  his  talent 
for  speculation,  and  seems  with  difficulty  to 
suppress  that  bolder  spirit,  and  those  more 
liberal  principles,  which  breathe  in  his  His 
tory  of  the  Italian  Republics.  Barante,  more 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  elegancies  and 
the  prejudices  of  his  national  literature,  feels 
more  delicately  the  peculiarities  of  great 
writers,  and  traces  with  a  more  refined  saga 
city  the  immediate  effects  of  their  writings. 
But  his  work,  under  a  very  ingenious  dis 
guise  of  literary  criticism,  is  an  attack  on  the 
opinions  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  it 
will  assuredly  never  be  honoured  by  the  dis 
pleasure  either  of  Napoleon,  or  of  any  of  his 
successors  in  absolute  power. 

One  of  our  authoress'  chapters  is  chiefly 
employed  on  the  works  and  system  of  Wil 
liam  and  Frederic  Schlegel; — of  whom  Wil 
liam  is  celebrated  for  his  Lectures  on  Dra 
matic  Poetry,  for  his  admirable  translation 
of  Shakespeare,  and  for  versions,  said  to  be 
of  equal  excellence,  of  the  Spanish  dramatic 
poets  ;  and  Frederic,  besides  his  other  merits, 
has  the  very  singular* distinction  of  having 
acquired  the  Sanscrit  language,  and  studied 
the  Indian  learning  and  science  in  Europe, 
chiefly  by  the  aid  of  a  British  Orientalist, 
long  detained  as  a  prisoner  at  Paris.  The 
general  tendency  of  the  literary  system  of 
these  critics,  is  towards  the  manners,  poetry, 
and  religion  of  the  Middle  Ages.  They  have 

*  Coppet,  near  Geneva. 


reached  the  extreme  point  towards  which 
the  general  sentiment  of  Europe  has  been 
impelled  by  the  calamities  of  a  philosophical 
revolution,  and  the  various  fortunes  of  a 
twenty  years'  universal  war.  They  are  pe 
culiarly  adverse  to  French  literature,  which, 
since  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,  has,  in  their 
opinion,  weakened  the  primitive  principles 
common  to  all  Christendom,  as  well  as  di 
vested  the  poetry  of  each  people  of  its  origi 
nality  and  character.  Their  system  is  exag 
gerated  and  exclusive  :  in  pursuit  of  national 
originality,  they  lose  sight  of  the  primary  and 
universal  beauties  of  art.  The  imitation  of 
our  own  antiquities  may  be  as  artificial  as 
the  copy  of  a  foreign  literature.  Nothing  is 
less  natural  than  a  modern  antique.  In  a 
comprehensive  system  of  literature,  there  is 
sufficient  place  for  the  irregular  works  of 
sublime  genius,  and  for  the  faultless  models 
of  classical  taste.  From  age  to  age,  the 
multitude  fluctuates  between  various  and 
sometimes  opposite  fashions  of  literary  ac 
tivity.  These  are  not  all  of  equal  value  ;  but 
the  philosophical  critic  discovers  and  admires 
the  common  principles  of  beauty,  from  which 
they  all  derive  their  power  over  human 
nature. 

The  Third  Part  of  this  work  is  the  most 
singular.  An  account  of  metaphysical  sys 
tems  by  a  woman,  is  a  novelty  in  the  history 
of  the  human  mind ;  and  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  its  success  in  some  of  its  parts,  it 
must  be  regarded  on  the  wThole  as  the  boldest 
effort  of  the  female  intellect.  It  must,  how 
ever,  not  be  forgotten,  that  it  is  a  contribution 
rather  to  the  history  of  human  nature,  than 
to  that  of  speculation ;  and  that  it  considers 
the  source,  spirit,  and  moral  influence  of 
metaphysical  opinions,  more  than  their  truth 
or  falsehood.  "  Metaphysics  are  at  least 
the  gymnastics  of  the  understanding."  The 
common-place  clamour  of  mediocrity  will 
naturally  be  excited  by  the  sex,  and  even 
by  the  genius  of  the  author.  Every  example 
of  vivacity  and  grace,  every  exertion  of  fancy, 
every  display  of  eloquence,  every  effusion 
of  sensibility,  will  be  cited  as  a  presumption 
against  the  depth  of  her  researches,  and  the 
accuracy  of  hep  statements.  On  such  prin 
ciples,  the  evidence  against  her  would  doubt 
less  be  conclusive.  But  dulness  is  not 
accuracy;  nor  are  ingenious  and  elegant 
writers  therefore  superficial :  and  those  who 
are  best  acquainted  writh  the  philosophical 
revolutions  of  Germany,  will  be  most  aston 
ished  at  the  genera]  correctness  of  this  short, 
clear,  and  agreeable  exposition. 

The  character  of  Lord  Bacon  is  a  just  and 
noble  tribute  to  his  genius.  Several  eminent 
writers  of  the  Continent  have,  however, 
lately  fallen  into  the  mistake  of  ascribing 
to  him  a  system  of  opinions  respecting  the 
origin  and  first  principles  of  human  know 
ledge.  .What  distinguishes  him  among  great 
philosophers  is,  that  he  taught  no  peculiar 
opinions,  but  wholly  devotedThimself  to  the 
improvement  of  the  method  of  philosophising. 
He  belongs  neither  to  the  English  nor  any 


268 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


other  school  of  metaphysics ;  for  he  was  not 
a  metaphysician.  Mr.  Locke  was  not  a 
moralist'  and  his  collateral  discussions  of 
ethical  subjects  are  not  among  the  valuable 
parts  of  his  great  work.  "The  works  of 
Dugald  Stewart  contain  so  perfect  a  theory 
of  the  intellectual  faculties,  that  it  may  be 
considered  as  the  natural  history  of  a  moral 
being."  The  French  metaphysicians  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  since  Condillac,  deserve 
the  contempt  expressed  for  them,  by  their 
shallow,  precipitate,  and  degrading  misap 
plications  of  the  Lockian  philosophy.  It  is 
impossible  to  abridge  the  abridgment  here 
given  of  the  Kantian  philosophy,  or  of  those 
systems  which  have  arisen  from  it.  and 
which  continue  to  dispute  the  supremacy  of 
the  speculative  world.  The  opinions  of  Kant 
are  more  fully  stated,  because  he  has  changed 
the  general  manner  of  thinking,  and  has  given 
a  new  direction  to  the  national  mind.  Those 
of  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  his  other  successors, 
it  is  of  less  importance  to  the  proper  purpose 
of  this  work  to  detail ;  because,  though  their 
doctrines  be  new,  they  continue  and  produce 
the  same  effect  on  national  character,  and 
the  same  influence  on  sciences  and  arts. 
The  manner  of  philosophising  remains  the 
same  in  the  Idealism  of  Fichte,  and  in  the 
Pan  theism  of  Schelling.  Under  various  names 
and  forms,  it  is  the  general  tendency  of  the 
German  philosophy  to  consider  thought  not 
as  the  produce  of  objects,  or  as  one  of  the 
elasses  of  phenomena,  but  as  the  agent  which 
exhibits  the  appearance  of  the  outward  world, 
and  which  regulates  those  operations  which 
it  seems  only  to  represent.  The  philosophy 
of  the  human  understanding  is,  in  all  coun 
tries,  acknowledged  to  contain  the  principles 
of  all  sciences;  but  in  Germany,  metaphysi 
cal  speculation  pervades  their  application  to 
particulars. 

The  subject  of  the  Fourth  Part  is  the  state 
of  religion,  and  the  nature  of  all  those  disin 
terested  and  exalted  sentiments  which  are 
here  comprehended  under  the  name  of  'en 
thusiasm.'  A  contemplative  people  like  the 
Germans  have  in  their  character  the  principle 
which  disposes  men  to  religion.  The  Re 
formation,  which  was  their  Revolution,  arose 
from  ideas.  (i  Of  all  the  great  men  whom 
Germany  has  produced,  Luther  has  the  most 
German  character.  His  firmness  had  some 
thing  rude  ;  his  conviction  made  him  opinion 
ated  ;  intellectual  boldness  was  the  source 
of  his  courage ;  in  action,  the  ardour  of  his 
passions  did  not  divert  him  from  abstract 
studies;  and  though  he  attacked  certain  dog 
mas  and  practices,  he  was  not  urged  to  the 
attack  by  incredulity,  but  by  enthusiasm." 

'•'  The  right  of  examining  wrhat  we  ought 
to  believe,  is  the  foundation  of  Protestanism." 
Though  each  of  the  first  Reformers  esta 
blished  a  practical  Popery  in  his  own  church, 
opinions  were  gradually  liberalised,  and  the 
temper  of  sects  was  softened.  Little  open 
incredulity  had  appeared  in  Germany;  and 
even  Lessing  speculated  with  far  more  cir 
cumspection  than  had  been  observed  by  a 


series  of  English  writers  from  Hobbes  to 
Bolingbroke.  Secret  unbelievers  were  friend 
ly  to  Christianity  and  Protestantism,as  institu 
tions  beneficial  to  mankind,  and  far  removed 
from  that  anti-religious  fanaticism  which  was 
more  naturally  provoked  in  France  by  the 
intolerant  spirit  and  invidious  splendour  of  a 
Catholic  hierarchy. 

The  reaction  of  the  French  Revolution  has 
been  felt  throughout  Europe,  in  religion  as 
well  as  in  politics.  Many  of  the  higher 
classes  adopted  some  portion  of  those  religi 
ous  sentiments  of  which  they  at  first  assumed 
the  exterior,  as  a  badge  of  their  hostility  to 
the  fashions  of  France.  The  sensibility  of 
the  multitude,  impatient  of  cold  dogmatism 
and  morality,  eagerly  sought  to  be  once  more 
roused  by  a  religion  which  employed  popular 
eloquence,  and  spoke  to  imagination  and 
emotion.  The  gloom  of  general  convulsions 
and  calamities  created  a  disposition  to  seri 
ousness,  and  to  the  consolations  of  piety  ;  and 
the  disasters  of  a  revolution  allied  to  incredu 
lity,  threw  a  more  than  usual  discredit  and 
odium  on  irreligious  opinions.  In  Great 
Britain,  these  causes  have  acted  most  con 
spicuously  on  the  inferior  classes;  though 
they  have  also  powerfully  affected  many  en 
lightened  and  accomplished  individuals  of  a 
higher  condition.  In  France,  they  have  pro 
duced  in  some  -men  of  letters  the  play  of  a 
sort  of  poetical  religion  round  the  fancy  :  but 
the  general  effect  seems  to  have  been  a  dis 
position  to  establish  a  double  doctrine, — a 
system  of  infidelity  for  the  initiated,  with  a 
contemptuous  indulgence  .and  even  active 
encouragement  of  superstition  among  the 
vulgar,  like  that  which  prevailed  among  the 
ancients  before  the  rise  of  Christianity.  This 
sentiment  (from  the  revival  of  which  the 
Lutheran  Reformation  seems  to  have  pre 
served  Europe),  though  not  so  furious  and 
frantic  as  the  atheistical  fanaticism  of  the 
Reign  of  Terror,  is,  beyond  any  permanent 
condition  of  human  society,  destructive  of 
ingenuousness,  good  faith,  and  probity, — of 
intellectual  courage,  and  manly  character. — 
and  of  that  respect  for  all  human  beings, 
without  which  there  can  be  no  justice  or 
humanity  from  the  powerful  towards  the 
humble. 

In  Germany  the  effects  have  been  also  very 
remarkable.  Some  men  of  eminence  in  lite 
rature  have  become  Catholics.  In  general, 
their  tendency  is  towards  a  pious  mysticism, 
which  almost  equally  loves  every  sect  where 
a  devotional  spirit  prevails.  They  have  re 
turned  rather  to  sentiment  than  to  dogma, — 
more  to  religion  than  to  theology.  Their 
disposition  to  religious  feeling,  which  they 
call  :  religiosity,'  is,  to  use  the  words  of  a 
strictly  orthodox  English  theologian,  "a love 
of  divine  things  for  the  beauty  of  their  moral 
qualities."  It  is  the  love  of  the  good  and 
fair,  wherever  it  exists,  but  chiefly  when  ab 
solute  and  boundless  excellence  is  contem 
plated  in  "  the  first  good,  first  perfect,  first 
fair."  This  moral  enthusiasm  easily  adapts 
itself  to  the  various  ceremonies  of  worship, 


REVIEW  OF  DE  L'ALLEMAGNE. 


269 


and  even  systems  of  opinion  prevalent  among 
mankind.  The  devotional  spirit,  contemplat 
ing  different  parts  of  the  order  of  nature,  or 
influenced  by  a  different  temper  of  mind, 
may  give  rise  to  very  different  and  apparently 
repugnant  theological  doctrines.  These  doc 
trines  are  considered  as  modification*  of 
human  nature,  under  the  influence  of  the  re 
ligious  principle, — not  as  propositions  which 
argument  can  either  establish  or  confute,  or 
reconcile  with  each  other.  The  Ideal  phi 
losophy  favours  this  singular  manner  of  con 
sidering  the  subject.  As  it  leaves  no  reality 
but  in  the  mind,  it  lessens  the  distance  be 
tween  belief  and  imagination;  and  disposes 
its  adherents  to  regard  opinions  as  the  mere 
play  of  the  understanding, — incapable  of 
being  measured  by  any  outward  standard, 
and  important  chiefly  from  reference  to  the 
sentiment,  from  which  they  spring,  and  on 
which  they  powerfully  react.  The  union  of 
a  mystical  piety,  with  a  philosophy  verging 
towards  idealism,  has  accordingly  been  ob 
served  in  periods  of  the  history  of  the  human 
understanding,  very  distant  from  each  other, 
and,  in  most  of  their  other  circumstances, 
extremely  dissimilar.  The  same  language, 
respecting  the  annihilation  of  self,  and  of  the 
world,  may  be  used  by  the  sceptic  and  by 
the  enthusiast.  Among  the  Hindu  philoso 
phers  in  the  most  ancient  times, — among  the 
Sufis  in  modern  Persia, — during  the  ferment 
of  Eastern  arid  Western  opinions,  which  pro 
duced  the  latter  Platonism, — in  Malebranche 
and  his  English  disciple  Norris, — and  in 
Berkeley  himself,  though  in  a  tempered  and 
mitigated  state, — the  tendency  to  this  union 
may  be  distinctly  traced.  It  seems,  how 
ever,  to  be  fitted  only  for  few  men ;  and  for 
them  not  long.  Sentiments  so  sublime,  and 
so  distant  from  the  vulgar  affairs  and  boister 
ous  passions  of  men,  may  be  preserved  for  a 
time,  in  the  calm  solitude  of  a  contemplative 
visionary ;  but  in  the  bustle  of  the  world 
they  are  likely  soon  to  evaporate,  when  they 
are  neither  embodied  in  opinions,  nor  adorned 
by  ceremonies,  nor  animated  by  the  attack 
and  defence  of  controversy.  When  the  ar 
dour  of  a  short-lived  enthusiasm  has  subsided, 
the  poetical  philosophy  which  exalted  fancy 
to  the  level  of  belief,  may  probably  leave  the 
same  ultimate  result  with  the  argumentative 
scepticism  which  lowered  belief  to  the  level 
of  fancy. 

An  ardent  susceptibility  of  every  disinte 
rested  sentiment, — more  especially  of  every 
social  affection, — blended  by  the  power  of 
imagination  with  a  passionate  love  of  the 
beautiful,  the  grand,  and  the  good,  is,  under 
the  name  of  l  enthusiasm,'  the  subject  of  the 
conclusion, — the  most  eloquent  part  (if  we 
perhaps  except  the  incomparable  chapter  on 
1  Conjugal  Love,)  of  a  work  which,  for  variety 
of  knowledge,  flexibility  of  power,  elevation 
of  view,  and  comprehension  of  mind,  is  un 
equal  among  the  works  of  women;  and 
which,  in  the  union  of  the  graces  of  society 
and  literature  with  the  genius  of  philosophy, 
•s  not  surpassed  by  many  among  those  of 


men.  To  affect  any  tenderness  in  pointing 
out  its  defects  or  faults,  would  be  an  absurd 
assumption  of  superiority :  it  has  no  need 
of  mercy.  The  most  obvious  and  general 
objection  will  be,  that  the  Germans  are  too 
much  praised.  But  every  writer  must  be 
allowed  to  value  his  subject  somewhat  higher 
than  the  spectator :  unless  the  German  feel 
ings  had  been  adopted,  they  could  not  have 
been  forcibly  represented.  It  will  also  be 
found,  that  the  objection  is  more  apparent 
than  real.  Mad.  de  Stael  is  indeed  the  most 
generous  of  critics:  but  she  almost  always 
speaks  the  \vhole  truth  to  intelligent  ears ; 
though  she  often  hints  the  unfavourable  parts 
of  it  so  gently  and  politely,  that  they  may 
escape  the  notice  of  a  hasty  reader,  and  be 
scarcely  perceived  by  a  gross  understanding. 
A  careful  reader,  who  brings  together  all 
the  observations  intentionally  scattered  over 
various  parts  of  the  book,  will  find  sufficient 
justice  (though  administered  in  mercy)  in 
whatever  respects  manners  or  literature.  It 
is  on  subjects  of  philosophy  that  the  admi 
ration  will  perhaps  justly  be  considered  as 
more  undistinguishing.  Something  of  the 
wonder  excited  by  novelty  in  language  and 
opinion  still  influences  her  mind.  Many 
writers  have  acquired  philosophical  celebrity 
in  Germany,  who,  if  they  had  written  with 
equal  power,  would  have  been  unnoticed  or 
soon  forgotten  in  England.  Our  theosophists, 
the  Hutchinsonians,  had  as  many  men  of 
talent  among  them,  as  those  whom  M.  de 
Stael  has  honoured  by  her  mention  among 
the  Germans :  but  they  have  long  since  irre 
coverably  sunk  into  oblivion.  There  is  a 
writer  now  alive  in  England,*  who  has  pub 
lished  doctrines  not  dissimilar  to  those  which 
Mad.  de  Stael  ascribes  to  Schelling.  Not 
withstanding  the  allurements  of  a  singular 
character,  and  an  unintelligible  style,  his 
paradoxes  are  probably  not  known  to  a  dozen 
persons  in  this  busy  country  of  industry  and 
ambition.  In  a  bigoted  age,  he  might  have 
suffered  the  martyrdom  of  Vanini  or  Bruno  : 
in  a  metaphysical  country,  where  a  new 
publication  was  the  most  interesting  event, 
and  where  twenty  universities,  unfettered 
by  Church  or  State,  were  hotbeds  of  specu 
lation,  he  might  have  acquired  celebrity  as 
the  founder  of  a  sect. 

In  this  as  in  the  other  writings  of  Mad.  de 
Stael,  the  reader  (or  at  least  the  lazy  English 
reader)  is  apt  to  be  wearied  by  too  constant 
a  demand  upon  his  admiration.  It  seems 
to  be  part  of  her  literary  system,  that  the 
pauses  of  eloquence  must  be  filled  up  by 
ingenuity.  Nothing  plain  and  unornamented 
is  left  in  composition.  But  we  desire  a  plain 
groundwork,  from  which  wit  or  eloquence  is 
to  arise,  when  the  occasion  calls  them  forth. 
The  effect  would  be  often  greater  if  the  ta  - 
lent  were  less.  The  natural  power  of  inte 
resting  scenes  or  events  over  the  heart,  is 
somewhat  disturbed  by  too  uniform  a  colour 


*  Probably  Mr.  William  Taylor,  of  Norwich. 
—ED. 

x2 


270 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  sentiment,  and  by  the  constant  pursuit  of 
uncommon  reflections  or  ingenious  turns. 
The  eye  is  dazzled  by  unvaried  brilliancy. 
We  long  for  the  grateful  vicissitude  of  repose. 

In  the  statement  of  facts  and  reasonings, 
no  style  is  more  clear  than  that  of  Mad.  de 
Stael  ; — what  is  so  lively  must  indeed  be 
clear :  bat  in  the  expression  of  sentiment 
she  has  been  often  thought  to  use  vague  lan 
guage.  In  expressing  either  intense  degrees, 
or  delicate  shades,  or  intricate  combinations 
of  feeling,  the  common  reader  will  seldom 
understand  that  of  which  he  has  never  been 
conscious;  and  the  writer  placed  on  the  ex 
treme  frontiers  of  human  nature,  is  in  dan 
ger  of  mistaking  chimeras  for  realities,  or  of 
failing  in  a  struggle  to  express  what  language 
does  not  afford  the  means  of  describing. 
There  is  also  a  vagueness  incident  to  the 
language  of  feeling,  which  is  not  so  properly 
a  defect,  as  a  quality  which  distinguishes  it 
from  the  language  of  thought.  Very  often 
in  poetry,  and  sometime^  in  eloquence,  it  is 
the  office  of  words,  not  so  much  to  denote  a 
succession  of  separate  ideas,  as,  like  musical 
sounds,  to  inspire  a  series  of  emotions,  or  to 
produce  a  durable  tone  of  sentiment.  The 
terms  -perspicuity'  and  ( precision,'  which 
denote  the  relations  of  language  to  intellec 
tual  discernment,  are  inapplicable  to  it  when 
employed  as  the  mere  vehicle  of  a  succes 
sion  of  feelings.  A  series  of  words  may,  in 
this  manner,  be  very  expressive,  where  few 
of  them  singly  convey  a  precise  meaning : 
and  men  of  greater  intellect  than  suscepti 
bility,  in  such  passages  as  those  of  Mad.  de 
Stael, — where  eloquence  is  employed  chiefly 
to  inspire  feeling, — unjustly  charge  their  own 
defects  to  that  cfeep,  moral,  and  poetical  sen 
sibility  with  which  they  are  unable  to  sym 
pathise. 

The  few  persons  in  Great  Britain  who 
continue  to  take  an  interest  in  speculative 
philosophy,  will  certainly  complain  of  some 
injustice  in  her  estimate  of  German  meta 
physical  systems.  The  moral  painter  of 
nations  is  indeed  more  authorised  than  the 
speculative  philosopher  to  try  these  opinions 
by  their  tendencies  and  results.  When  the 
logical  consequences  of  an  opinion  are  false, 
the  opinion  itself  must  also  be  false  :  but 
whether  the  supposed  pernicious  influence 
of  the  adoption,  or  habitual  contemplation 
of  an  opinion,  be  a  legitimate  objection  to 
the  opinion  itself,  is  a  question  which  has 
not  yet  been  decided  to  the  general  satis 
faction,  nor  perhaps  even  stated  with  suffi 
cient  precision. 

There  are  certain  facts  in  human  nature, 
derived  either  from  immediate  consciousness 
or  unvarying  observation,  which  are  more 
certain  than  the  conclusions  of  any  abstract 
reasoning,  and  which  metaphysical  theories 
are  destined  only  to  explain.  That  a  theory 


is  at  variance  with  such  facts,  and  logically 
leads  to  the  denial  of  their  existence,  is  a 
trictly  philosophical  objection  to  the  theory: 
— that  there  is  a  real  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong,  in  some  measure  appre 
hended  and  felt  by  all  men, — that  moral 
sentiments  and  disinterested  affections,  how 
ever  originating,  are  actually  a  part  of  our 
nature. — that  praise  and  blame,  reward  and 
punishment,  may  be  properly  bestowed  on 
actions  according  to^their  moral  character. — 
are  principles  as  much  more  indubitable  as 
they  are  more  important  than  any  theoretical 
conclusions.  Whether  they  be  demonstrated 
by  reason,  or  perceived  by  intuition,  or  re 
vealed  by  a  primitive  sentiment,  they  are 
equally  indispensable  parts  of  every  sound 
mind.  But  the  mere  inconvenience  or  dan 
ger  of  an  opinion  can  never  be  allowed  as 
an  argument  against  its  truth.  It  is  indeed 
the  duty  of  every  good  man  to  present  to 
the  public  what  he  believes  to  be  truth,  in 
such  a  manner  as  may  least  wound  the  feel 
ings,  or  disturb  the  principles  of  the  simple 
and  the  ignorant :  and  that  duty  is  not  always 
easily  reconcilable  with  the  duties  of  sincer 
ity  and  free  inquiry.  The  collision  of  such 
conflicting  duties  is  the  painful  and  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  ignorance  of  the  mul 
titude,  and  of  the  immature  state,  even  in 
the  highest  minds,  of  the  great  talent  for 
presenting  truth  under  all  its  aspects,  and 
adapting  it  to  all  the  degrees  of  capacity  or 
varieties  of  prejudice  which  distinguish  men. 
That  talent  must  one  day  be  formed  ;  and 
wre  may  be  perfectly  assured  that  the  whole 
of  truth  can  never  be  injurious  to  the  whole 
of  virtue.  In  the  mean  time  philosophers 
would  act  more  magnanimously,  and  there 
fore,  perhaps,  more  wisely,  if  they  were  to 
suspend,  during  discussion,*  their  moral 
anger  against  doctrines  which  they  deem 
pernicious;  and,  while  they  estimate  actions, 
habits,  and  institutions,  by  their  tendency. 
to  weigh  opinions  in  the  mere  balance  of 
reason.  Virtue  in  action  may  require  the 
impulse  of  sentiment,  and  even  of  enthu 
siasm  :  but  in  theoretical  researches,  her 
champions  must  not  appear  to  decline  the 
combat  on  any  ground  chosen  by  their  ad 
versaries,  and  least  of  all  on  that  of  intellect. 
To  call  'in  the  aid  of  popular  feelings  in 
philosophical  contests,  is  some  avo\val  of 
weakness.  It  seems  a  more  magnanimous 
wisdom  to  defy  attack  from  every  quarter, 
and  by  every  weapon;  and  to  use  no  topics 
which  can  be  thought  to  imply  an  unworthy 
doubt  whether  the  principles  of  virtue  be 
impregnable  by  argument,  or  to  betray  an 
irreverent  distrust  of  the  final  and  perfect 
harmony  between  morality  and  truth. 

*  The  observation  may  be  applied  to  Ciceio  and 
Stewart,  as  well  as  to  Mad.  de.  Stael. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


271 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES 


OF 


THE  REVOLUTION   OF   1688. 


CHAPTER  I. 

General  state  of  affairs  at  home — Abroad. — 
Characters  of  the  Ministry. — Sunderland. — 
Rochester.  —  Halifax,  —  Godolphin.  —  Jef 
freys. — Fever  sham. — His  conduct  after  the 
victory  of  Sedgcmoor. — Kirke.  —  Judicial 
proceedings  in  the  West. — Trials  of  Mrs. 
Lisle. — Behaviour  of  the  King. — Trial  of 
Mrs.  Gaunt  and  others. — Case  of  Hampden. 
— Prideaux, — Lord  Brandon, — Dclamere. 

THOUGH  a  straggle  with  calamity  strength 
ens  and  elevates  the  mind,  the  necessity  of 
passive  submission  to  long  adversity  is  rather 
likely  to  weaken  and  subdue  it :  great  mis 
fortunes  disturb  the  understanding  perhaps 
as  much  as  great  success  •  and  extraordinary 
vicissitudes  often  produce  the  opposite  vices 
of  rashness  and  tearfulness  by  inspiring  a 
disposition  to  trust  too  much  to  fortune,  and 
to  yield  to  it  too  soon.  Few  men  experienced 
more  sudden  changes  of  fortune  than  James 
II. ;  but  it  was  unfortunate  for  his  character 
that  he  never  owed  his  prosperity,  and  not 
always  his  adversity,  to  himself.  The  affairs 
of  his  family  seemed  to  be  at  the  lowest  ebb 
a  few  months  before  their  triumphant  restora 
tion.  Four  years  before  the  death  of  his 
brother,  it  appeared  probable  that  he  would 
be  excluded  from  the  succession  to  the 
crown ;  and  his  friends  seemed  to  have  no 
other  means  of  averting  that  doom,  than  by 
proposing  such  limitations  of  the  royal  pre 
rogative  as  would  have  reduced  the  govern 
ment  to  a  merely  nominal  monarchy.  But 
the  dissolution  by  which  Charles  had  safely 
and  successfully  punished  the  independence 
of  his  last  Parliament,  the  destruction  of  some 
of  his  most  formidable  opponents,  and  the 
general  discouragement  of  their  adherents, 
paved  the  way  for  his  peaceable,  and  even 
popular,  succession  :  the  defeat  of  the  revolts 
of  Monmouth  and  Argyle  appeared  to  have 
fixed  his  throne  on  immovable  foundations  ; 
and  he  was  then  placed  in  circumstances 
more  favourable  than  those  of  any  of  his 
predecessors  to  the  extension  of  his  power, 
or,  if  such  had  been  his  purpose,  to  the  un 
disturbed  exercise  of  his  constitutional  autho 
rity.  The  friends  of  liberty,  dispirited  by 
events  which  all,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
brought  discredit  upon  their  cause,  were 


confounded  with  unsuccessful   conspirators 
and  defeated  rebels :  they  seemed  to  be  at 
the  mercy  of  a  prince,  who,  with  reason, 
considered  them  as  the  irreconcilable  ene 
mies  of  his  designs.     The  zealous  partisans 
i  of  monarchy  believed  themselves  on  the  eve 
!  of  reaping  the   fruits  of  a  contest  of  fifty 
I  years'  duration,  under  a  monarch  of  mature 
I  experience,  of  tried  personal  courage,  who 
!  possessed  a  knowledge  of  men,  and  a  capa- 

Icity  as  well  as  an  inclination  for  biujmess ; 
whose  constancy,  intrepidity,  and  sternness 
were  likely  to  establish  their  political  prin 
ciples  ;  and  from  whose  prudence,  as  well  as 
I  gratitude  and  good  faith,  they  were  willing 
!  to  hope  that  he  would  not  disturb  the  secu 
rity  of  their  religion.    The  turbulence  of  the 
preceding  times  had  more  than  usually  dis 
posed  men  of  pacific  temper  to  support  an 
j  established    government.      The   multitude, 
pleased  with  a  new  reign,  generally  disposed 
j  to  admire  vigour  and  to  look  with  compla- 
'  cency  on  success,  showed  many  symptoms 
I  of  that  propensity  which  is  natural  to  them, 
i  or  rather  to  mankind,  —  to  carry  their  ap- 
I  plauses  to  the  side  of  fortune,  and  to  imbibe 
1  the  warmest  passions  of  a  victorious  part}'. 
The  strength  of  the  Tories  in  a  Parliament 
assembled  in  such  a  temper  of  the  nation, 
was  aided  by  a  numerous  reinforcement  of 
members  of  low  condition  and   subservient 
character,  whom  the  forfeiture  of  the  char 
ters  of  towns  enabled  the  Court  to  pour  into 
the  House  of  Commons.*     In  Scotland  the 
prevalent  party  had  ruled  with  such  barba 
rity  that  the   absolute   power  of  the  King 
seemed  to  be  their  only  shield  against  the 
resentment  of  their  countrymen.     The  Irish 
nation,  devotedly  attached  to  a  sovereign  of 
their  own  oppressed    religion,  offered  inex 
haustible  means  of  forming  a  brave  and  en 
thusiastic  army,  ready  to   quell  revolts  in 
every  part  of  his  dominions.     His  revenue 
was  ampler  than  that  of  any  former  King  of 
England :  a  disciplined  army  of  about  twenty 
thousand  men  was,  for  the  first  time,  esta- 

*  "  Clerks  and  gentlemen's  servants."  Evelyn, 
Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  558.  The  Earl  of  Bath  carried 
fifteen  of  the  new  charters  with  him  into  Corn 
wall,  from  which  he  was  called  the  "  Prince  Elec 
tor."  "There  are  not  135  in  this  House  who  sat 
in  the  last,"  p.  562.  By  the  lists  in  the  Parliq 
mentary  History  they  appear  to  be  only  128. 


272 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


blished  during  peace  in  this  island ;  and  a 
formidable  fleet  was  a  more  than  ordinarily 
powerful  weapon  in  the  hands  of  a  prince 
whose  skill  and  valour  in  maritime  war  had 
endeared  him  to  the  seamen,  and  recom 
mended  him  to  the  people. 

The  condition  of  foreign  affairs  was  equally 
favourable  to  the  King.  Louis  XIV.  had.  at 
that  moment,  reached  the  zenith  of  his  great 
ness  •  his  army  was  larger  and  better  than 
any  which  had  been  known  in  Europe  since 
the  vigorous  age  of  the  Roman  empire ;  h's 
marine  enabled  him  soon  after  to  cope  with 
the  combined  forces  of  the  only  two  mari 
time  powers  :  he  had  enlarged  his  dominions, 
strengthened  his  frontiers,  and  daily  medita 
ted  new  conquests :  men  of  genius  applauded 
his  munificence,  and  even  some  men  of  virtue 
contributed  to  the  glory  of  his  reign.  This 
potent  monarch  was  bound  to  James  by  closer 
ties  than  those  of  treaty,  —  by  kindred,  by 
religion,  by  similar  principles  of  government, 
by  the  importance  of  each  to  the  success  of 
the  designs  of  the  other ;  and  he  was  ready 
to  supply  the  pecuniary  aid  required  by  the 
English  monarch,  on  condition  that  James 
shoulci  not  subject  himself  to  the  control  of 
his  Parliament,  but  should  acquiesce  in  the 
schemes  of  France  against  her  neighbours. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  feeble  Government 
of  Spain  was  no  longer  able  to  defend  her 
unwieldy  empire  ;  while  the  German  branch 
of  the  Austrian  family  had,  by  their  intole 
rance,  driven  Hungary  into  revolt,  and  thus 
opened  the  way  for  the  Ottoman  armies  twice 
to  besiege  Vienna.  Venice,  the  last  of  the 
Italian  states  which  retained  a  national  cha 
racter,  took  no  longer  any  part  in  the  contests 
of  Europe,  content  with  the  feeble  lustre 
which  conquests  from  Turkey  shed  over  the 
evening  of  her  greatness.  The  kingdoms  of 
the  North  were  confined  within  their  own 
subordinate  system :  Russia  was  riot  num 
bered  among  civilized  nations  :  and  the  Ger 
manic  states  "were  still  divided  between  their 
fears  from  the  ambition  of  France,  and  their 
attachment  to  her  for  having  preserved  them 
from  the  yoke  of  Austria.  Though  a  power 
ful  party  in  Holland  was  still  attached  to 
Fiance,  there  remained,  on  the  Continent,  no 
security  against  the  ambition  of  Louis, — no 
hope  for  the  liberties  of  mankind  but  the 
power  of  that  great  republic,  animated  by 
the  unconquerable  soul  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange.  All  those  nations,  of  both  religions, 
who  trembled  at  the  progress  of  France, 
turned  their  eyes  towards  James,  and  courted 
his  alliance,  in  hopes  that  he  might  still  be 
detached  from  his  connection  Math  Louis, 
fcnd  that  England  might  resume  her  ancient 
and  noble  station,  as  the  guardian  of  the 
independence  of  nations.  Could  he  have 
varied  his  policy,  that  bright  career  was  still 
open  to  him :  he,  or  rather  a  man  of  genius 
and  magnanimity  in  his  situation,  might  have 
livalled  the  renown  of  Elizabeth,  and  anti 
cipated  the  glories  of  Marlborough.  He  was 
courted  or  dreaded  by  all  Europe.  Who 
could,  then,  have  presumed  to  foretell  that 


this  great  monarch,  in  the  short  space  of  four 
years,  would  be  compelled  to  relinquish  his 
throne,  and  to  fly  from  his  country,  without 
struggle  and  almost  without  disturbance,  by 
the  mere  result  of  his  own  system  of  mea 
sures,  which,  unwise  and  unrighteous  as  it 
was,  seemed  in  every  instance  to  be  crowned 
with  success  till  the  very  moment  of  its  over 
throw. 

The  ability  of  *his  ministers  might  have 
been  considered  as  among  the  happy  parts 
of  his  fortune.  It  was  a  little  before  this 
time  that  the  meetings  of  such  ministers  be 
gan  to  be  generally  known  by  the  modern 
name  of  the  "Cabinet  Council."*  The 
Privy  Council  had  been  originally  a  selection 
of  a  similar  nature;  but  when  seats  in  that 
body  began  to  be  given  or  left  to  those  who 
did  not  enjoy  the  King's  confidence,  and  it 
became  too  numerous  for  secrecy  or  des 
patch,  a  committee  of  its  number,  which  is 
now  called  the  "  Cabinet  Council,"  was  in 
trusted  with  the  direction  of  confidential 
affairs  ;  leaving  to  the  body  at  large  business 
of  a  judicial  or  formal  nature, — to  the  greater 
part  of  its  members  an  honourable  distinc 
tion  instead  of  an  office  of  trust.  The  mem 
bers  of  the  Cabinet  Council  were  then,  as 
they  still  are,  chosen  from  the  Privy  Council 
by  the  King,  without  any  legal  nomination,. 
and  generally  consisted  of  the  ministers  at 
the  head  of  the  principal  departments  of 
public  affairs.  A  short  account  of  the  cha 
racter  of  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  will 
illustrate  the  events  of  the  reign  of  James  II. 

Robert  Spencer,  Earl  of  Sunderland,  who 
soon  acquired  the  chief  ascendancy  in  this 
administration,  entered  on  public  life  with 
all  the  external  advantages  of  birth  and  for 
tune.  His  father  had  fallen  in  the  royal 
army  at  the  battle  of  Newbury,  with  those 
melancholy  forebodings  of  danger  from  the 
victory  of  his  own  party  which  filled  the 
breasts  of  the  more  generous  royalists,  and 
which,  on  the  same  occasion,  saddened  the 
dying  moments  of  Lord  Falkland.  His  mo 
ther  was  Lady  Dorothy  Sidney,  celebrated 
by  Waller  under  the  name  of  Sacharissa.  He 
was  early  employed  in  diplomatic  missions, 
where  he  acquired  the  political  knowledge, 
insinuating  address,  and  polished  manners, 
wrhich  are  learnt  in  that  school,  together 
with  the  subtilty,  dissimulation,  flexibility  of 
principle,  indifference  on  questions  of  con 
stitutional  policy,  and  impatience  of  the  re 
straints  of  popular  government,  which  have 
been  sometimes  contracted  by  English  am 
bassadors  in  the  course  of  a  long  intercourse 
with  the  ministers  of  absolute  princes.  A 
faint  and  superficial  preference  of  the  gene 
ral  principles  of  civil  liberty  was  blended  in 
a  manner  not  altogether  unusual  with  his 
diplomatic  vices.  He  seems  to  have  secured 
the  support  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth  to 
the  administration  formed  by  the  advice  of 
Sir  William  Temple,  and  to  have  then  also 


218. 


North,   Life  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford,  p. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


273 


gained  for  himself  the  confidence  of  that  in 
comparable  person,  who  possessed  all  the 
honest  arts  of  a  negotiator.*  He  gave  an 
early  earnest  of  the  inconstancy  of  an  over- 
refined  character  by  fluctuating  between  the 
exclusion  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  the  limi 
tations  of  the  royal  prerogative.  He  \vas 
removed  from  his  administration  for  his  vote 
on  the  Exclusion  Bill ;  but  the  love  of  office 
soon  prevailed  over  his  feeble  spirit  of  inde 
pendence,  and  he  made  his  peace  with  the 
Court  through  the  Duke  of  York,  who  had 
long  been  well  disposed  to  him,t  and  of  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  who  found  no  diffi 
culty  in  reconciling  to  a  polished  as  well  as 
pliant  courtier,  an  accomplished  negotiator, 
and  a  minister  more  versed  in  foreign  affairs 
than  any  of  his  colleagues. f  Negligence  and 
profusion  bound  him  to  office  by  stronger 
though  coarser  ties  than  those  of  ambition  : 
he  lived  in  an  age  when  a  delicate  purity  in 
pecuniary  matters  had  not  begun  to  have  a 
general  influence  on  statesmen,  and  when  a 
sense  of  personal  honour,  growing  out  of  long 
habits  of  co-operation  and  friendship,  had  not 
yet  contributed  to  secure  them  against  politi 
cal  inconstancy.  He  was  one  of  the  most  dis 
tinguished  of  a  species  of  men  who  perform 
a  part  more  important  than  noble  in  great 
events;  who,  by  powerful  talents,  captiva 
ting  manners,  and  accommodating  opinions, 
— by  a  quick  discernment  of  critical  mo 
ments  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  parties, — by  not 
deserting  a  cause  till  the  instant  before  it  is 
universally  discovered  to  be  desperate,  and 
by  a  command  of  expedients  and  connec 
tions  which  render  them  valuable  to  every 
new  possessor  of  power,  find  means  to  cling 
to  office  or  to  recover  it,  and  who,  though 
they  are  the  natural  offspring  of  quiet  and 
refinement,  often  creep  through  stormy  revo 
lutions  without  being  crushed.  Like  the 
best  and  most  prudent  of  his  class,  he  ap 
pears  not  to  have  betrayed  the  secrets  of  the 
friends  whom  he  abandoned,  and  never  to 
have  complied  with  more  evil  than  was 
necessary  to  keep  his  power.  His  temper 
was  without  rancour ;  and  he  must  be  acquit 
ted  of  prompting,  or  even  preferring  the 
cruel  acts  which  were  perpetrated  under  his 
administration.  Deep  designs  and  premedi 
tated  treachery  were  irreconcilable  both  with 
his  indolence  and  his  impetuosity ;  and  there 
is  some  reason  to  believe,  that  in  the  midst 
of  total  indifference  about  religious  opinions, 
he  retained  to  the  end  some  degree  of  that 
preference  for  civil  liberty  which  he  might 
have  derived  from  the  example  of  his  ances 
tors,  and  the  sentiments  of  some  of  his  early 
connections. 


*  Temple,  Memoirs,  &c.  part  iii. 

+  "  Lord  Sunderland  knows  I  have  always  been 
very  kind  to  him." — Duke  of  York  to  Mr.  Legge, 
23d  July,  1679.  Legge  MSS. 

t  Some  of  Lord  Sunderland's  competitors  in 
this  province  were  not  formidable.  His  successor, 
Lord  Conway,  when  a  foreign  minister  spoke  to 
him  of  the  Circles  of  the  Empire,  said,  "  he  won 
dered  what  circles  should  have  to  do  with  politics." 


Lawrence  Hyde,  Earl  of  Rochester,  the 
younger  son  of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon,  was 
Lord  Sunderland's  most  formidable  competi 
tor  for  the  chief  direction  of  public  affairs. 
He  owed  this  importance  rather  to  his  posi 
tion  and  connections  than  to  his  abilities, 
which,  however,  were  by  no  means  con 
temptible.  He  was  the  undisputed  leader 
of  the  Tory  party,  to  whose  highest  princi 
ples  in  Church  and  State  he  showed  a  con 
stant,  and  probably  a  conscientious  attach 
ment.  He  had  adhered  to  James  in  every 
variety  of  fortune,  and  was  the  uncle  of  the 
Princesses  Mary  and  Anne,  who  seemed  like 
ly  in  succession  to  inherit  the  crown.  He  was 
a  fluent  speaker,  and  appears  to  have  pos 
sessed  some  part  of  his  father's  talents  as  a 
writer.  He  was  deemed  sincere  and  upright ; 
and  his  private  life  was  not  stained  by  any 
vice,  except  violent  paroxysms  of  anger, 
and  an  excessive  indulgence  in  wine,  then 
scarcely  deemed  a  fault.  ';  His  infirmities," 
says  one  of  the  most  zealous  adherents  of 
his  party,  '-'were  passion,  in  which  he  would 
swear  like  a  cutter,  and  the  indulging  him 
self  in  wine.  But  his  party  was  that  of  the 
Church  of  England,  of  whom  he  had  the 
honour,  for  many  years,  to  be  accounted  the 
head."*  The  impetuosity  of  his  temper 
concurred  with  his  opinions  on  government 
in  prompting  him  to  rigorous  measures.  He 
disdained  the  forms  and  details  of  business ; 
and  it  was  his  maxim  to  prefer  only  Tories, 
without  regard  to  their  qualifications  for 
office.  "  Do  you  not  think,"  said  he  to  Lord 
Keeper  Guildford,  "  that  I  could  understand 
any  business  in  England  in  a  month'?" 
u  Yes,  my  lord,"  answered  the  Lord  Keeper, 
"  but  I  believe  you  would  understand  it  bet 
ter  in  two  months."  Even  his  personal  de 
fects  and  unreasonable  maxims  were  calcu 
lated  to  attach  adherents  to  him  as  a  chief; 
and  he  was  well  qualified  to  be  the  leader 
of  a  party  ready  to  support  all  the  pretensions 
of  any  king  who  spared  the  Protestant  esta 
blishment. 

Sir  George  Saville.  created  Marquis  of 
Halifax  by  Charles  IL.  claims  the  attention 
of  the  historian  rather  by  his  brilliant  genius, 
by  the  singularity  of  his  character,  and  by 
the  great  part  which  he  acted  in  the  events 
which  preceded  and  followed,  than  by  his 
political  importance  during  the  short  period 
in  which  he  held  office  under  James.  In  his 
youth  he  appears  to  have  combined  the 
opinions  of  a  republicant  with  the  most  re 
fined  talents  of  a  polished  courtier.  The 
fragments  of  his  writings  which  remain  show 
such  poignant  and  easy  wit,  such  lively 
sense,  so  much  insight  into  character,  and 
so  delicate  an  observation  of  manners,  as 
could  hardly  have  been  surpassed  by  any  of 
his  contemporaries  at  Versailles.  His  politi 
cal  speculations  being  soon  found  incapable 


*  North,  p.  230. 

t  "  I  have  long  looked  upon  Lord  Halifax  and 
Lord  Essex  as  men  who  did  not  love  monarchy, 
such  as  it  is  in  England." — Duke  of  York  to  Mr. 
Legge,  supra. 


274 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  being  reduced  to  practice,  melted  away 
in  the  royal  favour :  the  disappointment  of 
visionary  hopes  led  him  to  despair  of  great 
improvements;  to  despise  the  moderate  ser 
vices  which  an  individual  may  render  to  the 
community,  and  to  turn  with  disgust  from 
public  principles  to  the  indulgence  of  his 
own  vanity  and  ambition.  The  dread  of  his 
powers  of  ridicule  contributed  to  force  him 
into  office,*  and  the  attractions  of  his  lively 
and  somewhat  libertine  conversation  were 
among  the  means  by  which  he  maintained 
his  ground  with  Charles  It.;  of  whom  it  was 
said  by  Dryderi,  that  "  whatever  his  favour 
ites  of  state  might  be,  yet  those  of  his  af 
fection  were  men  of  wjt."t  Though  we 
have  no  remains  of  his  speeches,  we  cannot 
doubt  the  eloquence  of  him  who,  on  the  Ex 
clusion  Bill,  fought  the  battle  of  the  Court 
against  so  great  an  orator  as  Shaftesbury.J 
Of  these  various  means  of  advancement,  he 
availed  himself  for  a  time  with  little  scruple 
and  with  some  success.  But  he  never  ob 
tained  an  importance  which  bore  any  pro 
portion  to  his  great  abilities; — a  failure 
which,  in  the  time  of  Charles  II. ?  may  be  in 
part  ascribed  to  the  remains  of  his  opinions, 
but  which,  from  its  subsequent  recurrence, 
must  be  still  more  imputed  to  the  defects  of 
his  character.  He  had  a  stronger  passion  for 
praise  than  for  power,  and  loved  the  display 
of  talent  more  than  the  possession  of  autho 
rity.  The  unbridled  exercise  of  wit  exposed 
him  to  lasting  animosities,  and  threw  a  shade 
of  levity  over  his  character.  He  was  too 
acute  in  discovering  difficulties, — too  inge 
nious  in  devising  objections.  He  had  too 
keen  a  perception  of  human  weakness  and 
folly  not  to  find  many  pretexts  and  tempta 
tions  for  changing  his  measures,  and  desert 
ing  his  connections.  The  subtilty  of  his 
genius  tempted  him  to  projects  too  refined 
to  be  understood  or  supported  by  numerous 
bodies  of  men.  His  appetite  for  praise, 
when  sated  by  the  admiration  of  his  friends, 
was  too  apt  to  seek  a  new  and  more  stimu 
lating  gratification  in  the  applauses  of  his 
opponents.  His  weaknesses  and  even  his 
talents  contributed  to  betray  him  into  incon 
sistency  ]  which,  if  not  the  worst  quality  of  a 
statesman,  is  the  most  fatal  to  his  perma 
nent  importance.  For  one  short  period,  in 
deed,  the  circumstances  of  his  situation  suit 
ed  the  peculiarities  of  his  genius.  In  the  last 
years  of  Charles  his  refined  policy  had  found 
full  scope  in  the  arts  of  balancing  factions, 
of  occasionally  leaning  to  the  vanquished, 
and  always  tempering  the  triumph  of  the 
victorious  party,  by  which  that  monarch  then 

*  Temple,  Memoirs,  part  iii. 
t  Dedication  to  King  Arthur. 
\  Jotham,  of  piercing  wit  and  pregnant,  thought, 
Endued  by  nature  and  by  learning  taught 
To  move  assemblies ;  who  but  only  tried 
The  worse  awhile,  then  chose  the  better  side  ; 
Nor  chose  alone,  but  turned  the  balance  too. 

Absalom  and  Achitophel. 

Lord  Halifax  says,  "  Mr.  Dryden  told  me  that 
he  was  offered  money  to  write  against  me."  — 
Fox  MSS. 


consulted  the  repose  of  his  declining  years. 
Perhaps  he  satisfied  himself  with  the  reflec 
tion,  that  his  compliance  with  all  the  evil 
which  was  then  done  was  necessary  to  enable 
him  to  save  his  country  from  the  arbitrary  and 
bigoted  faction  which  was  eager  to  rule  it. 
We  know  from  the  evidence  of  the  excel 
lent  Tillotson,*  that  Lord  Halifax  '-showed  a 
compassionate  concern  for  Lord  Russeli.  and 
all  the  readiness  to  save  him  that  could  be 
wished  ;"  and  that  Lord  Russell  desired  Til- 
lotson  "to  give  thanks  to  Lord  Halifax  for 
his  humanity  and  kindness :"  and  there  is 
some  reason  to  think  that  his  intercession 
might  have  been  successful,  if  the  delicate 
honour  of  Lord  Russell  had  not  refused  to 
second  their  exertions,  by  softening  his 
language,  on  the  lawfulness  of  resistance,  a 
shade  more  than  scrupulous  sincerity  would 
warrant.!  He  seems  unintentionally  to  have 
contributed  to  the  death  of  Sidney,  i  by 
having  procured  a  sort  of  confession  from 
Monmouth,  in  order  to  reconcile  him  to  his 
father,  and  to  balance  the  influence  of  the 
Duke  of  York,  by  Charles'  partiality  for  his 
son.  The  compliances  and  refinements  of 
that  period  pursued  him  with,  perhaps,  too 
just  a  retribution  during  the  remainder  of 
his  life.  James  was  impatient  to  be  rid  of 
him  who  had  checked  his  influence  during 
the  last  years  of  his  brother ;  and  the  friends 
of  liberty  could  never  place  any  lasting  trust 
in  the  man  who  remained  a  member  of  the 
Government  which  put  to  death  Russell  and 
Sidney. 

The  part  performed  by  Lord  Godolphin  at 
this  time  was  not  so  considerable  as  to  re 
quire  a  full  account  of  his  character.  He 
was  a  gentleman  of  ancient  family  in  Corn 
wall,  distinguished  by  the  accomplishments 
of  some  of  its  members,  and  by  their  suffer 
ings  in  the  royal  cause  during  the  civil  war. 
He  held  offices  at  Court  before  he  was  em 
ployed  in  the  service  of  the  State,  and  he 
always  retained  the  wary  and  conciliating 
manners,  as  well  as  the  profuse  dissipation 
of  his  original  school.  Though  a  royalist 
and  a  courtier  he  voted  for  the  Exclusion 
Bill.  At  the  accession  of  James,  he  was  not 
considered  as  favourable  to  absolute  depen 
dence  on  France,  nor  to  the  system  of  govern 
ing  without  Parliaments.  But  though  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet,  he  was,  during  the 
whole  of  this  reign,  rather  a  public  officer, 
who  confined  himself  to  his  own  department, 
than  a  minister  who  took  a  part  in  the  direc 
tion  of  the  State. §  The  habit  of  continuing 


*  Lords'  Journals,  20th  Dec.  1689.  The  Duch 
ess  of  Portsmouth  said  to  Lord  Montague,  "  that 
if  others  had  been  as  earnest  as  my  Lord  Halifax 
with  (he  King,  Lord  Russell  might  have  been 
saved." — Fox  MSS.  Other  allusions  in  these 
MSS.,  which  I  ascribe  to  Lord  Halifax,  show  that 
his  whole  fault  was  a  continuance  in  office  after 
the  failure  of  his  efforts  to  save  Lord  Russell. 

t  Life  of  Lord  Russell,  by  Lord  John  Russell, 
p.  215. 

t  Evidence  of  Mr.  Hampden  and  Sir  James 
Forbes.— Lords'  Journals,  20th  Dec.  1689. 

$  "Milord  Godolphin,  quoiqu'il  est  du  secret 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


275 


some  officers  in  place  under  successive  ad 
ministrations,  for  the  convenience  of  busi 
ness,  then  extended  to  higher  persons  than 
it  has  usually  comprehended  in  more  recent 
times. 

James  had.  soon  after  his  accession,  intro 
duced  into  the  Cabinet  Sir  George  Jeffreys, 
Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England,*  a  person 
\vhose  office  did  not  usually  lead  to  that  sta 
tion,  and  whose  elevation  to  unusual  honour 
and  trust  is  characteristic  of  the  Government 
which  he  served.  His  origin  was  obscure, 
his  education  scanty,  his  acquirements  no 
more  than  what  his  vigorous  understanding 
gathered  in  the  course  of  business,  his  pro 
fessional  practice  low,  and  chiefly  obtained 
from  the  companions  of  his  vulgar  excesses, 
whom  he  captivated  by  that  gross  buffoonery 
which  accompanied  him  to  the  most  exalted 
stations.  But  his  powers  of  mind  were  ex 
traordinary  ;  his  elocution  was  flowing  and 
spirited;  and,  after  his  highest  preferment, 
in  the  few  instances  where  he  preserved 
temper  and  decency,  the  native  vigour  of  his 
intellect  shone  forth  in  his  judgments,  and 
threw  a  transient  dignity  over  the  coarse 
ness  of  his  deportment.  He  first  attracted 
notice  by  turbulence  in  the  petty  contests 
of  the  Corporation  of  London ;  and  having 
found  a  way  to  Court  through  some  of 
those  who  ministered  to  the  pleasures  of 
the  King,  as  well  as  to  the  more  ignomi 
nious  of  his  political  intrigues,  he  made  his 
value  known  by  contributing  to  destroy  the 
charter  of  the  capital  of  which  he  had  been 
the  chief  law  officer.  His  services  as  a 
counsel  in  the  trial  of  Russell,  and  as  a  judge 
in  that  of  Sidney,  proved  still  more  accepta 
ble  to  his  masters.  On  the  former  occasion, 
he  caused  a  person  who  had  collected  evi 
dence  for  the  defence  to  be  turned  out  of 
court,  for  making  private  suggestions. — pro 
bably  important  to  the  ends  of  justice, — to 
Lady  Russell,  while  she  was  engaged  in  her 
affecting  duty.t  The  same  brutal  insolence 
shown  in  the  trial  of  Sidney,  was.  perhaps, 
thought  the  more  worthy  of  reward,  because 
it  was  foiled  by  the  calm  heroism  of  that 
great  man.  The  union  of  a  powerful  under 
standing  with  boisterous  violence  and  the 
basest  subserviency  singularly  fitted  him  to 
be  the  tool  of  a  tyrant.  He  wanted,  indeed, 
the  aid  of  hypocrisy,  but  he  was  free  from 
its  restraints.  He  had  that  reputation  for 
boldness  which  many  men  preserve,  as  long 
as  they  are  personally  safe,  by  violence  in 
their  counsels  and  in  their  language.  If  he 
at  last  feared  danger,  he  never  feared  shame, 
which  much  more  frequently  restrains  the 


n'a  pas  grand  credit,  et  songe  seulement  a  se  con- 
server  par  une  conduite  sage  et  moderee.  Je  ne 
pense  pas  que  s'll  en  etoit  cru,  on  prit  des  liaisons 
avec  V.  M.  qui  pussent  aller  a  se  passer  entiere- 
nient  de  parlement,  et  a  rompre  net-tement  avec 
le  Prince  d'Orange." — Barillon  to  the  King,  16th 
April.  1685.  Fox,  Flistory  of  James  II.,  app.  Ix. 

*  North,  p.  234.  (After  the  Northern  Circuit, 
1684, — in  our  computation.  1685.) 

t  Examination  n{  John  Tisard. — Lords'  Jour 
nals,  20th  Dec.  1690. 


powerful.  Perhaps  the  unbridled  fury  of 
his  temper  enabled  him  to  threaten  and  in 
timidate  with  more  effect  than  a  man  of 
equal  wickedness,  with  a  cooler  character. 
His  religion,  which  seems  to  have  consisted 
in  hatred  to  Nonconformists,  did  not  hinder 
him  from  profaneness.  His  native  fierceness 
was  daily  inflamed  by  debauchery ;  his  ex 
cesses  were  too  gross  and  outrageous  for  the 
decency  of  historical  relation  ;*  and  his  court 
was  a  continual  scene  of  scurrilous  invective, 
from  which  none  were  exempted  but  his  su 
periors.  A  contemporary,  of  amiable  dispo 
sition  and  Tory  principles,  who  knew  him 
well,  sums  up  his  character  in  few  words, — 
"  he  was  by  nature  cruel,  and  a  slave  of  the 
Court. "t 

It  was  after  the  defeat  of  Monmouth  that 
James  gave  full  scope  to  his  policy,  arid  be 
gan  that  system  of  measures  which  charac 
terises  his  reign.  Though  Feversham  was, 
in  the  common  intercourse  of  life,  a  good- 
natured  man.  his  victory  at  Sedgemoor  was 
immediately  followed  by  some  of  those  acts 
of  military  license  which  usually  disgrace 
the  suppression  of  a  revolt,  when  there  is  no 
longer  any  dread  of  retaliation, — when  the 
conqueror  sees  a  rebel  in  every  inhabitant, 
and  considers  destruction  by  the  sword  as 
only  anticipating  legal  execution,  and  when 
he  is  generally  well  assured,  if  not  positively 
instructed,  that  he  can  do  nothing  more  ac 
ceptable  to  his  superiors  than  to  spread  a 
deep  impression  of  terror  through  a  disaf 
fected  province.  A  thousand  were  slain  in 
a  pursuit  of  a  small  body  of  insurgents  for  a 
few  miles.  Feversham  marched  into  Bridge- 
water  on  the  morning  after  the  battle  (July 
7th),  with  a  considerable  number  tied  to 
gether  like  slaves ;  of  whom  twenty-two 
were  hanged  by  his  orders  on  a  sign-post 
by  the  road-side,  and  on  gibbets  which  he 
caused  to  be  erected  for  the  occasion.  One 
of  them  was  a  wounded  officer,  named  Ad- 
lam,  who  was  already  in  the  agonies  of 
death.  Four  were  hanged  in  chains,  with  a 
deliberate  imitation  of  the  barbarities  of  re 
gular  law.  One  miserable  wretch,  to  whom 
life  had  been  promised  on  condition  of  his 
keeping  pace  for  half  a  mile  with  a  horse  at 
full  speed  (to  which  he  was  fastened  by  a 
rope  which  went  round  his  neck),  was  exe 
cuted  in  spite  of  his  performance  of  the  feat. 
Feversham  was  proceeding  thus  towards  dis 
armed  enemies,  to  whom  he  had  granted 
quarter,  when  Ken,  the  bishop  of  the  diocese, 
a  zealous  royalist,  had  the  courage  to  rush 
into  the  midst  of  this  military  execution, 
calling  out.  "  My  Lord,  this  is  murder  in  law. 

*  See  the  account  of  his  behaviour  at  a  ball  in 
the  city,  soon  after  Sidney's  condemnation  ;  Eve 
lyn,  vol.  i.  p.  531  ;  and  at  the  dinner  at  Dun- 
combe's,  a  rich  citizen,  where  the  Lord  Chancel 
lor  (Jeffreys)  and  the  Lord  Treasurer  (Rochester) 
were  with  difficulty  prevented  from  appearing  na 
ked  in  a  balcony,  to  drink  loyal  toasts,  Reresby, 
Memoirs,  p.  231,  and  of  his  "flaming"  drunken 
ness  at  the  Privy  Council,  when  the  King  was 
present. — North,  p.  250. 

t  Evelyn,  vol.  i.  p.  579. 


276 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


These  poor  wretches,  now  the  battle  is  over, 
must  be  tried  before  they  can  be  put  to 
death."*  The  interposition  of  this  excellent 
prelate,  however,  only  suspended  the  cruel 
ties  of  the  conquerors.  Feversham  was 
called  to  court  to  receive  the  thanks  and 
honours  due  to  his  services. 

Kirke,  whom  he  was  directed  to  leave  with 
detachments  at  Bridge  water  and  Taunton,t 
imitated,  if  he  did  not  surpass,  the  lawless 
violence  of  his  commander.  When  he  en 
tered  the  latter  town,  on  the  third  day  after 
the  battle,  he  put  to  death  at  least  nine  of 
his  prisoners,  with  so  little  sense  of  impro 
priety  or  dread  of  disapprobation,  that  they 
were  entered  by  name  as  executed  for  high 
treason  in  the  parish  register  of  their  inter 
ment,  t  Of  the  other  excesses  of  Kirke  we 
have  no  satisfactory  account.  The  experi 
ence  of  like  cases,  however,  renders  the  tra 
dition  not  improbable,  that  these  acts  of  law 
less  violence  were  accompanied  by  the  in 
sults  and  mockeries  of  military  debauchery. 
The  nature  of  the  service  in  which  the  de 
tachment  was  principally  engaged,  required 
more  than  common  virtue  in  a  commander 
to  contain  the  passions  of  the  soldiery.  It 
was  his  principal  duty  to  search  for  rebels. 
He  was  urged  to  the  performance  of  this 
odious  task  by  malicious  or  mercenary  in 
formers.  The  friendship,  or  compassion,  or 
political  zeal  of  the  inhabitants,  was  active 
in  favouring  escapes,  so  that  a  constant  and 
cruel  struggle  subsisted  between  the  sol 
diers  and  the  people  abetting  the  fugitives. § 
Kirke's  regiment,  when  in  garrison  at  Tan 
gier,  had  had  the  figure  of  a  lamb  painted 
on  their  colours  as  a  badge  of  their  warfare 
against  the  enemies  of  the  Christian  name. 
The  people  of  Somersetshire,  when  they 
saw  those  who  thus  bore  the  symbols  of 
meekness  and  benevolence  engaged  in  the 
performance  of  such  a  task,  vented  the  bit 
terness  of  their  hearts  against  the  soldiers, 
by  giving  them  the  ironical  name  of  Kirke's 
"  lambs."  The  unspeakable  atrocity  impu- 
puted  to  him,  of  putting  to  death  a  person 
whose  life  he  had  promised  to  a  young  wo 
man,  as  the  price  of  compliance  with  his 
desires,  it  is  due  to  the  honour  of  human  na- 

*  For  the  principal  part  of  the  enormities  of  Fe 
versham,  we  have  the  singular  advantage  of  the 
testimony  of  two  eye-witnesses, — an  officer  in  the 
royal  army,  Kennet,  History  of  England,  vol.  iii. 
p.  432,  and  Oldmixon,  History  of  England,  vol. 
i.  p.  704.  See  also  Locke's  Western  Rebellion. 

t  Lord  Sunderland's  letter  to  Lord  Feversham, 
8th  July.— State  Paper  Office. 

t  Toulrnin's  Taunton,  by  Savage,  p.  522,  where, 
after  a  period  of  near  one  hundred  and  forty  years, 
the  authentic  evidence  of  this  fact  is  for  the  first 
time  published,  together  with  other  important  par 
ticulars  of  Monmputh's  revolt,  and  of  the  military 
and  judicial  cruelties  which  followed  it.  These  nine 
,are  by  some  writers  swelled  to  nineteen,  probably 
from  confounding  them  with  that  number  executed 
at  Taunton  by  virtue  of  Jeffreys'  judgments.  The 
number  of  ninety  mentioned  on  this  occasion  by 
others  seems  to  be  altogether  an  exaggeration. 

$  Kirke  to  Lord  Sunderland.  Taunton,  12th 
Aug.— State  Paper  Office. 


ture  to  disbelieve,  until  more  satisfactory 
evidence  be  produced  than  that  on  which  it 
has  hitherto  rested.*  He  followed  the  ex 
ample  of  ministers  and  magistrates  in  sell 
ing  pardons  to  the  prisoners  in  his  district ; 
which,  though  as  illegal  as  his  executions, 
enabled  many  to  escape  from  the  barbarities 
which  were  to  come.  Base  as  this  traffic 
was,  it  would  naturally  lead  him  to  threaten 
more  evil  than  he  inflicted.  It  deserves  to  be 
remarked,  that,  five  years  after  his  command 
at  Taunton,  the  inhabitants  of  that  place  gave 
an  entertainment,  at  the  public  expense,  to 
celebrate  his  success.  This  fact  seems  to 
countenance  a  suspicion  that  we  ought  to 
attribute  more  to  the  nature  of  the  service 
in  which  he  was  engaged  than  to  any  pre 
eminence  in  criminality,  the  peculiar  odium 
which  has  fallen  on  his  name,  to  the  ex 
clusion  of  other  officers,  whose  excesses  ap 
pear  to  have  been  greater,  and  are  certainly 
more  satisfactorily  attested.  But  whatever 
opinion  may  be  formed  of  the  degree  of 
Kirke's  guilt,  it  is  certain  that  he  was  rather 
countenanced  than  discouraged  by  the  Gov 
ernment.  His  illegal  executions  were  early 
notorious  in  London. t  The  good  Bishop 
Ken,  who  then  corresponded  with  the  King 
himself,  on  the  sufferings  of  his  diocese.t 
could  not  fail  to  remonstrate  against  those 
excesses,  which  he  had  so  generously  inter 
posed  to  prevent  ]  and  if  the  accounts  of 
the  remonstrances  of  Lord  Keeper  Guildford, 
against  the  excesses  of  the  West,  have  any 
foundation, §  they  must  have  related  exclu 
sively  to  the  enormities  of  the  soldiery,  for 
the  Lord  Keeper  died  at  the  very  opening 
of  Jeffreys'  circuit.  Yet,  \vith  this  know 
ledge,  Lord  Sunderland  instructed  Kirke  "  to 
secure  such  of  his  prisoners  as  had  not  been 


*  This  story  is  told  neither  by  Oldmixon  nor  Bur- 
net,  nor  by  the  humble  writers  of  the  Bloody  Assi 
zes  or  the  Quadriennium  Jacobi.  Echard  and  Ken- 
net,  who  wrote  long  after,  mentioned  it  only  as  a 
report.  It  first  appeared  in  print  in  1699,  in  Pom- 
fret's  poem  of  Cruelty  and  Lust.  The  next  men 
tion  is  in  the  anonymous  Life  of  William  III., 
published  in  1702.  A  story  very  similar  is  told 
by  St.  Augustine  of  a  Roman  officer,  and  in  the 
Spectator,  No.  491,  of  a  governor  of  Zealand, 
probably  from  a  Dutch  chronicle  or  legend.  The 
scene  is  laid  by  some  at  Taunton,  by  others  at 
Exeter.  The  person  executed  is  said  by  some  to 
be  the  father,  by  others  to  be  the  husband,  and 
by  others  again  to  be  the  brother  of  the  unhappy 
young  woman,  whose  name  it  has  been  found  im 
possible  to  ascertain,  or  even  plausibly  to  conjec 
ture.  The  tradition,  which  is  still  said  to  prevail 
at  Taunton,  may  well  have  originated  in  a  publi 
cation  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  old. 

T  Narcissus  Luttrell,  MS.  Diary,  15th  July; 
six  days  after  their  occurrence. 

t  Ken's  examination  before  the  Privy  Council, 
in  1696. — Biographia  Britannica,  Article  Ken. 

§  North,  p.  260.  This  inaccurate  writer  refers 
the  complaint  to  Jeffreys'  proceedings,  which  is 
impossible,  since  Lord  Guildford  died  in  Oxford 
shire,  on  the  5th  September,  after  a  long  illness. 
Lady  Lisle  was  executed  on  the  3d  ;  and  her  exe 
cution,  the  only  one  which  preceded  the  death  of 
the  Lord  Keeper,  could  scarcely  have  reached  him 
in  his  dying  moments. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


277 


executed,  in  order  to  trial,"*  at  a  time  when 
there  had  been  no  legal  proceedings,  and 
when  all  the  executions  to  which  he  adverts, 
without  disapprobation,  must  have  been  con 
trary  to  law.  Seven  days  after,  Sunderlarid 
informed  Kirke  that  his  letter  had  been 
communicated  to  the  King,  "  who  was  very 
well  satisfied  with  the  proceedings. "t  In 
subsequent  despatches,!  he  censures  Kirke 
for  setting  some  rebels  at  liberty  (alluding, 
doubtless,  to  those  who  had  purchased  their 
lives)  j  but  he  does  not  censure  that  officer 
for  having  put  others  to  death.  Were  it  not 
for  these  proofs  that  the  King  knew  the  acts 
of  Kirke,  and  that  his  Government  officially 
sanctioned  them,  no  credit  would  be  due  to 
the  declarations  afterwards  made  by  such  a 
man,  that  his  severities  fell  short  of  the 
orders  which  he  had  received. §  Nor  is  this 
the  only  circumstance  which  connects  the 
Government  with  these  enormities.  On  the 
10th  of  August,  Kirke  was  ordered  to  come 
to  court  to  give  information  on  the  state  of 
the  West.  His  regiment  was  soon  after 
wards  removed  ;  and  he  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  employed  there  during  the  re 
mainder  of  that  season. || 

Colonel  Trelawney  succeeded ;  but  so  little 
was  Kirke's  conduct  thought  to  be  blama- 
ble,  that  on  the  1st  of  September  three  per 
sons  were  executed  illegally  at  Taunton  for 
rebellion,  the  nature  and  reason  of  their 
death  openly  avowed  in  the  register  of  their 
interment. IF  In  military  executions,  how 
ever  atrocious,  some  allowance  must  be 
made  for  the  passions  of  an  exasperated 
soldiery,  and  for  the  habits  of  officers  accus 
tomed  to  summary  and  irregular  acts,  who 
have  not  been  taught  by  experience  that  the 
ends  of  justice  cannot  Be  attained  otherwise 
than  by  the  observance  of  the  rules  of  law.** 
The  lawless  violence  of  an  army  forms  no 
precedent  for  the  ordinary  administration  of 
public  affairs ;  and  the  historian  is  bound  to 
relate  with  diffidence  events  which  are  gen 
erally  attended  with  confusion  and  obscurity, 
which  are  exaggerated  by  the  just  resent 
ment  of  an  oppressed  party,  and  where  we 
can  seldom  be  guided  by  the  authentic  evi 
dence  of  records.  Neither  the  conduct  of  a 
Government  which  approves  these  excesses, 

*  14th  July.— State  Paper  Office. 

t  21st  July.— Ibid. 

t  25th  and  28th  July,  and  3d  August. — State 
Paper  Office. 

4  Oldmixpn,  vol.  i.  p.  705. 

II  Papers  in  the  War  Office.  MS. 

IT  Savage,  p.  525. 

*  Two  years  after  the  suppression  of  the  West 
ern  revolt,  we  find  Kirke  treated  with  favour  by 
the  King; — "  Colonel  Kirke  is  made  housekeeper 
of  Whitehall,  in  the  room  of  his  kinsman,  de 
ceased." — Narcissus  Luttrell,  Sept.  1687.  lie  was 
nearly  related  to,  or  perhaps  the  son  of  George 
Kirke,  groom  of  the  bedchamber  to  Charles  I., 
one  of  whose  beautiful  daughters,  Mary,  a  maid 
of  honour,  was  the  Warmestre  of  Count  Hamil 
ton,  (Notes  to  Memoires  de  Grammont),  and  the 
other,  Diana,  was  the  wife  of  the  last  Earl  of  Ox 
ford,  of  the  house  of  De  Vere. — Dugdale's  Ba 
ronage,  tit.  Oxford. 


however,  nor  that  of  judges  who  imitate  or 
surpass  them,  allows  of  such  extenuations  or 
requires  such  caution  in  relating  and  cha 
racterising  facts.  The  judicial  proceedings 
which  immediately  followed  these  military 
atrocities  may  be  related  with  more  confi 
dence,  and  must  be  treated  with  the  utmost 
rigour  of  historical  justice. 

The  commencement  of  proceedings  on  the 
Western  Circuit,  which  comprehends  the 
whole  scene  of  Monmouth's  operations,  was 
postponed  till  the  other  assizes  were  con 
cluded,  in  order  that  four  judges,  who  were 
joined  with  Jeffreys  in  the  commission,  might 
be  at  liberty  to  attend  him.*  An  order  was 
also  issued  to  all  officers  in  the  West.  :<to 
furnish  such  parties  of  horse  and  foot,  as 
might  be  required  by  the  Lord  Chief  Justice 
on  his  circuit,  for  securing  prisoners,  and  to 
perform  that  service  in  such  manner  as  he 
should  direct."!  After  these  unusual  and 
alarming  preparations,  Jeffreys  began  his 
circuit  at  Winchester,  on  the  27th  of  August, 
by  the  trial  of  Mrs.  Alicia  Lisle,  who  was 
charged  with  having  sheltered  in  her  house, 
for  one  night,  two  fugitives  from  Monmouth7s 
routed  army, — an  office  of  humanity  which 
then  was  and  still  is  treated  as  high  treason 
by  the  law  of  England.  This  lady,  though 
unaided  by  counsel,  so  deaf  that  she  could 
very  imperfectly  hear  the  evidence,  and  oc 
casionally  overpowerrd  by  those  lethargic 
slumbers  which  are  incident  to  advanced 
age, 'defended  herself  with  a  coolness  which 
formed  a  striking  contrast  to  the  deportment 
of  her  judge. t  The  principal  witness,  a  man 
who  had  been  sent  to  her  to  implore  shelter 
for  one  Hickes,  and  who  guided  him  and 
Nelthrope  to  her  house,  betrayed  a  natural 
repugnance  to  disclose  facts  likely  to  affect 
a  life  which  he  had  innocently  contributed 
to  endanger.  Jeffreys,  at  the  suggestion  of 
the  counsel  for  the  crown,  took  upon  himself 
the  examination  of  this  unwilling  witness,  and 
conducted  it  with  a  union  of  artifice,  men 
ace,  and  invective,  which  no  well-regulated 
tribunal  would  suffer  in  the  advocate  of  a 

Srisoner,  when  examining  the  witness  pro- 
uced  by  the  accuser.  With  solemn  ap 
peals  to  Heaven  for  his  own  pure  intentions, 
ne  began  in  the  language  of  candour  and 
gentleness  to  adjure  the  witness  to  discover 
all  that  he  knew.  His  nature,  however, 
often  threw  off  this  disguise,  and  broke  out 
into  the  ribaldry  and  scurrility  of  his  accus 
tomed  style.  The  Judge  and  three  counsel 
poured  in  questions  upon  the  poor  rustic  in 
rapid  succession.  Jeffreys  said  that  he  trea 
sured  up  vengeance  for  such  men,  and  added, 
"  It  is  infinite  mercy  that  for  those  falsehoods 


*  Lord  Chief  Baron  Montague,  Levison,  Wat- 
kins,  and  Wright,  of  whom  the  three  former  sat 
on  the  subsequent  trials  of  Mr.  Cornish  and  Mrs. 
Gaunt. 

t  This  order  was  dated  on  the  24th  August, 
1685. — Papers  in  the  War  Office.  From  this  cir 
cumstance  originated  the  story,  that  Jeffreys  had 
a  commission  as  Commcxnaer-in- Chief. 

t  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  298. 


278 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  thine,  God  does  not  immediately  strike 
thee  into  hell."  Wearied,  overawed,  and 
overwhelmed  by  such  an  examination,  the 
witness  at  length  admitted  some  facts  which 
afforded  reason  to  suspect,  rather  than  to 
believe,  that  the  unfortunate  lady  knew  the 
men  whom  she  succoured  to  be  fugitives 
from  Monmouth's  army.  She  said  in  her 
defence,  that  she  knew  Mr.  Hickes  to  be  a 
Presbyterian  minister,  and  thought  he  ab 
sconded  because  there  were  warrants  out 
against  him  on  that  account.  All  the  pre 
cautions  for  concealment  which  were  urged 
as  proofs  of  her  intentional  breach  of  law 
were  reconcilable  with  this  defence.  Orders 
had  been  issued  at  the  beginning  of  the 
revolt  to  seize  all  "disaffected  and  suspi 
cious  persons,  especially  all  Nonconformist 
ministers;"*  and  Jeffreys  himself  unwit 
tingly  strengthened  her  case  by  declaring 
his  conviction,  that  all  Presbyterians  had 
a  hand  in  the  rebellion.  He  did  not  go 
through  the  formality  of  repeating  so  pro 
bable  a  defence  to  the  jury.  They  how 
ever  hesitated  :  they  asked  the  Chief  Justice, 
whether  it  were  as  much  treason  to  receive 
Hickes  before  as  after  conviction  ?  He  told 
them  that  it  was,  which  was  literally  true ; 
but  he  wilfully  concealed  from  them  that  by 
the  law,  such  as  it  was,  the  receiver  of  a 
traitor  could  not  be  brought  to  trial  till  the 
principal  traitor  had  been  convicted  or  out 
lawed ; — a  provision,  indeed,  so  manifestly 
necessary  to  justice,  that  without  the  obser 
vance  of  it  Hickes  might  be  acquitted  of 
treason  after  Mrs.  Lisle  had  been  execu- 
te,d  for  harbouring  him  as  a  traitor. t  Four 
judges  looked  silently  on  this  suppression  of 
truth,  which  produced  the  same  effect  with 
positive  falsehood,  and  allowed  the  limits  of 
a  barbarous  law  to  be  overpassed,  in  order 
to  destroy  an  aged  woman  for  an  act  of 
charity.  The  jury  retired,  and  remained  so 
long  in  deliberation,  as  to  provoke  the  wrath 
of  the  Chief  Justice,  When  they  returned 
into  court,  they  expressed  their  doubt, 
whether  the  prisoner  knew  that  Hickes  had 
been  in  Monmouth's  army :  the  Chief  Jus 
tice  assured  them  that  the  proof  was  com 
plete.  Three  times  they  repeated  their 
doubt :  the  Chief  Justice  as  often  reiterated 
his  declaration  with  growing  impatience  and 
rage.  At  this  critical  moment  of  the  last 
appeal  of  the  jury  to  the  Court,  the  defence 
less  female  at  the  bar  made  &n  effort  to 
speak.  Jeffreys,  taking  advantage  of  for 
malities,  instantly  silenced  her,  and  the  jury 
were  at  length  overawed  into  a  verdict  of 
"guilty."  He  then  broke  out  into  a  need 
less  insult  to  the  strongest  affections  of 
nature,  saying  to  the  jury,  "Gentlemen,  had 
I  been  among  you,  and  if  she  had  been 
mv  own  mother,  I  should  have  found  her 
guilty."  On  the  next  morning,  when  he 


*  Despatch  from  Lord  Sunderland  to  Lord- 
Lieutenants  of  Counties.  20th  June,  1685. 

t  Hale,  Pleas  of  the  Crown,  part  i.  c.  22. 
Foster,  Discourse  on  Accomplices,  chap.  1. 


had  to  pronounce  sentence  of  death,  he  could 
not  even  then  abstain  from  invectives  against 
Presbyterians,  of  whom  he  supposed  Mrs. 
Lisle  to  be  one ;  yet  mixing  artifice  with  his 
fury,  he  tried  to  lure  her  into  discoveries,  by 
ambiguous  phrases,  which  might  excite  her 
hopes  of  life  without  pledging  him  to  obtain 
pardon.  He  directed  that  she  should  be 
burnt  alive  in  the  afternoon  of  the  same 
day ;  but  the  clergy  of  the  cathedral  of 
Winchester  successfully  interceded  for  an 
interval  of  three  days.  This  interval  gave 
time  for  an  application  to  the  King :  and  that 
application  was  made  by  persons,  and  with 
circumstances,  which  must  have  strongly 
called  his  attention  to  the  case.  Mrs.  Lisle 
was  the  widow  of  Mr.  Lisle,  who  was  one 
of  the  judges  of  Charles  the  First ;  and  this 
circumstance,  which  excited  a  prejudice 
against  her,  served  in  its  consequences  to 
show  that  she  had  powerful  claims  on  the 
lenity  of  the  King.  Lady  St.  John  and  Lady 
Abergavenny  wrote  a  letter  to  Lord  Claren 
don,  then  Privy  Seal,  which  he  read  to  the 
King,  bearing  testimony,  "  that  she  had  been 
a  favourer  of  the  King's  friends  in  their 
greatest  extremities  during  the  late  civil 
war."  and  among  others,  of  these  ladies 
themselves;  and  on  these  grounds,  as  well 
as  for  her  general  loyalty,  earnestly  recom 
mending  her  to  pardon.  Her  son  had  served 
in  the  King's  army  against  Monmouth;  she 
often  had  declared  that  she  shed  more  tears 
than  any  woman  in  England  on  the  day  of 
the  death  of  Charles  the  First ;  arid  after 
the  attainder  of  Mr.  Lisle,  his  estate  was 
granted  to  her  at  the  intercession  of  Lord 
Chancellor  Clarendon,  for  her  excellent  con 
duct  during  the  prevalence  of  her  husband's 
party.  Lord  Feversham,  also,  who  had  been 
promised  a  thousand  pounds  for  her  pardon, 
used  his  influence  to  obtain  it.  But  the  King 
declared  that  he  would  not  reprieve  her  for 
one  day.  It  is  said,  that  he  endeavoured  to 
justify  himself,  by  alleging  a  promise  to 
Jeffreys  that  Mrs.  Lisle  should  not  be 
spared ; — a  fact  which,  if  true,  shows  tha 
conduct  of  James  to  have  been  as  deliberate 
as  it  seems  to  be,  and  that  the  severities  of 
the  circuit  arose  from  a  previous  concert  be 
tween  him  and  Jeffreys.  On  the  following 
day  the  case  was  again  brought  before  him 
by  a  petition  from  Mrs.  Lisle,  praying  that 
her  punishment  might  be  changed  into  be 
heading,  in  consideration  of  her  ancient  and 
honourable  descent.  After  a  careful  search 
for  precedents,  the  mind  of  James  was  once 
more  called  to  the  fate  of  the  prisoner  by 
the  signature  of  a  warrant  to  authorise  the 
infliction  of  the  mitigated  punishment.  This 
venerable  matron  accordingly  suffered  death 
on  the  2d  of  September,  supported  by  that 

S;ety  which  had  been  the  guide  of  her  life, 
er  understanding  was  so  undisturbed,  that 
she  clearly  instanced  the  points  in  which  she 
had  been  wronged.  No  resentment  troubled 
the  composure  of  her  dying  moments;  and 
she  carried  her  religious  principles  of  alle 
giance  and  forgiveness  so  far,  as  to  pray  on 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


279 


the  scaffold  for  the  prosperity  of  a  prince 
from  whom  she  had  experienced  neither 
mercy,  gratitude,  nor  justice.  The  trial  of 
Mrs.  Lisle  is  a  sufficient  specimen  of  the 
proceedings  of  this  circuit.  When  such 
was  the  conduct  of  the  judges  in  a  single 
trial  of  a  lady  of  distinction  for  such  an 
offence,  with  a  jury  not  regardless  of  justice, 
•where  there  was  full  leisure  for  the  consi 
deration  of  every  question  of  fact  and  law,  and 
where  every  circumstance  was  made  known 
to  the  Government  and  the  public,  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  what  the  demeanour  of  the  same 
tribunal  must  have  been  in  the  trials  of  seve 
ral  hundred  insurgents  of  humble  condition, 
crowded  into  so  short  a  time  that  the  wisest 
and  most  upright  judges  could  hardly  have 
distinguished  the  innocent  from  the  guilty.* 
As  the  movements  of  Monmouth's  army 
had  been  confined  to  Dorset  and  Somerset, 
the  acts  of  high  treason  were  almost  entirely 
committed  there,  and  the  prisoners  appre 
hended  elsewhere  were  therefore  removed 
for  trial  to  these  counties. t  That  unfortu 
nate  district  was  already  filled  with  dismay 
and  horror  by  the  barbarities  of  the  troops  ; 
the  roads  leading  to  its  principal  towns 
were  covered  with  prisoners  under  military 
guards ;  and  the  display  and  menace  of  war 
like  power  were  most  conspicuous  in  the 
retinue  of  insolent  soldiers  and  trembling 
culprits  who  followed  the  march  of  the 
judges,  forming  a  melancholy  contrast  to  the 
parental  confidence  which  was  wont  to  per 
vade  the  administration  of  the  unarmed 
laws  of  a  free  people.  Three  hundred  and 
twenty  prisoners  were  arraigned  at  Dor 
chester,  of  whom  thirty-five  pleaded  "not 
guilty;"  and  on  their  trial  five  were  acquit 
ted  and  thirty  were  convicted.  The  Chief 
Justice  caused  some  intimation  to  be  con 
veyed  to  the  prisoners  that  confession  was 
the  only  road  to  mercy ;  and  to  strengthen 
the  effect  of  this  hint,  he  sent  twenty-nine 
of  the  persons  convicted  to  immediate  exe 
cution, — though  one  of  them  at  least  was  so 

*  By  the  favour  of  the  clerk  of  assize,  I  have 
before  me  many  of  the  original  records  of  this 
circuit.  The  account  of  it  by  Lord  Lonsdale  was 
written  in  1688.  The  Bloody  Assizes,  and  the 
Life  of  Jeffreys,  were  published  in  1689.  They 
were  written  by  one  Shirley,  a  compiler,  and  by 
Pitts,  a  surgeon  in  Monmouth's  army.  Six  thou 
sand  copies  of  the  latter  were  sold. — Life  of  John 
Dunton,  vol.  i.  p.  184.  Roger  Coke,  a  contem 
porary,  and  Oldmixon,  almost  an  eye-witness, 
vouch  for  their  general  fairness ;  and  I  have  found 
an  unexpected  degree  of  coincidence  between 
them  and  the  circuit  records.  Burnet  came  to 
reside  at  Salisbury  in  1689,  and  he  and  Kennet 
began  to  relate  the  facts  about  seventeen  years 
after  they  occurred.  Father  Orleans,  and  the 
writer  of  James'  Life,  admit  the  cruelties,  while 
they  vainly  strive  to  exculpate  the  King  from  any 
share  in  them.  From  a  comparison  of  those 
original  authorities,  and  from  the  correspondence, 
hitherto  unknown,  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  the 
narrative  of  the  text  has  been  formed. 

t  There  were  removed  to  Dorchester  ninety- 
four  from  Somerset,  eighty-nine  from  Devon,  fifty- 
five  from  Wilts,  and  twenty-three  from  London. — 
Circuit  Records. 


innocent  that  had  there  been  time  to  examine 
his  case,  he  might  even  then  have  been  par 
doned.*  The  intimation  illustrated  by  such 
a  commentary  produced  the  intended  effect  : 
two  hundred  and  eight  at  once  confessed.! 
Eighty  persons  were,  according  to  contem 
porary  accounts,  executed  at  Dorchester ; 
and  though  the  records  state  only  the  execu 
tion  of  fifty,  yet  as  they  contain  no  entry  of 
judgment  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  cases, 
their  silence  affords  no  presumption  against 
the  common  accounts. 

The  correspondence  of  Jeffreys  with  the 
King  and  the  minister  appears  to  have  begun 
at  Dorchester.  From  that  place  he  wrote 
on  the  8th  of  September,  in  terms  of  enthu 
siastic  gratitude  to  Sunderland,  to  return 
thanks  for  the  Great  Seal.f  Two  days  after 
wards  he  informed  Sunderland,  that  though 
" tortured  by  the  stone."  he  had  that  day 
"despatched  ninety-eight  rebels. "§  Sunder 
land  assured  him  in  answer,  that  the  King 
approved  all  his  proceedings,  of  which  very 
minute  accounts  appear  to  have  been  con 
stantly  transmitted  by  Jeffreys  directly  to  the 
King  himself.ll  In  the  county  of  Somerset 
more  than  a  thousand  prisoners  were  ar 
raigned  for  treason  at  Taunton  and  Wells,  of 
whom  only  six  ventured  to  put  themselves 
on  their  trial  by  pleading  ••'  not  guilty."  A 
thousand  and  forty  confessed  themselves  to 
be  guilty; — a  proportion  of  confessions  so 
little  corresponding  to  the  common  chances 
of  precipitate  arrests,  of  malicious  or  mis 
taken  charges,  and  of  escapes  on  trial, — all 
which  were  multiplied  in  such  violent  and 
hurried  proceedings, — as  clearly  to  show  that 
the  measures  of  the  circuit  had  already  ex 
tinguished  all  expectation  that  the  judges 
would  observe  the  rules  of  justice.  Submis 
sion  afforded  some  chance  of  escape :  from 
trial  the  most  innocent  coukl  no  longer  have 
any  hope.  Only  six  days  were  allowed  in 
this  county  to  find  indictments  against  a  thou 
sand  prisoners,  to  arraign  them,  to  try  the  few 
who  still  ventured  to  appeal  to  law,  to  record 
the  confessions  of  the  rest,  and  to  examine 
the  circumstances  which  ought,-  in  each  case, 
to  aggravate  or  extenuate  the  punishment. 
The  names  of  two  hundred  arid  thirty-nine 
persons  executed  there  are  preserved  :1[  but 
as  no  judgments  are  entered,**  we  do  not 
know  how  many  more  may  have  suffered. 
In  order  to  diffuse  terror  more  widely,  these 
executions  were  directed  to  take  place  in 
thirty-six  towns  and  villages.  Three  were 
executed  in  the  village  of  Wrington,  the  birth 
place  of  Mr.  Locke,  whose  writings  were  one 


*  Bragg,  an  attorney.  Bloody  Assizes.  Western 
Rebellion. 

t  Calendar  for  Dorsetshire  summer  assizes, 
1685. 

t  The  Great  Seal  had  only  been  vacant  three 
days,  as  Lord  Keeper  Guildford  died  at  his  seat 
at  Wroxton,  on  the  5th. 

§  8th  and  10th  Sept.— State  Paper  Office. 

II  Windsor,  14th  Sept.— Ibid. 

IT  Life  and  Death  of  George  Lord  Jeffreys. 
(London,  1689.) 

**  Circuit  Records. 


280 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


day  to  lessen  the  misery  suffered  by  man 
kind  from  cruel  laws  and  unjust  judges. 
The  general  consternation  spread  by  these 
proceedings  has  prevented  a  particular  ac 
count  of  many  of  the  cases  from  reaching 
us.  In  some  of  those  more  conspicuous  in 
stances  which  have  been  preserved,  we  see 
what  so  great  a  body  of  obnoxious  culprits 
must  have  suffered  in  narrow  and  noisome 
prisons,  where  they  were  often  destitute  of 
the  common  necessaries  of  life,  before  a 
judge  whose  native  rage  and  insolence  Avere 
stimulated  by  daily  intoxication,  and  in 
flamed  by  the  agonies  of  an  excruciating  dis 
temper,  from  the  brutality  of  soldiers,  and 
the  cruelty  of  slavish  or  bigoted  magistrates; 
while  one  part  of  their  neighbours  were  hard 
ened  against  them  by  faction,  and  the  other 
deterred  from  relieving  them  by  fear.  The 
ordinary  executioners,  unequal  to  so  exten 
sive  a  slaughter,  were  aided  by  novices,  whose 
unskilfulness  aggravated  the  horrors  of  that 
death  of  torture  which  was  then  the  legal 
punishment  of  high  treason.  Their  lifeless 
remains  were  treated  with  those  indignities 
and  outrages  which  still*  continue  to  disgrace 
the  laws  of  a  civilized  age.  They  were  be 
headed  and  quartered,  and  the  heads  and 
limbs  of  the  dead  were  directed  to  be  placed 
on  court-houses,  and  in  all  conspicuous  ele 
vations  in  streets,  high  roads,  and  churches. 
The  country  was  filled  with  the  dreadful 
preparations  necessary  to  fit  these  inanimate 
members  for  such  an  exhibition;  and  the 
roads  were  covered  by  vehicles  conveying 
them  to  great  distances  in  every  direction.! 
There  was  not  a  hamlet  in  which  the  poor 
inhabitants  were  not  doomed  hourly  to  look 
on  the  mangled  remains  of  a  neighbour  or  a 
relation.  ••'  All  the  high  roads  of  the  country 
were  no  longer  to  be  travelled,  while  the 
horrors  of  so  many  quarters  of  men  and  the 
offensive  stench  of  them  lasted. ';t 

While  one  of  the  most  fertile  and  cheerful 
provinces  of  England  was  thus  turned  into  a 
scene  of  horror  by  the  mangled  remains  of 
the  dead,  the  towns  resounded  with  the  cries, 
and  the  streets  streamed  with  the  blood  of 
men,  and  even  women  and  children,  who 
were  cruelly  whipped  for  real  or  pretended 
sedition.  The  case  of  John  Tutchin,  after 
wards  a  noted  political  writer,  is  a  specimen 
of  these  minor  cruelties.  He  was  tried  at 
Dorchester,  under  the  assumed  name  of 
Thomas  Pitts,  for  having  said  that  Hamp 
shire  was  up  in  arms  for  the  Duke  of  Mon- 

*  1822.— ED. 

t  "  Nothing  could  be  liker  hell  lhan  these 
parts :  cauldrons  hissing,  carcasses  boiling,  pitch 
and  tar  sparkling  and  glowing,  bloody  limbs  hoil- 
msr,  and  tearing,  and  mangling." — Bloody  Assizes. 
"  England  is  now  an  Aceldama.  The  country 
for  sixty  miles,  from  Bristol  to  Exeter,  had  a  new 
terrible  sort  of  sign-posts,  gibbets,  heads  and 
quarters  of  its  slaughtered  Inhabitants." — Old- 
mixon,  vol.  i.  p.  707. 

t  Lord  Lonsdale,  (Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of 
James  II.,  p.  13,)  confirms  the  testimony  of  the 
two  former  more  ardent  partisans,  both  of  whom, 
however,  were  eye-witnesses. 


mouth,  and,  on  his  conviction,  was  sentenced 
to  be  whipped  through  every  market  town 
in  the  county  for  seven  years.  The  females 
in  court  burst  into  tears;  and  even  one  of 
the  officers  of  the  court  ventured  to  observe 
to  the  Chief  Justice,  that  the  culprit  was  very 
young,  and  that  the  sentence  would  reach 
to  once  a  fortnight  for  seven  years.  These 
symptoms  of  pity  exposed  the  prisoner  to 
new  brutality  from  his  judge.  Tutchin  is 
said  to  have  petitioned  the  King  for  the  more 
lenient  punishment  of  the  gallows.  He  was 
seized  with  the  small-pox  in  prison ;  and, 
whether  from  unwonted  compassion,  or  fjoni 
the  misnomer  in  the  indictment,  he  appears 
to  have  escaped  the  greater  part  of  the  bar 
barous  punishment  to  which  he  was  doomed  .* 

These  dreadful  scenes  are  relieved  by 
some  examples  of  generous  virtue  in  indi 
viduals  of  the  victorious  party.  Harte.  a 
clergyman  of  Taunton,  following  the  excel 
lent  example  of  the  Bishop,  interceded  for 
some  of  the  prisoners  with  Jeffreys  in  the 
full  career  of  his  cruelty.  The  intercession 
was  not  successful;  but  it  compelled  him  to 
honour  the  humanity  to  which  he  did  not 
yield,  for  he  soon  after  preferred  Harte  to 
be  a  prebendary  of  Bristol.  Both  Ken  and 
Harte,  who  were  probably  at  the  moment 
charged  W'ith  disaffection,  sacrificed  at  a  sub 
sequent  period  their  preferments,  rather  than 
violate  the  allegiance  which  they  thought 
still  to  be  due  to  the  King;  while  Mew, 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  who  was  on  the  field 
of  battle  at  Sedgemoor,  and  who  ordered  that 
his  coach  horses  should  drag  forward  the 
artillery  of  the  royal  army,  preserved  his  rich 
bishopric  by  compliance  with  the  govern 
ment  of  King  William.  The  army  of  M'ori- 
mouth  also  afforded  instructive  proofs,  that 
the  most  furious  zealots  are  not  always  the 
most  consistent  adherents.  Ferguson  and 
Hooke,  two  Presbyterian  clergymen  in  that 
army,  passed  most  of  their  subsequent  lives 
in  Jacobite  intrigues,  either  from  incorrigible 
habits  of  conspiracy,  or  from  resentment  at 
the  supposed  ingratitude  of  jheir  own  party, 
or  from  the  inconstancy  natural  to  men  of 
unbridled  passions  and  distempered  minds. 
Daniel  De  Foe,  one  of  the  most  original 
writers  of  the  English  nation,  served  in  the 
army  of  Monmouth ;  but  we  do  not  know 
the  particulars  of  his  escape.  A  great  satirist 
had  afterwards  the  baseness  to  reproach 
both  Tutchin  and  De  Foe  with  sufferings, 
which  were  dishonourable  only  to  those  who 
inflicted  thern.f 

In  the  mean  time,  peculiar  circumstances 
rendered  the  correspondence  of  Jeffreys  in 
Somersetshire  with  the  King  and  his  minister 
more  specific  and  confidential  than  it  had 
been  in  the  preceding  parts  of  the  circuit. 
Lord  Sunderland  had  apprised  Jeffreys  of  the 
King's  pleasure  to  bestow  a  thousand  con- 


*  Savage,  p.  509.     Western  Rebellion.     Dor 
chester  Calendar,  summer  assizes,  1685. 

t  "  Earless  on  high  stood  unabashed  De  Foe, 
And   Tutchin   flagrant   from   the  scourge 
below.''  Dunciad,  book  u. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


281 


victs  on  several  courtiers;  and  one  hundred 
on  a  favourite  of  the  Queen,*  on  these  per 
sons  finding  security  that  the  prisoners  should 
be  enslaved  for  ten  years  in  some  West  India 
island  ; — a  limitation  intended,  perhaps,  only 
to  deprive  the  convicts  of  the  sympathy  of 
the  Puritan  colonists  of  New  England,  but 
which,  in  effect,  doomed  them  to  a  miserable 
and  lingering  death  in  a  climate  where  field- 
labour  is  fatal  to  Europeans.  Jeffreys,  in 
his  answer  to  the  King,  remonstrates  against 
this  disposal  of  the  prisoners,  who,  he  says, 
would  be  worth  ten  or  fifteen  pounds  a- 
piece  ;f  and,  at  the  same  time,  returns  thanks 
for  his  Majesty's  gracious  acceptance  of  his 
services.  In  a  subsequent  letter  from  Bristol, t 
he  yields  to  the  distribution  of  the  convicts; 
boasts  of  his  victory  over  that  most  factious 
city,  where  he  had  committed  the  mayor  and 
an  alderman,  under  pretence  of  their  having 
sold  to  the  plantations  men  whom  they  had 
unjustly  convicted  with  a  view  to  such  a 
sale:  and  pledges  himself  "that  Taunton, 
and  Bristol,  and  the  county  of  Somerset, 
should  know  their  duty  both  to  God  and 
their  King  before  he  leaves  them."  He 
entreats  the  King  not  to  be  surprised  into 
pardons. 

James,  being  thus  regularly  apprised  of 
the  most  minute  particulars  of  Jeffreys'  pro 
ceedings,  was  accustomed  to  speak  of  them 
to  the  foreign  ministers  under  the  name  of 
"Jeffreys'  campaign. "§  He  amused  himself 
with  horse-races  at  Winchester,  the  scene  of 
the  recent  execution  of  Mrs.  Lisle,  during 
the  hottest  part  of  Jeffreys'  operations.il  He 
was  so  fond  of  the  phrase  of  "Jeffreys'  cam 
paign,"  as  to  use  it  twice  in  his  correspond 
ence  with  the  Prince  of  Orange ;  and,  on  the 
latter  occasion,  in  a  tone  of  exultation  ap 
proaching  to  defiance.!"  The  excellent  Ken 
had  written  to  him  a  letter  of  expostulation 
on  the  subject.  On  the  30th  of  September, 
on  Jeffreys'  return  to  court,  his  promotion  to 
the  office  of  Lord  Chancellor  was  announced 
in  the  Gazette,  with  a  panegyric  on  his  ser 
vices  very  unusual  in  the  cold  formalities  of 
official  appointment.  Had  James  been  dis 
satisfied  with  the  conduct  of  Jeffreys,  he  had 
the  means  of  repairing  some  part  of  its  con 
sequences,  for  the  executions  in  Somerset 
shire  were  not  concluded  before  the  latter 
part  of  November ;  and  among  the  persons 
who  suffered  in  October  was  Mr.  Hickes, 
a  Nonconformist  clergyman,  for  whom  his 
brother,  the  learned  Dr.  Hickes,  afterwards 
a  sufferer  in  the  cause  of  James,  sued  in 


*  14th  and  15th  Sept.— State  Paper  Office.  200 
to  Sir  Robert  White,  200  to  Sir  William  Booth, 
TOO  to  Sir  C.  Musgrave,  100  to  Sir  W.  Stapleton, 

100  to  J.  Kendall,  100  to  Triphol,  100  to  a 

merchant.     "  The  Queen  has  asked  100  more  of 
the  rebels." 

t  Taunton,  19th  Sept.— Ibid. 

t  22d  Sept.— Ibid. 

$  Burnet,  History  of  his  Own  Time,  (fol.)  vol.  i. 
p.  648. 

!1  14th  to  18th  Sept.— London  Gazettes. 

IT  10th  and  24th  Sept.— Dalrymple,  Memoirs  of 
Great  Britain,  appendix  to  part  i.  book  ii. 
36 


vain  for  pardon.*  Some  months  after,  when 
Jeffreys  had  brought  on  a  fit  of  dangerous 
illness  by  one  of  his  furious  debauches,  the 
King  expressed  great  concern,  and  declared 
that  his  Joss  could  not  be  easily  repaired. f 

The  public  acts  and  personal  demeanour 
of  the  King  himself  agreed  too  well  with 
the  general  character  of  these  judicial  se 
verities.  An  old  officer,  named  Holmes, 
who  was  taken  in  Monmouth's  army,  being 
brought  up  to  London,  was  admitted  to  an 
interview  with  the  King,  who  offered  to  spare 
his  life  if  he  would  promise  to  live  quietly. 
He  answered,  that  his  principles  had  been 
and  still  were  "  republican,"  believing  that 
form  of  government  to  be  the  best ;  and  that 
he  was  an  old  man,  whose  life  was  as  little 
worth  asking  as  it  was  worth  giving, — an 
answer  which  so  displeased  the  King,  that 
Holmes  was  removed  to  Dorchester,  where 
he  suffered  death  with  fortitude  and  piety. t 
The  proceedings  on  the  circuit  seem,  indeed, 
to  have  been  so  exclusively  directed  by  the 
King  and  the  Chief  Justice,  that  even  Lord 
Sunderland,  powerful  as  he  was,  could  not 
obtain  the  pardon  of  one  delinquent.  Yet 
the  case  was  favourable,  and  deserves  to  be 
shortly  related,  as  characteristic  of  the  times. 
Lord  Sunderland  interceded  repeatedly^  with 
Jeffreys  for  a  youth  named  William  Jenkins, 
who  was  executed II  in  spite  of  such  powerful 
solicitations.  He  was  the  son  of  an  eminent 
Nonconformist  clergyman,  who  had  recently 
died  in  Newgate  after  a  long  imprisonment, 
inflicted  on  him  for  the  performance  of  his 
clerical  duties.  Young  Jenkins  had  distri 
buted  mourning  rings,  on  which  was  inscribed 
"  William  Jenkins,  murdered  in  Newgate." 
He  was  in  consequence  imprisoned  in  the 
jail  of  Ilchester,  and,  being  released  by 
Monmouth's  army,  he  joined  his  deliverers 
against  his  oppressors. 


*  The  Pere  d' Orleans,  who  wrote  under  the 
eye  of  James,  in  1695,  mentions  the  displeasure 
of  the  King  at  the  sale  of  pardons,  and  seems  to 
refer  to  Lord  Sunderland's  letter  to  Kirke,  who, 
we  know  from  Oldmixon,  was  guilty  of  that  prac 
tice  ;  and,  in  other  respects,  rather  attempts  to 
account  for,  than  to  denv,  the  acquiescence  of  the 
King  in  the  cruelties. — Revolutions  d'Angleterre, 
liv.  xi.  The  testimony  of  Roger  North,  if  it  has 
any  foundation,  cannot  be  applied  to  this  part  of 
the  subject.  The  part  of  the  Life  of  James  II. 
which  relates  to  it  is  the  work  only  of  the  anony 
mous  biographer,  Mr.  Dicconson  of  Lancashire, 
and  abounds  with  the  grossest  mistakes.  The 
assertion  of  Sheffield,  Duke  of  Buckingham  in 
the  Account  of  the  Revolution,  that  Jeffreys  dis 
obeyed  James'  orders,  is  disproved  by  the  corres 
pondence  already  quoted.  There  is,  on  the  whole, 
no  colour  for  the  assertion  of  Macpherson,  (His 
tory  of  Great  Britain,  vol.  i.  p.  453),  or  for  the 
doubts  of  Dalrymple. 

t  Barillon,  4th  Feb.  1686.— Fox  MSS. 

I  Lord  Lonsdale,  p.  12.  Calendar  for  Dorset 
shire.  Bloody  Assizes.  The  account  of  Colonel 
Holmes  by  the  anonymous  biographer  (Life  of 
James  II.  vol.  ii.  p.  43,)  is  contradicted  by  all  these 
authorities.  It  is  utterly  improbable,  and  is  not 
more  honourable  to  James  than  that  here  adopted. 

$  Lord  Sunderland  to  Lord  Jeffreys,  12th  Sept. 
—State  Paper  Office. 

I!  At  Taunton,  30th  Sept.— Western  Rebellion. 
Y2 


282 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Vain  attempts  have  been  made  to  excul 
pate  James,  by  throwing  part  of  the  blame 
of  these  atrocities  upon  Pollexfen,  an  eminent 
Whig  lawyer,  who  was  leading  counsel  in 
the  prosecutions;* — a  wretched  employment, 
which  he  probably  owed,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  to  his  rank  as  senior  King's  counsel 
on  the  circuit.  His  silent  acquiescence  in 
the  illegal  proceedings  against  Mrs.  Lisle 
must,  indeed,  brand  his  memory  with  in 
delible  infamy;  but,  from  the  King's  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  circumstances  of  that  case, 
it  seems  to  be  evident  that  Pollexfen's  inter 
position  would  have  been  unavailing :  and 
the  subsequent  proceedings  were  carried  on 
with  such  utter  disregard  of  the  forms,  as 
well  as  the  substance  of  justice,  that  counsel 
had  probably  no  duty  to  perform,  and  no  op 
portunity  to  interfere.  To  these  facts  may 
be  added,  what,  without  such  preliminary 
evidence,  would  have  been  of  little  weight, 
the  dying  declaration  of  Jeffreys  himself, 
who,  a  few  moments  before  he  expired,  said 
to  Dr.  Scott,  an  eminent  divine  who  attended 
him  in  the  Tower,  "  Whatever  I  did  then  I 
did  by  express  orders  ;  and  I  have  this  farther 
to  say  for  myself,  that  I  was  not  half  bloody 
enough  for  him  who  sent  me  thither."! 

Other  trials  occurred  under  the  eye  of 
James  in  London,  where,  according  to  an 
ancient  and  humane  usage,  no  sentence  of 
death  is  executed  till  the  case  is  laid  before 
the  King  in  person,  that  he  may  determine 
whether  there  be  any  room  for  mercy.  Mr. 
Cornish,  an  eminent  merchant,  charged  with 
a  share  in  the  Rye  House  Plot,  was  appre 
hended,  tried,  and  executed  within  the  space 
of  ten  days,  the  court  having  refused  him 
the  time  which  he  alleged  to  be  necessary 
to  bring  up  a  material  witness.!  Colonel 
Rumsey,  the  principal  witness  for  the  Crown, 
owned  that  on  the  trial  of  Lord  Russell  he 
had  given  evidence  which  directly  contra 
dicted  his  testimony  against  Cornish.  This 
avowal  of  perjury  did  not  hinder  his  convic 
tion  and  execution  ;  but  the  scandal  was  so 
great,  that  James  was  obliged,  in  a  few  days, 
to  make  a  tardy  reparation  for  the  precipi 
tate  injustice  of  his  judges.  The  mutilated 
limbs  of  Cornish  were  restored  to  his  rela 
tions,  and  Rumsey  was  confined  for  life  to 
St.  Nicholas'  Island,  at  Plymouth,^  a  place 
of  illegal  imprisonment,  still  kept  up  in  defi 
ance  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  This  vir 
tual  acknowledgment  by  the  King  of  the 
falsehood  of  Rurasey's  testimony  assumes  an 
importance  in  history,  when  it  is  considered 
as  a  proof  of  the  perjury  of  one  of  the  two 


*  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  ii.  p.  44. 

t  Burnet  (Oxford.  1823),  vol.  iii.  p.  61.  Speaker 
Onslow's  Note.  Onslow  received  this  informa 
tion  from  Sir  J.  Jekyll,  who  heard  it  from  Lord 
Somers,  to  whom  it  was  communicated  by  Dr. 
Scott.  The  account  of  Tutchin,  who  stated  that 
Jeffreys  had  made  the  same  declaration  to  him  in 
the  Tower,  is  thus  confirmed  by  indisputable  evi 
dence. 

t  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  382. 

$  Narcissus  Luttrell,  19th  April,  1686. 


witnesses  against  Lord  Russell, — the  man  of 
most  unspotted  virtue  who  ever  suffered  on 
an  English  scaffold.  Ring,  Fernley,  and 
Elizabeth  Gaunt,  persons  of  humble  condi 
tion  in  life,  were  tried  on  the  same  day  with 
Cornish,  for  harbouring  some  fugitives  from 
Monmouth's  army.  One  of  the  persons  to 
whom  Ring  afforded  shelter  was  his  near 
kinsman.  Fernley  was  convicted  on  the  sole 
evidence  of  Burton,  whom  he  had  concealed 
from  the  search  of  the  public  officers.  When 
a  witness  was  about  to  be  examined  for 
Fernley,  the  Court  allowed  one  of  their  own 
officers  to  cry  out  that  the  witness  was  a 
Whig;  while  one  of  the  judges,  still  more 
conversant  with  the  shades  of  party,  sneered 
at  another  of  his  witnesses  as  a  Trimmer. 
WThen  Burton  was  charged  with  being  an 
accomplice  in  the  Rye  House  Plot,  Mrs. 
Gaunt  received  him,  supplied  him  with 
money,  and  procured  him  a  passage  to  Hol 
land.  After  the  defeat  of  Monmouth,  with 
whom  he  returned,  he  took  refuge  in  the 
house  of  Fernley,  where  Mrs.  Gaunt  visited 
him,  again  supplied  him  with  money,  and 
undertook  a  second  time  to  save  his  life,  by 
procuring  the  means  of  his  again  escaping 
into  Holland.  When  Burton  was  appre 
hended,  the  prosecutors  had  their  choice,  if 
a  victim  was  necessary,  either  of  proceed 
ing  against  him,  whom  they  charged  with 
open  rebellion  and  intended  assassination,  or 
against  Mrs.  Gaunt,  whom  they  could  ac 
cuse  only  of  acts  of  humanity  and  charity 
forbidden  by  their  laws.  They  chose  to 
spare  the  wretched  Burton,  in  order  that  he 
might  swear  away  the  lives  of  others  for 
having  preserved  his  own.  Eight  judges,. 
of  whom  Jeffreys  was  no  longer  one,  sat  on 
these  deplorable  trials.  Roger  North,  known 
as  a  contributor  to  our  history,  was  an  active 
counsel  against  the  benevolent  and  courage 
ous  Mrs.  Gaunt.  William  Perm  was  present 
when  she  was  burnt  alive,*  and  having 
familiar  access  to  James,  is  likely  to  have 
related  to  him  the  particulars  of  that  and  of 
the  other  executions  at  the  same  time.  At 
the  stake,  she  disposed  the  straw  around  her, 
so  as  to  shorten  her  agony  by  a  strong  and 
quick  fire,  with  a  composure  which  melted 
the  spectators  into  tears.  She  thanked  God 
that  he  had  enabled  her  to  succour  the  deso 
late  ;  that  "  the  blessing  of  those  who  were 
ready  to  perish"  came  upon  her;  and  that, 
in  the  act  for  which  she  was  doomed  by  men 
to  destruction,  she  had  obeyed  the  sacred 
precepts  which  commanded  her  "  to  hide  the 
outcast,  and  not  to  betray  him  that  wander- 
eth."  Thus  was  this  poor  and  uniristructed 
woman  supported  under  a  death  of  cruel 
torture,  by  the  lofty  consciousness  of  suffer 
ing  for  righteousness,  and  by  that  steadfast 
faith  in  the  final  triumph  of  justice  which 
can  never  visit  the  last  moments  of  the  op 
pressor.  The  dying  speeches  of  the  prisoners 
executed  in  London  were  suppressed,  and 
the  outrages  offered  to  the  remains  of  the 


*  Clarkson,  Life  of  Penn,  vol.  i.  p.  448, 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


283 


dead  were  carried  to  an  unusual  degree.* 
The  body  of  Richard  Rumbold,  who  had 
been  convicted  and  executed  at  Edinburgh, 
under  a  Scotch  law.  was  brought  up  to  Lon 
don.  The  sheriffs  of  London  were  com 
manded,  by  a  royal  warrant,  to  set  up  one  of 
the  quarters  on  one  of  the  gates  of  the  city, 
and  to  deliver  the  remaining  three  to  the 
sheriff  of  Hertford,  who  was  directed  by 
another  warrant  to  place  them  at  or  near 
Rumbold's  late  residence  at  the  Rye  House  ;t 
— impotent  but  studied  outrages,  which  often 
manifest  more  barbarity  of  nature  than  do 
acts  of  violence  to  the  living. 

The  chief  restraint  on  the  severity  of  Jef 
freys  seems  to  have  arisen  from  his  rapacity. 
Contemporaries  of  all  parties  agree  that  there 
were  few  gratuitous  pardons,  and  that  wealthy 
convicts  seldom  sued  to  him  in  vain.  Kiffin, 
a  Nonconformist  merchant,  had  agreed  to 
give  3000L  to  a  courtier  for  the  pardon  of 
two  youths  of  the  name  of  Luson,  his  grand 
sons,  who  had  been  in  Monmouth's  army. 
But  Jeffreys  guarded  his  privilege  of  selling 
pardons,  by  unrelenting  rigour  towards  those 
prisoners  from  whom  mercy  had  thus  been 
sought  through  another  channel.!:  He  was 
attended  on  his  circuit  by  a  buffoon,  to  whom, 
as  a  reward  for  his  merriment  in  one  of  his 
hours  of  revelry,  he  tossed  the  pardon  of  a 
rich  culprit,  expressing  his  hope  that  it  might 
turn  to  good  account.  But  this  traffic  in 
mercy  was  not  confined  to  the  Chief  Justice  : 
the  King  pardoned  Lord  Grey  to  increase  the 
value  of  the  grant  of  his  life-estate,  which 
had  been  made  to  Lord  Rochester.  The 
young  women  of  Taunton,  who  had  pre 
sented  colours  and  a  Bible  to  Monmouth, 
were  excepted  by  name  from  the  general 
pardon,  in  order  that  they  might  purchase 
separate  ones.  To  aggravate  this  indecency, 
the  money  to  be  thus  extorted  from  them 
was  granted  to  persons  of  their  own  sex, — 
the  Queen's  maids  of  honour;  and  it  must 
be  added  with  regret,  that  William  Penn, 
sacrificing  other  objects  to  the  hope  of  ob 
taining  the  toleration  of  his  religion  from  the 
King's  favour,  was  appointed  an  agent  for  the 
maids  of  honour,  and  submitted  to  receive 
instructions  "to  make  the  most  advantage 
ous  composition  he  could  in  their  behalf."§ 
The  Duke  of  Somerset  in  vain  attempted  to 
persuade  Sir  Francis  Warre,  a  neighbouring 
gentleman,  to  obtain  7000L  from  the  young 
women,  without  which,  he  said,  the  maids 
of  honour  were  determined  to  prosecute 
them  to  outlawry.  Roger  Hoare.  an  eminent 
trader  of  Bridgewater,  saved  his  life  by  the 
payment  to  them  of  1000/. ;  but  he  was  kept 
in  suspense  respecting  his  pardon  till  he  came 


*  Narcissus  Luttrell,  16th  Nov.,  1685. 

t  Warrants,  27th  and  28th  October,  1685.— -State 
Paper  Office.  One  quarter  was  to  be  put  up  at 
Aldgate  ;  the  remaining  three  at  Hoddesdon,  trfe 
Rye,  and  Bishop's  Stortford, 

t  Kiffin' s  Memoirs,  p.  54.  See  answer  of  Kiffin 
to  James,  ibid.  p.  159. 

$  Lord  Sunderland  to  William  Penn,  13th  Feb. 
1686.— State  Paper  Office, 


to  the  foot  of  the  gallows,  for  no  other  con 
ceivable  purpose  than  that  of  extorting  the 
largest  possible  sum.  This  delay  caused  the 
insertion  of  his  execution  in  the  first  narra 
tives  of  these  events :  but  he  lived  to  take 
the  most  just  revenge  on  tyrants,  by  con 
tributing,  as  representative  in  several  Par 
liaments  for  his  native  town,  to  support  that 
free  government  which  prevented  the  re 
storation  of  tyranny. 

The  same  disposition  was  shown  by  the 
King  and  his  ministers  in  the  case  of  Mr. 
Hampden,  the  grandson  of  him  who,  forty 
years  before,  had  fallen  in  battle  for  the  lib 
erties  of  his  country.  Though  this  gentle 
man  had  been  engaged  in  the  consultations 
of  Lord  Russell  and  Mr.  Sidney,  yet  there 
being  only  one  witness  against  him.  he  was 
not  tried  for  treason,  but  was  convicted  of  a 
misdemeanor,  and  on  the  evidence  of  Lord 
Howard  condemned  to  pay  a  fine  of  40,000?. 
His  father  being  in  possession  of  the  family 
estate,  he  remained  in  prison  till  after  Mon 
mouth's  defeat,  when  he  was  again  brought 
to  trial  for  the  same  act  as  high  treason, 
under  pretence  that  a  second  witness  had 
been  discovered.*  It  had  been  secretly  ar 
ranged,  that  if  he  pleaded  guilty  he  should 
be  pardoned  on  paying  a  large  sum  of  money 
to  two  of  the  King's  favourites.  At  the  ar 
raignment,  both  the  judges  and  Mr.  Hamp 
den  performed  the  respective  parts  which 
the  secret  agreement  required ;  he  humbly 
entreating  their  intercession  to  obtain  the 
pardon  which  he  had  already  secured  by 
more  effectual  means,  and  they  extolling  the 
royal  mercy,  and  declaring  that  the  prisoner, 
by  his  humble  confession,  had  taken  the  best 
means  of  qualifying  himself  to  receive  it. 
The  result  of  this  profanation  of  the  forms 
of  justice  and  mercy  was,  that  Mr.  Hampden 
was  in  a  few  months  allowed  to  reverse  his 
attainder,  on  payment  of  a  bribe  of  6000L 
to  be  divided  between  Jeffreys  and  Father 
Petre,  the  two  guides  of  the  King  in  the  per 
formance  of  his  duty  to  God  and  his  people. t 

Another  proceeding,  of  a  nature  still  more 
culpable,  showed  the  same  union  of  merce 
nary  with  sanguinary  purposes  in  the  King 
and  his  ministers.  Prideaux,  a  gentleman 
of  fortune  in  the  West  of  England,  was  ap 
prehended  on  the  landing  of  Monmouth,  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  his  father  had  been 
attorney-general  under  the  Commonwealth 
and  the  Protectorate.  Jeffreys,  actuated 
here  by  personal  motives,  employed  agents 
through  the  prisons  to  discover  evidence 
against  Prideaux.  The  lowest  prisoners 
were  offered  their  lives,  and  a  sum  of  500Z. 
if  they  would  give  evidence  against  him. 
Such,  however,  was  the  inflexible  morality 
of  the  Nonconformists,  who  formed  the  bulk 
of  Monmouth's  adherents,  that  they  remained 
unshaken  by  these  offers,  amidst  the  military 

*  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  479. 

t  Lords'  Journals,  20th  Dec.  1689.  This  docu 
ment  has  been  overlooked  by  all  historians,  who, 
in  consequence,  have  misrepresented  the  conduct 
of  Mr.  Hampden, 


284 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


violence  which  surrounded  them,  and  in  spite 
of  the  judicial  rigours  which  were  to  follow. 
Prideaux  was  enlarged.  Jeffreys  himself, 
however,  was  able  to  obtain  some  informa 
tion,  though  not  upon  oath,  from  two  convicts 
under  the  influence  of  the  terrible  proceed 
ings  at  Dorchester;*  and  Prideaux  was  again 
apprehended.  The  convicts  were  brought 
to  London  •  and  one  of  them  was  conducted 
to  a  private  interview  with  the  Lord  Chan 
cellor,  by  Sir  Roger  L'Estrange,  the  most 
noted  writer  in  the  pay  of  the  Court.  Pri 
deaux,  alarmed  at  these  attempts  to  tamper 
with  witnesses,  employed  the  influence  of 
his  friends  to  obtain  his  pardon.  The  motive 
for  Jeffreys'  unusual  activity  was  then  dis 
covered.  Prideaux's  friends  were  told  that 
nothing  could  be  done  for  him,  as  '•'  the  King- 
had  given  him"  (the  familiar  phrase  for  a 
grant  of  an  estate  either  forfeited  or  about  to 
be  forfeited)  to  the  Chancellor,  as  a  reward 
for  his  services.  On  application  to  one  Jen 
nings,  the  avowed  agent  of  the  Chancellor 
for  the  sale  of  pardons,  it  was  found  that 
Jeffreys,  unable  to  procure  evidence  on 
which  he  could  obtain  the  \vhole  of  Pri- 
deaux's  large  estates  by  a  conviction,  had 
now  resolved  to  content  himself  with  a  bribe 
of  10,OOOZ.  for  the  deliverance  of  a  man  so 
innocent,  that  by  the  formalities  of  law,  per 
verted  as  they  then  were,  the  Lord  Chancel 
lor  could  not  effect  his  destruction.  Payment 
of  so  large  a  sum  was  at  first  resisted  ;  but 
to  subdue  this  contumacy,  Prideaux's  friends 
were  forbidden  to  have  access  to  him  in  pri 
son,  and  his  ransom  wras  raised  to  15,OOOZ. 
The  money  was  then  publicly  paid  by  a 
banker  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  of  England  by 
name.  Even  in  the  administration  of  the 
iniquitous  laws  of  confiscation,  there  are 
probably  few  instances  where,  with  so  much 
premeditation  and  effrontery,  the  spoils  of 
an  accused  man  were  promised  first  to  the 
judge,  who  might  have  tried  him,  and  after 
wards  to  the  Chancellor  who  was  to  advise 
the  King  in  the  exercise  of  mercy. t 

Notwithstanding  the  perjury  of  Rumsey  in 
the  case  of  Cornish,  a  second  experiment 
was  made  on  the  effect  of  his  testimony  by 
producing  him,  together  with  Lord  Grey  and 
one  Saxton,  as  a  witness  against  Lord  Bran 
don  on  a  charge  of  treason.;  The  accused 
was  convicted,  and  Rumsey  was  still  allowed 
to  correspond  confidentially  writh  the  Prime 
Minister,^  to  whom  he  even  applied  for 
money.  But  when  the  infamy  of  Rumsey 
became  notorious,  and  when  Saxton  had  per 
jured  himself  on  the  subsequent  trial  of  Lord 
Delamere,  it  was  thought  proper  to  pardon 
Lord  Brandon,  against  whom  no  testimony 
remained  but  that  of  Lord  Grey,  who,  when 

*  Sunderland  to  Jeffreys,  14th  Sept.  1685.— 
State  Paper  Office. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  1st  May,  1689. 

$  Narcissus  Luttrell,  25th  Nov. ,1685;  which, 
though  very  short,  is  more  full  than  any  published 
account  of  Lord  Brandon's  trial. 

$  Rumsey  to  Lord  Sunderland,  Oct.  1685,  and 
Jan.  1686.— State  Paper  Office. 


he  made  his  confession,  is  said  to  have  stipu 
lated  that  no  man  should  be  put  to  death  on 
his  evidence.  But  Brandon  was  not  enlarged 
on  bail  till  fourteen  months,  nor  was  his  par 
don  completed  till  two  years  after  his  trial. * 

The  only  considerable  trial  which  remained 
was  that  of  Lord  Delamere,  before  the  Lord 
Steward  (Jeffreys)  and  thirty  peers.  Though 
this  nobleman  was  obnoxious  and  formidable 
to  the  Court,  the  proof  of  the  falsehood  and 
infamy  of  Saxton,  the  principal  witness 
against  him,  was  so  complete,  that  he  was 
unanimously  acquitted  ; — a  remarkable  and 
almost  solitary  exception  to  the  prevalent 
proceedings  of  courts  of  law  at  that  time, 
arising  partly  from  a  proof  of  the  falsehood 
of  the  charge  more  clear  than  can  often  be 
expected,  and  partly  perhaps  from  the  fel 
low-feeling  of  the  judges  with  the  prisoner, 
and  from  the  greater  reproach  to  which  an 
unjust  judgment  exposes  its  authors,  when 
in  a  conspicuous  station. 

The  administration  of  justice  in  state  pro 
secutions  is  one  of  the  surest  tests  of  good 
government.  The  judicial  proceedings  which 
have  been  thus  carefully  and  circumstantially 
related  afford  a  specimen  of  those  evils  from 
which  England  was  delivered  by  the  Revo 
lution.  As  these  acts  were  done  with  the 
aid  of  juries,  and  without  the  censure  of  Par 
liament,  they  also  afford  a  fatal  proof  that 
judicial  forms  and  constitutional  establish 
ments  may  be  rendered  unavailing  by  the 
subserviency  or  the  prejudices  of  those  who 
are  appointed  to  carry  them  into  effect.  The 
wisest  institutions  may  become  a  dead  letter, 
and  may  even,  for  a  time,  be  converted  "into 
a  shelter  and  an  instrument  of  tyranny,  when 
the  sense  of  justice  and  the  love  of  liberty 
are  weakened  in  the  minds  of  a  people. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Dismissal  of  Halifax. — Meeting  of  Parlia 
ment. — Debates  on  the  Address. — Proroga 
tion  of  Parliament. — Habeas  Corpus  Act. — 
State  of  the  Catholic  Party.— Character  of 
the  Queen. — Of  Catherine  Scdlcy. — Attempt 
to  Support  the  Dispensing  Power  by  a  Judg 
ment  of  a  Court  of  Law. — Godden  V.  Hales. 
— Consideration  of  the  Arguments. — Attack 
on  the  Church. — Establishment  of  the  Court 
of  Commissioners  for  Ecclesiastical  Causes. — 
Advancement  of  Catholics  to  Offices. — Inter 
course  with  Rome. 

THE  general  appearance  of  submission 
which  followed  the  suppression  of  the  revolt, 
and  the  punishment  of  the  revolters,  encour 
aged  the  King  to  remove  from  office  the 
Marquis  of  Halifax,  with  whose  liberal  opi 
nions  he  had  recently  as  wrell  as  early  been 
dissatisfied,  and  whom  he  suffered  to  remain 
in  place  at  his  accession,  only  as  an  example 
that  old  opponents  might  atone  for  their  of- 

*  Narcissus  Luttrell,  Jan.  and  Oct.  1687. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


285 


fences  by  compliance.*  A  different  policy 
•was  adopted  in  a  situation  of  more  strength. 
As  the  King  found  that  Halifax  would  not 
comply  with  his  projects,  he  determined 
to  dismiss  him  before  the  meeting  of  Par 
liament  ; — an  act  of  vigour  which  it  was 
thought  would  put  an  end  to  division  in  his 
councils,  and  prevent  discontented  ministers 
from  countenancing  a  resistance  to  his  mea 
sures.  When  he  announced  this  resolution 
to  Barillon,  he  added,  that  i:  his  design  was 
to  obtain  a  repeal  of  the  Test  and  Habeas 
Corpus  Acts,  of  which  the  former  was  de 
structive  of  the  Catholic  religion,  arid  the 
other  of  the  royal  authority;  that  Halifax 
had  not  the  firmness  to  support  the  good 
cause,  and  that  he  would  have  less  power 
of  doing  harm  if  he  were  disgraced."!  James 
had  been  advised  to  delay  the  dismissal  till 
after  the  session,  that  the  opposition  of  Hali 
fax  might  be  modeiated,  if  not  silenced,  by 
the  restraints  of  high  office ;  but  he  thought 
that  his  authority  would  be  more  strength 
ened,  by  an  example  of  a  determination  to 
keep  no  terms  with  any  one  who  did  not 
show  an  unlimited  compliance  with  his 
wishes.  "I  do  not  suppose,"  said  the  King 
to  Barillon  with  a  smile,  c:that  the  King  your 
master  will  be  sorry  for  the  removal  of  Hali 
fax.  I  know  that  it  will  mortify  the  minis 
ters  of  the  allies."  Nor  was  he  deceived  in 
either  of  these  respects.  The  news  was 
received  with  satisfaction  by  Louis,  and  with 
dismay  by  the  ministers  of  the  Empire,  of 
Spain,  and  of  Holland,  who  lost  their  only 
advocate  in  the  councils  of  England.!  It 
excited  wonder  and  alarm  among  those  Eng 
lishmen  who  were  zealously  attached  to  their 
religion  and  liberty. §  Though  Lord  Halifax 
had  no  share  in  the  direction  of  public  affairs 
since  the  King's  accession,  his  removal  was 
an  important  event  in  the  eye  of  the  public, 
arid  gave  him  a  popularity  which  he  pre 
served  by  independent  and  steady  conduct 
during  the  sequel  of  James'  reign. 

It  is  remarkable  that,  on  the  meeting  of 
Parliament  (9th  November)  little  notice  was 
taken  of  the  military  and  judicial  excesses 
in  the  West.  Sir  Edward  Seymour  applaud 
ed  the  punishment  of  the  rebels  ;  and  Wal 
ler  alone,  a  celebrated  wit,  an  ingenious 
poet :  the  father  of  parliamentary  oratory,  and 
one  of  4he  refiners  of  the  English  language, 
though  now  in  his  eightieth  year,  arraigned 
the  violence  of  the  soldiers  with  a  spirit  still 
unextinguished.  He  probably  intended  to 
excite  a  discussion  which  might  gradually 
have  reached  the  more  deliberate  and  inex 
cusable  faults  of  the  judges.  But  the  opi 
nions  and  policy  of  his  audience  defeated  his 
generous  purpose.  The  prevalent  party  look 
ed  with  little  disapprobation  on  seventies 
which  fell  on  Nonconformists  and  supposed 


*  Barillon,  5th  March,  1685.— Fox,  app.  p.  xlvii. 
[Tn  these  dates  the  new  style  only  is  observed. — 
ED.] 

t  Barillon,  20th  October. — Ibid.  p.  cxxvii. 

|  BariUon,  5th  November. — Ibid.  p.  cxxx. 

$  Barillon)  1st  March. — Ibid.  p.  xxxviii. 


Republicans.  Many  might  be  base  enough 
to  feel  little  compassion  for  sufferers  in  the 
humbler  classes  of  society  ;  some  were  pro 
bably  silenced  by  a  pusillanimous  dread  of 
being  said  to  be  the  abbettors  of  rebels ;  and 
all  must  have  been,  in  some  measure,  influ 
enced  by  an  undue  and  excessive  degree  of 
that  wholesome  respect  for  judicial  proceed 
ings,  which  is  one  of  the  characteristic  vir 
tues  of  a  free  country.  This  disgraceful 
silence  is,  perhaps,  somewhat  extenuated  by 
the  slow  circulation  of  intelligence  at  that 
period ;  by  the  censorship  Avhich  imposed 
silence  on  the  press,  or  enabled  the  ruling 
party  to  circulate  falsehood  through  its 
means ;  and  by  the  eagerness  of  all  parties 
for  a  discussion  of  the  alarming  tone  and 
principles  of  the  speech  from  the  throne. 

The  King  began  his  speech  by  observing 
that  the  late  events  must  convince  every 
one  that  the  militia  was  not  sufficient,  and 
that  nothing  but  a  good  force  of  well-disci 
plined  troops,  in  constant  pay,  could  secure 
the  government  against  enemies  abroad  and 
at  home;  and  that  for  this  purpose  he  had 
increased  their  number,  and  now  asked  a 
supply  for  the  great  charge  of  maintaining 
them.  Cv' Let  no  man  lake  exception,"  he 
continued,  "  that  there  are  some  officers  in 
the  army  not  qualified,  according  to  the  late 
tests,  for  their  employments  ;  the  gentlemen 
are,  I  must  tell  you,  most  of  them  well  known 
to  me:  they  have  approved  the  loyalty  of 
their  principles  by  their  practice  :  and  I  will 
deal  plainly  with  you,  that  after  having  had 
the  benefit  of  their  services  in  such  a  time 
of  need  and  danger,  I  will  neither  expose 
them  to  disgrace,  nor  myself  to  the  want  of 
them,  if  there  should  be  another  rebellion  to 
make  them  necessary  to  me."  Nothing  but 
the  firmest  reliance  on  the  submissive  dis 
position  of  the  Parliament  could  have  induced 
James  to  announce  to  them  his  determina 
tion  to  bid  defiance  to  the  laws.  He  probably 
imagined  that  the  boldness  with  which  he 
asserted  the  power  of  the  crown  would  be 
applauded  by  many,  and  endured  by  most 
of  the  members  of  such  a  Parliament.  But 
never  was  there  a  more  remarkable  example 
of  the  use  of  a  popular  assembly,  however 
ill  composed,  in  extracting  from  the  disunion, 
jealousy,  and  ambitition  of  the  victorious 
enemies  of  liberty,  a  new  opposition  to  the 
dangerous  projects  of  the  Crown.  The  vices 
of  politicians  were  converted  into  an  imper 
fect  substitute  for  virtue ;  and  though  the 
friends  of  the  constitution  were  few  and  fee 
ble,  the  inevitable  divisions  of  their  oppo 
nents  in  some  degree  supplied  their  place. 

The  disgrace  of  Lord  Halifax  disheartened 
and  even  "offended  some  supporters  of  Go 
vernment.  Sir  Thomas  Clarges,  a  determin 
ed  Tory,  was  displeased  at  the  merited  re 
moval  of  his  nephew,  the  Duke  of  Albemarle, 
from  the  command  of  the  army  against  Mon- 
mouth.  Nottingham,  a  man  of  talent  and 
ambition,  more  a  Tory  than  a  courtier,  was 
dissatisfied  with  his  own  exclusion  from 
office,  and  jealous  of  Rochester's  ascendency 


286 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


over  the  Church  party.  His  relation  Finch, 
though  solicitor-general,  took  a  part  against 
the  Court.  The  projects  of  the  Crown  were 
thwarted  by  the  friends  of  Lord  Dauby,  who 
had  forfeited  all  hopes  of  the  King's  favour 
by  communicating  the  Popish  Plot  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  by  his  share  in  the 
marriage  of  the  Princess  Mary  with  the 
Prince  of  Orange.  Had  the  King's  first  at 
tack  been  made  on  civil  liberty,  the  Oppo 
sition  might  have  been  too  wreak  to  embolden 
all  these  secret  and  dispersed  discontents  to 
display  themselves,  and  to  combine  together. 
But  the  attack  on  the  exclusive  privileges  of 
the  Church  of  England,  while  it  alienated 
the  main  force  of  the  Cro\vn,  toucKed  a  point 
on  wh'ich  all  the  subdivisions  of  discontented 
Tories  professed  to  agree,  and  afforded  them 
a  specious  pretext  for  opposing  the  King, 
\vithout  seeming  to  deviate  from  their  an 
cient  principles.  They  were  gradually  dis 
posed  to  seek  or  accept  the  assistance  of  the 
defeated  Whigs,  and  the  names  of  Sir  Rich 
ard  Temple,  Sir  John  Lowther,  Sergeant 
Maynard.  and  Mr.  Hampden,  appear  at  last 
more  and  more  often  in  the  proceedings. 
Thus  admirably  does  a  free  constitution  not 
only  command  the  constant  support  of  the 
wise  and  virtuous,  but  often  compel  the  low 
jealousies  and  mean  intrigues  of  disappointed 
ambition  to  contend  for  its  preservation.  The 
consideration  of  the  King's  speech  was  post 
poned  for  three  days,  in  spite  of  a  motion  for 
its  immediate  consideration  by  Lord  Preston, 
a  secretary  of  state. 

In  the  committee  of  the  whole  House  on 
the  speech,  which  occurred  on  the  12th,  two 
resolutions  wrere  adopted,  of  which  the  first 
was  friendly,  and  the  second  was  adverse, 
to  the  Government.  It  was  resolved  "  that 
a  supply  be  granted  to  his  Majesty,"  and 
"that  a  bill  be  brought  in  to  render  the 
militia  more  useful."  The  first  of  these 
propositions  has  seldom  been  opposed  since 
the  government  has  become  altogether  de 
pendent  on  the  annual  grants  of  Parliament ; 
it  was  more  open  to  debate  on  a  proposal  for 
extraordinary  aid,  and  it  gave  rise  to  some 
important  observations.  Clarges  declared  he 
had  voted  against  the  Exclusion,  because  he 
did  not  believe  its  supporters  when  they  fore 
told  that  a  Popish  king  would  have  a  Popish 
army.  "I  am  afflicted  greatly  at  this  breach 
of  our  liberties  ;  what  is  struck  at  here  is  our 
all."  Sir  Edward  Seymour  observed,  with 
truth,  that  to  dispense  with  the  Test  was  to  re 
lease  the  King  from  all  law.  Encouraged  by 
the  bold  language  of  these  Tories,  old  Serjeant 
Maynard  said,  that  the  supply  was  asked  for 
the  maintenance  of  an  army  which  was  to  be 
officered  against  a  law  made,  not  for  the  pun 
ishment  of  Papists,  but  for  the  defence  of  Pro 
testants.  The  accounts  of  these  important 
debates  are  so  scanty,  that  we  may,  without 
much  presumption,  suppose  the  venerable 
lawyer  to  have  at  least  alluded  to  the  recent 
origin  of  the  Test  (to  which  the  King  had  dis 
paragingly  adverted  in  his  speech),  as  the 
strongest  reason  for  its  strict  observance.  Had 


it  been  an  ancient  law,  founded  on  general 
considerations  of  policy,  it  might  have  been 
excusable  to  relax  its  rigour  from  a  regard  to 
the  circumstances  and  feelings  of  the  King. 
But  having  been  recently  provided  as  a 
security  against  the  specific  dangers  appre 
hended  from  his  accession  to  the  throne,  it 
was  to  the  last  degree  unreasonable  to  re 
move  or  suspend  it  at  the  moment  when 
those  very  dangers  had  reached  their  highest 
pitch.  Sir  Richard  Temple  spoke  waimly 
against  standing  armies,  and  of  the  necessity 
of  keeping  the  Crown  dependent  on  parlia 
mentary  grants.  He  proposed  the  resolution 
for  the  improvement  of  the  militia,  with 
which  the  courtiers  concurred.  Clarges 
moved  as  an  amendment  on  the  vote  of  sup 
ply,  the  words,  for  the  additional  forces," — 
to  throw  odium  on  the  ministerial  vote  ;  but 
this  adverse  amendment  was  negatived  by  a 
majority  of  seventy  in  a  house  of  three  hun 
dred  and  eighty-one.  On  the  13th,  the  minis 
ters  proposed  to  instruct  the  committee  of  the 
whole  House  on  the  King's  speech,  to  con 
sider,  first,  the  paragraph  of  the  speech  which 
contained  the  demand  of  supply.  They 
were  defeated  by  a  majority  of  a  hundred 
and  eighty-three  to  a  hundred  and  eighty- 
two  :  and  the  committee  resolved  to  take 
into  consideration,  first,  the  succeeding  para 
graph,  which  related  to  the  officers  illegally 
employed.*  On  the  16th;  an  address  was 
brought  up  from  the  committee,  setting  forth 
the  legal  incapacity  of  the  Catholic  officers, 
which  could  only  be  removed  by  an  Act  of 
Parliament,  offering  to  indemnify  them  from 
the  penalties  they  had  incurred,  but,  as  their 
continuance  would  be  taken  to  be  a  dis 
pensing  with  the  lawr,  praying  that  the  King 
would  be  pleased  not  to  continue  them  in 
their  employments.  The  House,  having 
substituted  the  milder  words,  "that  he  would 
give  such  directions  therein  as  that  no  ap 
prehensions  or  jealousies  might  remain  in 
the  hearts  of  his  subjects,"  unanimously 
adopted  the  address.  A  supply  of  seven 
hundred  thousand  pounds  was  voted  ; — a 
medium  between  twelve  hundred  thousand 
required  by  ministers,  and  two  hundred 
thousand  proposed  by  the  most  rigid  of  their 
opponents.  The  danger  of  standing  armies 
to  liberty,  and  the  wisdom  of  such  limited 
grants  as  should  compel  the  Crown  to  recur 
soon  and  often  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
were  the  general  argument^  used  for  the 
smaller  sum.  The  courtiers'  urged  the  ex- 


*  "  The  Earl  of  Middleton,  ihen  a  secretary  of 
state,  seeing  many  go  out  upon  the  division  against 
the  Court  who  were  in  the  service  of  Government, 
went  down  to  the  bar  and  reproached  them  to 
their  faces  for  voting  as  they  did.  He  said  to  a 
Captain  Kendal,  '  Sir,  have  you  not  a  troop  of 
horse  in  his  Majesty's  service  ?'  '  Yes,  sir,'  said 
the  other:  'but  my  brother  died  last  night,  and 
has  left  me  seven  hundred  pounds  a  year.'  This 
I  had  from  my  uncle,  the  first  Lord  Onslow,  who 
was  then  a  member  of  the  House,  and  present. 
This  incident  upon  one  vote  very  likely  saved  the 
nation. — Burnet  (Oxford,  1823),  vol.  iii.  p.  86, 
Note  by  Speaker  Onslow. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


287 


ample  of  the  late  revolt,  the  superiority  of 
disciplined  troops  over  an  inexperienced 
militia,  the  necessity  arising  from  the  like 
practice  of  all  other  states,  and  the  revolution 
in  the  art  of  war.  which  had  rendered  pro 
ficiency  in  it  unattainable,  except  by  those 
who  studied  and  practised  it  as  the  profes 
sion  of  their  lives.  The  most  practical  ob 
servation  was  that  of  Sir  William  Trumbull, 
who  suggested  that  the  grant  should  be 
annual,  to  make  the  existence  of  the  army 
annually  dependent  on  the  pleasure  of  Par 
liament.  The  ministers,  taking  advantage 
of  the  secrecy  of  foreign  negotiations,  ven 
tured  to  assert  that  a  formidable  army  in  the 
hands  of  the  King  was  the  only  check  on  the 
ambition  of  France ;  though  they  knew  that 
their  master  was  devoted  to  Louis  XIV.,  to 
whom  he  had  been  recently  suing  for  a 
secret  subsidy  in  the  most  abject  language 
of  supplication.*  When  the  address  was  pre 
sented,  the  King  answered,  with  a  warmth 
and  anger  very  unusual  on  such  occasions.! 
that  "he  did  not  expect  such  an  address; 
that  he  hoped  his  reputation  would  have 
inspired  such  a  confidence  in  him  ;  but  that, 
whatever  they  might  do,  he  should  adhere 
to  all  his  promises."  The  reading  of  this 
answer  in  the  House  the  next  day  produced 
a  profound  silence  for  some  minutes.  A 
motion  was  made  by  Mr.  Wharton  to  take  it 
into  consideration,  on  which  Mr.  John  Cooke 
said,  "We  are  Englishmen,  and  ought  not  to 
be  frightened  from  our  duty  by  a  few  hard 
words."!  Both  these  gentlemen  were  Whigs, 
who  were  encouraged  to  speak  freely  by  the 
symptoms  of  vigour  which  the  House  had 
shown ;  but  they  soon  discovered  that  they 
had  mistaken  the  temper  of  their  colleagues ; 
for  the  majority,  still  faithful  to  the  highest 
pretensions  of  the  Crown  whenever  ihe  Esta 
blished  Church  was  not  averse  to  them,  com 
mitted  Mr.  Cooke  to  the  Tower,  though  he 
disavowed  all  disrespectful  intention,  and 
begged  pardon  of  the  King  and  the  House. 
Notwithstanding  tho  King's  answer,  they 
proceeded  to  provide  means  of  raising  the 
supply,  and  they  resumed  the  consideration 
of  a  bill  for  the  naturalisation  of  French  Pro 
testants, — a  tolerant  measure,  the  introduc 
tion  of  which  the  zealous  partisans  of  the 
Church  had,  at  first,  resisted,  as  they  after 
wards  destroyed  the  greater  part  of  its  bene 
fit  by  confining  it  to  those  who  should  con 
form"  to  the  Establishment. §  The  motion 
for  considering  the  King's  speech  was  not 
pursued,  which,  together  with  the  proceed 
ing  on  supply,  seemed  to  imply  a  submission 

*  Barillon,  16th  Julv.  1635. — Fox,  app.  p.  cix. 
"  Le  Roi  me  dit  qne  si  V.  M.  avoit  quelque  chose 
a  dosirer  de  lui.  il  iroit  au  devant  de  tout  ce  qui 
pent  plaire  a  V.  M. ;  qu'il  avoit  ete  eleve  en 
France,  et  mange  le  pain  de  V.  M. ;  que  son  coRitr 
etoit  Francois."  Only  six  weeks  before  (30th 
May),  James  had  told  his  parliament  that  "  he 
had  a  true  English  heart." 

t  Rereshy,  p.  218.  Sir  John  Reresby,  being  a 
member  of  the  House,  was  probably  present. 

J  Commons'  Journals,  18th  Nov. 

t  Ibid.,  16th  June,  1st  July. 


to  the  menacing  answer  of  James ;  arising 
principally  from  the  subservient  character 
of  the  majority,  but,  probably,  in  some,  from 
a  knowledge  of  the  vigorous  measures  about 
to  be  proposed  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

At  the  opening  of  the  Session,  that  House 
had  contented  themselves  with  general  thanks 
to  the  King  for  his  speech,  without  any  allu 
sion  to  its  contents.  Jeffreys,  in  delivering 
the  King's  answer,  affected  to  treat  this  par 
liamentary  courtesy  as  an  approval  of  the 
substance  of  the  speech.  Either  on  that  or 
on  the  preceding  occasion,  it  was  said  by 
Lord  Halifax  or  Lord  Devonshire  (for  it  is 
ascribed  to  both),  "  that  they  had  now  more 
reason  than  ever  to  give  thanks  to  his  Majesty 
for  having  dealt  so  plainly  with  them."  The 
House,  not  called  upon  to  proceed  as  the 
other  House  was  by  the  demand  of  supply, 
continued  inactive  for  a  few  days,  till  they 
were  roused  by  the  imperious  answer  of  the 
King  to  the  Commons.  On  the  19th,  the 
day  of  that  answer,  Lord  Devonshire  moved 
to  take  into  consideration  the  dangerous  con 
sequences  of  an  army  kept  up  ag-ainst  law. 
He  was  supported  by  Halifax,  by  Notting 
ham,  and  by  Anglesea,  who,  in  a  very  ad 
vanced  age,  still  retained  that  horror  of  the 
yoke  of  Rome,  which  he  had  found  means 
to  reconcile  with  frequent  acquiescence  in 
the  civil  policy  of  Charles  and  James.  Lord 
Mordaunt,  more  known  as  Earl  of  Peter 
borough,  signalised  himself  by  the  youthful 
spirit  of  his  speech.  "  Let  us  not,"  he  said, 
"  like  the  House  of  Commons,  speak  of  jea 
lousy  and  distrust :  ambiguous  measures  in 
spire  these  feelings.  What  we  now  see  is 
not  ambiguous.  A  standing  army  is  on  foot, 
filled  with  officers,  who  cannot  be  allowed 
to  serve  without  overthrowing  the  laws.  To 
keep  up  a  standing  army  when  there  is 
neither  civil  nor  foreign  war,  is  to  establish 
that  arbitrary  government  which  Englishmen 
hold  in  such  just  abhorrence."  Compton, 
Bishop  of  London,  a  prelate  of  noble  birth 
and  military  spirit,  who  had  been  originally 
an  officer  in  the  Guards,  spoke  for  the  mo 
tion  in  the  name  of  all  his  brethren  on  the 
episcopal  bench,  who  considered  the  security 
of  the  Church  as  involved  in  the  issue  of  the 
question.  He  was  influenced  not  only  by  the 
feelings  of  his  order,  but  by  his  having  been 
the  preceptor  of  the  Princesses  Mary  and 
Anne,  who  were  deeply  interested  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  Protestant  Church,  as 
well  as  conscientiously  attached  to  it.  Jef 
freys  was  the  principal  speaker  on  the  side 
of  the  Court.  He  urged  the  thanks  already 
voted  as  an  approval  of  the  speech.  His  scur 
rilous  invectives,  and  the  tones  and  gestures 
of  menace  with  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  overawe  juries,  roused  the  indignation,  in 
stead  of  commanding  the  acquiescence,  of 
the  Lords.  As  this  is  a  deportment  which 
cuts  off  all  honourable  retreat,  the  contempo 
rary  accounts  are  very  probable  which  repre 
sent  him  as  sinking  at  once  from  insolence 
to  meanness.  His  defeat  must  have  been 
signal ;  for;  in  an  unusually  full  House  of 


288 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Lords,*  after  so  violent  an  opposition  by  the 
Chancellor  of  England,  the  motion  for  taking 
the  address  into  consideration  W7as,  on  the 
23d,  carried  without  a  division. t 

On  the  next  day  the  King  prorogued  the 
Parliament ;  which  never  again  was  assem 
bled  but  for  the  formalities  of  successive 
prorogations,  by  which  its  legal  existence 
was  prolonged  for  t\vo  years.  By  this  act 
he  lost  the  subsidy  of  seven  hundred  thou 
sand  pounds  :  but  his  situation  had  become 
difficult.  Though  money  was  employed  to 
corrupt  some  of  the  opponents  of  his  mea 
sures,  the  Opposition  was  daily  gaining 
strength  j  By  rigorous  economy,  by  divert 
ing  parliamentary  aids  from  the  purposes  for 
which  they  were  granted,  the  King  had  the 
means  of  maintaining  the  army,  though  his 
ministers  had  solemnly  affirmed  that  he  had 
not.§  He  was  full  of  maxims  for  the  neces 
sity  of  firmness  and  the  dangers  of  conces 
sion,  which  were  mistaken  by  others,  and 
perhaps  by  himself,  for  proofs  of  a  vigorous 
character.  He  had  advanced  too  far  to  re 
cede  with  tolerable  dignity.  The  energy 
manifested  by  the  House  of  Lords  would 
have  compelled  even  the  submissive  Com 
mons  to  co-operate  with  them,  which  might 
have  given  rise  to  a  more  permanent  coalition 
of  the  High  Church  party  with  the  friends  of 
liberty.  A  suggestion  had  been  thrown  out  in 
the  Lords  to  desire  the  opinion  of  the  judges 
on  the  right  of  the  King  to  commission  the  Ca 
tholic  officers  ;ll  arid  it  was  reared  that  the 
terrors  of  impeachment  might,  during  the  sit 
ting  of  Parliament,  draw  an  opinion  from  these 
magistrates  against  the  prerogative,  which 
might  afterwards  prove  irrevocable.  To  re 
concile  Parliament  to  the  officers  became 


*  The  attendance  was  partly  caused  by  a  call  of 
the  House,  ordered  for  the  trials  of  Lords  Stam 
ford  and  De'.amere.  There  were  present  on  the 
19th  November,  seventy-five  temporal  and  twenty 
spiritual  lords.  On  the  call,  two  days  before,  it 
appeared  that  forty  were  either  minors,  abroad,  or 
confined  by  sickness  ;  six  had  sent  proxies;  two 
were  prisoners  for  treason  ;  and  thirty  absent  with 
out  any  special  reason,  of  whom  the  great  majority 
were  disabled  as  Catholics  :  so  that  very  few  peers, 
legally  and  physically  capable  of  attendance,  were 
absent. 

t  Barillon,  3d  Dec.— Fox  MSS.  This  is  the 
only  distinct  narrative  of  the  proceedings  of  this 
important  and  decisive  day.  Burnet  was  then  on 
the  Continent,  but  I  have  endeavoured  to  com 
bine  his  account  with  that  of  Barillon. 

t  Barillon,  26ih  Nov. — Fox,  app.  p.  cxxxix. 

$  Barillon,  13th  Dec.— Fox  MSS.  The  expen 
ses  of  the  army  of  Charles  had  been  280,OOOL; 
that  of  James  was  600,0007.  The  difference  of 
320?OOOZ.  was,  according  to  Barillon,  thus  provided 
for:  100,OOOL,  the  income  of  James  as  Duke  of 
York,  which  he  still  preserved  ;  800,OOOZ.  granted 
to  pay  the  debts  of  Charles,  which,  as  the  Ki?ig 
was  to  pay  the  dehls  as  he  thought  fit,  would  yield 
for  some  years  100,OOOZ.;  800,000?.  granted  for  the 
navy  and  the  arsenals,  on  which  the  King  might 
proceed  slowly,  or  even  do  nothbig;  400,OOOZ.  for 
the  suppression  of  the  rebellion.  As  these  last 
funds  were  not  to  come  into  the  Exchequer  for 
some  years,  they  were  estimated  as  producing  an 
nually  more  than  sufficient  to  cover  the  deficiency. 

II  Barillon,  10th  Dec.— Fox  MSS. 


iaily  more  hopeless :  to  sacrifice  those  who 
had  adhered  to  the  King  in  a  time  of  need 
appeared  to  be  an  example  dangerous  to  all 
his  projects,  whether  of  enlarging  his  pre 
rogative,  or  of  securing,  and,  perhaps,  finally 
establishing,  his  religfon. 

Thus  ended  the  active  proceedings  of  a 
Parliament,  which,  in  all  that  did  not  concern 
the  Church,  justified  the  most  sanguine  hopes 
that  James  could  have  formed  of  their  sub 
mission  to  the  Court,  as  well  as  their  attach 
ment  to  the  monarchy.  A  body  of  men  so 
subservient  as  that  House  of  Commons  could 
hardly  be  brought  together  by  any  mode  of 
election  or  appointment;  and  James  was 
aware  that,  by  this  angry  prorogation,  he 
had  rendered  it  difficult  for  himself  for  a  long 
time  to  meet  another  Parliament.  The  Ses 
sion  had  lasted  only  eleven  days;  during 
which  the  eyes  of  Europe  had  been  anxious 
ly  turned  towards  their  proceedings.  Louis 
XIV.,  not  entirely  relying  on  the  sincerity  or 
steadiness  of  James,  was  fearful  that  he  might 
yield  to  the  Allies  or  to  his  people,  and  in 
structed  Barillon  in  that  case  to  open  a  negoti 
ation  with  leading  members  of  the  Commons, 
that  they  might  embarrass  the  policy  of  the 
King,  if  it  became  adverse  to  France.*  Spain 
and  Holland,  on  the  other  hand,  hoped,  that 
any  compromise  between  the  King  and  Par 
liament  would  loosen  the  ties  that  bound  the 
former  to  France.  It  was  even  hoped  that 
he  might  form  a  triple  alliance  with  Spain 
and  Sweden,  and  large  sums  of  money  were 
secretly  offered  to  him  to  obtain  his  acces 
sion  to  such  an  alliance.!  Three  days  before 
the  meeting  of  Parliament,  had  arrived  in 
London  Monsignor  D'Adda,  a  Lombard  pre 
late  of  distinction,  as  the  known,  though  then 
unavowed,  minister  of  the  See  of  Rome,! 
which  was  divided  between  the  interest  of 
the  Catholic  Church  of  England  and  the  ani 
mosity  of  Innocent  XI.  against  Louis  XIV. 
All  these  solicitudes,  and  precautions,  and 
expectations,  were  suddenly  dispelled  by 
the  unexpected  rupture  between  James  and 
his  Parliament. 

From  the  temper  and  -opinions  of  that  Par 
liament  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude,  that  the 
King  would  have  been  more  successful  if  he 
had  chosen  to  make  his  first  attack  on  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act,  instead  of  directing  it 
against  the  Test.  Both  these  laws  were  then 
only  of  a  few  years'  standing;  and  he,  as 
well  as  his  brother,  held  them  both  in  ab 
horrence.  The  Test  gave  exclusive  privi 
leges  to  the  Established  Church,  and  was, 
therefore,  dear  to  the  adherents  of  that  pow 
erful  body.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was 
not  then  the  object  of  that  attachment  and 
veneration  which  experience  of  its  unspeaka 
ble  benefits  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  has 
since  inspired.  The  most  ancient  of  our 
fundamental  laws  had  declared  the  princi- 


*  Louis  to  Barillon,  19th  Nov. — Fox,  app.  p. 
cxxxvi. 

t  Barillon,  26th  Nov.— Fox,  app.  p.  cxxxix. 
1  D'Adda  to  the   Pope   19th  Nov.— D'Adda 

MSS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


289 


pie  that  no  freeman  could  be  imprisoned 
without  legal  authority.*  The  immemorial 
antiquity  of  the  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus, — an 
order  of  a  court  of  justice  to  a  jailer  to  bring 
the  body  of  a  prisoner  before  them,  that 
there  might  be  an  opportunity  of  examining 
whether  his  apprehension  and  detention 
Were  legal, — seems  to  prove  that  this  princi 
pal  was  coeval  with  the  law  of  England.  In 
irregular  times,  however,  it  had  been  often 
violated ;  and  the  judges  under  Charles  I. 
pronounced  a  judgment,!  which,  if  it  had 
not  been  condemned  by  the  Petition  of 
Right,}  would  have  vested  in  the  Crown  a 
legal  power  of  arbitrary  imprisonment.  By 
the  statute  which  abolished  the  Star  Cham 
ber,  the  Parliament  of  1641§  made  some  im 
portant  provisions  to  facilitate  deliverance 
from  illegal  imprisonment.  For  eleven  years 
Lord  Shaflesbury  struggled  to  obtain  a  law 
which  should  complete  the  securities  of  per 
sonal  liberty;  and  at  length  that  great  though 
not  blameless  man  obtained  the  object  of  his 
labours,  and  bestowed  on  his  country  the  most 
perfect  security  against  arbitrary  imprison 
ment  which  has  ever  been  enjoyed  by  any 
society  of  men. II  It  has  banished  that  most 
dangerous  of  all  modes  of  oppression  from 
England.  It  has  effected  that  great  object 
as  quietly  as  irresistibly;  it  has  never  in  a 
single  instance  been  resisted  or  evaded ;  and 
it  must  be  the  model  of  all  nations  who  aim 
at  securing  that  personal  liberty  without 
which  no  other  liberty  can  subsist.  But  in 
the  year  1685,  it  appeared  to  the  predominant 
party  an  odious  novelty,  an  experiment  un 
tried  in  any  other  nation, — carried  through, 
in  a  period  of  popular  frenzy,  during  the  short 
triumph  of  a  faction  hostile  to  Church  and 
State,  and  by  him  who  was  the  most  ob 
noxious'  of  all  the  demagogues  of  the  age. 
There  were  then,  doubtless,  many, — perhaps 
the  majority. — of  the  partisans  of  authority 
who  believed,  with  Charles  and  James,  that 
to  deprive  a  government  of  all  power  to  im 
prison  the  suspected  and  the  dangerous,  un 
less  there  was  legal  ground  of  charge  against 
them,  was  incompatible  with  the  peace  of 
society  ;  and  this  opinion  was  the  more  dan 
gerous  because  it  was  probably  conscien 
tious.!  In  this  state  of  things  it  may  seem 
singular  that  James  did  not  first  propose  the 
repeal  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  by  which 


*  Magna  Charta,  c.  29. 

t  The  famous  case  of  commitments  "by  the 
special  command  of  the  King,"  which  last  words 
the  Court  of  King's  Bench  determined  to  be  a  suf 
ficient  cause  for  detaining  a  prisoner  in  custody, 
•without  any  specification  of  an  offence. — State 
Trials,  vol.  iii.  p.  1. 

I  3  Car.  I.  c.  i.  $  16  Car.  I.  c.  10. 

II  31  C.  II.  c.  2. 

IT  James  retained  this  opinion  till  his  death. — 
"It  was  a  great  misfortune  to  the  people,  as  well 
as  to  the  Crown,  the  passing  of  the  Habeas  Cor 
pus  Act,  since  it  obliges  the  Crown  to  keep  a 
greater  force  on  foot  to  preserve  the  government 
and  encourages  disaffected,  turbulent,  and  unquie 
spirits  to  carry  on  their  wicked  designs :  it  was 
contrived  and  carried  on  by  the  Earl  of  Shaftes 
bury  to  that  intent." — Life,  vol.  ii.  p.  621. 
37 


ie  would  have  gained  the  means  of  silencing 
>pposition  to  all  his  other  projects.  What  the 
brtunate  circumstances  were  which  pointed 
lis  attack  against  the  Test,  we  are  not  en- 
bled  by  contemporary  evidence  to  ascertain. 
He  contemplated  that  measure  with  peculiar 
resentment,  as  a  personal  insult  to  himself, 
and  as  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  intended  as  a 
safeguard  against  the  dangers  apprehended 
Vom  h's  succession.  He  considered  it  as  the 
most  urgent  object  of  his  policy  to  obtain  a 
•epeal  of  it;  which  would  enable  him  to  put 
he  administration,  and  especially  the  army, 
nto  the  hands  of  those  who  were  devoted 
Dy  the  strongest  of  all  ties  to  his  service,  and 
whose  power,  honour,  and  even  safety,  were 
involved  in  his  success.  An  army  composed 
of  Catholics  must  have  seemed  the  most 
effectual  of  all  the  instruments  of  power  in 
tiis  hands ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  should 
hasten  to  obtain  it.  Had  he  been  a  lukewarm 
or  only  a  professed  Catholic,  an  armed  force, 
whose  interests  were  the  same  with  his  own, 
-night  reasonably  have  been  considered  as 
that  which  it  was  in  the  first  place  necessary 
to  secure.  Charles  II.,  with  a  loose  belief  in 
Popery,  and  no  zeal  for  it,  was  desirous  of 
strengthening  its  interests,  in  order  to  enlarge 
his  own  power.  As  James  was  a  conscien 
tious  and  zealous  Catholic,  it  is  probable  that 
he  was  influenced  in  every  measure  of  his 
government  by  religion,  as  well  as  ambition. 
Both  these  motives  coincided  in  their  object  : 
his  absolute  power  was  the  only  security  for 
his  religion,  and  a  Catholic  army  was  the  most 
effectual  instrument  for  the  establishment  of 
absolute  power.  In  such  a  case  of  combined 
motives,  it  might  have  been  difficult  for  him 
self  to  determine  which  predominated  on  any 
single  occasion.  Sunderland,  whose  sagacity 
and  religious  indifference  are  alike  unques 
tionable,  observed  to  Barillon,  that  on  mere 
principles  of  policy  James  could  have  no 
object  more  at  heart  than  to  strengthen  the 
Catholic  religion  ;* — an  observation  which, 
as  long  as  the  King  himself  continued  to  be 
a  Catholic,  seems,  in  the  hostile  temper  which 
then  prevailed  among  all  sects,  to  have  had 
great  weight. 

The  best  reasons  for  human  actions  are 
often  not  their  true  motives  :  but,  in  spite  of 
the  event,  it  does  not  seem  difficult  to  de 
fend  the  determination  of  the  King  on  those 
grounds,  merely  political,  which,  doubtless, 
had  a  considerable  share  in  producing  it.  It 
is  not  easy  to  ascertain  how  far  his  plans  in 
favour  of  his  religion  at  that  time  extended. 
A  great  division  of  opinion  prevailed  among 
the  Catholics  themselves  on  this  subject. 
The  most  considerable  and  opulent  laymen 
of  that  communion,  willing  to  secure  mode 
rate  advantages,  and  desirous  to  employ  their 
superiority  with  such  forbearance  as  might 
provoke  no  new  severities  under  a  Protestant 
successor,  would  have  been  content  with  a 
repeal  of  the  penal  laws,  without  insisting 
on  an  abrogation  of  the  Test.  The  friends 


Barillon,  16th  July.— Fox,  app.  p.  ciii. 
Z 


290 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  Spain  and  Austria,  with  all  the  enemies 
of  the  French  connection,  inclined  strongly 
to  a  policy  which,  by  preventing  a  rupture 
between  the  King  and  Parliament,  might 
enable,  and,  perhaps,  dispose  him  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  European  independence.  The 
Sovereign  Pontiff  himself  was  of  this  party  ; 
and  the  wary  politicians  of  the  court  of  Rome 
advised  their  English  friends  to  calm  and 
slow  proceedings :  though  the  Papal  minister, 
with  a  circumspection  and  reserve  required 
by  the  combination  of  a  theological  with  a 
diplomatic  character,  abstained  from  taking 
any  open  part  in  the  division,  where  it  would 
have  been  hard  for  him  to  escape  the  impu 
tation  of  being  either  a  lukewarm  Catholic 
or  an  imprudent  counsellor.  The  Catholic 
lords  who  were  ambitious  of  office,  the 
Jesuits,  and  especially  the  King's  confessor, 
together  with  all  the  partisans  of  France, 
supported  extreme  counsels  better  suited  to 
the  temper  of  James,  whose  choice  of  poli 
tical  means  was  guided  by  a  single  maxim, 
• — that  violence  (which  he  confounded  with 
vigour)  was  the  only  safe  policy  for  an  Eng 
lish  monarch.  Their  most  specious  argument 
was  the  necessity  of  taking  such  decisive 
measures  to  strengthen  the  Catholics  during 
the  King's  life  as  would  effectually  secure 
them  against  the  hostility  of  his  successor.* 
The  victory  gained  by  this  party  over  the 
moderate  Catholics,  as  well  as  the  "Protestant 
Tories,  was  rendered  more  speedy  and  deci 
sive  by  some  intrigues  of  the  Court,  which 
have  not  hitherto  been  fully  known  to  histo 
rians.  Mary  of  Este,  the  consort  of  James, 
was  married  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  and  had 
been  educated  in  such  gross  ignorance,  that 
she  never  had  heard  of  the  name  of  England 
until  it  was  made  known  to  her  on  that  occa 
sion.  She  had  been  trained  to  a  rigorous  ob 
servance  of  all  the  practices  of  her  religion, 
which  sunk  more  deeply  into  her  heart,  and 
more  constantly  influenced  her  conduct,  than 
was  usual  among  the  Italian  princesses.  On 
her  arrival  in  England,  she  betrayed  a  child 
ish  aversion  to  James,  which  was  quickly 
converted  into  passionate  fondness.  But  nei 
ther  her  attachment  nor  her  beauty  could  fix 
the  heart  of  that  inconstant  prince,  who  re 
conciled  a  warm  zeal  for  his  religion  with  an 
habitual  indulgence  in  those  pleasures  which 
it  most  forbids.  Her  life  was  embittered  by 
the  triumph  of  mistresses,  and  by  the  fre 
quency  of  her  own  perilous  and  unfruitful 
pregnancies.  Her  most  formidable  rival,  at  the 
period  of  the  accession,  was  Catherine  Sedleyj 
a  woman  of  few  personal  attractions,!  who 
inherited  the  wit  and  vivacity  of  her  father, 


*  Barillon,  12th  Nov. — Fox,  app.  p.  cxxxiv. — 
Barillon,  31st  Dec.— Fox  MSS.  Burnet,  vol.  i.  p. 
€61.  The  coincidence  of  Burnet  with  the  more 
ample  account  of  Barillon  is  an  additional  confir 
mation  of  the  substantial  accuracy  of  the  honest 
prelate. 

t  "  Elle  a  beaucoup  d'esprit  et  de  la  vivacite, 
mais  elle  n'a  plus  aucune  beaute,  et  est  d'une  ex 
treme  maigreur."  Barillon,  7th  Feb.  1686. — Fox 
MSS.  The  insinuation  of  decline  is  somewhat 
singular,  as  her  father  was' then  only  forty-six. 


Sir  Charles  Sedley,  which  she  unsparingly 
exercised  on  the  priests  and  opinions  of  her 
royal  lover.  Her  character  was  frank,  her 
deportment  bold,  and  her  pleasantries  more 
amusing  than  refined.*  Soon  after  his  ac 
cession,  James  was  persuaded  to  relinquish 
his  intercourse  with  her;  and,  though  she 
retained  her  lodgings  in  the  palace,  he  did  not 
see  her  for  several  months.  The  connection 
was  then  secretly  renewed,  and,  in  the  first 
fervour  of  a  revived  passion,  the  King  offered 
to  give  her  the  title  of  Countess  of  Dorches 
ter.  She  declined  this  invidious  distinction, 
assuring  him  that,  by  provoking  the  anger 
of  the  Queen  and  of  the  Catholics,  it  would 
prove  her  ruin.  He,  however,  insisted  ;  and 
she  yielded,  upon  condition  that,  if  he  was 
ever  again  prevailed  upon  to  dissolve  their 
connection,  he  should  come  to  her  to  an 
nounce  his  determination  in  person. t  The 
title  produced  the  effects  she  had  foreseen. 
Mary,  proud  of  her  beauty,  still  enamoured 
of  her  husband,  and  full  of  religious  horror 
at  the  vices  of  Mrs.  Sedley.  gave  way  to  the 
most  clamorous  excesses  of  sorrow  and  anger 
at  the  promotion  of  her  competitor.  She 
spoke  to  the  King  with  a  violence  for  which 
she  long  afterwards  reproached  herself  as  a 
grievous  fault.  At  one  time  she  said  to  him, 
;:Is  it  possible  that  you  are  ready  to  sacrifice 
a  crown  for  your  faith,  and  cannot  discard  a 
mistress  for  it  ?  Will  you  for  such  a  passion 
lose  the  merit  of  your  sacrifices'?"  On  an 
other  occasion  she  exclaimed,  "Give  me  my 
dowry,  make  her  Queen  of  England,  and  let 
me  never  see  her  more."j  Her  transports 
of  grief  sometimes  betrayed  her  to  foreign 
ministers;  and  she  neither  ate  nor  spoke 
with  the  King  at  the  public  dinners  of  the 
Court.§  The  zeal  of  the  Queen  for  the  Ca 
tholic  religion,  and  the  profane  jests  of  Lady 
Dorchester  against  its  doctrines  and  minis 
ters,  had  rendered  them  the  leaders  of  the 
Popish  and  Protestant  parties  at  Court.  The 
Queen  was  supported  by  the  Catholic  clergy, 
who,  with  whatever  indulgence  their  order 
had  sometimes  treated  regal  frailty,  could 
not  remain  neuter  in  a  contest  between  an 
orthodox  Queen  and  an  heretical  mistress. 
These  intrigues  early  mingled  with  the  de 
signs  of  the  two  ministers,  who  still  appeared 


*  These  defects  are  probably  magnified  in  the 
verses  of  Lord  Dorset : 

"  Dorinda's  sparkling  wit  and  eyes 
United,  cast  too  fierce  a  light, 
Which  blazes  high,  but  quickly  dies, 
Pains  not  the  heart,  but  hurts  the  sight. 

"  Love  is  a  calmer,  gentler  joy  ; 

Smooth  are  his  looks,  and  soft  his  pace : 
Her  Cupid  is  a  blackguard  boy, 

That  runs  his  link  full  in  your  face." 

t  D'Adda  to  Cardinal  Cybo,  1st  Feb.— D'Adda 
MSS. 

t  Memoires  Historiques  de  la  Reine  d'Angle- 
terre,  a  MS.  formerly  in  possession  of  the  nuns 
of  Chaillot,  since  in  the  Archives  Generates  de 
France. 

$  Bonrepaux,  7th  Feb.  1686,  MSS.  Evelyn, 
vol.  i.  p.  584. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


291 


to  have  equal  influence  in  the  royal  counsels. 
Lord  Rochester,  who  had  felt  the  decline 
of  the  King's  confidence  from  the  day  of 
Monmouth's  defeat,  formed  the  project  of 
supplanting  Lord  Sunderland,  and  of  reco 
vering  his  ascendant  in  public  affairs  through 
the  favour  of  the  mistress.  Having  lived  in 
a  court  of  mistresses,  and  maintained  him 
self  in  office  by  compliance  with  them,*  he 
thought  it  unlikely  that  wherever  a  favourite 
mistress  existed  she  could  fail  to  triumph 
over  a  queen.  As  the  brother  of  the  first 
Duchess  of  York,  Mary  did  not  regard  him 
with  cordiality :  as  the  leader  of  the  Church 
party,  he  was  still  more  obnoxious  to  her. 
He  and  his  lady  were  the  principal  counsel 
lors  of  the  mistress.  They  had  secretly  ad 
vised  the  King  to  confer  on  her  the  title  of 
honour, — probably  to  excite  the  Queen  to 
such  violence  as  might  widen  the  rupture 
between  her  and  the  King:  and  they  de 
clared  so  openly  for  her  as  to  abstain  for 
several  days,  during  the  heat  of  the  contest, 
from  paying  their  respects  to  the  Queen  ; — 
a  circumstance  much  remarked  at  a  time 
when  the  custom  was  still  observed,  which 
had  been  introduced  by  the  companionable 
humour  of  Charles,  for  the  principal  nobility 
to  appear  almost  daily  at  Court.  Sunder 
land,  already  connected  with  the  Catholic 
favourites,  was  now  more  than  ever  com 
pelled  to  make  common  cause  with  the 
Queen.  His  great  strength  lay  in  the  priests; 
but  he  also  called  in  the  aid  of  Madame 
Mazarin,  a  beautiful  woman,  of  weak  under 
standing,  but  practised  in  intrigue,  who  had 
been  sought  in  marriage  by  Charles  II.  dur 
ing  his  exile,  refused  by  him  after  his  Resto 
ration,  and  who,  on  her  arrival  in  England, 
ten  years  after,  failed  in  the  more  humble 
attempt  to  become  his  mistress. 

The  exhortations  of  the  clergy,  seconded 
by  the  beauty,  the  affection,  and  the  tears 
of  the  Queen,  prevailed,  after  a  severe  strug 
gle,  over  the  ascendant  of  Lady  Dorchester. 
James  sent  Lord  Middleton,  one  of  his  secre 
taries  of  state,  to  desire  that  she  would  leave 
Whitehall,  and  go  to  Holland,  to  which  coun 
try  a  yacht  was  in  readiness  to  convey  her. 
In  a  letter  written  by  his  own  hand,  he  ac 
knowledged  that  he  violated  his  promise* 
but  excused  himself  by  saying,  that  he  was 
conscious  of  not  possessing  firmness  enough 
to  stand  the  test  of  an  interview.  She  im 
mediately  retired  to  her  house  in  St.  James' 
Square,  and  offered  to  go  to  Scotland  or  Ire 
land,  or  to  her  father's  estate  in  Kent ;  but 
protested  against  going  to  the  Continent, 
where  means  might  be  found  of  immuring 
her  in  a  convent  for  life.  When  threatened 
with  being  forcibly  carried  abroad,  she  ap- 
pea'ed  to  the  Great  Charter  against  such  an 
invasion  of  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  The 
contest  continued  for  some  time ;  and  the 
King's  advisers  consented  that  she  should 

*  Carte,  Life  of  Ormonde,  vol.  ii.  p.  553.  The 
old  duke,  high-minded  as  he  was,  commended 
the  prudent  accommodation  of  Rochester. 


go  to  Ireland,  where  Rochester's  brother  was 
Lord  Lieutenant.  She  warned  the  King  of 
his  danger,  and  freely  told  him;  that,  if  he 
followed  the  advice  of  Catholic  zealots,  he 
would  lose  his  crown.  She  represented  her 
self  as  the  Protestant  martyr;  and  boasted, 
many  years  afterwards,  that  she  had  neither 
changed  her  religion,  like  Lord  Sunderland, 
nor  even  agreed  to  be  present  at  a  disputa 
tion  concerning  its  truth,  like  Lord  Roches 
ter.*  After  the  complete  victory  of  the 
Queen,  Rochester  still  preserved  his  place, 
and  affected  to  represent  himself  as  wholly 
unconcerned  in  the  affair.  Sunderland  kept 
on  decent  terms  with  his  rival,  and  dissem 
bled  his  resentment  at  the  abortive  intrigue 
for  his  removal.  But  the  effects  of  it  were 
decisive:  it  secured  the  power  of  Sunder 
land,  rendered  the  ascendency  of  the  Ca 
tholic  counsellors  irresistible,  gave  them  a 
stronger  impulse  towards  violent  measures, 
and  struck  a  blow  at  the  declining  credit  of 
Rochester,  from  which  it  never  recovered. 
The  removal  of  Halifax  was  the  first  step 
towards  the  new  system  of  administration ; 
the  defeat  of  Rochester  was  the  second.  In 
the  course  of  these  contests,  the  Bishop  of 
London  was  removed  from  the  Privy  Coun 
cil  for  his  conduct  in  the  House  of  Peers; 
several  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
were  dismissed  from  military  as  well  as  civil 
offices  for  their  votes  in  Parliament;  and  the 
place  of  Lord  President  of  the  Council  was 
bestowed  on  Sunderland,  to  add  a  dignity 
which  was  then  thought  wanting  to  his  effi 
cient  office  of  Secretary  of  State. t 

The  Government  now  attempted  to  obtain, 
by  the  judgments  of  courts  of  law,  that  power 
of  appointing  Catholic  officers  which  Parlia 
ment  had  refused  to  sanction.  Instances  had 
occurred  in  which  the  Crown  had  dispensed 
with  the  penalties  of  certain  laws ;  and  the 
recognition  of  this  dispensing  power,  in  the 
case  of  the  Catholic  officers,  by  the  judges, 
appeared  to  be  an  easy  mode  of  establishing 
the  legality  of  their  appointments.  The  King 
was  to  grant  to  every  Catholic  officer  a  dis 
pensation  from  the  penalties  of  the  statutes 
which,  when  adjudged  to  be  agreeable  to 
law  by  a  competent  tribunal,  might  supply 
the  place  of  a  repeal  of  the  Test  Act.  To 
obtain  the  judgment,  it  was  agreed  that  an 
action  for  the  penalties  should  be  collusively 
brought  against  one  of  these  officers,  which 
would  afford  an  opportunity  to  the  judges  to 
determine  that  the  dispensation  was  legal. 
The  plan  had  been  conceived  at  an  earlier 
period,  since  (as  has  been  mentioned)  one 
of  the  reasons  of  the  prorogation  was  an 


*  Halifax  MSS. 

t  These  intrigues  are  very  fully  related  by  Bon- 
repaux,  a  French  minister  of  lalent,  at  that  time 
sent  on  a  secret  mission  to  London,  and  by  Baril- 
lon  in  his  ordinary  communications  to  the  King. 
The  despatches  of  the  French  ministers  afford  a 
new  proof  of  the  good  information  of  Burnet ;  but 
neither  he  nor  Reresby  was  aware  of  the  connec 
tion  of  the  intrigue  with  the  triumph  of  Sunder 
land  over  Rochester. 


292 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


apprehension  lest  the  terrors  of  Parliament 
might  obtain  from  the  judges  an  irrevocable 
opinion  against  the  prerogative.  No  doubt 
seems  to  have  been  entertained  of  the  com 
pliance  of  jnagistrates,  who  owed  their  sta 
tion  to  the  King,  who  had  recently  incurred 
so  much  odium  in  his  service,  and  who  were 
removable  at  his  pleasure.*  He  thought  it 
necessary,  however,  to  ascertain  their  senti 
ments.  His  expectations  of  their  unanimity 
were  disappointed.  Sir  John  Jones,  who  had 
presided  at  the  trial  of  Mrs.  Gaunt,  Mon 
tague,  who  had  accompanied  Jeffreys  in  his 
circuit,  Sir  Job  Charlton,  a  veteran  royalist 
of  approved  zeal  for  the  prerogative,  together 
with  Neville,  a  baron  of  the  Exchequer,  de 
clared  their  inability  to  comply  with  the  de 
sires  of  the  King.  Jones  answered  him  with 
dignity  worthy  of  more  spotless  conduct : — 
"  I  am  not  sorry  to  be  removed.  It  is  a  re 
lief  to  a  man  old  and  worn  out  as  I  am.  But 
I  am  sorry  that  your  Majesty  should  have 
expected  a  judgment  from  me  which  none 
but  indigent,  ignorant,  or  ambitious  men 
could  give."  James,  displeased  at  this 
freedom,  answered,  that  he  would  find 
twelve  judges  of  his  opinion.  "Twelve 
judges,  Sir,"  replied  Jones,  "  you  may  find; 
but  hardly  twelve  lawyers."  However 
justly  these  judges  are  to  be  condemned 
for  their  former  disregard  to  justice  and  hu 
manity,  they  deserve  great  commendation 
for  having,  on  this  critical  occasion,  retained 
their  respect  for  law.  James  possessed  that 
power  of  dismissing  his  judges  which  Louis 
XIV.  did  not  enjoy;  and  he  immediately 
exercised  it  by  removing  the  uncomplying 
magistrates,  together  with  two  others  who 
held  the  same  obnoxious  principles.  On  the 
21st  of  April,  the  day  before  the  courts  were 
to  assemble  in  Westminster  for  their  ordi 
nary  term,  the  new  judges  were  appointed  ; 
among  whom,  by  a  singular  hazard,  was 
a  brother  of  the  immortal  John  Milton, 
named  Christopher,  then  in  the  seventieth 
year  of  his  age,  who  is  not  known  to  have 
had  any  other'  pretension  except  that  of 
having  secretly  conformed  to  the  Church  of 
Rome.t 

Sir  Edward  Hales,  a  Kentish  gentleman 
who  had  been  secretly  converted  to  Popery 
at  Oxford  by  his  tutor,  Obadiah  Walker,  of 
University  College  (himself  a  celebrated 
convert),  was  selected  to  be  the  principal 
actor  in  the  legal  pageant  for  which  the 
Bench  had'  been  thus  prepared..  He  was 
publicly  reconciled  to  the  Church  of  Rome 

"  Les  juges  declareront  qu'il  est  la  preroga 
tive  da  Roi  de  dispenser  des  peines  portees  par  la 
loi."f  Barillon,  3d  Dec.— Fox  MSS. 

t  The  conversion  of. Sir  Christopher  is,  indeed, 
denied  by  Dodd,  the  very  accurate  historian  of  the 
English  Catholics. — Church  History,  vol.  iii.  p. 
416.  To  the  former  concurrence  of  all  contempo 
raries  we  may  now  add  that  of  Evelyn  (vol.  i.  p. 
590,)  and  Narcissus  Luttrell.  "  All  the  judges," 
says  the  latter,  "  except  Mr.  Baron  Milton,  took 
the  oaths  in  the  Court  of  Chancery.  But  he,  it 
Baid,  owns  himself  a  Roman  Catholic." — MSS. 
Diary,  8th  June. 


|  on  the  llth  of  November,  1685;*  he  was 
appointed  to  the  command  of  a  regiment  on 
the  28th of  the  same  month;  and  a  dispen 
sation  passed  the  Great  Seal  on  the  9th  of 
January  following,  to  enable  him  to  hold  his 
commission  without  either  complying  with 
the  conditions  or  incurring  the  penalties  of 
the  statute.  On  the  16th  of  June,  the  case 
was  tried  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  in 
the  form  of  an  action  brought  against  him 
by  Godden,  his  coachman,  to  recover  the 
penalty  granted  by  the  statute  to  a  common 
informer,  for  holding  a  military  commission 
without  having  taken  the  oaths  or  the  sacra 
ment.  The  facts  were  admitted;  the  de 
fence  rested  on  the  dispensation,  and  the 
case  turned  on  its  validity.  Northey,  the 
counsel  for  Godden,  argued  the  case  so  faintly 
and  coldly,  that  he  scarcely  dissembled  his 
desire  and  expectation  of  a  judgment  against 
his  pretended  client.  Sir  Edward  Herbert, 
the  Chief  Justice,  a  man  of  virtue,  but  with 
out  legal  experience  or  knowledge,  who  had 
adopted  the  highest  monarchical  principles, 
had  been  one  of  the  secret  advisers  of  the 
exercise  of  the  dispensing  power:  in  his 
court  he  accordingly  treated  the  validity  of 
the  dispensation  as  a  point  of  no  difficulty, 
but  of  such  importance  that  it  was  proper 
for  him  to  consult  all  the  other  judges  re 
specting  it.  On  the  21st  of  June,  after  only 
five  days  of  seeming  deliberation  had  been 
allowed  to  a  question  on  the  decision  of 
which  the  liberties  of  the  kingdom  at  that 
moment  depended,  he  delivered  the  opinion 
of  all  the  judges  except  Street, — who  finally 
dissented  from  his  brethren, — in  favour  of 
the  dispensation.  At  a  subsequent  period, 
indeed,  two  other  judges,  Powell  and  Atkyns, 
affirmed  that  they  had  dissented,  and  another, 
named  Lutwych,  declared  that  he  had  only 
assented  with  limitations.!  But  as  these 
magistrates  did  not  protest  at  the  time  against 
Herbert's  statement, — as  they  delayed" their 
public  dissent  until  it  had  become  dishonour 
able,  and  perhaps  unsafe,  to  have  agreed  with 
the  majority,  no  respect  is  due  to  their  con 
duct,  even  if  their  assertion  should  be  believed. 
Street,  who  gained  great  popularity  by  his 
strenuous  resistance,!'  remained  a  judge  du 
ring  the  whole  reign  of  James;  he  was  not 
admitted  to  the  presence  of  King  William,  § 
nor  re-appointed  after  the  Revolution  : — cir 
cumstances  which,  combined  vrith  some 
intimations  unfavourable  to  his  general  cha 
racter,  suggest  a  painful  suspicion,  that  the 
only  judge  who  appeared  faithful  to  his  trust 
was,  in  truth,  the  basest  of  all,  and  that  his  dis 
sent  was  prompted  or  tolerated  by  the  Court, 

*  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  451. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  18th  June,  ]689. 

t  "  Mr.  Justice  Street  has  lately  married  a 
wife,  with  a  good  fortune,  since  his  opinion  on 
the  dispensing  power." — Narcissus  Luttrell,  Oct. 
1686. 

$  "  The  Prince  of  Orange  refused  to  see  Mr. 
Justice  Street.  Lord  Coote  said  he  was  a  very 
ill  man." — Clarendon,  Diary,  27th  December, 
1688. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


293 


in  order  to  give  a  false  appearance  of  inde 
pendence  to  the  acts  of  the  degraded  judges. 
In  shortly  stating  the  arguments  which 
were  employed  on  both  sides  of  this  ques 
tion,  it  is  not  within  the  province  of  the  his 
torian  to  imitate  the  laborious  minuteness 
of  a  lawyer:  nor  is  it  consistent  with  the 
faith  of  history  to  ascribe  reasons  to  the 
parties  more  refined  and  philosophical  than 
could  probably  have  occurred  to  them,  or 
influenced  the  judgment  of  those  whom 
they  addressed.  The  only  specious  argu 
ment  of  the  advocates  of  prerogative  arose 
from  certain  cases  in  which  the  dispensing 
power  had  been  exercised  by  the  Crown 
and  apparently  sanctioned  by  courts  of  jus 
tice.  The  case  chiefly  relied  on  was  a  dis 
pensation  from  the  ancient  laws  respecting 
the  annual  nomination  of  sheriffs;  the  last 
of  which,  passed  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,* 
subjected  sheriffs,  who  continued  in  office 
longer  than  a  year,  to  certain  penalties,  and 
declared  all  patents  of  a  contrary  tenor,  even 
though  they  should  contain  an  express  dis 
pensation,  to  be  void.  Henry  VII.,  in  defi 
ance  of  this  statute,  had  granted  a  patent  to 
the  Earl  of  Northumberland  to  be  sheriff  of 
that  county  for  life;  and  the  judges  in  the 
second  year  of  his  reign  declared  that  the 
Earl's  appointment  was  valid.  It  has  been 
doubted  whether  there  was  any  such  deter 
mination  in  that  case  ;  and  it  has  been  urged, 
with  great  appearance  of  reason,  that,  if 
made,  it  proceeded  on  some  exceptions  in 
the  statute,  and  not  on  the  unreasonable 
doctrine,  that  an  Act  of  Parliament,  to  which 
the  King  was  a  party,  could  not  restrain  his 
prerogative.  These  are,  however,  conside 
rations  which  are  rather  important  to  the 
character  of  those  ancient  judges  than  to  the 
authority  of  the  precedent.  If  they  did 
determine  that  the  King  had  a  right  to  dis 
pense  with  a  statute,  which  had  by  express 
words  deprived  him  of  such  a  right,  so  egre- 
giously  absurd  a  judgment,  probably  pro 
ceeding  from  base  subserviency,  was  more 
fit  to  be  considered  as  a  warning,  than  as  a 
precedent  by  the  judges  of  succeeding  times. 
Two  or  three  subsequent  cases  were  cited  in 
aid  of  this  early  precedent.  But  they  either 
related  to  the  remission  of  penalties  in  of 
fences  against  the  revenue,  which  stood  on 
a  peculiar  ground,  or  they  were  founded  on 
the  supposed  authority  of  the  first  case,  and 
must  fall  with  that  unreasonable  determina 
tion.  Neither  the  unguarded  expressions  of 
Sir  Edward  Coke,  nor  the  admissions  inci 
dentally  made  by  Serjeant  Glanville,  in 
the  debates  on  the  Petition  of  Right,  on 
a  point  not  material  to  his  argument,  could 
deserve  to  be  seriously  discussed  as  authori 
ties  on  so  momentous  a  question.  Had  the 
precedents  been  more  numerous,  and  less 
unreasonable, — had  the  opinions  been  more 
deliberate,  and  more  uniform,  they  never 
could  be  allowed  to  decide  such  a  case. 
Though  the  constitution  of  England  had  been 

*  23  Hen.  VI.  c.  7. 


from  the  earliest  times  founded  on  the  prin 
ciples  of  civil  and  political  liberty,  the  prac 
tice  of  the  government,  and  even  the  admi 
nistration  of  the  law  had  often  departed  very 
widely  from  these  sacred  principles.  In  the 
best  times,  and  under  the  most  regular  go 
vernments,  we  find  practices  to  prevail  which 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  principles  of  a 
free  constitution.  During  the  dark  and  tu 
multuous  periods  of  English  history,  kings 
had  been  allowed  to  do  many  acts,  which, 
if  they  were  drawn  into  precedents,  would 
be  subversive  of  public  liberty.  It  is  by  an 
appeal  to  such  precedents,  that  the  claim  to 
dangerous  prerogatives  has  been  usually  jus 
tified.  The  partisans  of  Charles  I.  could  not 
deny  that  the  Great  Charter  had  forbidden 
arbitrary  imprisonment,  and  levy  of  money 
without  the  consent  of  Parliament.  But  in 
the  famous  cases  of  imprisonment  by  the 
personal  command  of  the  King,  and  of  levy 
ing  a  revenue  by  writs  of  Ship-money,  they 
thought  that  they  had  discovered  a  means, 
without  denying  either  of  these  principles, 
of  universally  superseding  their  application. 
Neither  in  these  great  cases,  nor  in  the 
equally  memorable  instance  of  the  dispensing 
po\ver,  were  the  precedents  such  as  justified 
the  conclusion.  If  law  could  ever  be  allowed 
to  destroy  liberty,  it  would  at  least  be  neces 
sary  that  it  should  be  sanctioned  by  clear, 
frequent,  and  weighty  determinations,  by 
general  concurrence  of  opinion  after  free  and 
full  discussion,  and  by  the  long  usage  of 
good  times.  But,  as  in  all  doubtful  cases 
relating  to  the  construction  of  the  most  un 
important  statute,  we  consider  its  spirit  and 
object ;  so,  when  the  like  questions  arise  on 
the  most  important  part  of  law,  called  the 
constitution,  we  must  try  obscure  and  con 
tradictory  usage  by  constitutional  principles, 
instead  of  sacrificing  these  principles  to  such 
usage.  The  advocates  of  prerogative,  in 
deed,  betrayed  a  consciousness,  that  they 
were  bound  to  reconcile  their  precedents 
with  reason ;  for  they,  too,  appealed  to  prin 
ciples  which  they  called  "constitutional/7 
A  dispensing  power,  they  said,  must  exist 
somewhere,  to  obviate  the  inconvenience 
and  oppression  which  might  arise  from  the 
infallible  operation  of  law;  and  where  can 
it  exist  but  in  the  Crown,  which  exercises 
the  analogous  power  of  pardon  1  It  was 
answered,  that  the  difficulty  never  can  exist 
in  the  English  Constitution,  where  all  neces 
sary  or  convenient  powers  may  be  either  ex 
ercised  or  conferred  by  the  supreme  authority 
of  Parliament.  The  judgment  in  favour  of 
the  dispensing  power  was  finally  rested  by 
the  judges  on  still  more  general  propositions, 
which,  if  they  had  any  meaning,  were  far 
more  alarming  than  the  judgment  itself. 
They  declared,  that  "  the  Kings  of  England 
are  sovereign  princes;  that  the  laws  of  Eng 
land  are  the  King's  laws;  that,  therefore,  it 
is  an  inseparable  prerogative  in  the  King  of 
England  to  dispense  with  penal  laws  in  par 
ticular  cases,  and  on  particular  necessary 
reasons,  of  which  reasons  and  necessities  ho 
z  2 


294 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


is  the  sole  judge;  that  this  is  not  a  trust 
vested  in  the  King,  but  the  ancient  remains 
of  the  sovereign  power  of  the  Kings  of  Eng 
land,  which  never  yet  was  taken  from  them, 
nor  can  be."*  These  propositions  had  either 
no  meaning  pertinent  to  the  case,  or  they  led 
to  the  establishment  of  absolute  monarchy. 
The  laws  were,  indeed,  said  to  be  the  King's, 
inasmuch  as  he  was  the  chief  and  represen 
tative  of  the  commonwealth — as  they  were 
contradistinguished  from  those  of  any  other 
State, — and  as  he  had  a  principal  part  in 
their  enactment,  and  the  whole  trust  of  their 
execution.  These  expressions  were  justi 
fiable  and  innocent,  as  long  as  they  were 
employed  to  denote  that  decorum  and  cour 
tesy  which  are  due  to  the  regal  magistracy  : 
but  if  they  are  considered  in  any  other  light, 
they  proved  much  more  than  the  judges 
dared  to  avow.  If  the  King  might  dispense 
with  the  laws,  because  they  \vere  his  laws, 
he  might  for  the  same  reason  suspend,  re 
peal,  or  enact  them.  The  application  of 
these  dangerous  principles  to  the  Test  Act 
was  attended  with  the  peculiar  absurdity  of 
attributing  to  the  King  a  power  to  dispense 
with  provisions  of  a  law,  which  had  been 
framed  for  the  avowed  and  sole  purpose  of 
limiting  his  authority.  The  law  had  not 
hitherto  disabled  a  Catholic  from  filling  the 
throne.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  the  next  per 
son  in  succession  to  the  Crown  was  discovered 
to  be  a  Catholic,  it  was  deemed  essential  to 
the  safety  of  the  Established  religion  to  take 
away  from  the  Crown  the  means  of  being 
served  by  Catholic  ministers.  The  Test  Act 
was  passed  to  prevent  a  Catholic  successor 
from  availing  himself  of  the  aid  of  a  party, 
whose  outward  badge  was  adherence  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  who  were  se 
conded  by  powerful  allies  in  other  parts  of 
Europe,  in  overthrowing  the  Constitution,  the 
Protestant  Church,  and  at  last  even  the  li 
berty  of  Protestants  to  perform  their  worship 
and  profess  their  faith.  To  ascribe  to  that 
very  Catholic  successor  the  right  of  dispen 
sing  with  all  the  securities  provided  against 
such  dangers  arising  from  himself,  was  to 
impute  the  most  extravagant  absurdity  to 
the  laws.  It  might  be  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  principle  of  the  Test  Act,  which 
was  intended  to  provide  against  temporary 
dangers,  to  propose  its  repeal  under  a  Pro 
testant  prince:  but  it  is  altogether  impossible 
that  its  framers  could  have  considered  a 
power  of  dispensing  with  its  conditions  as 
being- vested  in  the  Catholic  successor  whom 
it  was  meant  to  bind.  Had  these  objections 
been  weaker,  the  means  employed  by  the 
King  to  obtain  a  judgment  in  his  favour 
rendered  the  whole  of  this  judicial  proceed 
ing  a  gross  fraud,  in  \vhich  judges  professing 
impartiality  had  been  named  by  one  of  the 
parties  to  a  question  before  them,  after  he 
had  previously  ascertained  their  partiality  to 
him,  and  effectually  secured  it  by  the  ex 
ample  of  the  removal  of  more  independent 


*  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  1199. 


ones.  The  character  of  Sir  Edward  Herbert 
makes  it  painful  to  disbelieve  his  assertion, 
that  he  was  unacquainted  with  these  undue 
practices  ]  but  the  notoriety  of  the  facts  seem 
to  render  it  quite  incredible.  In  the  same 
defence  of  his  conduct  which  contains  this 
assertion,  there  is  another  unfortunate  de 
parture  from  fairness.  He  rests  his  defence 
entirely  on  precedents,  and  studiously  keeps 
out  of  view  the  dangerous  principles  which 
he  had  laid  down  from  the  bench  as  the 
foundation  of  his  judgment.  Public  and 
selemn  declarations,  which  ought  to  be  the 
most  sincere,  are,  unhappily,  among  the  most 
disingenuous  of  human  professions.  This  cir 
cumstance,  which  so  much  weakens  the 
bonds  of  faith  between  men,  is  not  so  much 
to  be  imputed  to  any  peculiar  depravity  in 
those  who  conduct  public  affairs,  as  to  the 
circumstances  in  which  official  declarations 
are  usually  made.  They  are  generally  re 
sorted  to  in  times  of  difficulty,  if  not  of 
danger,  and  are  often  sure  of  being  counte 
nanced  for  the  time  by  a  numerous  body  of 
adherents.  Public  advantage  covers  false 
hood  with  a  more  decent  disguise  than  mere 
private  interest  can  supply;  and  the  vague 
ness  of  official  language  always  affords  the 
utmost  facilities  for  reserve  and  equivocation. 
But  these  considerations,  though  they  may, 
in  some  small  degree,  extenuate  the  disin- 
genuousness  of  politicians,  must,  in  the  same 
proportion,  lessen  the  credit  which  is  due  to 
their  affirmations.* 

After  this  determination,  the  judges  on 
their  circuit  were  not  received  with  the  ac 
customed  honours.t  Agreeably  to  the  me 
morable  observations  of  Lord  Clarendon  in 
the  case  of  Ship-money,  they  brought  dis 
grace  upon  themselves,  and  weakness  upon 
the  whole  government,  by  that  base  com 
pliance  which  \vas  intended  to  arm  the 
monarch  with  undue  and  irresistible  strength. 
The  people  of  England,  peculiarly  distin 
guished  by  that  reverence  for  the  law,  and 
its  upright  ministers,  which  is  inspired  by 
the  love  of  liberty,  have  always  felt  the  most 
cruel  disappointment,  and  manifested  the 
warmest  indignation,  at  seeing  the  judges 
converted  into  instruments  of  oppression  or 
usurpation.  These  proceedings  were  viewed 
in  a  very  different  light  by  the  ministers  of 
absolute  princes.  D'Adda  only  informed  the 
Papal  Court  that  the  King  had  removed  from 
office  some  contumacious  judges,  who  had 
refused  to  conform  to  justice  and  reason  on 
the  subject  of  the  King's  dispensing  power  :J 
and  so  completely  was  the  spirit  of  France 
then  subdued,  that  Barillon,  the  son  of  the 
President  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris, — the 


*  The  arguments  on  this  question  are  contained 
in  the  tracts  of  Sir  Edward  Herbert,  Sir  "Robert 
Atkyns,  and  Mr.  Attwood,  published  after  the 
Revolution. — State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  1200.  That 
of  Attwood  is  the  most  distinguished  for  acute- 
ness  and  research.  Sir  Edward  Herbert's  ia 
feebly  reasoned,  though  elegantly  written. 

t  Narcissus  Luttrell,  16th  August,  1686. 

t  D'Adda,  3d  May.— MS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


295 


native  of  a  country  where  the  independence 
of  the  great  tribunals  had  survived  every 
other  remnant  of  ancient  liberty, — describes 
the  removal  of  judges  for  their  legal  opinions 
as  coolly  as  if  he  were  -speaking  of  the  dis 
missal  of  an  exciseman.* 

The  King,  having,  by  the  decision  of  the 
judges,  obtained  the  power  of  placing  the 
military  and  civil  authority  in  the  hands  of 
his  own  devoted  adherents,  now  resolved  to 
exercise  that  power,  by  nominating  Catholics 
to  stations  of  high  trust,  and  to  reduce  the 
Church  of  England  to  implicit  obedience  by- 
virtue  of  his  ecclesiastical  supremacy.  Both 
these  measures  were  agreed  to  at  Hampton 
Court  on  the  4th  of  July;  at  which  result  he 
showed  the  utmost  complacency. t  It  is 
necessary  to  give  some  explanation  of  the 
nature  of  the  second,  which  formed  one  of 
the  most  effectual  and  formidable  measures 
of  his  reign. 

When  Henry  VIII.  was  declared  at  the 
Reformation  to  be  the  supreme  head  of  the 
Church  of  England,  no  attempt  was  made  to 
define,  with  any  tolerable  precision,  the  au 
thority  to  be  exercised  by  him  in  that  cha 
racter.  The  object  of  the  lawgiver  was  to 
shake  off  the  authority  of  the  See  of  Rome, 
and  to  make  effectual  provision  that  all  ec 
clesiastical  power  and  jurisdiction  should  be 
administered,  like  every  other  part  of  the 
public  justice  of  the  kingdom,  in  the  name 
and  by  the  authority  of  the  King.  That  ob 
ject  scarcely  required  more  than  a  declaration 
that  the  realm  was  as  independent  of  foreign 
power  in  matters  relating  to  the  Church  as 
in  any  other  branch  of  its  legislation. J  That 
simple  principle  is  distinctly  intimated  in 
several  of  the  statutes  passed  on  that  occa 
sion,  though  not  consistently  pursued  in  any 
of  them.  The  true  principles  of  ecclesiasti 
cal  polity  were  then  nowhere  acknowledged. 
The  Court  of  Rome  was  far  from  admitting 
the  self-evident  truth,  that  all  coercive  and 
penal  jurisdiction  exercised  by  the  clergy 
was,  in  its  nature,  a  branch  of  the  civil 
power  delegated  to  them  by  the  State,  and 
that  the  Church  as  such  could  exercise  only 
that  influence  (metaphorically  called  "au 
thority")  over  the  understanding  and  con 
science  which  depended  on  the  spontaneous 
submission  of  its  members :  the  Protestant 
sects  were  not  willing  to  submit  their  pre 
tensions  to  the  control  of  the  magistrate : 
and  even  the  Reformed  Church  of  England, 
though  the  creature  of  statute,  showed,  at 
various  times,  a  disposition  to  claim  some 
rights  under  a  higher  title.  All  religious 
communities  were  at  that  time  alike  intole 
rant,  and  there  was,  perhaps,  no  man  in 
Europe  who  dared  to  think  that  the  State 
neither  possessed,  nor  could  delegate,  nor 
could  recognise  as  inherent  in  another  body 
any  authority  over  religious  opinions.  Nei- 

*  Barillon,  29th  April.— Fox  MSS. 

t  D'Adda,  20th  July.— MS. 

t  24  Hen.  VIII.  c.  12.  25  Hen.  VIII.  c.  21. 
See  especially  the  preambles  to  these  two  sta 
tutes. 


ther  was  any  distinction  made  in  the  laws 
to  which  we  have  adverted,  between  the  ec 
clesiastical  authority  which  the  King  might 
separately  exercise  and  that  which  required 
the  concurrence  of  Parliament.  From  igno- 
ance,  inattention,  and  timidity,  in  regard  to 
hese  important  parts  of  the  subject,  arose 
he  greater  part  of  the  obscurity  which  still 
langs  over  the  limits  of  the  King's  ecclesi 
astical  prerogative  and  the  means  of  carrying 
t  into  execution.  The  statute  of  the  first  of 
Elizabeth,  which  established  the  Protestant 
Church  of  England,  enacted  that  the  Crown 
should  have  power,  by  virtue  of  that  act.  to 
exercise  its  supremacy  by  Commissioners 
for  Ecclesiastical  Causes,  nominated  by  the 
sovereign,  and  vested  with  uncertain  and 
questionable,  but  very  dangerous  powers,  for 
the  execution  of  a  prerogative  of  which  nei 
ther  lav/  nor  experience  had  defined  the 
limits.  Under  the  reigns  of  James  and 
harles  this  court  had  become  the  auxiliary 
and  rival  of  the  Star  Chamber;  and  its  abo 
lition  was  one  of  the  wisest  of  those  mea 
sures  of  reformation  by  which  the  Parliament 
of  1641  had  signalised  the  first  and  happiest 
period  of  their  proceedings.*  At  the  Resto 
ration,  when  the  Church  of  England  was  re 
established,  a  part  of  the  Act  for  the  Aboli 
tion  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission,  taking 
away  coercive  power  from  all  ecclesiastical 
judges  and  persons,  was  repealed  ;  but  the 
clauses  for  the  abolition  of  the  obnoxious 
court,  and  for  prohibiting  the  erection  of  any 
similar  court,  were  expressly  re-affirmed  .t 
Such  was  the  state  of  the  law  on  this  sub 
ject  when  James  conceived  the  design  of  em 
ploying  his  authority  as  head  of  the  Church 
of  England,  as  a  means  of  subjecting  that 
Church  to  his  pleasure,  if  not  of  finally  de 
stroying  it.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  how  he 
could  reconcile  to  his  religion  the  exercise 
of  supremacy  in  a  heretical  sect,  and  thus 
sanction  by  his  example  the  usurpations  of 
the  Tudors  on  the  rights  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  It  is  equally  difficult  to  conceive 
how  he  reconciled  to  his  morality  the  em 
ployment,  for  the  destruction  of  a  commu 
nity,  of  a  power  with  which  he  was  intrusted 
by  that  community  for  its  preservation.  But 
the  fatal  error  of  believing  it  to  be  lawful  to 
use  bad  means  for  good  ends  was  not  pecu 
liar  to  James,  nor  to  the  zealots  of  his  com 
munion.  He,  indeed,  considered  the  eccle 
siastical  supremacy  as  placed  in  his  hands 
by  Providence  to  enable  him  to  betray  the 
Protestant  establishment.  "God,"  said  he 
to  Barillon,  "  has  permitted  that  all  the  laws 
made  to  establish  Protestantism  now  serve 
as  a  foundation  for  my  measures  to  re-esta 
blish  true  religion,  and  give  me  a  right  to 
exercise  a  more  extensive  power  than  other 
Catholic  princes  possess  in  the  ecclesiastical 
affairs  of  their  dominions. "t  He  found  legal 
advisers  ready  with  paltry  expedients  for 
evading  the  two  statutes  of  1641  and  1660, 


*  17  Car.  I.  c.  11.  t  13  Car.  II.  c.  12. 

t  Barillon,  22d  July,  1686.— Fox  MSS. 


296 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


under  the  futile  pretext  that  they  forbad  only 
a  court  vested  with  such  powers  of  corporal 
punishment  as  had  been  exercised  by  the 
old  Court  of  High  Commission;  and  in  con 
formity  to  their  pernicious  counsel,  he  issued, 
in  July,  a  commission  to  certain  ministers, 
prelates,  and  judges,  to  act  as  a  Court  of 
Commissioners  in  Ecclesiastical  Causes.  The 
first  purpose  of  this  court  was  to  enforce  di 
rections  to  preachers,  issued  by  the  King, 
enjoining  them  to  abstain  from  preaching  on 
controverted  questions.  It  must  be  owned 
that  an  enemy  of  the  Protestant  religion, 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  Church,  could  not 
adopt  a  more  perfidious  measure.  He  well 
knew  that  the  Protestant  clergy  alone  could 
consider  his  orders  as  of  any  authority :  those 
of  his  own  persuasion,  totally  exempt  from 
his  supremacy,  would  pursue  their  course, 
secure  of  protection  from  him  against  the 
dangers  of  penal  law.  The  Protestant  clergy 
were  forbidden  by  their  enemy  to  maintain 
their  religion  by  argument,  Avhen  they  justly 
regarded  it  as  being  in  the  greatest  danger : 
they  disregarded  the  injunction,  and  carried 
on  the  controversy  against  Popery  with  equal 
ability  and  success. 

Among  many  others,  Sharpe,  Dean  of 
Norwich,  had  distinguished  himself;  and  he 
was  selected  for  punishment,  on  pretence 
that  he  had  aggravated  his  disobedience  by 
intemperate  language,  and  by  having  spoken 
contemptuously  of  the  understanding  of  all 
who  could  be  seduced  by  the  arguments 
for  Popery,  including  of  necessity  the  King 
himself, — as  if  it  were  possible  for  a  man 
of  sincerity  to  speak  on  subjects  of  the  deep 
est  importance  without  a  correspondent  zeal 
and  waYmth.  The  mode  of  proceeding  to 
punishment  was  altogether  summary  and  ar 
bitrary.  Lord  Sunderland  communicated  to 
the  Bishop  of  London  the  King's  commands, 
to  suspend  Sharpe  from  preaching.  The 
Bishop  answered  that  he  could  proceed  only 
in  a  judicial  manner. — that  he  must  hear 
Sharpe  in  his  defence  before  such  a  suspen 
sion,  but  that  Sharpe  was  ready  to  give 
every  proof  of  deference  to  the  King.  The 
Court,  incensed  at  the  parliamentary  conduct 
of  the  Bishop,  saw,  with  great  delight,  that 
he  had  given  them  an  opportunity  to  humble 
and  mortify  him.  Sunderland  boasted  to  the 
Papal  minister,  that  the  case  of  that  Bishop 
would  be  a  great  example.*  He  was  sum 
moned  before  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission, 
and  required  to  answer  why  he  had  not 
obeyed  his  Majesty's  commands  to  suspend 
Sharpe  for  seditious  preaching.f  The  Bishop 
conducted  himself  with  considerable  address. 
After  several  adjournments  he  tendered  a 
plea  to  the  jurisdiction,  founded  on  the  ille- 

"II  Re,  sommamente  intento  a  levare  gli  os- 
tacolL  clie  possono  impedire  I'avanzamenfo  della 
religione  Cattolica,  a  trovato  il  mezzo  piu  atto  a 
mortificare  il  maltalento  di  Vescovo  di  Londra. 
Sara  un  gran  buono  e  un  gran  esempio,  come  mi 
ha  detto  Milord  Sunderland."  D'Adda,  12th 
July.— MSS. 
t  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  1158. 


gality  of  their  commission ;  and  he  was 
heard  by  his  counsel  in  vindication  of  his 
refusal  to  suspend  an  accused  clergyman 
until  he  had  been  heard  in  his  own  defence. 
The  King  took  a  warm  interest  in  the  pro 
ceedings,  and  openly  showed  his  joy  at  be 
ing  in  a  condition  to  strike  bold  strokes  of 
authority.  He  received  congratulations  on 
that  subject  with  visible  pleasure,  and  assured 
the  French  minister  that  the  same  vigorous 
system  should  be  inflexibly  pursued.*  He 
did  not  conceal  his  resolution  to  remove  any 
of  the  commissioners  who  should  not  do  il  his 
duty."f  The  princess  of  Orange  interceded  in 
vain  with  the  King  for  her  preceptor,  Comp- 
ton.  The  influence  of  the  Church  party  was 
also  strenuously  exerted  for  that  prelate. 
They  were  not.  indeed,  aided  by  the  Primate 
Sancroft,  who,  instead  of  either  attending  as 
a  commissioner  to  support  the  Bishop  of 
London,  or  openly  protesting  against  the 
illegality  of  the  court,  petitioned  for  and 
obtained  from  the  King  leave  to  be  excused 
from  attendance  on  the  ground  of  age  and 
infirmities. J  By  this  irresolute  and  equivocal 
conduct  the  Archhishop  deserted  the  Church 
in  a  moment  of  danger,  and  yet  incurred  the 
displeasure  of  the  King.  Lord  Rochester  re 
sisted  the  suspension,  and  was  supported  by 
Spratt,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  and  Sir  Edward 
Herbert.  Even  Jeffreys,  for  the  first  time, 
inclined  towards  the  milder  opinion:  for  nei 
ther  his  dissolute  life,  nor  his  judicial  cruelty, 
however  much  at  variance  with  the  princi 
ples  of  religion,  were,  it  seems,  incompatible 
with  that  fidelity  to  the  Church,  which  on 
this  and  some  subsequent  occasions  prevailed 
over  his  zeal  for  prerogative.  A  majority  of 
the  commissioners  were  for  some  time  fa 
vourable  to  Compton  :  Sunderland,  and  Crew, 
Bishop  of  Durham,  were  the  only  members 
of  the  commission  who  seconded  the  projects 
of  the  King.§  The  presence  or  protest  of  the 
Primate  might  have  produced  the  most  de 
cisive  effects.  Sunderland  represented  the 
authority  of  Government  as  interested  in  the 
judgment,  which,  if  it  were  not  rigorous, 
would  secure  a  triumph  to  a  disobedient 
prelate,  who  had  openly  espoused  the  cause 
of  faction.  Rochester  at  length  yielded,  in 
the  presence  of  the  King,  to  whatever  his  Ma 
jesty  might  determine,  giving  it  to  be  under 
stood  that  he  acted  against  his  own  convic- 


*  Barillon,  29th  July.— Fox  MSS. 

t  Barillon,  1st  August.— Fox  MSS. 

t  This  petition  (in  the  appendix  to  Clarendon's 
Diary)  is  without  a  date ;  but  it  is  a  formal  one, 
which  seems  to  imply  a  regular  summons.  No 
such  summons  could  have  issued  before  the  14th 
July,  on  which  day  Evelyn,  as  one  of  the  Com 
missioners  of  the  Privy  Seal,  affixed  it  to  the 
Ecclesiastical  Commission.  Bancroft's  ambigious 
petition  was  therefore  subsequent  to  his  knowledge 
of  Compton's  danger,  so  that  the  excuse  of  Dr. 
D'Oyley  (Life  of  Sancroft,  vol.  i.  p.  225,)  cannot 
be  allowed. 

§  "  L'Archevesque  de  Canterbury  s'etoit  ex 
cuse  de  se  trouver  a  la  Commission  Ecclesiastique 
BUT  sa  mauvaise  sante  et  son  grand  age.  On  a 
pris  aussi  ce  pretexte  pour  1'exclure  de  la  seance 
de  conseil."  Barillon,  21st  Oct.— Fox  MSS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


297 


tion.*  His  followers  made  no  longer  any  stand, 
after  seeing  the  leader  of  their  party,  and  the 
Lord  High  Treasurer  of  England,  set  the  ex 
ample  of  sacrificing  his  opinion  as  a  judge,  in 
favour  of  lenity,  to  the  pleasure  of  the  King; 
and  the  court  finally  pronounced  sentence  of 
suspension  on  the  Bishop  against  the  declared 
opinion  of  three  fourths  of  its  members. 

The  attempts  of  James  to  bestow  tolera 
tion  on  his  Catholic  subjects  would,  doubt 
less,  in  themselves,  deserve  high  commenda 
tion,  if  we  could  consider  them  apart  from 
the  intentions  which  they  manifested,  and 
from  the  laws  of  which  they  were  a  contin 
ued  breach.  But  zealous  Protestants,  in  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  time,  were, 
with  reason,  disposed  to  regard  them  as 
measures  of  hostility  against  their  religion ; 
and  some  of  them  must  always  be  consid 
ered  as  daring  or  ostentatious  manifestations 
of  a  determined  purpose  to  exalt  prerogative 
above  law.  A  few  days  after  the  resolution 
of  the  Council  for  the  admission  of  Catholics 
to  high  civil  trust,  the  first  step  was  made  to 
its  execution  by  the  appointment  of  the  Lords 
Powys,  Arundel,  Bellasis,  and  Dover  to  be 
Privy  Councillors.  In  a  short  time  afterwards 
the  same  honour  was  conferred  on  Talbot.  who 
was  created  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  and  destined 
to  be  the  Catholic  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 
Sheffield.  Earl  of  Mulgrave,  a  man  who  pro 
fessed  indifference  in  religion,  but  who  ac 
quiesced  in  all  the  worst  measures  of  this 
reign,  was  appointed  a  member  of  the  Ec 
clesiastical  Commission. t  Cartwright,  Dean 
of  Ripon,  whose  talents  were  disgraced  by 
peculiarly  infamous  vices,  was  raised  to  the 
vacant  bishopric  of  Chester,  in  spite  of  the 
recommendation  of  Sancroft,  who,  when  con 
sulted  by  James,  proposed  Jeffreys,  the  Chan 
cellor's  brother,  for  that  See.t  But  the  merit 
of  Cartwright,  which  prevailed  even  over  that 
connection,  consisted  in  having  preached  a 
sermon,  in  which  he  inculcated  the  courtly 
doctrine,  that  the  promises  of  kings  were 
declarations  of  a  favourable  intention,  not  to 
be  considered  as  morally  binding.  A  reso 
lution  was  taken  to  employ  Catholic  minis 
ters  at  the  two  important  stations  of  Paris 
and  the  Hague; — "it  being."  said  James  to 
Barillon,  "  almost  impossible  to  find  an  Eng 
lish  Protestant  who  had  not  too  great  a  con 
sideration  for  the  Prince  of  Orange. "§  White, 
an  Irish  Catholic  of  considerable  ability,  who 
had  received  the  foreign  title  of  Marquis 
D' Abbeville,  was  sent  to  the  Hague,  partly, 
perhaps,  with  a  view  to  mortify  the  Prince 
of  Orange.  It  was  foreseen  that  the  known 
character  of  this  adventurer  would  induce 
the  Prince  to  make  attempts  to  gain  him; 

*  Barillon,  16th  Sept.  and  23d  Sept.— Fox  MSS.; 
a  full  and  apparently  accurate  account  of  these 
divisions  among  the  commissioners. 

t  D'Adda,  in  his  letter,  1st  Nov.  represents 
Mulgrave  as  favourable  to  the  Catholics. — MS. 

t  D'Oyley,  Life  of  Sancroft,  vol.  i.  p.  235, 
where  the  Archbishop's  letter  to  the  King  (dated 
29th  July,  1685.)  is  printed. 

$  Barillon,  22d  July.— Fox  MSS. 
38 


but  Barillon  advised  his  master  to  make 
liberal  presents  to  the  new  minister,  who 
would  prefer  the  bribes  of  Louis,  because 
the  views  of  that  monarch  agreed  with  those 
of  his  own  sovereign  and  the  interests  of  the 
Catholic  religion.*  James  even  proposed  to 
the  Prince  of  Orange  to  appoint  a  Catholic 
nobleman  of  Ireland,  Lord  Carlingford,  to 
the  command  of  the  British  regiments: — 
a  proposition,  which,  if  accepted,  would  em 
broil  that  Prince  with  all  his  friends  in  Eng 
land,  and  if  rejected,  as  it  must  have  been 
known  that  it  would  be,  gave  the  King  a 
new  pretext  for  displeasure,  to  be  avowed  at 
a  convenient  season. 

But  no  part  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
King  is  so  much  connected  with  our  present 
subject  as  the  renewal  of  that  open  inter 
course  with  the  See  of  Rome  which  was  pro 
hibited  by  the  unrepealed  laws  passed  in  the 
reigns  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth.  D'Adda 
had  arrived  in  England  before  the  meeting 
of  Parliament,  as  the  minister  of  the  Pope, 
but  appeared  at  court,  at  first,  only  as  a  pri 
vate  gentleman.  In  a  short  time,  James  in 
formed  him  that  he  might  assume  the  public 
character  of  his  Holiness'  minister,  with  the 
privilege  of  a  chapel  in  his  house,  and  the 
other  honours  and  immunities  of  that  cha 
racter,  without  going  through  the  formalities 
of  a  public  audience.  The  assumption  of 
this  character  James  represented  as  the  more 
proper,  because  he  \vas  about  to  send  a 
solemn  embassy  to  Rome  as  his  Holiness' 
most  obedient  son.t  D'Adda  professed  great 
admiration  for  the  pious  zeal  and  filial  obedi 
ence  of  the  King,  and  for  his  determination, 
as  far  as  possible,  to  restore  religion  to  her 
ancient  splendour;!  but  he  dreaded  the  pre 
cipitate  measures  to  which  James  \vaa 
prompted  by  his  own  disposition  and  by 
the  party  of  zealots  who  surrounded  him. 
He  did  not  assume  the  public  character  till 
two  months  afterwards,  when  he  received  in 
structions  to  that  effect  from  Rome.  Hitherto 
the  King  had  coloured  his  interchange  of 
ministers  with  the  Roman  Court  under  the 
plausible  pretext  of  maintaining  diplomatic 
intercourse  with  the  government  of  the  Ec 
clesiastical  State  as  much  as  with  the  other 
princes  of  Europe.  But  his  zeal  soon  be 
came  impatient  of  this  slight  disguise.  In  a 
few  days  after  D'Adda  had  announced  his 
intention  to  assume  the  public  character 
of  a  minister,  Sunderland  came  to  him  to 
convey  his  Majesty's  desire  that  he  might 
take  the  title  of  Nuncio,  which  would,  in 


*  "  M.  le  Prince  d' Orange  fera  ce  qu'il  pourra 
pour  la  gager  ;  mais  je  suis  persuade  qu'il  aimera 
mieux  etre  dans  les  interets  de  votre  Majeste, 
sachant  bien  qu'ils  sont  confbrmes  a  ceux  du  Roi 
son  maitre,  et  que  c'est  1'avantage  de  la  religion 
Catholique."  Four  thousand  livres,  which  Ba 
rillon  calculates  as  then  equivalent  to  three  hun 
dred  pounds  sterling,  were  given  to  D' Abbeville 
in  London.  Two  thousand  more  were  to  be  ad 
vanced  to  him  at  the  Hague.  Barillon,  2d  Sept. 
—Fox  MSS. 

t  D'Adda  14th  Dec.  1685.— MS. 

t  Ibid.  31st.  Dec. 


298 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


a  more  formal  and  solemn  manner,  dis 
tinguish  him  from  other  ministers  as  the 
representative  of  the  Apostolic  See.  D'Adda 
was  surprised  at  this  rash  proposal  ;*  about 
which  the  Court  of  Rome  long  hesitated, 
from  aversion  to  the  foreign  policy  of  James, 
from  a  wish  to  moderate  rather  than  encou 
rage  the  precipitation  of  his  domestic  coun 
sels,  and  from  apprehension  of  the  insults 
which  might  be  offered  to  the  Holy  See,  in 
the  sacred  person  of  his  Nuncio,  by  the  tur 
bulent  and  heretical  populace  of  London. 

The  King  had  sent  the  Earl  of  Castlemaine, 
the  husband  of  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  as 
his  ambassador  to  Rome.  "It  seemed  sin 
gular,"  said  Barillon,  '-'that  he  should  have 
chosen  for  such  a  mission  a  man  so  little 
known  on  his  own  account,  and  too  well 
known  on  that  of  his  wife."t  The  ambas- 
dor,  who  had  been  a  polemical  writer  in  the 
defence  of  the  Catholics,t  and  who  was 
almost  the  only  innocent  man  acquitted  on 
the  prosecutions  for  the  Popish  Plot,  seems 
to  have  listened  more  to  zeal  and  resentment 
than  to  discretion  in  the  conduct  of  his  deli 
cate  negotiation.  He  probably  expected  to 
find  nothing  but  religious  zeal  prevalent  in 
the  Papal  councils :  but  Innocent  -XL  was 
influenced  by  his  character  as  a  temporal 
sovereign.  He  considered  James  not  solely 
as  an  obedient  son  of  the  Church,  but  rather 
as  the  devoted  or  subservient  ally  of  Louis 
XtV.  As  Prince  of  the  Roman  state,  he  re 
sented  the  outrages  offered  to  him  by  that 
monarch,  and  partook  with  all  other  states 
the  dread  justly  inspired  by  his  ambition  and 
his  power.  Even  as  head  of  the  Church,  the 
merits  of  Louis  as  the  persecutor  of  the  Pro- 
testants$  did  not,  in  the  eye  of  Innocent,  atone 
for  his  encouraging  the  Gallican  Church  in 
their  recent  resistance  to  the  unlimited  au 
thority  of  the  Roman  Pontiff.  These  dis 
cordant  feelings  and  embroiled  interests, 
which  it  would  have  required  the  utmost  ad 
dress  and  temper  to  reconcile,  were  treated 
by  Castlemaine  with  the  rude  hand  of  an 
inexperienced  zealot.  Hoping,  probably,  to 
be  received  with  open  arms  as  the  forerun 
ner  of  the  reconciliation  of  a  great  kingdom, 
he  was  displeased  at  the  reserve  and  cold 
ness  with  which  the  Pontiff  treated  him ; 
and  instead  of  patiently  labouring  to  over 
come  obstacles  which  he  ought  to  have  fore 
seen,  he  resented  them  with  a  violence  more 
than  commonly  foreign  to  the  decorum  of 
the  Papal  court.  He  was  instructed  to  so 
licit  a  cardinal's  hat  for  Prince  Rinaldo  of 
Este,  the  Queen's  brother; — a  moderate  suit. 

*  D'Adda,  22d  Feb.  1686.  "  lo  resto  alquanto 
sorpreso  da  questa  ambasciata." 

t  Barillon,  29ih  Oct.  1685.— Fox,  app.  p.  cxxii. 

t  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  450. 

$  It  appears  by  the  copy  of  a  letter  in  my  pos 
session  from  Don  Pedro  Ronquillo,  the  Spanish 
ambassador  in  London,  to  Don  Francesco  Ber- 
nado  de  Quixos,  (dated  5th  April,  1686,)  that  In 
nocent,  though  he  publicly  applauded  the  zeal  of 
Louis,  did  not  in  truth  approve  the  revocation  of 
the  Edict  of  Nantes. 


the  consent  to  which  was  for  a  considerable 
time  retarded  by  an  apprehension  of  strength 
ening  the  French  interest  in  the  Sacred  Col 
lege.  The  second  request  was  that  the  Pope 
would  confer  a  titular  bishopric*  on  Edward 
Petre,  an  English  Jesuit  of  noble  family, 
who,  though  not  formally  the  King's  con- 
fessor,t  had  more  influence  on  his  mind 
than  any  other  ecclesiastic.  This  honour 
was  desired  in  order  to  qualify  this  gentle 
man  for  performing  with  more  dignity  the 
duties  of  Dean  of  the  Chapel  Royal.  Inno 
cent  declined,  on  the  ground  that  the  Jesuits 
were  prohibited  by  their  institution  from  ac 
cepting  bishopricks,  and  that  he  would  sooner 
make  a  Jesuit  a  cardinal  than  a  bishop.  But 
as  the  Popes  had  often  dispensed  with  this 
prohibition,  Petre  himself  rightly  conjectured 
that  the  ascendant  of  the  Austrian  party  at 
Rome, — who  looked  on  him  with  an  evil  eye 
as  a  partisan  of  France, — -was  the  true  cause 
of  the  refusal.!  The  Kingmfterwards  so 
licited  for  his  favourite  the  higher  dignity  of 
cardinal :  but  he  was  finally  refused,  though 
with  profuse  civility,§  from  the  same  mo 
tive,  but  under  the  pretence  that  there  had 
been  no  Jesuit  cardinal  since  Bellarmine.  the 
great  controversialist  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church. II  Besides  these  personal  objects, 
Castlemaine  laboured  to  reconcile  the  Pope  to 
Louis  XIV.,  and  to  procure  the  interposition 
of  Innocent  for  the  preservation  of  the  gen 
eral  peace.  But  of  these  objects,  specious 
as  they  were,  the  attainment  of  the  first 
would  strengthen  France,  and  that  of  the 
second  imported  a  general  acquiescence  in 
her  unjust  aggrandizement.  Even  the  tri 
umph  of  monarchy  and  Popery  in  England, 
together  with  the  projects  already  enter 
tained  for  the  suppression  of  the  "Northern 
heresy,"  as  the  Reformation  was  then  called, 
and  for  the  conquest  of  Holland,  which  was 
considered  as  a  nest  of  heretics,  could  not 
fail  to  alarm  the  most  zealous  of  those  Ca 
tholic  powers  who  dreaded  the  power  of 
Louis,  and  who  were  averse  to  strengthen 
his  allies.  It  was  impossible  that  intelli 
gence  of  such  suggestions  at  Rome  should 
not  immediately  reach  the  courts  of  Vienna 
and  Madrid,  or  should  not  be  communicated 
by  them  to  the  Prince  of  Orange.  Castle 
maine  suffered  himself  to  be  engaged  in 
contests  for  precedency  with  the  Spanish 
minister,  which  served,  and  were  perhaps 
intended,  to  embroil  him  more  deeply  with 
the  Pope.  James  at  first  resented  the  re 
fusal  to  promote  Petre51F  and  for  a  time 
seemed  to  espouse  the  quarrel  of  his  am 
bassador.  D'Adda  was  obliged,  by  his  sta 
tion,  and  by  his  intercourse  with  Lord  Sun- 


*  In  pariibus  infidelium,"  as  it  is  called.  Baril 
lon,  27th  June.— Fox  MSS. 

t  This  office  was  held  by  a  learned  Jesuit, 
named  Warner.— Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  491. 

t  Barillon,  20th  Dec.  1686.— Fox  MSS. 

i  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  511,  where  the  official  cor 
respondence  in  1687  is  published. 

II  D'Adda,  8th  August,  1687.— MS. 

IT  Barillon,  2d  Dec.  1686.— Fox  MSS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


299 


derland,  to  keep  up  friendly  appearances 
\vith  Petre ;  but  Barillon  easily  discovered 
that  the  Papal  minister  disliked  that  Jesuit 
and  his  order,  whom  he  considered  as  de 
voted  to  France.*  The  Pope  instructed 
his  minister  to  complain  of  the  conduct  of 
Castlemaine,  as  very  ill  becoming  the  repre 
sentative  of  so  pious  and  so  prudent  a  king: 
and  D'Adda  made  the  representation  to 
James  at  a  private  audience  where  the 
Queen  and  Lord  Sunderland  were  present. 
That  zealous  princess,  with  more  fervour 
than  dignity,  often  interrupted  his  narrative 
by  exclamations  of  horror  at  the  liberty  with 
which  a  Catholic  minister  had  spoken  to  the 
successor  of  St.  Peter.  Lord  Sunderland  said 
to  him,  "  The  King  will  do  whatever  you 
please."  James  professed  the  most  un 
bounded  devotion  to  the  Holy  See,  and  as 
sured  D'Adda  that  he  would  write  a  letter 
to  his  Holiness,  to  express  his  regret  for  the 
unbecoming  conduct  of  his  ambassador.! 
When  this  submission  was  made,  Innocent 
formally  forgave  Castlemaine  for  his  indis 
creet  zeal  in  promoting  the  wishes  of  his 
sovereign;}:  and  James  publicly  announced 
the  admission  of  his  ambassador  at  Rome 
into  the  Privy  Council,  both  to  console  the 
unfortunate  minister,  and  to  show  the  more 
how  much  he  set  at  defiance  the  laws  which 
forbade  both  the  embassy  and  the  prefer 
ment. § 


CHAPTER  III. 

State  of  the  Army. — Attempts  of  the  King  to 
Convert  it. — The  Princess  Anne. — Dryden. 
— Lord  Middleton  and  others. — Revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. — Attempt  to  convert 
Rochester. — Conduct  of  the  Queen. — Religi 
ous  Conference. — Failure  of  the  attempt. — 
His  Dismissal. 

DURING  the  summer  of  1686,  the  King  had 
assembled  a  body  of  15,000  troops,  who  were 
encamped  on  Hounslow  Heath  ; — a  spectacle 
new  to  the  people  of  England,  who,  though 
full  of  martial  spirit,  have  never  regarded 
with  favour  the  separate  profession  of  arms. II 

*  Barillon,  17th  Jnne,  1686, — 10th  March, 
1687.— Fox  MSS. 

t  D'Adda,  30th  May,— 6th  June,  1687.— MS. 

t  Letter  of  Innocent  to  James,  16th  Aug. — 
Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  511. 

§  London  Gazette,  26th  Sept. 

I!  The  army,  on  the  1st  of  January,  1685, 
amounted  to  19,979. — Accounts  in  the  War  Of 
fice.  The  number  of  the  army  in  Great  Britain 
in  1824  is  22, 019  (Army  Estimates),  the  population 
being  14,391,681  (Population  Returns);  which 
gives  a  proportion  of  nearly  one  out  of  every  654 
persons,  or  of  one  soldier  out  of  every  160  men 
of  the  fighting  age.  The  population  of  England 
and  Wales,  in  1685,  not  exceeding  five  millions, 
the  proportion  of  the  army  to  it  was  one  soldier  to 
every  250  persons,  or  of  one  soldier  to  every  sixty- 
nve  men  of  the  fighting  age.  Scotland,  in  1685, 
had  a  separate  establishment.  The  army  of  James, 
at  his  accession,  therefore,  was  more  than  twice 


I  He  viewed  this  encampment  with  a  compla 
cency  natural  to  princes,  and  he  expressed 
his  feelings  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  a  tone 
of  no  friendly  boast.*  He  caressed  the  offi 
cers,  and  he  openly  declared  that  he  should 
keep  none  but  those  on  whom  he  could  rely.t 
A  Catholic  chapel  was  opened  in  the  camp, 
and  missionaries  were  distributed  among  the 
soldiers.  The  numbers  of  the  army  rendered 
it  an  object  of  very  serious  consideration. 
Supposing  them  to  be  only  32,000  in  England 
and  Scotland  alone,  they  were  twice  as  many 
I  as  were  kept  up  in  Great  Britain  in  the  year 
1792,  when  the  population  of  the  island  had 
certainly  more  than  doubled.  As  this  force 
was  kept  on  foot  without  the  consent  of  Par 
liament,  there  was  no  limit  to  its  numbers, 
but  the  means  of  supporting  it  possessed  by 
the  King ;  \fhich  might  be  derived  from  the 
misapplication  of  funds  granted  for  other 
purposes,  or  be  supplied  by  foreign  powers 
interested  in  destroying  the  liberties  of  the 
kingdom.  The  means  of  governing  it  were 
at  first  a  source  of  perplexity  to  the  King, 
but,  in  the  sequel,  a  new  object  of  apprehen 
sion  to  the  people.  The  Petition  of  Right.J 
in  affirmance  of  the  ancient  laws,  had  for 
bidden  the  exercise  of  martial  law  within 
the  kingdom ;  and  the  ancient  mode  of  esta 
blishing  those  summary  jurisdictions  and 
punishments  which  seem  to  be  necessary 
to  secure  the  obedience  of  armies  was,  in  a 
great  measure,  wanting.  The  servile  inge 
nuity  of  aspiring  lawyers  was,  therefore,  set 
at  work  to  devise  some  new  expedient  for 
more  easily  destroying  the  constitution,  ac 
cording  to  the  forms  of  law.  For  this  purpose 
they  revived  the  provisions  of  some  ancient 
statutes,  §  which  had  made  desertion  a  capital 
felony  j  though  these  were,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  best  lawyers,  either  repealed,  or  confined 
to  soldiers  serving  in  the  case  of  actual  or 
immediately  impending  hostilities.  Even 
this  device  did  not  provide  the  means  of 
punishing  the  other  military  offences,  which 
are  so  dangerous  to  the  order  of  armies,  that 
there  can  be  little  doubt  of  their  having  been 
actually  punished  by  other  means,  however 
confessedly  illegal.  Several  soldiers  were 
tried,  convicted,  and  executed  for  the  felony 
of  desertion ;  and  the  scruples  of  judges  on 
the  legality  of  these  proceedings  induced  the 
King  more  than  once  to  recur  to  his  ordinary 
measure  for  the  purification  of  tribunals  by 
the  removal  of  the  judges.  Sir  John  Holt, 
who  was  destined,  in  better  times,  to  be  one 
of  the  most  inflexible  guardians  of  the  laws, 
was  also  then  dismissed  from  the  recorder- 
ship  of  London. 

and  a  half  greater  in  comparison  with  the  popula 
tion  than  the  present  force  (1822).  The  compara 
tive  wealth,  if  it  could  be  estimated,  would  proba 
bly  afford  similar  results. 

*  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  29th  June.- 
Dalrymple,  app.  to  books  iii.  &  iv. 

t  Barillon,  8th  July.  Ibid. 

t  3  Car.  I.  c.  1. 

§  7  Hen.  VII.  c.  1.  3  Hen.  VIII.  c.  5  ;  &  2  & 
3  Edw.  VI.  c.  2.  See  Hale,  Pleas  of  the  Crown, 
book  i.  c.  63. 


300 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


The  only  person  who  ventured  to  express 
the  general  feeling  respecting  the  army  was 
Mr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who  had  been  chaplain 
to  Lord  Russell  and  who  was  then  in  prison 
for  a  work  which  he  had  published  some 
years  before  against  the  succession  of  James, 
under  the  title  of  " Julian  the  Apostate."* 
He  now  wrote,  and  sent  to  an  agent  to  be 
dispersed  (for  there  was  no  proof  of  actual 
dispersion  or  salef),  an  address  to  the  army, 
expostulating  with  them  on  the  danger  of 
serving  under  illegally  commissioned  officers, 
and  for  objects  inconsistent  with  the  safety 
of  their  country.  He  also  wrote  another 
paper,  in  which  he  asserted  that  "  resistance 
may  be  used  in  case  our  religion  or  our  rights 
should  be  invaded."  For  these  acts  he  was 
tried,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to  pay  a 
small  fine,  to  be  thrice  pilloried,  and  to  be 
whipped  by  the  common  hangman  from 
Newgate  to  Tyburn.  For  both  these  publica 
tions,  his  spirit  was,  doubtless,  deserving  of 
the  highest  applause.  The  prosecution  in  the 
first  case  can  hardly  be  condemned,  and  the 
conviction  still  less  :  but  the  cruelty  of  the 
punishment  reflects  the  highest  dishonour  on 
the  judges,  more  especially  on  Sir  Edward 
Herbert,  whose  high  pretensions  to  morality 
and  humanity  deeply  aggravate  the  guilt  of 
his  concurrence  in  this  atrocious  judgment. 
Previous  to  its  infliction,  he  was  degraded 
from  his  sacred  character  by  Crew,  Sprat, 
and  White,  three  bishops  authorised  to  exer 
cise  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  in  the  diocese 
of  London  during  the  suspension  of  Compton. 
When,  as  part  of  the  formality,  the  Bible 
was  taken  out  of  his  hands,  he  struggled  to 
preserve  it,  and  bursting  into  tears,  cried 
out,  "  You  cannot  take  from  me  the  consola 
tion  contained  in  the  sacred  volume."  The 
barbarous  judgment  was  "executed  with 
great  rigour  and  cruelty. "t  In  the  course 
of  a  painful  and  ignominous  progress  of  two 
miles  through  crowded  streets,  he  received 
three  hundred  and  seventeen  stripes,  inflicted 
with  a  whip  of  nine  cords  knotted.  It  will 
be  a  consolation  to  the  reader,  as  soon  as  he 
has  perused  the  narrative  of  these  enormities. 
to  learn,  though  \vith  some  disturbance  of 
the  order  of  time,  that  amends  were  in  some 
measure  made  to  Mr.  Johnson,  and  that 
his  persecutors  were  reduced  to  the  bitter 
mortification  of  humbling  themselves  before 
their  victim.  After  the  Revolution,  the  judg 
ment  pronounced  on  him  was  voted  by  the 
House  of  Commons  to  be  illegal  and  cruel. § 
Crew,  Bishop  of  Durham,  one  of  the  com 
missioners  who  deprived  him,  made  him  a 
considerable  compensation  in  money  ;!l  arid 

*  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  1339. 

t  In  fact,  however,  many  were  dispersed. — 
Kennet,  History,  vol.  iii.  p.  450. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  24th  June,  1690.  These 
are  the  words  of  the  Report  of  a  Committee  who 
examined  evidence  on  the  case,  and  whose  reso 
lutions  were  adopted  by  the  House.  They  suf 
ficiently  show  that  Echard's  extenuating  state 
ments  are  false. 

$  Ibid. 

it  Narcissus  Luttrell,  February,  1690. 


Withins,  the  Judge  who  delivered  the  sen 
tence,  counterfeited  a  dangerous  illness,  and 
pretended  that  his  dying  hours  were  disturbed 
by  the  remembrance  of  what  he  had  done, 
in  order  to  betray  Johnson,  through  his  hu 
mane  and  Christian  feelings,  into  such  a 
declaration  of  forgiveness  as  might  contribute 
to  shelter  the  cruel  judge  from  further  ani 
madversion.* 

The  desire  of  the  King  to  propagate  his 
religion  was  a  natural  consequence  of  zealous 
attachment  to  it.  But  it  was  a  very  dangerous 
quality  in  a  monarch,  especially  when  the 
principles  of  religious  liberty  were  not  adopt 
ed  by  any  European  government.  The  royal 
apostle  is  seldom  convinced  of  the  good  faith 
of  the  opponent  whom  he  has  failed  to  con 
vert  :  he  soon  persuades  himself  that  the 
pertinacity  of  the  heretic  arises  more  from 
the  depravity  of  his  nature  than  from  the 
errors  of  his  judgment.  He  first  shows  dis 
pleasure  to  his  perverse  antagonists ;  he  then 
withdraws  advantages  from  them  ]  he.  in 
many  cases,  may  think  it  reasonable  to  bring 
them  to  reflection  by  some  degree  of  hard 
ship;  and  the  disappointed  disputant  may  at 
last  degenerate  into  the  furious  persecutor. 
The  attempt  to  convert  the  army  was  pecu 
liarly  dangerous  to  the  King's  own  object. 
He  boasted  of  the  number  of  converts  in  one 
of  his  regiments  of  Guards,  without  consider 
ing  the  consequences  of  teaching  controversy 
to  an  army.  The  political  canvass  carried 
on  among  the  officers,  and  the  controversial 
sermons  preached  to  the  soldiers,  probably 
contributed  to  awaken  that  spirit  of  inquiry 
and  discussion  in  his  camp  which  he  ought 
to  have  dreaded  as  his  most  formidable 
enemy.  He  early  destined  the  revenue  of 
the  Archbishop  of  York  to  be  a  provision  for 
converts,! — being  probably  sincere  in  his 
professions,  that  he  meant  only  to  make  it 
one  for  those  who  had  sacrificed  interest  to 
religion.  But  experience  shows  how  easily 
such  a  provision  swells  into  a  reward,  and 
how  naturally  it  at  length  becomes  a  pre 
mium  for  hypocrisy.  It  was  natural  that  his 
passion  for  making  proselytes  should  show 
itself  towards  his  own  children.  The  Pope, 
in  his  conversations  with  Lord  Castlemainej 
said,  that  without  the  conversion  of  the  Prin 
cess  Anne,  no  advantage  obtained  for  the 
Catholic  religion  could  be  permanently  se 
cured. t  The  King  assented  to  this  opinion, 
and  had,  indeed,  before  attempted  to  dispose 
his  daughter  favourably  to  his  religion,  in 
fluenced  probably  by  the  parental  kindness, 
which  was  one  of  his  test  qualities. §  He 
must  have  considered  as  hopeless  the  case 
of  his  eldest  daughter,  early  removed  from 
her  father,  and  the  submissive  as  well  as 
affectionate  wife  of  a  husband  of  decisive 
character,  who  was  also  the  leader  of  the 
Protestant  cause.  To  Anne,  therefore,  his 
attention  was  turned  :  but  with  her  he  found 


*  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  1354. 
t  D'Adda,  10th  May,  1686.— MS. 
t  Barillon,  27th  June.— Fox  MSS. 
§  D'Adda,  supra. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


301 


insurmountable  difficulties.  Both  these  prin 
cesses,  after  their  father  had  become  a  Ca 
tholic,  were  considered  as  the  hope  of  the 
Protestant  religion,  and  accordingly  trained 
in  the  utmost  horror  of  Popery.  Their  par 
tialities  and  resentments  were  regulated  by 
difference  of  religion  •  their  political  import 
ance  and  their  splendid  prospects  were  de 
pendent  on  the  Protestant  Church.  Anne 
was  surrounded  by  zealous  Churchmen ;  she 
was  animated  by  her  preceptor  Compton  j 
her  favourites  Lord  and  Lady  Churchill  had 
become  determined  partisans  of  Protestant 
ism  ;  and  the  King  found  in  the  obstinacy  of 
his  daughter's  character,  a  resistance  hardly 
to  be  apprehended  from  a  young  princess  of 
slight  understanding.*  Some  of  the  reasons 
of  this  zeal  for  converting  hef  clearly  show 
that,  whether  the  succession  was  actually 
held  out  to  her  as  a  lure  or  not,  at  least  there 
was  an  intention,  if  she  became  a  Catholic, 
to  prefer  her  to  the  Princess  of  Orange.  Bon 
repos.  a  minister  of  ability,  had  indeed,  at  a 
somewhat  earlier  period,  tried  the  effect  of 
that  temptation  on  her  husband,  Prince 
George. t  He  ventured  to  ask  his  friend  the 
Danish  envoy,  "  whether  the  Prince  had  any 
ambition  to  raise  his  consort  to  the  throne  at 
the  expense  of  the  Princess  Mary,  which 
seemed  to  be  practicable  if  he  became  a 
Catholic."  The  envoy  hinted  this  bold  sug 
gestion  to  the  Prince,  who  appeared  to  receive 
it  well,  and  even  showed  a  willingness  to 
be  instructed  on  the  controverted  questions. 
Bonrepos  found  means  to  supply  the  Princess 
Anne  with  Catholic  books,  which,  for  a  mo 
ment,  she  showed  some  willingness  to  con 
sider.  He  represented  her  to"  his  Court  as 
timid  and  silent,  but  ambitious  and  of  some 
talent,  with  a  violent  hatred  for  the  Queen. 
He  reported  his  attempts  to  the  King,  who 
listened  to  him  with  the  utmost  pleasure  • 
and  the  subtile  diplomatist  observes,  that, 
though  he  might  fail  in  the  conversion,  he 
should  certainly  gain  the  good  graces  of 
James  by  the  effort,  which  his  knowledge 
of  that  monarch's  hatred  of  the  Prince  of 
Orange  had  been  his  chief  inducement  to 
hazard. 

The  success  of  the  King  himself,  in  his 
attempts  to  make  proselytes,  was  less  than 
might  have  been  expected  from  his  zeal  and 
influence.  Parker,  originally  a  zealous  Non 
conformist,  aftewards  a  slanderous  buffoon, 
and  an  Episcopalian  of  persecuting  principles, 
earned  the  bishopric  of  Oxford  by  showing 
a  strong  disposition  to  favour,  if  not  to  be 
reconciled  to,  the  Church  of  Rome.  Two 
bishops  publicly  visited  Mr.  Leyburn  the 
Catholic  prelate,  at  his  apartments  in  St. 
James'  Palace,  on  his  being  made  almoner 
to  the  King,  when  it  was,  unhappily,  impos 
sible  to  impute  their  conduct  to  liberality  or 
charity.J  Walker,  the  Master  of  University 

*  Barillon,  supra. 

t  Bonrepos,  28th  March.— Fox  MSS. 

\.  D'Adda,  21st  January,  1686,— MS.  The 
King  and  Queen  took  the  sacrament  at  St.  James' 
Chapel  "  Monsigre  Vescovo  Leyburn,  passato 


College  in  Oxford,  and  three  of  the  fellows 
of  that  society,  were  the  earliest  and  most 
noted  of  the  few  open  converts  among  the 
clergy.  L'Estrange,  though  he  had  for  five- 
and-twenty  years  written  all  the  scurrilous 
libels  of  the  Court,  refused  to  abandon  the 
Protestant  Church.  Dryden,  indeed,  con 
formed  to  the  doctrines  of  his  master;*  and 
neither  the  critical  time,  nor  his  general  cha 
racter,  have  been  sufficient  to  deter  some  of 
the  admirers  of  that  great  poet  from  seriously 
maintaining  that  his  conversion  was  real. 
The  same  persons  who  make  this  stand  for 
the  conscientious  character  of  the  poet  of 
a  profligate  Court,  have  laboured  with  all 
their  might  to  discover  and  exaggerate  those 
human  frailties  from  which  fervid  piety  arid 
intrepid  integrity  did  not  altogether  preserve 
Milton,  in  the  evil  days  of  his  age,  and 
poverty,  and  blindness.!  The  King  failed 
in  a  personal  attempt  to  convert  Lord  Dart 
mouth,  whom  he  considered  as  his  most 
faithful  servant  for  having  advised  him  to 
bring  Irish  troops  into  England,  such  being 
more  worthy  of  trust  than  others;! — a  re 
markable  instance  of  a  man  of  honour  ad 
hering  inflexibly  to  the  Church  of  England, 
though  his  counsels  relating  to  civil  affairs 
were  the  most  fatal  to  public  liberty.  Mid- 
dleton,  one  of  the  secretaries  of  state,  a  man 
of  ability,  supposed  to  have  no  strong  prin 
ciples  of  religion,  was  equally  inflexible.  The 
Catholic  divine  who  was  sent  to  him  began 
by  attempting  to  reconcile  his  understanding 
to  the  mysterious  doctrine  of  transubstantia- 
tion.  '•'  Your  Lordship,"  said  he,  'c  believes 
the  Trinity."—-  Who  told  you  so  ]  "  answer 
ed  Middleton  ;  "  you  are  come  here  to  prove 
your  own  opinions,  not  to  ask  about  mine." 
The  astonished  priest  is  said  to  have  imme 
diately  retired.  Sheffield,  Earl  of  Mulgrave, 
is  also  said  to  have  sent  away  a  monk  who 
came  to  convert  him  by  a  jest  upon  the  same 
doctrine  : — "I  have  convinced  myself,"  said 
he,  "  by  much  reflection  that  God  made  man  j 
but  I  cannot  believe  that  man  can  make 
God."  But  though  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 


da  alcuni  giorni  nell'  apartamento  de  St.  James 
destinato  al  gran  Elimosiniere  de  S.  M.  in  habito 
lungo  nero  portando  la  croce  nera,  si  fa  vedere  in 
publico  visitando  i  ministri  del  Principe  e  altri: 
furono  un  giorno  per  fargli  una  visita  due  vescovi 
Protestanti."  As  this  occurred  before  the  pro 
motion  of  the  two  profligate  prelates,  Parker  and 
Cart  Wright,  one  of  these  visitors  must  have  been 
Crew,  and  the  other. was,  too  probably,  Spratt. 
The  former  had  been  appointed  Clerk  of  the 
Closet,  and  Dean  of  the  Chapel  Royal,  a  few 
days  before. 

*  "  Dryden,  the  famous  play-writer,  and  his 
two  sons,  and  Mrs.  Nelly,  were  said  to  go  to 
mass.  Such  proselytes  were  no  great  loss  to  the 
Church."  Evelyn,  vol.  i.  p.  594.  The  rumour, 
as  far  as  it  related  to  Mrs.  Gwynne,  was  calumni 
ous. 

t  Compare  Dr.  Johnson's  biography  of  Milton 
with  his  generally  excellent  life  of  Dryden. 

t  D'Adda,  10th  May.— MS.     "  Diceva  il  Re 
che  il  detto  Milord  veramente  gli  aveva  dato  con 
sigh  molto  fedeli,  uno  di  quelli  era  stato  di  far  ve 
nire   truppi   Irlandesi   in   Inghilterra,    nelli   quail 
poteva  S.  M.  meglio  fidarsi  die  negli  altri." 
2A 


302 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


his  pleasantry  or  profaneness,  his  integrity 
is  more  questionable.*  Colonel  Kirke.  from 
vrhom  strong  scruples  were  hardly  to  be  ex 
pected;  is  said  to  have  answered  the  King's 
desire,  that  he  would  listen  to  Catholic  di 
vines,  by  declaring,  that  when  he  was  at 
Tangier  he  had  engaged  himself  to  the  Em 
peror  of  Morocco,  if  ever  he  changed  his 
religion,  to  become  a  Mahometan.  Lord 
Churchill,  though  neither  insensible  to  the 
kindness  of  James,  nor  distinguished  by  a 
strict  conformity  to  the  precepts  of  Religion, 
withstood  the  attempts  of  his  generous  bene 
factor  to  bring  him  over  to  the  Church  of 
Rome.  He  said  of  himself,  "that  though  he 
could  not  lead  the  life  of  a  saint,  he  was  re 
solved,  if  there  was  ever  occasion  for  it.  to 
show  the  resolution  of  a  martyr. "t  So  much 
constancy  in  religious  opinion  may  seem 
singular  among  courtiers  and  soldiers:  but 
it  must  be  considered,  that  the  inconsistency 
of  men's  actions  \vith  their  opinions  is  more 
often  due  to  infirmity  than  to  insincerity ; 
that  the  members  of  the  Protestant  party 
were  restrained  from  deserting  it  by  princi 
ples  of  honour;  and  that  the  disgrace  of  de 
sertion  was  much  aggravated  by  the  general 
unpopularity  of  the  adverse  cause,  and  by 
the  violent  animosity  then  raging  between 
the  two  parties  who  divided  England  and 
Europe. 

Nothing  so  much  excited  the  abhorrence 
of  all  Protestant  nations  against  Louis  XIV., 
as  the  measures  which  he  adopted  against 
his  subjects  of  that  religion.  As  his  policy 
on  that  subject  contributed  to  the  downfall 
of  James,  it  seems  proper  to  state  it  more 
fully  than  the  internal  occurrences  of  a  fo 
reign  country  ought  generally  to  be  treated 
in  English  history.  The  opinions  of  the  Re 
formers,  which  triumphed  in  some  countries 
of  Europe,  and  were  wholly  banished  from 
others,  had  very  early  divided  France  and 
Germany  into  two  powerful  but  unequal 
parties.  The  wars  between  the  princes  of 
the  Empire  which  sprung  from  this  source, 
after  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
were  finally  composed  by  the  treaty  of  West 
phalia.  In  France,  where  religious  enthusi 
asm  wras  exasperated  by  the  lawless  charac 
ter  and  mortal  animosities  of  civil  war,  these 

*  He  had  been  made  Lord  Chamberlain  imme 
diately  after  Jeffreys'  circuit,  and  had  been  ap 
pointed  a  member  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commis 
sion,  in  November,  1685,  when  Bancroft  refused 
to  act,  in  which  last  office  he  continued  to  the  last. 
He  held  out  hopes  that  he  might  be  converted  to 
a  very  late  period  of  the  reign,  (Barillon,  30ih 
August,  1687,)  and  he  was  employed  by  James  to 
persuade  Sir  George  Mackenzie  t"o  consent  to  the 
removal  of  the  Test.— (Halifax  MSS.)  He  brought 
a  patent  for  a  marquisate  to  the  King  half-an-hour 
before  King  James  went  away. — (Ibid.)  In  Oc 
tober.  1688,  he  thought,  it  necessary  to  provide 
against  the  approaching  storm  by  obtaining  a  gene 
ral  pardon.  Had  not  Lord  Mujgrave  written  some 
memoirs  of  his  own  time,  his  importance  as  a 
statesman  would  not  have  deserved  so  full  an  ex 
posure  of  his  political  character. 

t  Coxe,  Memoirs  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborouo-h, 
vol.  i.  p.  27. 


hostilities  raged  for  nearly  forty  years  with 
a  violence  unparalleled  in  any  civilized  age 
or  country.  As  soon  as  Henry  IV.  had  esta 
blished  his  authority  by  conformity  to  the 
worship  of  the  majority  of  his  people,  the 
first  object  of  his  paternal  policy  was  to  se 
cure  the  liberty  of  the  Protestants,  and  to 
restore  the  quiet  of  the  kingdom  by  a  general 
law  on  this  equally  arduous  and  important 
subject.  The  contending  opinions  in  their 
nature  admitted  no  negotiation  or  concession. 
The  simple  and  effectual  expedient  of  per 
mitting  them  all  to  be  professed  with  equal 
freedom  was  then  untried  in  practice,  and  al 
most  unknowm  in  speculation.  The  toleration 
of  error,  according  to  the  received  principles 
of  that  age,  differed  little  from  the  permis 
sion  of  crimes.  Amidst  such  opinions  it  was 
extremely  difficult  to  frame  a  specific  law 
for  the  government  of  hostile  sects:  and  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  passed  by  Henry  for  that 
purpose  in  the  year  1598,  must  be  consider 
ed  as  honourable  to  the  wisdom  and  virtue 
of  his  Catholic  counsellors.  This  Edict,* 
said  to  be  composed  by  the  great  historian 
De  Thou,  was  based  on  the  principle  of  a 
treaty  of  peace  between  belligerent  parties, 
sanctioned  and  enforced  by  the  royal  autho 
rity.  Though  the  transaction  was  founded 
merely  in  humanity  and  prudence,  without 
any  reference  to  religious  liberty,  some  of 
its  provisions  were  conformable  to  the  legiti 
mate  results  of  that  great  principle.  All 
Frenchmen  of  the  reformed  religion  were 
declared  to  be  admissible  to  every  office, 
civil  and  military,  in  the  kingdom;  and  they 
were  received  into  all  schools  and  colleges 
without  distinction.  Dissent  from -the  Esta 
blished  Church  was  exempted  from  all  pen 
alty  or  civil  inconvenience.  The  public  ex 
ercise  of  the  Protestant  religion  was  confined 
to  those  cities  and  towns  where  it  had  been 
formerly  granted,  and  to  the  mansions  of  the 
gentry  who  had  seignorial  jurisdiction  over 
capital  crimes.  It  might,  however,  be  prac 
tised  in  other  places  by  the  permission  of  the 
Catholics,  who  were  lords  of  the  respective 
manors.  Wherever  the  worship  of  the  Pro 
testants  was  lawful,  their  religious  books 
might  freely  be  bought  and  sold.  They 
might  inhabit  any  part  of  the  kingdom  with 
out  molestation  for  their  opinion  ;  and  private 
worship  was  everywhere  protected  by  the 
exemption  of  their  houses  from  all  legal 
search  on  account  of  religion.  These  restric 
tions,  though  they  show  the  Edict  to  have 
been  a  pacification  between  parties,  with 
little  regard  to  the  conscience  of  individuals, 
yet  do  not  seem  in  practice  to  have  much 
limited  the  religious  liberty  of  French  Pro 
testants.  To  secure  an  impartial  adminis 
tration  of  justice,  Chambers,  into  which  Pro 
testants  and  Catholics  were  admitted  in  equal 
numbers,  were  established  in  the  principal 
parliaments. t  The  Edict  wras  declared  to  be 


*  The  original  is  to  be  found  inBenoit,  Histoire 
de  1'Edit  de  Nantes,  vol.  i.  app.  pp.  62 — 85. 

t  Paris,  Toulouse,  Grenoble,  and  Bordeaux. 
The  Chamber  of  the  Edict  at  Paris  took  cogni- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


303 


a  perpetual  and  irrevocable  law.  By  a  sepa 
rate  grant  executed  at  Nantes,  the  King- 
authorised  the  Protestants,  for  eight  years, 
to  garrison  the  towns  and  places  of  which 
they  were  at  that  time  in  military  possession, 
and  to  hold  them  under  his  authority  and 
obedience.  The  possession  of  these  places 
of  security  was  afterwards  continued  from 
time  to  time,  and  the  expense  of  their  garri 
sons  defrayed  by  the  Crown.  Some  cities  also, 
where  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  were 
Protestants,  and  where  the  magistrates,  by 
the  ancient  constitution,  regulated  the  armed 
force,  with  little  dependence  on  the  Crown, 
such  as  Nismes.  Rochelle,  and  Montauban,* 
though  not  formerly  garrisoned  by  the  Reform 
ed,  still  constituted  a  part  of  their  military  se 
curity  for  the  observance  of  the  Edict.  An 
armed  sect  of  dissenters  must  have  afforded 
many  plausible  pretexts  for  attack  ;  and  Car 
dinal  Richelieu  had  justifiable  reasons  of 
policy  for  depriving  the  Protestants  of  those 
important  fortresses,  the  possession  of  which 
gave  them  the  character  of  an  independent 
republic,  and  naturally  led  them  into  dan 
gerous  connection  with  Protestant  and  rival 
states.  His  success  in  accomplishing  that 
important  enterprise  is  one  of  the  most  splen 
did  parts  of  his  administration;  though  he 
owed  the  reduction  of  Rochelle  to  the  fee 
bleness  and  lukewarmness,  if  not  to  the 
treachery;  of  the  Court  of  England.  Riche 
lieu  discontinued  the  practice  of  granting  the 
royal  licence  to  the  Protestant  body  to  hold 
political  assemblies;  and  he  adopted  it  as  a 
maxim  of  permanent  policy,  that  the  highest 
dignities  of  the  army  and  the  state  should  be 
granted  to  Protestants  only  in  cases  of  ex 
traordinary  merit.  In  other  respects  that 
haughty  minister  treated  them  as  a  mild 
conqueror.  When  they  were  reduced  to  en 
tire  submission,  in  1629,  an  edict  of  pardon 
was  issued  at  Nismes,  confirming  all  the 
civil  and  religious  principles  which  had  been 
granted  by  the  Edict  of  Nantes.t  At  the 
moment  that  they  were  reduced  to  the  situa 
tion  of  private  subjects;  they  disappear  from 
the  history  of  France.  They  are  not  men 
tioned  in  the  dissensions  which  disturbed 
the  minority  of  Louis  XIV.,  nor  are  they 
named  by  that  Prince  in  the  enumeration 
which  he  gives  of  objects  of  public  anxiety 
at  the  period  which  preceded  his  assumption 
of  the  reins  of  government,  in  1660.  The 
great  families  attached  to  them  by  birth  and 
honour  during  the  civil  wars  were  gradually 
allured  to  the  religion  of  the  Court ;  while 
those  of  inferior  condition,  like  the  members 
of  other  sects  excluded  from  power,  applied 


zanre  of  all  causes  where  Protestants  were  parties 
in  Normandy  and  Brittany. 

*  Cautionary  Towns.—"  La  Rochelle  surtout 
nvait  des  traites  avec  les  Rois  de  France  qui  la 
rendoient  presque  independante." — Benoit,  vol.  i. 
p.  251. 

t  Benoit,  vol.  ii.  app.  92.  Madame  de  Duras, 
the  sister  of  Turenne,  was  so  zealous  a  Protestant 
that  she  wished  to  educate  as  a  minister,  her  son, 
who  afterwards  went  to  England,  and  became 
Lord  Feversham. — Vol.  iv.  p.  129. 


themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  wealih,  and 
were  patronised  by  Colbert  as  the  most  in 
genious  manufacturers  in  France.  A  decla 
ration,  prohibiting  the  relapse  of  converted 
Protestants  under  pain  of  confiscation,  indi 
cated  a  disposition  to  persecute,  \A  hich  that 
prudent  minister  had  the  good  forlurie  to 
check.  An  edict  punishing  emigration  with 
death,  though  long  after  turned  into  the 
sharpest  instrument  of  intolerance,  seems 
originally  to  have  flowed  solely  from  the 
general  prejudices  on  that  subject,  which 
have  infected  the  laws  and  policy  of  most 
states.  Till  the  peace  of  Nimeguen,  when 
Louis  had  reached  the  zenith  of  his  power, 
the  French  Protestants  experienced  only 
those  minute  vexations  from  which  secta 
ries,  discouraged  by  a  government,  are  sel 
dom  secure. 

The  immediate  cause  of  a  general  and 
open  departure  from  the  moderate  system, 
under  which  France  had  enjoyed  undis 
turbed  quiet  for  half  a  century,  is  to  be  dis 
cerned  only  in  the  character  of  the  King, 
and  the  inconsistency  of  his  conduct  with 
his  opinions.  Those  conflicts  between  his 
disorderly  passions  and  his  unenlightened 
devotion,  which  had  long  agitated  his  mind, 
were  at  last  composed  under  the  ascendant 
of  Madame  de  Maintenon  ;  and  in  this  situ 
ation  he  was  seized  with  a  desire  of  signal 
izing  his  penitence,  and  atoning  for  his  sins, 
by  the  conversion  of  his  heretical  subjects.* 
Her  prudence  as  well  as  moderation  prevent 
ed  her  from  counselling  the  employment  of 
violence  against  the  members  of  her  former 
religion ;  nor  do  such  means  appear  to  have 
been  distinctly  contemplated  by  the  King; — 
still  she  dared  not  moderate  the  zeal  on 
which  her  greatness  was  founded.  But  the 
passion  for  conversion,  armed  with  absolute 
power,  fortified  by  the  sanction  of  mistaken 
conscience,  intoxicated  by  success,  exaspe 
rated  by  resistance,  anticipated  and  carried 
beyond  its  purpose  by  the  zeal  of  subaltern 
agents,  deceived  by  their  false  representa 
tions,  often  irrevocably  engaged  by  their 
rash  acts,  and  too  warm  to  be  considerate  in 
choosing  means  or  weighing  consequences, 
led  the  government  of  France,  under  a  prince 
of  no  cruel  nature,  by  an  almost  unconscious 
progress,  in  the  short  space  of  six  years, 
from  a  successful  system  of  toleration  to  the 
most  unprovoked  and  furious  persecution 
ever  carried  on  against  so  great,  so  innocent, 
and  so  meritorious  a  body  of  men.  The 
Chambers  of  the  Edict  were  suppressed  on 
general  grounds  of  judicial  reformation,  and 
because  the  concord  between  the  two  reli 
gions  rendered  them  no  longer  necessary. 
By  a  series  of  edicts  the  Protestants  were 
excluded  from  all  public  offices,  and  from 
all  professions  which  were  said  to  give  them 
a  dangerous  influence  over  opinion.  They 
were  successively  rendered  incapable  of 


*  "  Le  Roi  pense  serieusement  a  la  conver 
sion  des  heretiques,  et  dans  peu  on  y  travaillera 
tout  de  bon.'5 — Mad.  de  Maintenon,  Oct.  28th, 
1679. 


304 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


being  judges,  advocates,  attorneys,  notaries, 
clerks,  officers,  or  even  attendants  of  courts 
of  law.  They  were  banished  in  multitudes 
from  places  in  the  revenue,  to  which  their 
habit  of  method  and  calculation  had  directed 
their  pursuits.  They  were  forbidden  to  ex 
ercise  the  occupations  of  printers  and  book 
sellers.1*  Even  the  pacific  and  neutral  pro 
fession  of  medicine,  down  to  its  humblest 
branches,  was  closed  to  their  industry.  They 
were  prohibited  from  intermarriage  with 
Catholics,  and  from  hiring  Catholic  domes 
tics,  without  exception  of  convenience  or 
necessity.  Multitudes  of  men  were  thus 
driven  from  their  employments,  without  any 
regard  to  the  habits,  expectations,  and  plans, 
which  they  had  formed  on  the  faith  of  the 
laws.  Besides  the  misery  which  immedi 
ately  flowed  from  these  acts  of  injustice, 
they  roused  and  stimulated  the  bigotry  of 
those,  who  need  only  the  slightest  mark  of 
the  temper  of  government  to  inflict  on  their 
dissenting  countrymen  those  minute  but 
ceaseless  vexations  which  embitter  the  daily 
course  of  human  life. 

As  the  Edict  of  Nantes  had  only  permitted 
the  public  worship  of  Protestants  in  certain 
places,  it  had  often  been  a  question  whether 
particular  churches  were  erected  conformably 
to  that  law.  The  renewal  and  multiplication 
of  suits  on  this  subject  furnished  the  means  of 
striking  a  dangerous  blow  against  the  Reform 
ed  religion.  Prejudice  and  servile  tribunals 
adjudged  multitudes  of  churches  to  be  demo 
lished  by  decrees  which  \vere  often  illegal, 
and  always  unjust.  By  these  judgments  a 
hundred  thousand  Protestants  were,  in  fact, 
prohibited  from  the  exercise  of  their  religion. 
They  were  deprived  of  the  means  of  educa 
ting  their  clergy  by  the  suppression  of  their 
flourishing  colleges  at  Sedan,  Saumur,  and 
Montauban,  which  had  long  been  numbered 
among  the  chief  ornaments  of  Protestant 
Europe.  Other  expedients  were  devised  to 
pursue  them  into  their  families,  and  harass 
them  in  those  situations  where  the  disturb 
ance  of  quiet  inflicts  the  deepest  wounds  on 
human  nature.  The  local  judges  were  au 
thorised  and  directed  to  visit  the  death-beds 
of  Protestants,  and  to  interrogate  them  whe 
ther  they  determined  to  die  in  obstinate 
heresy.  Their  children  \vere  declared  com 
petent  to  abjure  their  errors  at  the  age  of 
seven ;  and  by  such  mockery  of  conversion 
they  might  escape,  at  that  age,  from  the 
affectionate  care  of  their  parents.  Every 
childish  sport  was  received  as  evidence  of 
abjuration;  and  every  parent  dreaded  the 
presence  of  a  Catholic  neighbour,  as  the 
means  of  ensnaring  a  child  into  irrevocable 
alienation.  Each  of  these  disabilities  or  se 
verities  was  inflicted  by  a  separate  edict; 
and  each  was  founded  on  the  allegation  of 
some  special  grounds,  which  seemed  to 
guard  against  any  general  conclusion  at  va 
riance  with  the  privileges  of  Protestants. 


*  It  is  singular  that  they  were  not  excluded 
from  the  military  service  by  sea  or  land. 


On  the  other  hand,  a  third  of  the  King's 
savings  on  his  privy  purse  was  set  apart  to 
recompense  converts  to  the  Established  reli 
gion.  The  new  converts  were  allowed  a 
delay  of  three  years  for  the  payment  of  their 
debts ;  and  they  were  exempted  for  the  same 
period  from  the  obligation  of  affording  quar 
ters  to  soldiers.  This  last  privilege  seems  to 
have  suggested  to  Louvois,  a  minister  of 
great  talent  but  of  tyrannical  character,  a 
new  and  more  terrible  instrument  of  conver 
sion.  He  despatched  regiments  of  dragoons 
into  the  Protestant  provinces,  with  instruc 
tions  that  they  should  be  almost  entirely 
quartered  on  the  richer  Protestants.  This 
practice,  which  afterwards,  under  the  name 
of  c- Dragonnades^  became  so  infamous 
throughout  Europe,  was  attended  by  all  the 
outrages  and  barbarities  to  be  expected  from 
a  licentious  soldiery  let  loose  on  those  whom 
they  considered  as  the  enemies  of  their  King, 
and  the  blasphemers  of  their  religion.  Its 
effects  became  soon  conspicuous  in  the 
feigned  conversion  of  great  cities  and  ex 
tensive  provinces;  which,  instead  of  open 
ing  the  eyes  of  the  Government  to  the  atro 
city  of  the  policy  adopted  under  its  sanction, 
served,  only  to  create  a  deplorable  expecta 
tion  of  easy,  immediate,  and  complete  suc 
cess.  At  Nismes,  60.000  Protestants  abjured 
their  religion  in  three  days.  The  King  was 
informed  by  one  despatch  that  all  Poitou 
was  converted,  and  that  in  some  parts  of 
Dauphine  the  same  change  had  been  pro 
duced  by  the  terror  of  the  dragoons  without 
their  actual  presence.* 

All  these  expedients  of  disfranchi semen t; 
chicane,  vexation,  seduction,  and  military 
license,  almost  amounting  to  military  execu 
tion,  were  combined  with  declarations  of 
respect  for  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  and  of  reso 
lutions  to  maintain  the  religious  rights  of  the 
new  churches.  Every  successive  edict  spoke 
the  language  of  toleration  and  liberality : 
every  separate  exclusion  was  justified  on  a 
distinct  ground  of  specious  policy.  The 
most  severe  hardships  were  plausibly  repre 
sented  as  necessarily  arising  from  a  just  in 
terpretation  and  administration  of  the  law. 
Many  of  the  restrictions  were  in  themselves 
small ;  many  tried  in  one  province;  and 
slowly  extended  to  all;  some  apparently 
excused  by  the  impatience  of  the  sufferers 
under  preceding  restraints.  In  the  end, 
however,  the  unhappy  Protestants  saw  them 
selves  surrounded  by  a  persecution  which, 
in  its  full  extent,  had  probably  never  been 
contemplated  by  the  author;  and,  after  all 
the  privileges  were  destroyed,  nothing  re 
mained  but  the  formality  of  repealing  the 
law  by  which  these  privileges  had  been  con 
ferred. 

At  length,  on  the  18th  of  October,  1685, 
the  Government  of  France,  not  unwillingly 

*  Lemontey,  Nouveaux  Memoiresde  Dangeau, 
p.  19.  The  fate  of  the  province  of  Beam  was 
peculiarly  dreadful.  It  may  be  seen  in  Rulhiere 
(Eclaircissemens,  &c.  chap,  xv.),  and  Benoit,  liv. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


305 


deceived  by  feigned  conversions,  and,  as  it 
now  appears,  actuated  more  by  sudden  im 
pulse  than  long-premeditated  design,  revoked 
the  Edict  of  Nantes.  In  the  preamble  of 
the  edict  of  revocation  it  was  alleged,  that. 
as  the  better  and  greater  part  of  those  who 
professed  the  pretended  Reformed  religion 
had  embraced  the  Catholic  faith,  the  Edict 
of  Nantes  had  become  unnecessary.  The 
ministers  of  the  Reformed  faith  were  banish 
ed  from  France  in  fifteen  days,  under  pain 
of  the  galleys.  All  Protestant  schools  were 
shut  up;  and  the  unconverted  children,  at 
first  allowed  to  remain  in  France  without 
annoyance  on  account  of  their  religion.  Were 
soon  afterwards  ordered  to  be  taken  from 
their  parents,  and  committed  to  the  care  of 
their  nearest  Catholic  relations,  or,  in  default 
of  such  relations,  to  the  magistrates.  The 
return  of  the  exiled  ministers,  and  the  at 
tendance  on  a  Protestant  church  for  religious 
worship,  were  made  punishable  with  death. 
Carrying  vengeance  beyond  the  grave,  an 
other  edict  enjoined,  that  if  any  new  con 
verts  should  refuse  the  Catholic  sacraments 
on  their  death-bed,  when  required  to  receive 
them  by  a  magistrate,  their  bodies  should 
be  drawn  on  a  hurdle  along  the  public  way, 
and  then  cast  into  the  common  sewers. 

The  conversion  sought  by  James  with  most 
apparent  eagerness  was  that  of  Lord  Roches 
ter.  Though  he  had  lost  all  favour,  and  even 
confidence,  James  long  hesitated  to  remove 
him  from  office.  The  latter  was  willing,  but. 
afraid  to  take  a  measure  which  would  involve 
a  final  rupture  with  the  Church  of  England. 
Rochester's  connection  with  the  family  of 
Hyde,  and  some  remains  perhaps  of  gratitude 
for  past  services,  and  a  dread  of  increasing 
the  numbers  of  his  enemies,  together  with 
the  powerful  influence  of  old  habits  of  inti 
macy,  kept  his  mind  for  some  time  in  a  state 
of  irresolution  and  fluctuation.  His  dissa 
tisfaction  with  the  Lord  Treasurer  became 
generally  known  in  the  summer,  and  appears 
to  have  been  considerably  increased  by  the 
supposed  connection  of  that  nobleman  with 
the  episcopalian  administration  in  Scotland  ; 
of  whose  removal  it  will  become  our  duty 
presently  to  speak.*  The  sudden  return  o*f 
Lady  Dorchester  revived  the  spirits  of  his 
adherents. t  But  the  Queen,  a  person  of 
great  importance  in  these  affairs,  was,  on 
this  occasion,  persuaded  to  repress  her  anger, 
and  to  profess  a  reliance  on  the  promise  made 
by  the  King  not  to  see  his  mistress."}'  For 
merly,  indeed,  the  violence  of  the  Queen's 
temper  is  said  to  have  been  one  source  of 
her  influence  over  the  King;  and  her  as 
cendency  was  observed  to  be  always  greatest 
after  those  paroxysms  of  rage  to  which  she 
was  excited  by  the  detection  of  his  infideli 
ties.  Bur,  in  circumstances  so  critical,  her 
experienced  advisers  dissuaded  her  from  re- 

*  Barillon,  18th  July.— Fox  MSS. 
t  Id.  2d  Sept.— Ibid. 

t  Report  of  an  agent  of  Louis  XIV.  in  London, 
in  1686,  of  which  a  copy  is  in  my  possession. 
39 


peating  hazardous  experiments;*  and  the 
amours  of  her  husband  are  said,  at  this 
time,  to  have  become  so  vulgar  and  obscure 
as  to  elude  her  vigilance.  She  was  mild  and 
submissive  to  him;  but  she  showed  her  sus 
picion  of  the  motive  of  Lady  Dorchester's 
journey  by  violent  resentment  against  Cla 
rendon,  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  whom 
she  believed  to  be  privy  to  it,  and  who  in 
vain  attempted  to  appease  her  anger  by  the 
most  humble — not  to  say  abject — submis 
sions. t  She  at  this  moment  seemed  to  have 
had  more  than  ordinary  influence,  and  was 
admitted  into  the  secret  of  all  affairs.?  Sup 
ported,  if  riot  instigated  by  her,  Sunderland 
and  Petre,  with  the  more  ambitious  and  tur 
bulent  part  of  the  Catholics,  represented  to 
the  King  that  nothing  favourable  to  the 
Catholics  was  to  be  hoped  from  Parliament 
as  long  as  his  Court  and  Council  were  divi 
ded,  and  as  long  as  he  was  surrounded  by  a 
Protestant  cabal,  at  the  head  of  which  was 
the  Lord  Treasurer,  professing  the  most  ex 
travagant  zeal  for  the  English  Church ;  that, 
notwithstanding  the  pious  zeal  of  his  Ma 
jesty,  nothing  important  had  yet  been  done 
for  religion  ;  that  not  one  considerable  person 
had  declared  himself  a  Catholic:  that  no 
secret  believer  would  avow  himself,  and  no 
well-disposed  Protestant  would  be  reconciled 
to  the  Church,  till  the  King's  administration 
was  uniform,  and  the  principles  of  govern 
ment  more  decisive  ;  and  that  the  time  was 
now  come  when  it  was  necessary  for  his  Ma 
jesty  to  execute  the  intention  which  he  had 
long  entertained,  either  to  bring  the  Treasu 
rer  to  more  just  sentiments,  or  to  remove 
him  from  the  important  office  which  he  filled, 
and  thus  prove  to  the  public  that  there  was 
no  means  of  preserving  power  or  credit  but 
by  supporting  the  King's  measures  for  the 
Catholic  religion. §  They  reminded  him  of 
the  necessity  of  taking  means  to  perpetuate 
the  benefits  which  he  designed  for  the  Catho 
lics,  arid  of  the  alarming  facility  with  which 
the  Tudor  princes  had  made  and  subverted 
religious  revolutions.  Even  the  delicate 
question  of  the  succession  was  agitated, 
and  some  had  the  boldness  of  throwing 
out  suggestions  to  James  on  the  most  ef 
fectual  means  of  insuring  a  Catholic  suc 
cessor.  These  extraordinary  suggestions 
appear  to  have  been  in  some  measure  known 
to  Van  Citters,  the  Dutch  minister,  who  ex- 


*  In  a  MS.  among  the  Stuart  papers  in  posses 
sion  of  his  Majesty,  which  was  written  by  Sheri 
dan,  Secretary  for  Ireland  under  Tyrconnel,  we 
are  told  that  Petre  and  Sunderland  agreed  to  dis 
miss  Mrs.  Sedley,  under  pretence  of  morality,  but 
really  because  she  was  thought  the  support  of  Ro 
chester  ;  and  that  it  was  effected  by  Lady  Powis 
and  Bishop  GifTard,  to  the  Queen's  great  joy. — 
See  farther  Barillon,  5th  Sept.— Fox  MSS. 

t  Letters  of  Henry,  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

t  Barillon,  23d  Sept.— Fox  MSS. 

$  The  words  of  Barillon,  "  pour  1'etablissemeni 
de  la  religion  Catholique,"  being  capable  of  two 
senses,  have  been  translated  in  the  text  in  a  man 
ner  which  admits  of  a  double  interpretation.  The 
context  removes  all  ambiguity  in  this  case. 
2  A2 


306 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


pressed  his  fears  that  projects  were  forming 
against  the  rights  of  the  Princess  of  Orange. 
The  more  affluent  and  considerable  Catho 
lics  themselves  became  alarmed,  seeing,  as 
clearly  as  their  brethren,  the  dangers'  to 
•which  they  might  be  exposed  under  a  Pro 
testant  successor.  But  they  thought  it  wiser 
to  entitle  themselves  to  his  favour  by  a  mo 
derate  exercise  of  their  influence,  than  to 
provoke  his  hostility  by  precautions  so  un 
likely  to  be  effectual  against  his  succession 
or  his  religion.  Moderation  had  its  usual 
fate :  the  faction  of  zealots,  animated  by  the 
superstition,  the  jealousy,  and  the  violence 
of  the  Queen,  became  the  most  powerful. 
Even  at  this  time,  however,  the  Treasurer 
was  thought  likely  to  have  maintained  his 
ground  for  some  time  longer,  if  he  had  en 
tirely  conformed  to  the  King's  wishes.  His 
friends  Ormonde,  Middleton,  Feversham, 
Dartmouth,  and  Preston  were  not  without 
hope  that  he  might  retain  office.  At  last,  in 
the  end  of  October,  James  declared  that  Ro 
chester  must  either  go  to  mass,  or  go  out  of 
office.*  His  advisers  represented  to  him 
that  it  was  dangerous  to  leave  this  alterna 
tive  to  the  Treasurer,  which  gave  him  the 
means  of  saving  his  place  by  a  pretended 
conformity.  The  King  replied  that  he  haz 
arded  nothing  by  the  proposal,  for  he  knew 
that  Rochester  would  never  conform.  If 
this  observation  was  sincere,  it  seems  to  have 
been  rash;  for  some  of  Rochester's  friends 
still  believed  he  would  do  whatever  was  ne 
cessary,  and  advised  him  to  keep  his  office 
at  any  price. f  The  Spanish  and  Dutch  am 
bassadors  expressed  their  fear  of  the  fall  of 
their  last  friend  in  the  Cabinet  ;J  and  Louis 
XIV.  considered  the  measure  as  certainly 
favourable  to  religion  and  to  his  policy, 
whether  it  ended  in  the  conversion  of  Ro 
chester  or  in  his  dismissal ;  in  acquiring  a 
friend,  or  in  disabling  an  enemy. § 

It  was  agreed  that  a  conference  on  the 
questions  in  dispute  should  be  held  in  the 
presence  of  Rochester,  by  Dr.  Jane  and  Dr. 
Patrick  on  behalf  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  by  Dr.  Giffard  and  Dr.  Tilden  II  on  the 
part  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  It  is  not  easy 
to  believe  that  the  King  or  his  minister 
should  have  considered  a  real  change  of 
opinion  as  a  possible  result  of  such  a  dis 
pute.  Even  if  the  influence  of  attachment, 
of  antipathy,  of  honour,  and  of  habit  on  the 
human  mind  were  suspended,  the  conviction 
of  a  man  of  understanding  on  questions  of 
great  importance,  then  the  general  object  of 
study  and  discussion,  could  hardly  be  con- 


*  Barillon,  4th  Nov.— Fox  MSS.  It  is  curious 
that  the  report  of  Rochester's  dismissal  is  men 
tioned  by  Narcissus  Luttrell  on  the  same  day  on 
which  Barillon's  despatch  is  dated. 

t  Id.  9th  Dec.— Ibid. 

t  Id.  18th  Nov.— Ibid. 

§  The  King  to  Barillon.  Versailles,  19th  Oct.— 
Ibid. 

II  This  peculiarly  respectable  divine  assumed 
the  name  of  Godden  ; — a  practice  to  which  Catho 
lic  clergymen  were  then  sometimes  reduced  to 
elude  persecution. 


ceived  to  depend  on  the  accidental  superi 
ority  in  skill  and  knowledge  exhibited  by 
!.he  disputants  of  either  party  in  the  course 
of  a  single  debate.  But  the  proposal,  if  made 
by  one  party,  was  too  specious  and  popular 
to  be  prudently  rejected  by  the  other:  they 
were  alike  interested  in  avoiding  the  impu 
tation  of  shrinking  from  an  argumentative 
examination  of  their  faith.  The  King  was 
desirous  of  being  relieved  from  his  own  in 
decision  by  a  signal  proof  of  Rochester's  ob 
stinacy;  arid  in  the  midst  of  his  fluctuations 
he  may  sometimes  have  indulged  a  linger 
ing  hope  that  the  disputation  might  supply 
a  decent  excuse  for  the  apparent  conformity 
of  his  old  friend  and  servant.  In  all  pro 
longed  agitations  of  the  mind,  it  is  in  succes 
sion  affected  by  motives  not  very  consistent 
with  each  other.  Rochester  foresaw  that 
his  popularity  among  Protestants  would  be 
enhanced  by  his  triumphant  resistance  to  the 
sophistry  of  their  adversaries;  and  he  gave 
the  King,  by  consenting  to  the  conference,  a 
pledge  of  his  wish  to  carry  compliance  to  the 
utmost  boundaries  of  integrity.  He  hoped 
to  gain  time;  he  retained  the  means  of  pro 
fiting  by  fortunate  accidents ;  at  least  he 
postponed  the  fatal  hour  of  removal  ;  and 
there  were  probably  moments  in  which  his 
fainting  virtue  looked  for  some  honourable 
pretence  for  deserting  a  vanquished  party. 

The  conference  took  place  on  the  30th  of 
November.*  Each  of  the  contending  par 
ties,  as  usual,  claimed  the  victory.  The 
Protestant  writers,  though  they  agree  that 
the  Catholics  were  defeated,  vary  from  each 
other.  Some  ascribe  the  victory  to  the  two 
divines;  others  to  the  arguments  of  Roches 
ter  himself;  and  one  of  the  disputants  of  the 
English  Church  said  that  it  was  unnecessary 
for  them  to  do  much.  One  writer  tells  us 
that  the  King  said  he  never  saw  a  good  cause 
so  ill  defended ;  and  all  agree  that  Roches 
ter  closed  the  conference  with  the  most  de 
termined  declaration  that  he  was  confirmed 
in  his  religion.t  Giffard,  afterwards  a  Catho 
lic  prelate  of  exemplary  character,  published 
an  account  of  the  particulars  of  the  contro 
versy,  which  gives  a  directly  opposite  account 
of  it.  In  the  only  part  of  it  which  can  in  any 
degree  be  tried  by  historical  evidence,  the 
Catholic  account  of  the  dispute  is  more  pro 
bable.  Rochester,  if  we  may  believe  Giffard, 
at  the  end  of  the  conference,  said — "  The 
disputants  have  discoursed  learnedly,  and  I 
desire  time  to  consider. "t  Agreeably  to  this 
statement,  Barillon,  after  mentioning  the 
dispute,  told  his  Court  that  Rochester  still 


*  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  419.  Barillon's  short  ac 
count  of  ihe  conference  is  dated  on  the  12ih  De 
cember,  which,  after  making  allowance  for  the 
difference  of  calendars,  makes  the  despatch  to  be 
written  two  days  after  the  conference,  which  de 
serves  to  be  mentioned  as  a  proof  of  Dodd's  singu 
lar  exactness. 

t  Burnet,  Echard,  and  Kennet.  There  are  other 
contradictions  in  the  testimony  of  these  historians, 
and  it  is  evident  that  Burnet  did  not  implicitly  be 
lieve  Rochester's  own  story. 

t  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  420. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


307 


showed  a  disposition  to  be  instructed  with 
respect  to  the  difficulties  which  prevented 
him  from  declaring  himself  a  Catholic,  and 
added  that  some  even  then  expected  that  he 
would  determine  for  conformity.*  This  des 
patch  was  written  two  days  after  the  dispu 
tation  by  a  minister  who  could  neither  be 
m  isinformed.  nor  have  any  motive  to  deceive. 
Some  time  afterwards,  indeed,  Rochester 
made  great  efforts  to  preserve  his  place,  and 
laboured  to  persuade  the  moderate  party 
among  the  Catholics  that  it  was  their  interest 
to  support  him.f  He  did  not,  indeed,  offer 
to  sacrifice  his  opinions  •  but  a  man  who,  after 
the  loss  of  all  confidence  and  real  power, 
clung  with  such  tenacity  to  mere  office, 
under  a  system  of  whicn  he  disapproved 
every  principle,  could  hardly  be  supposed 
to  be  unassailable.  The  violent  or  decisive 
politicians  of  the  Catholic  party  dreaded  that 
Rochester  might  still  take  the  King  at  his 
word,  and  defeat  all  their  plans  by  a  feigned 
compliance.  James  distrusted  his  sincerity, 
suspected  that  his  object  was  to  amuse  and 
temporise,  and  at  length,  weary  of  his  own 
irresolution,  took  the  decisive  measure  of  re 
moving  the  only  minister  by  whom  the  Pro 
testant  party  had  a  hold  on  his  councils. 

The  place  of  Lord  Rochester  was  accord 
ingly  supplied  on  the  5th  of  January,  1687, 
by  commissioners,  of  whom  two  were  Catho 
lics,  Lord  Bellasis  of  the  cautious,  and  Lord 
Dover  of  the  zealous  party;  and  the  remain 
ing  three.  Lord  Godolphin,  Sir  John  Ernley, 
and  Sir  Stephen  Fox,  were  probably  chosen 
for  their  capacity  and  experience  in  the  af 
fairs  of  finance.  Two  days  afterwards  Par 
liament,  in  which  the  Protestant  Tories,  the 
followers  of  Rochester,  predominated,  was 
prorogued.  James  endeavoured  to  soften 
the  removal  of  his  minister  by  a  pension  of 
40001.  a  year  on  the  Post  Office  for  a  term 
of  years,  together  with  the  polluted  grant  of 
a  perpetual  annuity  of  1700/.  a  year  out  of 
the  forfeited  estate  of  Lord  Gray,t  for  the 
sake  of  which  the  King,  under  a  false  show 
of  mercy,  had  spared  the  life  of  that  noble 
man.  The  King  was  no  longer,  however,  at 
pains  to  conceal  his  displeasure.  He  told 
Barillon  that  Rochester  favoured  the  French 
Protestants,  whom,  as  a  term  of  reproach,  he 
called  "Calvinists,"  and  added  that  this  was 
one  of  many  instances  in  which  the  senti 
ments  of  the  minister  were  opposite  to  those 
of  his  master. §  He  informed  D'Adda  that 
the  Treasurer's  obstinate  perseverance  in 
error  had  at  length  rendered  his  removal  in 
evitable  ;  but  that  wary  minister  adds,  that 
they  who  had  the  most  sanguine  hopes  of 
the  final  success  of  the  Catholic  cause  were 
obliged  to  own  that,  at  that  moment,  the 
public  temper  was  inflamed  and  exasperated, 
and  that  the  cry  of  the  people  was,  that 
since  Rochester  was  dismissed  because  he 
would  not  become  a  Catholic,  there  must 

*  Barillon.  12tli  Dec.— Fox  MSS. 
r  Id.  30th  Dec.— Ibid. 

t  Evelyn,  vol.  i.  p.  595 

*  Barillon,  13ih  Jan.  1687.— Fox  MSS. 


be   a  design  to  expel  all  Protestants  from 
office.* 

The  fall  of  Rochester  was  preceded,  and 
probably  quickened,  by  an  important  change 
in  the  administration  of  Scotland,  and  it  was 
also  connected  with  a  revolution  in  the  go 
vernment  of  Ireland,  of  both  -which  events  it 
is  now  necessary  to  relate  the  most  important 
particulars. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Scotland. — Administration  of  Queensberry. — 
Conversion  of  Perth. — Measures  contem 
plated  by  the  King. — Debates  in  Parliament 
on  the  King's  letter. — Proposed  bill  of  tole 
ration — unsatisfactory  to  James. — Adjourn 
ment  of  Parliament. — Exercise  of  prero 
gative. 

Ireland. — Character  of  Tyrconnel. — Review 
of  the  state  of  Ireland. — Arrival  of  Tyr 
connel. — His  appointment  as  Lord  Deputy. 
— Advancement  of  Catholics  to  offices. — 
Tyrconnel  aims  at  the  sovereign  power  in 
Ireland. — Intrigues  with  France. 

THE  government  of  Scotland,  under  the 
Episcopal  ministers  of  Charles  II.,  was  such, 
that,  to  the  Presbyterians,  who  formed  the 
majority  of  the  people,  "  their  native  country 
had,  by  the  prevalence  of  persecution  and 
violence,  become  as  insecure  as  a  den  of 
robbers,  "t  The  chief  place  in  the  adminis 
tration  had  been  filled  for  some  years  by 
Queen sberry,  a  man  of  ability,  the  leader  of 
the  Episcopal  party,  who,  in  that  character 
as  well  as  from  a  matrimonial  connection 
between  their  families,  was  disposed  to  an 
union  of  councils  with  Rochester.!  Adopting 
the  principles  of  his  English  friends,  he 
seemed  ready  to  sacrifice  the  remaining 
liberties  of  his  country,  but  resolved  to  ad 
here  to  the  Established  Church.  The  acts 
of  the  first  session  in  the  reign  of  James  are 
such  as  to  have  extorted  from  a  great  histo 
rian  of  calm  temper,  and  friendly  to  the 
house  of  Stuart,  the  reflection  that  "  nothing 
could  exceed  the  abject  servility  of  the 
Scotch  nation  during  this  period  but  the  ar 
bitrary  severity  of  the  administration. "§  Not 
content  with  servility  and  cruelty  for  the 
moment,  they  laid  down  principles  which 
would  render  slavery  universal  and  perpe 
tual,  by  assuring  the  King  "  that  they  abhor 
and  detest  all  principles  and  positions  which 
are  contrary  or  derogatory  to  the  King's  sa 
cred,  supreme,  absolute  power  and  authority, 
which  none,  whether  persons  or  collective 
bodies,  can  participate  of.  in  any  manner  or 
on  any  pretext,  but  in  dependence  on  him 
and  by  commission  from  him."|| 


*  D'Adda.  10th  Jan.  1687.— MS. 
t  Hume,  History  of  England,  chap.  Ixix. 
t  His  son  had  married  the  niece  of  Lady  Ro 
chester. 

§  Hume,  chap.  Ixx. 
il  Acts  of  Parliament,  vol.  viii.  p.  459. 


308 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


But  the  jealousies  between  the  King's 
party  and  that  of  the  Church  among  the 
Scotch  ministers  were  sooner  visible  than 
those  between  the  corresponding  factions  in 
the  English  council;  and  they  seem,  in  some 
degree,  to  have  limited  the  severities  which 
followed  the  revolt  of  Argyle.  The  Privy 
Council,  at  the  intercession  of  some  ladies 
of  distinction,  prevented  the  Marquis  of 
Athol  from  hanging  Mr.  Charles  Campbell, 
then  confined  by  a  fever,  at  the  gates  of  his 
father's  castle  of  Inverary:*  and  it  was  pro 
bably  by  their  representations  that  James 
\vas  induced  to  recall  instructions  which  he 
had  issued  to  the  Duke  of  Queensberry  for 
the  suppression  of  the  name  of  Campbell  ;f 
which  would  have  amounted  to  a  proscrip 
tion  of  several  noblemen,  a  considerable 
body  of  gentry,  and  the  most  numerous  and 
powerful  tribe  in  the  kingdom.  They  did  not, 
however,  hesitate  in  the  execution  of  the 
King's  orders  to  dispense  with  the  Test  in 
the  case  of  four  peers  and  twenty-two  gen 
tlemen,  who  were  required  by  law  to  take  it 
before  they  exercised  the  office  of  commis 
sioners  to  assess  the  supply  in  their  respective 
counties.! 

The  Earl  of  Perth,  the  Chancellor  of  Scot 
land,  began  now  to  attack  Queensberry  by 
means  somewhat  similar  to  those  employed 
by  Sunderland  against  Rochester.  Queens- 
berry  had  two  years  before  procured  the  ap 
pointment  of  Perth,  as  it  was  believed,  by  a 
present  of  a  sum  of  27.000/.  of  public  money 
to  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth.  Under  a  new 
reign,  when  that  lady  was  by  no  means  a 
favourite,  both  Queensberry  and  Perth  ap 
prehended  a  severe  inquisition  into  this  mis 
application  of  public  money  ;§  Perth,  whether 
actuated  by  fear  or  ambition,  made  haste  to 
consult  his  security  and  advancement  by 
conforming  to  the  religion  of  the  Court,  on 
which  Lord  Halifax  observed,  that  a  his  faith 
had  made  him  whole."  Queensberry  ad 
hered  to  the  Established  Church. 

The  Chancellor  soon  began  to  exercise 
that  ascendency  which  he  acquired  by  his 
conversion,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  provoke 
immediate  demonstrations  of  the  zeal  against 
the  Church  of  Rome,  which  the  Scotch  Pres 
byterians  carried  farther  than  any  other  Re 
formed  community.  He  issued  an  order 
against  the  sale  of  any  books  without  license, 
which  was  universally  understood  as  intend 
ed  to  prevent  the  circulation  of  controversial 
writings  against  the  King's  religion.  Glen, 
a  bookseller  in  Edinburgh,  when  he  received 
this  warning,  said,  that  he  had  one  book 
which  strongly  condemned  Popery,  and  de 
sired  to  know  whether  he  might  continue  to 
sell  it.  Being  asked  what  the  book  was,  he 
answered,  "The  Bible. "||  Shortly  afterwards 
the  populace  manifested  their  indignation  at 
(he  public  celebration  of  mass  by  riots,  in 

*  Fountainhall,  Chronicle,  vol.  i.  p.  366. 

t  Warrant,  1st  June,  1685. — State  Paper  Office. 

$  Warrant,  7th  Dec.— Ibid. 

$  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p.  189.         II  Ibid.  p.  390. 


the  suppression  of  which  several  persons 
were  killed.  A  law  to  inflict  adequate  pe 
nalties  on  such  offences  against  the  security 
of  religious  worship  would  have  been  per 
fectly  just.  But  as  the  laws  of  Scotland  had, 
however  unjustly,  made  it  a  crime  to  be 
present  at  the  celebration  of,,  mass,  it  was 
said,  with  some  plausibility,  that  the  rioters 
had  only  dispersed  an  unlawful  assembly. 
The  lawyers  evaded  this  difficulty  by  the 
ingenious  expedient  of  keeping  out  of  view 
the  origin  and  object  of  the  tumults,  and 
prosecuted  the  offenders,  merely  for  rioting 
in  violation  of  certain  ancient  statutes,'  some 
of  which  rendered  that  offence  capital.  They 
were  pursued  wTith  such  singular  barbarity, 
that  one  Keith,  who  was  riot  present  at  the 
tumult,  was  executed  for  having  said,  that 
he  would  have  helped  the  rioters,  and  for 
having  drank  confusion  to  all  Papists  j  though 
he  at  the  same  time  drank  the  health  of  the 
King,  and  though  in  both  cases  he  only  fol 
lowed  the  example  of  the  witnesses  on  whose 
evidence  he  was  convicted.  Attempts  were 
vainly  made  to  persuade  this  poor  man  to 
charge  Queensberry  with  being  accessory  to 
the  riots,  which  lie  had  freely  ridiculed  in 
private.  That  nobleman  was  immediately 
after  removed  from  the  office  of  Treasurer, 
but  he  was  at  the  same  time  appointed  Lord 
President  of  the  Council  with  a  pension,  that 
the  Court  might  retain  some  hold  on  him 
during  the  important  discussions  at  the  ap 
proaching  session  of  Parliament. 

The  King  communicated  to  the  secret  com 
mittee  of  the  Scotch  Privy  Council  his  in 
tended  instructions  to  the  Commissioners 
relative  to  the  measures  to  be  proposed  to 
Parliament.  They  comprehended  the  repeal 
of  the  Test,  the  abrogation  of  the  sanguinary 
laws  as  far  as  they  related  to  Papists,  the 
admission  of  these  last  to  all  civil  and  mili 
tary  employments,  and  the  confirmation  of 
all  the  King's  dispensations,  even  in  the 
reigns  of  his  successors,  unless  they  were 
recalled  by  Parliament.  On  these  terms  he 
declared  his  willingness  to  assent  to  any  law 
(not  repugnant  to  these  things)  for  securing 
the  Protestant  religion,  and  the  personal  dig 
nities,  offices,  and  possessions  of  the  clergy, 
and  for  continuing  all  laws  against  fanati 
cism.*  The  Privy  Council  manifested  some 
unwonted  scruples  about  these  propositions : 
James  answered  them  angrily  .t  Perplexed 
by  this  unexpected  resistance,  as  well  as  by 
the  divisions  in  the  Scottish'  councils,  and 
the  repugnance  shown  by  the  Episcopalian 
party  to  any  measure  which  might  bring  the 
privileges  of  Catholics  more  near  to  a  level 
with  their  own,  he  commanded  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton  and  Sir  George  Lockhart,  Presi 
dent  of  the  Court  of  Session,  to  come  to  Lon 
don,  with  a  view  to  ascertain  their  inclina 
tions,  and  to  dispose  them  favourably  to  his 
objects,  but  under  colour  of  consulting  them 
on  the  nature  of  the  relief  which  it  might  be 


*  4th  March,  1686.— State  Paper  Office, 
t  18th  March.— Ibid. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


309 


prudent  to  propose  for  the  members  of  his 
own  communion.*  The  Scotch  negotiators 
(for  as  such  they  seem  to  have  acted)  con 
ducted  the  discussion  with  no  small  discre 
tion  and  dexterity.  They  professed  their 
readiness  to  concur  in  the  repeal  of  the  penal 
and  sanguinary  laws  against  Catholics ;  ob 
serving,  however,  the  difficulty  of  proposing 
to  confine  such  an  indulgence  to  one  class 
of  dissidents,  and  the  policy  of  moving  for  a 
general  toleration,  which  it  would  be  as  much 
the  interests  of  Presbyterians  as  of  Catholics 
to  promote.  They  added,  that  it  might  be 
more  politic  not  to  propose  the  repeal  of  the 
Test  as  a  measure  of  government,  but  either 
to  leave  it  to  the  spontaneous  disposition  of 
Parliament,  which  would  very  probably  re 
peal  a  law  aimed  in  Scotland  against  Pres 
byterians  as  exclusively  as  it  had  in  England 
been  intended  to  exclude  Catholics,  or  to 
trust  to  the  King's  dispensing  power,  which 
was  there  undisputed  ; — as  indeed  every  part 
of  the  prerogative  was  in  that  country  held 
to  be  above  question,  and  without  limits. t 
These  propositions  embarrassed  James  and 
his  more  zealous  counsellors.  The  King 
struggled  obstinately  against  the  extension 
of  the  liberty  to  the  Presbyterians.  The 
Scotch  councillors  required,  that  if  the  Test 
was  repealed,  the  King  should  bind  himself 
by  the  most  solemn  promise  to  attempt  no 
farther  alteration  or  abridgment  of  the  privi 
leges  of  the  Protestant  clergy.  James  did 
not  conceal  from  them  his  repugnance  thus 
to  confirm  and  to  secure  the  establishment 
of  a  heretical  Church.  He  imputed  the  per 
tinacity  of  Hamilton  to  the  insinuations  of 
Rochester^  and  that  of  Lockhart  to  the  still 
more  obnoxious  influence  of  his  father-in-law. 
Lord  Wharton.t 

The  Earl  of  Moray,  a  recent  convert  to  the 
Catholic  religion,  opened  Parliament  on  the 
29th  of  April,  and  laid  before  it  a  royal  let 
ter,  exhibiting  traces  of  the  indecision  and 
ambiguity  which  were  the  natural  conse 
quence  of  the  unsuccessful  issue  of  the  con 
ferences  in  London.  The  King  begins  with 
holding  out  the  temptation  of  a  free  trade 
with  England,  and  after  tendering  an  ample 
amnesty,  proceeds  to  state,  that  while  he 
shows  these  acts  of  mercy  to  the  enemies  of 
his  crown  and  royal  dignity,  he  cannot  be 
unmindful  of  his  Roman  Catholic  subjects, 
who  had  adhered  to  the  Crown  in  rebellions 
and  usurpations,  though  they  lay  under  dis 
couragements  hardly  to  be  named.  He  re 
commends  them  to  the  care  of  Parliament, 
and  desires  that  they  may  have  the  protec 
tion  of  the  laws  and  the  same  security  with 
other  subjects,  without  being  laid  under  ob 
ligations  which  their  religion  will  not  admit 
of.  "This  love,"  he  says,  "we  expect  ye 
will  show  to  your  brethren,  as  you  see  we 
are  an  indulgent  father  to  you  all."§ 

At  the  next  sitting  an  answer  was  voted, 


*  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p.  410. 
tBarillon,  22d  April.— Fox  MSS. 
t  Id.  29th  April— Ibid. 
§  Acts  of  Parliament,  vol.  viii.  p.  580. 


thanking  the  King  for  his  endeavours  to  pro 
cure  a  free  trade  with  England ;  expressing 
the  utmost  admiration  of  the  offer  of  amnesty 
to  such  desperate  rebels  against  so  merciful 
a  prince  ;  declaring,  "  as  to  that  part  of  your 
Majesty's  letter  which  relates  to  your  sub 
jects  of  the  Roman  Catholic  persuasion,  we 
shall,  in  obedience  to  your  Majesty's  com 
mands,  and  in  tenderness  to  their  persons, 
take  the  same  into  our  serious  and  dutiful 
consideration,  and  go  as  great  lengths  therein 
as  our  consciences  will  allow ;"  and  conclu 
ding  with  these  words,  which  were  the  more 
significant  because  they  were  not  called  for 
by  any  correspondent  paragraph  in  the  King's 
letter: — "Not  doubting  that  your  Majesty 
will  be  careful  to  secure  the  Protestant  reli 
gion  established  by  law."  Even  this  answer, 
cold  and  guarded  as  it  was,  did  not  pass  with 
out  some  debate,  important  only  as  indica 
ting  the  temper  of  the  assembly.  The  words, 
"subjects  of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion." 
were  objected  to,  "as  not  to  be  given  by 
Parliament  to  individuals,  whom  the  law 
treated  as  criminals,  and  to  a  Church  which 
Protestants  could  not,  without  inconsistency, 
regard  as  entitled  to  the  appellation  of  Catho 
lic."  Lord  Fountainhall  proposed  as  an 
amendment,  the  substitution  of  "those  com 
monly  called  Roman  Catholics."  The  Earl 
of  Perth  called  this  nicknaming  the  King, 
and  proposed,  "those  subjects  your  Majesty 
has  recommended."  The  Archbishop  of 
Glasgow  supported  the  original  answer,  upon 
condition  of  an  entry  in  the  Journals,  declar 
ing  that  the  words  were  used  only  out  of 
courtesy  to  the  King,  as  a  repetition  of  the 
language  of  his  letter.  A  minority  of  fifty- 
six  in  a  house  of  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
two  voted  against  the  original  words,  even 
though  they  were  to  be  thus  explained.* 
Some  members  doubted  whether  they  could 
sincerely  profess  a  disposition  to  go  any  far 
ther  lengths  in  favour  of  the  Romanists,  be 
ing  convinced  that  all  the  laws  against  the 
members  of  that  communion  ought  to  con 
tinue  in  force.  The  Parliament  having  been 
elected  under  the  administration  of  Queens- 
berry,  the  Episcopal  party  was  very  power 
ful  both  in  that  assembly  and  in  the  com 
mittee  called  the  "'Lords  of  the  Articles," 
with  whom  alone  a  bill  could  originate.  The 
Scottish  Catholics  were  an  inconsiderable 
body  :  and  the  Presbyterians,  though  com 
prehending  the  most  intelligent,  moral,  and 
religious  part  of  the  people,  so  far  from  having 
any  influence  in  the  legislature,  were  pro 
scribed  as  criminals,  and  subject  to  a  more 
cruel  and  sanguinary  persecution  at  the  hands 
of  their  Protestant  brethren  than  either  of 
these  communions  had  ever  experienced  from 
Catholic  rulers. t  Those  of  the  prelates  who 
preferred  the  interest  of  their  order  to  their 

*  Fountainhal!,  vol.  i.  p.  413. 

t  Wodrow,  History  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
&c.,  vol.  ii.  p.  498: — an  avowed  partisan,  but  a 
most  sincere  and  honest  writer,  to  whom  great 
thanks  are  due  for  having  preserved  that  collection 
of  facts  and  documents  which  will  for  ever  render 


310 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


own  were  dissatisfied  even  with  the  very 
limited  measure  of  toleration  laid  before  the 
Lords  of  the  Articles,  which  only  proposed 
to  exempt  Catholics  from  punishment  on  ac 
count  of  the  private  exercise  of  their  reli 
gious  worship .*  The  Primate  was  alarmed 
by  a  hint  thrown  out  by  the  Duke  of  Hamil 
ton,  that  a  toleration  so  limited  might  be 
granted  to  dissenting  Protestants  ;t  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  the  resistance  of  the 
prelates  softened  by  the  lure  held  out  by  the 
King  in  his  first  instructions,  that  if  they 
would  remove  the  Test  against  Catholics 
they  should  be  indulged  in  the  persecution 
of  their  fellow  Protestants.  The  Lords  of 
the  Articles  were  forced  to  introduce  into  the 
bill  two  clauses ; — one  declaring  their  deter 
mination  to  adhere  to  the  established  religion, 
the  other  expressly  providing,  that  the  im 
munity  and  forbearance  contemplated  should 
not  derogate  from  the  laws  which  required 
the  oath  of  allegiance  and  the  test  to  be  taken 
by  all  persons  in  offices  of  public  trust. t 

The  arguments  on  both  sides  are  to  be 
found  in  pamphlets  then  printed  at  Edin 
burgh;  those  for  the  Government  publicly 
and  actively  circulated,  those  of  the  oppo 
site  party  disseminated  clandestinely^  The 
principal  part,  as  in  all  such  controver 
sies,  consists  in  personalities,  recriminations, 
charges  of  inconsistency,  and  addresses  to 
prejudice,  which  scarcely  any  ability  can 
render  interesting  after  the  passions  from 
which  they  spring  have  subsided  and  are 
forgotten.  It  happened,  also,  that  temporary 
circumstances  required  or  occasioned  the 
best  arguments  not  to  be  urged  by  the  dis 
putants.  Considered  on  general  principles, 
the  bill,  like  every  other  measure  of  tolera 
tion,  was  justly  liable  to  no  permanent  ob 
jection  but  its  incompleteness  and  partiality. 
But  no  Protestant  sect  was  then  so  tolerant 
as  to  object  to  the  imperfection  of  the  relief 
to  be  granted  to  Catholics;  and  the  ruling 
party  were  neither  entitled  nor  disposed  to 
complain,  that  the  Protestant  Non-conform 
ists,  whom  they  had  so  long  persecuted, 
were  not  to  be  comprehended  in  the  tolera 
tion.  The  only  objection  which  could  rea 
sonably  be  made  to  the  tolerant  principles, 
now  for  the  first  time  inculcated  by  the 
advocates  of  the  Court,  was,  that  they  were 
not  proposed  with  good  faith,  or  for  the  re 
lief  of  the  Catholics  but  for  the  subversion 
of  the  Protestant  Church,  and  the  ultimate 


it  impossible  to  extenuate  the  tyranny  exercised 
over  Scotland  from  the  Restoration  to  the  Revolu 
tion. 

*  Wodrow,  vol.  ii.  p.  594. 

t  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p  415. 

t  Wodrow,  vol.  ii.  app. 

§  Ibid.  Wodrow  ascribes  the  Court  pamphlet 
to  Sir  Roger  L' Estrange,  in  which  he  is  followed 
by  Mr.  Laing,  though,  in  answer  to  it,  it  is  said  to 
have  been  written  by  a  clergyman  who  had 
preached  before  the  Parliament.  L'Estrange  was 
then  in  Edinburgh,  probably  engaged  in  some 
more  popular  controversy.  The  tract  in  question 
seems  more  likely  to  have  been  written  by  Pater- 
6on,  Bishop  of  Edinburgh. 


establishment  of  Popery,  with  all  the  hor 
rors  which  were  to  follow  in  its  train.  The 
present  effects  of  the  bill  were  a  subject  of 
more  urgent  consideration  than  its  general 
character.  It  was  more  necessary  to  ascer 
tain  the  purpose  which  it  was  intended  and 
calculated  to  promote  at  the  instant,  than  to 
examine  the  principles  on  which  such  a 
measure,  in  other  circumstances  and  in 
common' times,  might  be  perfectly  wise  and 
just.  Even  then,  had  any  man  been  liberal 
and  bold  enough  to  propose  universal  and 
perfect  liberty  of  worship,  the  adoption  of 
such  a  measure  would  probably  have  afforded 
the  most  effectual  security  against  the  de 
signs  of  the  Crown.  But  very  few  enter 
tained  so  generous  a  principle  :  and  of  these, 
some  might  doubt  the  wisdom  of  its  applica 
tion  in  that  hour  of  peril,  while  no  one  could 
have  proposed  it  with  any  hope  that  it  could 
be  adopted  by  the  majority  of  such  a  Parlia 
ment.  It  can  hardly  be  a  subject  of  wonder, 
that  the  Established  clergy,  without  any  root 
in  the  opinions  and  affections  of  the  people, 
on  whom  they  were  imposed  by  law,  and 
against  whom  they  were  maintained  by  per 
secution,  should  not  in  the  midst  of  con 
scious  weakness  have  had  calmness  and 
fortitude  enough  to  consider  the  policy  of 
concession,  but  trembling  for  their  unpopular 
dignities  and  invidious  revenues,  should  re 
coil  from  the  surrender  of  the  most  distant 
outpost  which  seemed  to  guard  them,  and 
struggle  with  all  their  might  to  keep  those 
who  threatened  to  become  their  most  formi 
dable  rivals  under  the  brand  at  least, — if  not 
the  scourge, — of  penal  laws.  It  must  be 
owned,  that  the  language  of  the  Court  wri 
ters  was  not  calculated  either  to  calm  the 
apprehensions  of  the  Church,  or  to  satisfy 
the  solicitude  of  the  friends  of  liberty.  They 
told  Parliament,  "  that  if  the  King  were  ex 
asperated  by  the  rejection  of  the  bill,  he 
might,  without  the  violation  of  any  law, 
alone  remove  all  Protestant  officers  and 
judges  from  the  government  of  the  State, 
and  all  Protestant  bishops  and  ministers 
from  the  government  of  the  Church;"* — a 
threat  the  more  alarming,  because  the  dis 
pensing  power  seemed  sufficient  to  carry  it 
into  effect  in  civil  offices,  and  the  Scotch 
Act  of  Supremacy,  passed  in  one  of  the 
paroxysms  of  servility  which  were  frequent 
in  the  first  years  of  the  Restoration,t  ap 
peared  to  afford  the  means  of  fully  accom 
plishing  it  against  the  Church. 

The  unexpected  obstinacy  of  the  Scottish 
Parliament  alarmed  and  offended  the  Court. 
Their  answer  did  not  receive  the  usual  com 
pliment  of  publication  in  the  Gazette. — 
Orders  were  sent  to  Edinburgh  to  remove 
two  Privy  Councillors.}:  to  displace  Seton,  a 
judge,  and  to  deprive  the  Bishop  of  Dunkeld 
of  a  pension,  for  their  conduct.  Sir  George 
Mackenzie,  nimself,  the  most  eloquent  and 
accomplished  Scotchman  of  his  age,  was  for 

*  Wodrow,  vol.  ii.  app.  t  1669. 

J  The  Earl  of  Glencairn  and  Sir  W.  Bruce. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


311 


the  same  reason  dismissed  from  the  office  of 
Lord  Advocate.*  It  was  in  vain  that  he  had 
dishonoured  his  genius  by  being  for  ten  years 
the  advocate  of  tyranny  and  the  minister  of 


*  "  Sir  George  Mackenzie  was  the  grandson 
of  Kenneth,  first  Lord  Mackenzie  of  Kintail,  and 
the  nephew  of  Colin  and  George,  first  and  second 
Earls  of  Seaforth.  He  was  born  at  Dundee  in 
1636.  and  alter  passing  through  the  usual  course; 
of  education  in  his  own  country,  he  was  sent  for 
three  years  to  the  University  of  Bourges,  at  that 
time,  as  he  tells  us,  called  the  '  Athens  of  Law 
yers;' — as  in  later  times  the  Scotch  lawyers  usually 
repaired  to  Utrecht  and  Leyden.  He  was  called 
to  the  Bar,  and  began  to  practise  before  the  Resto 
ration  ;  immediately  af'er  which  he  was  appointed 
one  of  the  justices-depute — criminal  judges,  who 
exercised  that  jurisdiction  which  was  soon  after 
vested  in  five  lords  of  session  under  the  denomi 
nation  of  '  commissioners  of  justiciary.'  Misname 
appears  in  the  Parliamentary  proceedings  as  coun 
sel  in  almost  every  important  cause,  fie  repre 
sented  the  county  of  Ross  for  the  four  sessions  of 
the  Parliament  which  was  called  in  1669.  In  1677 
he  was  appointed  Lord  Advocate ;  and  was  in 
volved  by  that  preferment,  most  unhappily  for  his 
character,  in  the  worst  acts  of  the  Scotch  adminis 
tration  of  Charles  II.  At  the  Revolution  he  ad 
hered  to  the  fortunes  of  his  master.  Being  elected 
a  member  of  the  Convention,  he  maintained  the 
pretensions  of  James  with  courage  and  ability 
against  Sir  John  Dalrymple  and  Sir  James  Mont 
gomery,  who  were  the  most  considerable  of  the 
Revolutionary  party;  and  remaining  in  his  place 
after  the  imprisonment  of  Balcarras  and  the  escape 
of  Dundee,  he  was  one  of  the  minority  of  five  in 
the  memorable  division  on  the  forfeiture  of  the 
crown.  When  the  death  of  Dundee  destroyed 
the  hopes  of  his  party  in  Scotland,  he  took  refuge 
at  Oxford, — the  natural  asylum  of  so  learned  and 
inveterate  a  Tory.  Under  the  tolerant  govern 
ment  of  William  he  appears  to  have  enjoyed  his 
ample  fortune, — the  fruit  of  his  professional  la 
bours, — with  perfect  comfort  as  well  as  security. 
He  died  in  St.  James'  Street  in  May,  1691 ;  and 
his  death  is  mentioned  as  that  of  an  extraordinary 
person  by  several  of  those  who  recorded  the 
events  of  their  time,  before  the  necrology  of  this 
country  was  so  undistinguishinsr  as  it  has  now 
become.  The  pomp  and  splendour  of  his  inter 
ment  at  Edinburgh  affords  farther  evidence  how 
little  the  administration  of  William  was  disposed 
to  discourage  the  funeral  honours  paid  to  his  most 
inflexible  opponents.  The  writings  of  Sir  Georsfe 
Mackenzie  are  literary,  legal,  and  political.  His 
Miscellaneous  Essays,  both  in  prose  and  verse, 
may  now  be  dispensed  with,  or  laid  aside,  without 
difficulty;  They  have  not  vigour  enough  for  long 
life.  But  if  they  be  considered  as  the  elegant 
amusements  of  a  statesman  and  lawyer,  who  had 
little  leisure  for  the  cultivation  of  letters,  they 
afford  a  striking  proof  of  the  variety  of  his  accom 
plishments,  and  of  the  refinement  of  his  taste. 
In  several  of  his  Moral  Essays,  both  the  subject 
and  the  manner  betray  an  imitation  of  Cowley, 
who  was  at  that  moment  beginning  the  reforma 
tion  of  English  style.  Sir  George  Mackenzie 
was  probably  tempted,  by  the  example  of  this 
great  master,  to  write  in  praise  of  Solitude  :  and 
Evelyn  answered  by  a  panegyric  on  Active  life. 
It  seems  singular  that  Mackenzie,  plunged  in  the 
harshest  labours  of  ambition,  should  be  the  advo 
cate  of  retirement ;  and  that  Evelyn,  compara 
tively  a  recluse,  should  have  commended  that 
mode  of  life  which  he  did  not  choose.  Both 
works  were,  however,  rhetorical  exercises,  in 
which  a  puerile  ingenuity  was  employed  on  ques 
tions  which  admitted  no  answer,  and  were  not 
therefore  the  subject  of  sincere  opinion.  Before 
we  can  decide  whether  a  retired  or  a  public  life 


persecution  :  all  his  ignominious  claims  \vere 
cancelled  by  the  independence  of  one  day. 
It  was  hoped  that  such  examples  might  strike 
terror.*  Several  noblemen,  who  held  com 
missions  in  the  army,  were  ordered  to  repair 
to  their  posts.  Some  members  were  threat 
ened  with  the  avoidance  of  their  elections. t 
A  prosecution  was  commenced  against  the 
Bishop  of  Ross;  and  the  proceedings  were  stu 
diously  protracted,  to  weary  out  the  poorer 
part  of  those  who  refused  to  comply  w7iih  the 
Court.  The  ministers  scrupled  at  no  expe 
dient  for  seducing,  or  intimidating,  or  harass 
ing.  But  these  expedients  proved  ineffectual. 
The  majority  of  the  Parliament  adhered  to 
their  principles  ;  and  the  session  lingered  for 
about  a  month  in  the  midst  of  ordinary  or 
unimportant  affairs.}"  The  Bill  for  Tolera 
tion  was  not  brought  up  by  the  Lords  of  the 
Articles.  The  commissioners,  doubting  whe 
ther  it  would  be  carried,  and  probably  in 
structed  by  the  Court  that  it  would  neither 
satisfy  the  expectations  nor  promote  the 
purposes  of  the  King,  in  the  middle  of  June 
adjourned  the  Parliament,  which  was  never 
again  to  assemble. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  the  King  should 
have  been  painfully  disappointed  by  the 
failure  of  his  attempt;  for  after  the  conclu 
sion  of  the  session,  it  was  said  by  zealous 
and  pious  Protestants,  that  nothing  less  than 
a  special  interposition  of  Providence  could 
have  infused  into  such  an  assembly  a  stead 
fast  resolution  to  withstand  the  Court. §  The 
royal  displeasure  was  manifested  by  mea 
sures  of  a  very  violent  sort.  The  despotic 
supremacy  of  the  King  over  the  Church  was 
exercised  by  depriving  Bruce  of  his  bishopric 
of  Dunkeld  ;li — a  severity  which,  not  long  af 
ter,  was  repeated  in  the  deprivation  of  Cairn - 
cross.  Archbishop  of  Glasgow,  for  some  sup- 


be  best,  we  must  ask, — best  for  whom?  The 
absurdity  of  these  childish  generalities,  which 
exercised  the  wit  of  our  forefathers,  has  indeed 
been  long  acknowledged.  Perhaps  posterity  may 
discover,  that  many  political  questions  which  agi 
tate  our  times  are  precisely  of  the  same  nature  ; 
and  that  it  would  be  almost  as  absurd  to  attempt 
the  establishment  of  a  democracy  in  China  as 
the  foundation  of  a  nobility  in  Connecticut." — 
Abridged  from  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  vol. 
xxxvi.  p.  1.  ED. 

*  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p.  414. 

t  Ibid.  p.  419. 

t  Among  the  frivolous  but  characteristic  trans 
actions  of  this  session  was  the  "  Bore  Brieve," 
or  authenticated  pedigree  granted  to  the  Marquis 
de  Seignelai,  as  a  supposed  descendant  of  the  an 
cient  family  of  Cuthbert  of  Castlehill,  in  Inverness- 
shire.  His  lather,  the  great  Colbert,  who  appears 
to  have  been  the  son  of  a  reputable  woollen-draper 
of  Troyes,  had  attempted  to  obtain  the  same  cer 
tificate  of  genealogy,  but  such  was  the  pride  of 
birth  at  that  time  in  Scotland,  that  his  attempts 
were  vain.  It  now  required  all  the  influence  of 
the  Court,  set  in  motion  by  the  solicitations  of 
Barillon,  to  obtain  it  for  Seignelai.  By  an  elabo 
rate  display  of  all  the  collateral  relations  of  the 
Cuthberts,  the  "  Bore  Brieve"  connects  Seignelai 
with  the  Royal  Family,  and  with  all  the  nobility 
and  gentry  of  the  kingdom. — Acts  of  Parliament, 
vol.  iii.  p.  611. 

§  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p.  419.         II  Ibid.  p.  416. 


312 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


posed  countenance  to  an  obnoxious  preacher, 
though  that  prelate  laboured  to  avert  it  by 
promises  of  support  to  all  measures  favour 
able  to  the  King's  religion.*  A  few  days  | 
after  the  prorogation.  Queensberry  was  dis 
missed  from  all  His  offices,  and  required  not 
to  leave  Edinburgh  until  he  had  rendered  an 
account  of  his  administration  of  the  treasury.! 
Some  part  of  the  royal  displeasure  fell  upon  Sir 
George  Mackenzie,  the  Lord  Register,  lately 
created  Lord  Cromarty,  the  most  submissive 
servant  of  every  government,  for  having  flat 
tered  the  King,  by  too  confident  assurances 
of  a  majority  as  obsequious  as  himself.  The 
connection  of  Rochester  with  Queensberry 
now  aggravated  the  offence  of  the  latter,  and 
prepared  the  way  for  the  downfall  of  the 
former.  Moray,  the  commissioner,  promised 
positive  proofs,  but  produced  at.  last  only 
such  circumstances  as  were  sufficient  to  con 
firm  the  previous  jealousies  of  James,  that 
the  Scotch  Opposition  were  in  secret  corres 
pondence  with  Pensionary  Fagel,  and  even 
with  the  Prince  of  Orange. J  Sir  George 
Mackenzie,  whose  unwonted  independence 
seems  to  have  speedily  faltered,  was  refused 
an  audience  of  the  King,  when  he  visited 
London  with  the  too  probable  purpose  of 
making  his  peace.  The  most  zealous  Pro 
testants  being  soon  afterwards  removed  from 
the  Privy  Council,  and  the  principal  noble 
men  of  the  Catholic  communion  being  in 
troduced  in  their  stead,  James  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  Council,  informing  them  that 
his  application  to  Parliament  had  not  arisen 
from  any  doubt  of  his  own  power  to  stop  the 
severities  against  Catholics;  declaring  his 
intention  to  allow  the  exercise  of  the  Catholic 
worship,  and  to  establish  a  chapel  for  that 
purpose  in  his  own  palace  of  Holyrood  House  ; 
ami  intimating  to  the  judges,  that  they  were 
to  receive  the  allegation  of  this  allowance  as 
a  valid  defence,  any  law  to  the  contrary  not 
withstanding. §  The  warm  royalists,  in  their 
proposed  answer,  expressly  acknowledge  the 
King's  prerogative  to  be  a  legal  security  :  but 
the  Council,  in  consequence  of  an  objection 
of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  faintly  asserted 
their  independence,  by  substituting  "  suffi 
cient"  instead  of  u  legal. ;'H 

The  determination  was  thus  avowed  of 
pursuing  the  objects  of  the  King's  policy  in 
Scotland  by  the  exercise  of  prerogative,  at 
least  until  a  more  compliant  Parliament  could 
be  obtained,  which  would  not  only  remove 
all  doubt  for  the  present,  but  protect  the 
Catholics  against  the  recall  of  the  dispen 
sations  by  James'  successors.  The  means 
principally  relied  on  for  the  accomplishment 
of  that  object  was  the  power  now  assumed 

*  Fonntainhall,  vol  i.  p.  441.  Skinner,  Ecclesi 
astical  History,  vol.  ii.  p.  503. 

t  Tbid.  p.  420. 

t  Barillon,  1st— 22d  July,  1686 —Fox  MSS. 
It  will  appear  in  the  sequel,  that,  these  suspicions 
are  at  variance  with  probability,  and  unsupported 
by  evidence. 

$  Wodrow,  vol.  ii.  p.  598. 

II  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p.  424. 


by  the  King  to  stop  the  annual  elections  in 
burghs,  to  nominate  the  chief  magistrates, 
and  through  them  to  command  the  election  by 
more  summary  proceedings  than  those  of  the 
English  courts.  The  choice  of  ministers  cor 
responded  with  the  principles  of  administra 
tion.  The  disgrace  of  the  Duke  of  Hamilton, 
a  few  months  later,*  completed  the  transfer 
of  power  to  the  party  which  professed  an 
unbounded  devotion  to  the  principles  of  their 
master  in  the  government  both  of  Church 
and  State.  The  measures  of  the  Government 
did  not  belie  their  professions.  Sums  of  mo 
ney,  considerable  when  compared  with  the 
scanty  revenue  of  Scotland,  were  employed 
in  support  of  establishments  for  the  main 
tenance  and  propagation  of  the  Roman  Ca 
tholic  religion.  A  sum  of  1400Z.  a  year  was 
granted,  in  equal  portions,  to  the  Catholic 
missionaries,  to  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  to 
the  mission  in  the  Highlands,  to  the  Chapel 
Royal,  arid  to  each  of  the  Scotch  colleges  at 
Paris,  Douay,  and  Rome.f  The  Duke  of 
Hamilton,  Keeper  of  the  Palace,  was  com 
manded  to  surrender  the  Chancellor's  apart 
ments  in  Holyrood  House  to  a  college  of 
Jesuits.!  By  a  manifest  act  of  partiality, 
two-thirds  of  the  allowance  made  by  Charles 
the  Second  to  indigent  royalists  were  directed 
to  be  paid  to  Catholics;  and  all  pensions  and 
allowances  to  persons  of  that  religion  were 
required  to  be  paid  in  the  first  place,  in  pre 
ference  to  all  other  pensions. §  Some  of  these 
grants,  it  is  true,  if  they  had  been  made  by  a 
liberal  sovereign  in  a  tolerant  age,  were  in 
themselves  justifiable;  but  neither  the  cha 
racter  of  the  King,  nor  the  situation  of  the 
country,  nor  the  opinions  of  the  times,  left 
any  reasonable  man  at  liberty  then  to  doubt 
their  purpose  :  and  some  of  them  were  at 
tended  by  circumstances  which  would  be 
remarkable  as  proofs  of  the  infatuated  im 
prudence  of  the  King  and  his  counsellors,  if 
they  were  not  more  worthy  of  observation 
as  symptoms  of  that  insolent  contempt  with 
which  they  trampled  on  the  provisions  of  law, 
and  on  the  strongest  feelings  of  the  people. 

The  government  of  Ireland,  as  well  as 
that  of  England  and  Scotland,  was,  at  the 
accession  of  James,  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
hands  of  Protestant  Tories.  The  Lord-lieu 
tenancy  was,  indeed,  taken  from  the  Duke 
of  Ormonde,  then  far  advanced  in  years,  but 
it  was  bestowed  on  a  nobleman  of  the  same 
party,  Lord  Clarendon,  whose  moderate  un 
derstanding  added  little  to  those  claims  </n 
high  office,  which  he  derived  from  his  birth, 
connections,  and  opinions.  But  the  feeble 
and  timid  Lord  Lieutenant  was  soon  held  in 
check  by  Richard  Talbot,  then  created  Earl 

*  Fountainnall,  vol.  i.  p.  449—451.  Letter  (in 
State  Paper  Office,)  1st  March,  1687,  expressing 
the  King's  displeasure  at  the  conduct  of  Hamilton, 
and  directing  the  names  of  his  sons-in-law,  Pan- 
mure  and  Dunmore,  to  be  struck  out  of  the  list  of 
the  Council. 

t  Warrants  in   the  State   Paper  Office,  dated 
19th  May,  1687. 
I  Ibid.  15th  August.    $  Ibid.  7th  January,  1688. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


313 


of  Tyrconnel,  a  Catholic  gentleman  of  an 
cient  English  extraction,  who  joined  talents 
and  spirit  to  violent  passions,  boisterous 
manners,  unbounded  indulgence  in  every 
excess,  and  a  furious  zeal  for  his  religious 
party.*  His  character  was  tainted  by  that 
disposition  to  falsehood  and  artifice,  which, 
however  seemingly  inconsistent  with  violent 
passions,  is  often  combined  W7ith  them ;  and 
lie  possessed  more  of  the  beauty  and  bravery 
than  of  the  wit  or  eloquence  of  his  unhappy 
nation.  He  had  been  first  introduced  to 
Charles  II.  and  his  brother  before  the  Resto 
ration,  as  one  who  was  willing  to  assassinate 
Cromwell,  and  had  made  a  journey  into 
England  with  that  resolution.  He  soon  after 
received  an  appointment  in  the  household  of 
the  Duke  of  York,  arid  retained  the  favour 
of  that  prince  during  the  remainder  of  his 
life.  In  the  year  1666.  he  was  imprisoned 
for  a  few  days  by  Charles  II.,  for  having  re 
solved  to  assassinate  the  Duke  of  Ormonde, 
with  whose  Irish  administration  he  was  dis 
satisfied. t  He  did  not,  however,  even  by  the 
last  of  these  criminal  projects,  forfeit  the 
patronage  of  either  of  the  royal  brothers,  and 
at  the  accession  of  James  held  a  high  place 
among  his  personal  favourites.  He  was  in 
duced,  both  by  zeal  for  the  Catholic  party, 
and  by  animosity  against  the  family  of  Hyde, 
to  give  effectual  aid  to  Sunderland  in  the 
overthrow  of  Rochester,  and  required  in  re 
turn  that  the  conduct  of  Irish  aiFairs  should 
be  left  to  him.}  Sunderland  dreaded  the 
temper  of  Tyrconnel,  and  was  desirous  of 
performing  his  part  of  the  bargain  with  as 
little  risk  as  possible  to  the  quiet  of  Ireland. 
The  latter  at  first  contented  himself  with  the 
rank  of  senior  General  Officer  on  the  Irish 
staff;  in  which  character  he  returned  to 
Dublin  in  June,  1686,  as  the  avowed  favourite 
of  the  King,  and  \vith  pow-ers  to  new-model 
the  army.  His  arrival,  however,  had  been 


*  The  means  hy  which  Talbot  obtained  the  fa 
vour  of  James,  if  we  may  believe  the  accounts  of 
his  enemies,  were  somewhat  singular.  "  Cla 
rendon's  daughter  had  been  got  with  child  in 
Flanders,  on  a  pretended  promise  of  marriage,  by 
the  Duke  of  York,  who  was  forced  by  the  King, 
at  her  father's  importuniiy,  to  marry  her,  after  he 
had  resolved  the  contrary,  and  got  her  reputation 
blasted  by  Lord  Fiixharding  and  Colonel  Talbot, 
who  impudently  affirmed  that  they  had  received 
the  last  favours  from  her." — Sheridan  MS. 
Stuart  Papers.  "  5th  July  1694.  Sir  E.  Harley 
told  us,  that,  when  the  Duke  of  York  resolved  on 
putting  away  his  first  wife,  particularly  on  disco 
very  of  her  commerce  with ,  she  by  her 

father's  advice  turned  Roman  Catholic,  and  there 
by  secured  herself  from  reproach,  and  that  the 
pretence  of  her  father's  opposition  to  it  was  only 
to  act  a  part,  and  secure  himself  from  blame." — 
MSS.  in  the  handwriting  of  Lord  Treasurer  Ox 
ford,  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke  of  Portland. 
The  latter  of  these  passages  from  the  concluding 
part  must  refer  to  the  time  of  the  marriage.  But 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  both  the  reporters 
were  the  enemies  ol  Clarendon,  and  that  Sheridan 
was  the  bitter  enemy  of  Tyrconnel. 

t  Clarendon,  Continuation  of  History  (Oxford, 
1759).  p.  362. 

J  Sheridan  MS.    Stuart  Papers. 
40 


preceded  by  reports  of  extensive  changes  in 
the  government  of  the  kingdom.*  The  State, 
the  Church,  the  administration,  and  the  pro 
perty  of  that  unhappy  island,  were  bound 
together  by  such  unnatural  ties,  and  placed 
on  such  weak  foundations,  that  every  rumour 
of  alteration  in  one  of  them  spread  the  deepest 
alarm  for  the  safety  of  the  whole. 

From  the  colonization  of  a  small  part  of 
the  eastern  coast  under  Henry  II..  till  the 
last  years  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  an  un 
ceasing  and  cruel  warfare  was  waged  by  the 
English  governors  against  the  princes  and 
chiefs  of  the  Iiish  tribes,  with  little  other 
effect  than  that  of  preventing  the  progiesa 
of  civilization  among  the  Irish,  of  replunging 
many  of  the  English  into  barbarism,  and  of 
generating  that  deadly  animosity  between 
the  natives  and  the  invaders,  under  the 
names  of  Irishry  and  Englishry,  which,  as 
suming  various  forms,  and  exasperated  by  a 
fatal  succession  of  causes,  has  continued 
even  to  our  days  the  source  of  innumerable 
woes.  During  that  dreadful  period  of  four 
hundred  years,  the  laws  of  the  English  co 
lony  did  riot  punish  the  murder  of  a  man  of 
Irish  blood  as  a  crime. t  Even  so  late  as  the 
year  1547,  the  Colonial  Assembly,  called  a 
u  Parliament."  confirmed  the  insolent  laws 
which  prohibited  the  English  aof  the  pale" 
from  marrying  persons  of  Irish  blood. J  Re 
ligious  hostility  inflamed  the  hatred  of  these 
mortal  foes.  'The  Irish,  attached  to  their 
ancient  opinions  as  well  as  usages,  and  little 
addicted  to  doubt  or  inquiry,  rejected  the 
reformation  of  religion  offered  to  them  by 
their  enemies.  The  Protestant  worship  be 
came  soon  to  be  considered  by  them  as  the 
odious  badge  of  conquest  and  oppression  ;§ 
while  the  ancient  religion  was  endeared  by 
persecution,  and  by  its  association  with  the 
name,  the  language,  and  the  manners  of  their 
country.  The  island  had  long  been  repre 
sented  as  a  fief  of  the  See  of  Rome ;  the 
Catholic  clergy,  and  even  laity,  had  no  un 
changeable  friend  but  the  Sovereign  Pontiff; 
and  their  chief  hope  of  deliverance  from  a 
hostile  yoke  was  long  confined  to  Spain,  the 


*  Clarendon's  Letters,  passim- 

t  Sir  J.  Davies,  Discoverie,  &c.,  pp.  102—112. 
"  They  were  so  far  out  of  the  protection  of  the 
laws  that  it  was  often  adjudged  no  felony  to  kill  a 
mere  Irishman  in  time  of  peace," — except  he 
were  of  the  five  privileged  tribes  of  the  O'Neils 
of  Ulster,  the  O'Malaghlins  of  Meath,  the  O'Con 
nors  of  Connaught,  the  O'Briens  of  Thomond, 
and  the  MacMurroughs  of  Leinster ;  to  whom 
are  to  be  added  the  Oastmen  of  the  city  of  Wa- 
terford. — See  also  Leland,  History  of  Ireland, 
book  i.  cjiap.  3. 

t  28  Hen.  VIII.  c.  13.  "  The  English,"  says 
Sir  W.  Petty,  "before  Henry  VII. 's  time,  lived 
in  Ireland  as  the  Europeans  do  in  America." — 
Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland,  p.  112. 

§  That  the  hostility  of  religion  was,  however, 
a  secondary  prejudice  superinduced  on  hostility 
between  nations!,  appears  very  clearly  from  the 
laws  of  Catholic  sovereigns  against  the  Irish,  even 
after  the  Reformation,  particularly  the  Irish  statute 
of  3  &  4  Phil.  &  Mar.  c.  2,  against  the  O' Mores, 
and  O'Dempsies,  and  O'Connors,  "and  others 
of  the  Irishry." 

2B 


314 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


leader  of  the  Catholic  party  in  the  European 
commonwealth.  The  old  enmity  of  Irish ry 
and  Englishry  thus  appeared  with  redoubled 
force  under  the  new  names  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant.  The  necessity  of  self-defence 
compelled  Elizabeth  to  attempt  the  complete 
reduction  of  Ireland,  which,  since  she  had 
assumed  her  station  at  the  head  of  Protest 
ants,  became  the  only  vulnerable  part  of 
her  dominions,  and  a  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  her  most  formidable  enemies.  But  few 
of  the  benefits  which  sometimes  atone  for 
conquest  were  felt  by  Ireland.  Neither  the 
success  with  which  Elizabeth  broke  the  bar 
baric  power  of  the  Irish  chieftains,  nor  the 
real  benevolence  and  seeming  policy  of  in 
troducing  industrious  colonies  under  her  suc 
cessor,  counterbalanced  the  dreadful  evil 
which  was  then  for  the  first  time  added  to 
her  hereditary  sufferings.  The  extensive  for 
feiture  of  the  lands  of  the  Catholic  Irish, 
and  the  grant  of  these  lands  to  Protestant 
natives  of  Great  Britain,  became  a  new  source 
of  hatred  between  these  irreconcilable  fac 
tions,  Forty  years  of  quiet,  however,  fol 
lowed,  in  which  a  Parliament  of  all  dis 
tricts,  and  of  both  religions,  was  assembled. 
The  administration  of  the  Earl  of  Strafford 
bore  the  stamp  of  the  political  vices  which 
tarnished  his  genius,  and  which  often  pre 
vailed  over  those  generous  affections  of 
which  he  was  not  incapable  towards  those 
who  neither  rivalled  nor  resisted  him.  The 
state  of  Ireland  abounded  with  tempta 
tions, — to  a  man  of  daring  and  haughty 
spirit,  intent  on  taming  a  turbulent  people, 
and  impatient  of  slow  discipline  of  law  and 
justice. — to  adopt  those  violent  and  sum 
mary  measures,  the  necessity  of  which  his 
nature  prompted  him  too  easily  to  believe.* 
When  his  vigorous  arm  was  withdrawn, 
the  Irish  were  once  more  excited  to  revolt 
by  the  memory  of  the  provocations  which 
they  had  received  from  him  and  from  his 
predecessors,  by  the  feebleness  of  their  go 
vernment,  and  by  the  confusion  and  distrac 
tion  which  announced  the  approach  of  civil 
war  iii  Great  Britain.  This  insurrection, 
which  broke  out  in  1641,  and  of  which  the 
atrocities  appear  to  have  been  extravagantly 
exaggerated!  by  the  writers  of  the  victorious 
party,  was  only  finally  subdued  by  the  genius 
of  Cromwell,  who.  urged  by  the  general  an 
tipathy  against  the  Irish,J  and  the  peculiar 

*  See  Carte's  Life  of  Ormonde,  and  the  confes 
sions  nf  Clarendon,  together  with  the  evidence  on 
the  Trial  of  Strafford. 

t  Evidence  of  this  exaggeration  is  to  be  found 
in  Carte  and  Leland,  in  the  Political  Anatomy  of 
Ireland,  by  Sir  VV.  Petty,  —  to  say  nothing  of 
Curry's  Civil  Wars,  which,  though  the  work  of 
an  Irish  Catholic,  deserves  the  serious  considera 
tion  of  every  historical  inquirer.  Sir  W.  Petty 
limits  the  number  of  Protestants  killed  throughout 
the  island,  in  the  first  year  of  the  war,  to  thirty- 
seven  thousand.  The  massacres  were  confined  to 
Ulster,  and  in  that  province  were  imputed  only  to 
the  detachment  of  insurgents  under  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neal. 

i  Even  Milton  calls  the  Irish  Catholics,  or,  in 


animosity  of  his  own  followers  towards  Ca 
tholics,  exercised  more  than  once  in  his  Irish 
campaigns  the  most  odious  rights  or  practices 
of  war,  departing  from  the  clemency  which 
usually  distinguished  him  above  most  men 
who  have  obtained  supreme  power  by  vio 
lence.  The  confiscation  which  followed 
Cromwell's  victories,  added  to  the  forfeitures 
under  Elizabeth  and  James,  transferred  more 
than  two-thirds  of  the  land  of  the  kingdom 
to  British  adventurers.*  "Not  only  all  the 
Irish  nation  (with  very  few  exceptions)  were 
found  guilty  of  the  rebellion,  and  forfeited 
all  their  estates,  but  all  the  English  Catholics 
of  Ireland  were  declared  to  be  under  the 
same  guilt. "f  The  ancient  proprietors  con 
ceived  sanguine  hopes,  that  confiscations  by 
usurpers  would  not  be  ratified  by  the  restored 
government.  But  their  agents  were  inex 
perienced,  indiscreet,  and  sometimes  mer 
cenary  :  while  their  opponents,  who  were  in 
possession  of  power  and  property,  chose  the 
Irish  House  of  Commons,  and  secured  the 
needy  and  rapacious  courtiers  of  Charles  II. 
by  large  bribes. t  The  Court  became  a  mart 
at  which  much  of  the  property  of  Ireland 
was  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  ] — the  inevit 
able  result  of  measures  not  governed  by  rules 
of  law,  but  loaded  with  exceptions  and  con 
ditions,  where  the  artful  use  of  a  single  word 
might  affect  the  possession  of  considerable 
fortunes,  and  where  so  many  minute  particu 
lars  relating  to  unknown  and  uninteresting 
subjects  were  necessarily  introduced,  that 
none  but  parties  deeply  concerned  had  the 
patience  to  examine  them.  Charles  was  de 
sirous  of  an  arrangement  which  should  give 
him  the  largest  means  of -quieting,  by  profuse 
grants,  the  importunity  of  his  favourites.  He 
began  to  speak  of  the  necessity  of  strength- 
eningthe  English  interest  in  Ireland,  and  he 
represented  the  "settlement7'  rather  as  a 
matter  of  policy  than  of  justice.  The  usual 
and  legitimate  policy  of  statesmen  and  law 
givers  is,  doubtless,  to  favour  every  measure 
which  quiets  present  possession,  and  to  dis 
courage  all  retrospective  inquisition  into  the 
tenure  of  property.  But  the  Irish  Govern 
ment  professed  to  adopt  a  principle  of  com 
promise,  and  the  general  object  of  the  statute 
called  the  "'Act  of  Settlement,"  was  to  secure 
the  land  in  the  hands  of  its  possessors,  on 
condition  of  their  making  a  certain  compen 
sation  to  those  classes  of  expelled  proprietors 
who  were  considered  as  innocent  of  the  re 
bellion.  Those,  however,  were  declared  not 
to  be  innocent  who  had  accepted  the  terms 
of  peace  granted  by  the  King  in  1648,  who 
had  paid  contributions  to  support  the  insur 
gent  administration,  or  who  enjoyed  any  real 
or  personal  property  in  the  districts  occupied 
by  the  rebel  army.  The  first  of  these  con- 


other  words,  the  Irish  nation,  "  Conscelerata  et 
barbara  colluvies." 

*  Petty,  pp.  1—3. 

t  Life  of  Clarendon  (Oxford,  1759),  vol.  ii.p.  115. 

t  Ca-ne,  Life  of  Ormonde,  vol.  ii.  p.  295.  Tal- 
bot,  afterwards  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  returned  »o 
Ireland  with  18,000?. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


315 


ditions  was  singularly  unjust ;  the  two  latter 
must  have  comprehended  many  who  were 
entirely  innocent ;  and  all  of  them  were  in 
consistent  with  those  principles  of  compro 
mise  and  provision  for  the  interest  of  all  on 
which  the  act  was  professedly  founded.  Or 
monde,  however,  restored  to  his  own  great 
estates,  and  gratified  by  a  grant  of  30,OOOZ. 
from  the  Irish  Commons,  acquiesced  in  this 
measure,  and  it  was  not  opposed  by  his  friend 
Clarendon; — circumstances  which  naturally, 
though  perhaps  not  justly,  have  rendered  the 
memory  of  these  celebrated  men  odious  to 
the  Irish  Catholics.  During  the  whole  reign 
of  Charles  II.  they  struggled  to  obtain  a  re 
peal  of  the  Act  of  Settlement.  But  Time 
opposed  his  mighty  power  to  their  labours. 
Every  new  year  strengthened  the  rights  of 
the  possessors,  and  furnished  additional  ob 
jections  against  the  claims  of  the  old  owners. 
It  is  far  easier  to  do  mischief  than  to  repair 
it ;  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  malignant  pro 
perties  of  extensive  confiscation  that  it  is 
commonly  irreparable.  The  land  is  shortly 
sold  to  honest  purchasers ;  it  is  inherited  by 
innocent  children;  it  becomes  the  security 
of  creditors ;  its  safety  becomes  interwoven, 
by  the  complicated  transactions  of  life,  witn 
all  the  interests  of  the  community.  One  act 
of  injustice  is  not  atoned  for  by  the  commis 
sion  of  another  against  parties  who  may  be 
equally  unoffending.  In  such  cases  the  most 
specious  plans  for  the  investigation  of  con 
flicting  claims  lead  either  to  endless  delay, 
attended  by  the  entire  suspension  of  the  en 
joyment  of  the  disputed  property,  if  not  by 
a  final  extinction  of  its  value,  or  to  precipi 
tate  injustice,  arising  from  caprice,  from 
favour,  from  enmity,  or  from  venality.  The 
resumption  of  forfeited  property,  and  the 
restoration  of  it  to  the  heirs  of  the  ancient 
owners,  may  be  attended  by  all  the  mis 
chievous  consequences  of  the  original  con 
fiscation ;  by  the  disturbance  of  habits,  and 
by  the  disappointment  of  expectations ;  and 
by  an  abatement  of  that  reliance  on  the  in 
violability  of  legal  possession,  which  is  the 
mainspring  of  industry,  and  the  chief  source 
of  comfort. 

The  arrival  of  Tyrconnel  revived  the  hopes 
of  the  Catholics.  They  were  at  that  time 
estimated  to  amount  to  eight  hundred  thou 
sand  souls;  the  English  Episcopalians,  the 
English  Nonconformists,  and  the  Scotch  Pres 
byterians,  each  to  one  hundred  thousand.* 
There  was  an  army  of  three  thousand  men, 
which  in  the  sequel  of  this  reign  was  raised 
to  eight  thousand.  The  net  revenue  afforded 
a  yearly  average  of  300,000/.t  Before  the 

*  Petty,  p.  8. — As  Sir  William  Petty  exagge 
rates  the  population  of  England,  which  "he  rates  at 
six  millions,  considerably  more  than  its  amount  in 
1700  (Population  Returns,  1821,  Introduction),  it 
is  probable  he  may  have  overrated  that  of  Ireland  ; 
but  there  is  no  reason  to  suspect  a  mistake  in  the 
proportions. 

t  Supposing  the  taxes  then  paid  by  England  and 
Wales  to  have  been  about  three  millions,  each  in 
habitant  contributed  ten  shillings,  while  each  Irish 
man  paid  somewhat  more  than  five. 


civil  war  of  1641,  the  disproportion  of  num 
bers  of  Catholics  to  Protestants  had  been 
much  greater;  and  by  the  consequences  of 
that  event,  the  balance  of  property  had  boon 
entirely  reversed.*  "In  playing  of  this  game 
or  match"  (the  war  of  1641)  "  upon  so  great 
odds,  the  English,"  says  Sir  William  Petty, 
"won,  and  have  a  gamester's  right  at  least 
to  their  estates."!  On  the  arrival  of  Tyr 
connel,  too,  were  redoubled  the  fears  of  the 
Protestants  for  possessions  always  invidious, 
and  now,  as  it  seemed,  about  to  be  preca 
rious.  The  attempt  to  give  both  parties  a 
sort  of  representation  in  the  government,  and 
to  balance  the  Protestant  Lord  Lieutenant  by 
a  Catholic  commander  of  the  army,  unsettled 
the  minds  of  the  two  communions.  The 
Protestants,  though  they  saw  that  the  rising 
ascendant  of  Tyrconnel  would  speedily  be 
come  irresistible,  were  betrayed  into  occa 
sional  indiscretion  by  the  declarations  of  the 
Lord  Lieutenant;  and  the  Catholics,  aware  of 
their  growing  force,  were  only  exasperated  by 
Clarendon's  faint  and  fearful  show  of  zeal  for 
the  established  laws.  The  contemptuous  dis 
regard,  or  rather  indecent  insolence  manifest 
ed  by  Tyrconnel  in  his  conversations  with  Lord 
Clarendon,  betrayed  a  consciousness  of  the 
superiority  of  a  royal  favourite  over  a  Lord 
Lieutenant,  who  had  to  execute  a  system  to 
which  he  was  disinclined,  and  was  to  remain 
in  office  a  little  longer  only  as  a  pageant  of 
state.  He  indulged  all  his  habitual  indecen 
cies  and  excesses;  he  gave  loose  to  every 
passion,  and  threw  off  every  restraint  of  good 
manners  in  these  conversations.  It  is  diffi 
cult  to  represent  them  in  a  manner  compati 
ble  with  the  decorum  of  history :  yet  they 
are  too  characteristic  to  be  passed  over. 
"You  must  know,  my  Lord,"  said  Tyrconnel, 
"that  the  King  is  a 'Roman  Catholic,  and  re 
solved  to  employ  his  subjects  of  that  religion, 
and  that  he  will  not  keep  one  man  in  his 
service  who  ever  served  under  the  usurpers. 
The  sheriffs  you  have  made  are  generally 
rogues  and  old  Cromweliians.  There  has 
not  been  an  honest  man  sheriff  in  Ireland 
these  twenty  years."  Such  language,  inter 
mingled  with  oaths,  and  uttered  in  the  bois 
terous  tone  of  a  braggart  youth,  somewhat 
intoxicated,  in  a  military  guard-house,  are 
specimens  of  the  manner  in  which  Tyrconnel 
delivered  his  opinions  to  his  superior  on  the 
gravest  affairs  of  state.  It  was  no  wonder 
that  Clarendon  told  his  brother  Rochester, — 
"  If  this  Lord  continue  in  the  temper  he  is 
in,  he  will  gain  here  the  reputation  of  a  mad 
man  ;  for  his  treatment  of  people  is  scarce  to 
be  described. "i  The  more  moderate  of  his 
own  communion,  comprehending  almost  all 
laymen  of  education  or  fortune,  he  reviled 
as  trimmers.  He  divided  the  Catholics,  and 
embroiled  the  King's  affairs  still  farther  by  a 
violent  prejudice  against  the  native  Irish, 
whom  he  contemptuously  called  the  "O's 

*  Petty,  p.  24.  t  Ibid. 

t  Correspondence   of  Clarendon  and   Roches 
ter,  vol.   ii.  Clarendon,  Diary,  5th — 14th    June, 

1686. 


316 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


and  Macs."*  To  the  letter  of  the  King's 
public  declarations,  or  even  positive  instruc 
tions  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  he  paid  very 
little  regard.  He  was  sent  by  James  "  to  do 
the  rough  work"  of  remodelling  the  army 
and  the  corporations.  With  respect  to  the 
army,  the  King  professed  only  to  admit  all 
his  subjects  on  an  equal  footing  without  re 
gard  to  religion ;  but  Tyrconnel's  language, 
and,  when  he  had  the  power,  his  measures, 
led  to  the  formation  of  an  exclusively  Catho 
lic  force. t  The  Lord  Lieutenant  reasonably 
understood  the  royal  intentions  to  be  no  more 
than  that  the  Catholic  religion  should  be  no 
bar  to  the  admission  of  persons  otherwise 
qualified  into  corporations:  Tyrconnel  disre 
garded  such  distinctions,  and  declared,  with 
one  of  his  usual  oaths,  "  I  do  not  know  what 
to  say  to  that;  I  would  have  all  the  Catholics 
in."J  Three  unexceptionable  judges  of  the 
Protestant  persuasion  were,  by  the  King's 
command,  removed  from  the  bench  to  make 
way  for  three  Catholics, — Daly,  Rice,  and 
Nugent, — also,  it  ought  to  be  added,  of  un 
objectionable  character  and  competent  learn 
ing  in  their  profession. §  Officious  sycophants 
hastened  to  prosecute  those  incautious  Pro 
testants  who,  in  the  late  times  of  zeal  against 
Popery,  had  spoken  with  freedom  against 
the  succession  of  the  Duke  of  York ;  though 
it  is  due  to  justice  to  remark,  that  the  Catho 
lic  council,  judges,  and  juries,  discouraged 
these  vexatious  prosecutions,  and  prevented 
them  from  producing  any  very  grievous 
effects.  The  King  had  in  the  beginning 
solemnly  declared  his  determination  to  ad 
here  to  the  Act  of  Settlement;  but  Tyrcon 
nel,  with  his  usual  imprecations,  said  to  the 
Lord  Lieutenant,  ''These  Acts  of  Settlement, 
and  this  new  interest,  are  cursed  things." It 
The  coarseness  and  insolence  of  Tyrconnel 
could  not  fail  to  offend  the  Lord  Lieutenant : 
but  it  is  apparent,  from  the  latter's  own  de 
scription,  that  he  was  still  more  frightened 
than  provoked  ;  and  perhaps  more  decorous 
language  would  not  have  so  suddenly  and 
completely  subdued  the  little  spirit  of  the 
demure  lord.  Certain  it  is  that  these  scenes 
of  violence  were  immediately  followed  by 
the  most  profuse  professions  of  his  readiness 
to  do  whatever  the  King  required,  without 
any  reservation  even  of  the  interest  of  the 
Established  Church.  These  professions  were 
not  merely  formularies  of  that  ignoble  obse 
quiousness  which  degrades  the  inferior  too 
much  to  exalt  the  superior:  they  were  ex 
plicit  and  precise  declarations  relating  to  the 
particulars  of  the  most  momentous  measures 
then  in  agitation.  In  speaking  of  the  re 
formation  of  the  army  he  repeated  his  assur- 

*  Sheridan  MS. 

t  Sheridan  MS.  It  should  be  observed,  that  the 
passages  relating  to  Ireland  in  the  Life  of  James 
II.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  59—63,  were  not  written  by  the 
King,  and  do  not  even  profess  to  be  founded  on 
the  authority  of  his  MSS.  They  are  merely  a 
statement  made  by  Mr.  Dicconson,  the  compiler 
of  that  work. 

t  Clarendon,  20th— 31st  July. 

$  Ibid.  19th  June.  If  Ibid.  8th  June. 


ance  to  Sunderland,  "  that  the  King  may 
have  every  thing  done  here  which  he  has  a 
mind  to:  and  it  is  more  easy  to  do  things 
quietly  than  in  a  storm."*  He  descended 
to  declare  even  to  Tyrconnel  himself,  that 
•'  it  was  not  material  how  many  Roman 
Catholics  were  in  the  army,  if  the  King 
would  have  it  so;  for  whatever  his  Majesty 
would  have  should  be  made  easy  as  far  as 
lay  in  me."t 

In  the  mean  time  Clarendon  had  incurred 
the  displeasure  of  the  Queen  by  his  supposed 
civilities  to  Lady  Dorchester  during  her  resi 
dence  in  Ireland.  The  King  was  also  dis 
pleased  at  the  disposition  which  he  imputed 
to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  rather  to  traverse 
than  to  forward  the  designs  of  Tyrconnel  in 
favour  of  the  Catholics.?  It  was  in  vain  that 
the  submissive  viceroy  attempted  to  disarm 
these  resentments  by  abject  declarations  of 
deep  regret  and  unbounded  devotednes$,§ 
The  daily  decline  of  the  credit  of  Rochester 
deprived  his  brother  of  his  best  support;  and 
Tyrconnel,  who  returned  to  Court  in  August, 
1686,  found  it  easy  to  effect  a  change  in  the 
government  of  Ireland.  But  he  found  more 
difficulty  in  obtaining  that  important  govern 
ment  for  himself.  Sunderland  tried  every 
means  but  the  resignation  of  his  own  office 
to  avert  so  impolitic  an  appointment.  He 
urged  the  declaration  of  the  King,  on  the  re 
moval  of  Ormonde,  that  he  would  not  bestow 
the  lieutenancy  on  a  native  Irishman  :  he  re 
presented  the  danger  of  alarm  ing  all  Protest 
ants,  by  appointing  to  that  office  an  acknow 
ledged  enemy  of  the  Act  of  Settlement,  and 
of  exciting  the  apprehensions  of  all  English 
men,  by  intrusting  Ireland  to  a  man  so  de 
voted  to  the  service  of  Louis  XIV  :  he  offered 
to  make  Tyrconnel  a  Major  General  on  the 
English  staff,  with  a  pension  of  5000/.  a  year, 
and  with  as  absolute  though  as  secret  au 
thority  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  as  Lauderdale 
had  possessed  in  those  of  Scotland  :  he  pro 
mised  that  after  the  abrogation  of  the  penal 
laws  in  England,  Tyrconnel,  if  he  pleased, 
might  be  appointed  Lord  Lieutenant  in  the 
room  of  Lord  Powis,  who  was  destined  for 
the  present  to  succeed  Clarendon.  Tyrconnel 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  these  proposals,  and 
threatened  to  make  disclosures  to  the  King 
and  Queen  which  might  overthrow  the  policy 
and  power  of  Sunderland.  The  latter,  wheii 
he  was  led  by  his  contest  with  Rochester  to 
throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the  Roman 
Catholics,  had  formed  a  more  particular  con 
nection  with  Jermyn  and  Talbot,  as  the 
King's  favourites,  and  as  the  enemies  of  the 
family  of  Hyde  :  Tyrconnel  now  threatened 
to  disclose  the  terms  and  objects  of  that 
league,  the  real  purpose  of  removing  Lady 
Dorchester,  and  the  declaration  of  Sunder 
land,  when  this  alliance  was  formed,  "  that 
the  King  could  only  be  governed  by  a  woman 
or  a  priest,  and  that  they  must  therefore 


*  Clarendon,  20th  July.        t  Ibid.  30th  July, 
t  Ibid.  6th  Oct. 

i  Clarendon  to  the  King,  6th  Oct. ;  to  Lord 
Rochester,  23d  Oct. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


317 


combine  the  influence  of  the  Queen  with 
that  of  Father  Petre."  Sunderland  appears 
to  have  made  some  resistance  even  after  this 
formidable  threat;  and  Tyrconnel  proposed 
that  the  young  Duke  of  Berwick  should 
marry  his  daughter,  and  be  created  Lord 
Lieutenant,  while  he  himself  should  enjoy 
the  power  under  the  more  modest  title  of 
"Lord  Deputy."*  A  council,  consisting  of 
Sunderland,  Tyrconnel,  and  the  Catholic 
ministers,  was  held  on  the  affairs  of  Ireland 
in  the  month  of  October.  The  members 
who  gave  their  opinions  before  Tyrconnel 
maintained  the  necessity  of  conforming  to 
the  Act  of  Settlement ;  but  Tyrconnel  ex 
claimed  against  them  for  advising  the  King 
to  an  act  of  injustice  ruinous  to  the  interests 
of  religion.  The  conscience  of  James  was 
alarmed,  and  he  appointed  the  next  day  to 
hear  the  reasons  of  state  which  Sunderland 
had  to  urge  on  the  opposite  side.  Tyrconnel 
renewed  his  vehement  invectives  against  the 
iniquity  and  impiety  of  the  counsels  which 
he  opposed ;  and  Sunderland,  who  began  as 
he  often  did  with  useful  advice,  ended,  as 
usual,  with  a  hesitating  and  ambiguous  sub 
mission  to  his  master's  pleasure,  trusting  to 
accident  and  his  own  address  to  prevent  or 
mitigate  the  execution  of  violent  measures.! 
These  proceedings  decided  the  contest  for 
office  j  and  Tyrconnel  received  the  sword  of 
state  as  Lord' Deputy  on  the  12th  February, 
1687. 

The  King's  professions  of  equality  and 
impartiality  in  the  distribution  of  office  be 
tween  the  two  adverse  communions  were 
speedily  and  totally  disregarded.  The  Lord 
Deputy  and  the  greater  part  of  the  Privy 
Council,  the  Lord  Chancellor  with  three 
fourths  of  the  judges,  all  the  King's  counsel 
but  one,  almost  all  the  sheriffs,  and  a  ma 
jority  of  corporators  and  justices,  were,  in 
less  than  a  year,  Catholics: — numbers  so 
disproportioned  to  the  relative  property,  edu 
cation,  and  ability  for  business,  to  be  found 
in  the  two  religions,  that  even  if  the  appoint 
ments  had  not  been  tainted  with  the  inex 
piable  blame  of  defiance  to  the  laws,  they 
must  still  have  been  regarded  by  the  Pro 
testants  with  the  utmost  apprehension,  as 
indications  of  sinister  designs.  Fitten,  the 
Chancellor,  was  promoted  from  the  King's 
Bench  prison,  where  he  had  been  long  a 
prisoner  for  debt ;  and  he  was  charged, 
though  probably  without  reason,  by  his  op 
ponents,  with  forgery,  said  to  have  been 
committed  in  a  long  suit  with  Lord  Mac- 
clesfield.  His  real  faults  were  ignorance 
and  subserviency.  Neither  of  these  vices 
could  be  imputed  to  Sir  Richard  Nagle, 
the  Catholic  Attorney  General,  who  seems 
chargeable  only  with  the  inevitable  fault  of 
being  actuated  by  a  dangerous  zeal  for  his 


*  London  Gazette.  All  these  particulars  are  to 
be  found  in  Sheridan's  MS.  It  is  but  fair  to  add 
that,  in  a  few  months  after  Sheridan  accompanied 
Tyrconnel  to  Ireland,  they  became  violent  ene 
mies. 

t  D'Adda,  15th  Nov.  1687.— MS. 


own  suffering  party.  It  does  not  appear 
that  the  Catholic  judges  actually  abused 
their  power.  We  have  already  seen  that, 
instead  of  seeking  to  retaliate  for  the  mur 
ders  of  the  Popish  Plot,  they  discounte 
nanced  prosecutions  against  their  adversa 
ries  with  a  moderation  and  forbearance  very 
rarely  to  be  discovered  in  the  policy  of 
parties  in  the  first  moments  of  victory  over 
Jong  oppression.  It  is  true  that  these  Ca 
tholic  judges  gave  judgment  against  the 
charters  of  towns ;  but  in  these  judgments 
they  only  followed  the  example  of  the  most 
eminent  of  their  Protestant  brethren  in  Eng 
land.*  The  evils  of  insecurity  and  alarm 
were  those  which  were  chiefly  experienced 
by  the  Irish  Protestants.  These  mischiefs, 
very  great  in  themselves,  depended  so  much 
on  the  character,  temper,  and  manner,  of  the 
Lord  Deputy,  on  the  triumphant  or  sometimes 
threatening  conversation  of  their  Catholic 
neighbours,  on  the  recollection  of  bloody 
civil  wars,  and  on  the  painful  consciousness 
which  haunts  the  possessors  of  recently  con 
fiscated  property,  that  it  may  be  thought 
unreasonable  to  require  any  other  or  more 
positive  proof  of  their  prevalence.  Some 
visible  fruits  of  the  alarm  are  pointed  out. 
The  Protestants,  who  were  the  wealthiest 
traders  as  well  as  the  most  ingenious  arti 
sans  of  the  kingdom,  began  to  emigrate  :  the 
revenue  is  said  to  have  declined:  the  greater 
part  of  the  Protestant  officers  of  the  army, 
alarmed  by  the  removal  of  their  brethren, 
sold  their  commissions  for  inadequate  prices,, 
and  obtained  military  appointments  in  Hol 
land,  then  the  home  of  the  exile  and  the 
refuge  of  the  oppressed. t  But  that  which 
Tyrconnel  most  pursued,  and  the  Protestants 
most  dreaded,  was  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of 
Settlement.  The  new  proprietors  were  not, 
indeed,  aware  how  much  cause  there  was 
for  their  alarms.  Tyrconnel  boasted  that  he 
had  secured  the  support  of  the  Queen  by  the 
present  of  a  pearl  necklace  worth  10.000/., 
which  Prince  Rupert  had  bequeathed  to  his 
mistress.  In  all  extensive  transfers  of  pro 
perty  not  governed  by  rales  of  law,  where 
both  parties  to  a  corrupt  transaction  have  a 
great  interest  in  concealment,  and  where 
there  can  seldom  be  any  effective  respoasi- 


k  Our  accounts  of  Tyrconnel's  Irish  administra 
tion  before  the  Revolution  are  peculiarly  imperfect 
and  suspicious.  King,  afterwards  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  whose  State  of  the  Protestants  has  been 
usually  quoted  as  authority,  was  the  most  zealous 
of  Irish  Protestants,  and  his  ingenious  antago 
nist,  Leslie,  was  the  most  inflexible  of  Jacobites. 
Though  both  were  men  of  great  abilities,  their 
attention  was  so  much  occupied  in  personalities 
and  in  the  discussion  of  controverted  opinions, 
that  they  have  done  little  to  elucidate  matters  of 
fact.  Clarendon  and  Sheridan's  MS.  agree  so 
exactly  in  their  picture  of  Tyrconnel,  and  have 
such  an  air  of  truth  in  their  accounts  of  him,  that 
it  is  not  easy  to  refuse  them  credit,  though  they 
were  both  his  enemies. 

t  "  The  Earl  of  Donegal,"  says  Sheridan, 
"  sold  for  600  guineas  a  troop  of  horse  which,  two 
years  before,  cost  him  1800  guineas." — Sheri 
dan  MS,  ' 

2B2 


318 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


bility  either  judicial  or  moral,  the  suspicion 
of  bribery  must  be  incurred,  and  the  tempta 
tion  itself  must  often  prevail.  Tyrconnel 
asked  Sheridan,  his  secretary,  whether  he 
did  not  think  the  Irish  would  give  50,OOOZ. 
for  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  Settlement: — 
"Certainly,"  said  Sheridan,  "since  the  new 
interest  paid  three  times  that  sum  to  the 
Duke  of  Ormonde  for  passing  it."  Tyrconnel 
then  authorised  Sheridan  to  offer  to  Lord 
Sunderland  50,0001.  in  money,  or  5000/.  a- 
year  in  land  for  the  repeal.  Sunderland  pre 
ferred  the  50.0001.;  but  with  what  serious 
ness  of  purpose  cannot  be  ascertained,  for  the 
repeal  was  not  adopted,  and  the  money  was 
never  paid  ;*  and  he  seems  to  have  contin 
ued  to  thwart  and  traverse  a  measure  which 
he  did  not  dare  openly  to  resist.  The  abso 
lute  abrogation  of  laws  under  which  so  much 
property  was  held  seemed  to  be  beset  with 
such  difficulty,  that  in  the  autumn  of  the 
following  year  Tyrconnel,  on  his  visit  to 
England,  proposed  a  more  modified  mea 
sure,  aimed  only  at  affording  a  partial  relief 
to  the  ancient  proprietors.  In  the  temper 
which  then  prevailed,  a  partial  measure  pro 
duced  almost  as  much  alarm  as  one  more 
comprehensive,  arid  was  thought  to  be  in 
tended  to  pave  the  way  for  total  resumption. 
The  danger  consisted  in  inquiry  :  the  object 
of  apprehension  was  any  proceeding  which 
brought  this  species  of  legal  possession  into 
question:  and  the  proprietors  dreaded  the 
approach  even  of  discussion  to  their  invi 
dious  and  originally  iniquitous  titles.  It 
would  be  hard  to  expect  that  James  should 
abstain  from  relieving  his  friends  lest  he 
might  disturb  the  secure  enjoyment  of  his 
enemies.  Motives  of  policy,  however,  and 
some  apprehensions  of  too  sudden  a  shock 
to  the  feelings  of  Protestants  in  Great  Britain, 
retarded  the  final  adoption  of  this  measure. 
It  could  only  be  carried  into  effect  by  the  Par 
liament  of  Ireland  ;  and  it  was  not  thought 
wise  to  call  it  together  till  every  part  of  the 
internal  policy  of  the  kingdom  which  could 
influence  the  elections  of  that  assembly 
should  be  completed.  Probably,  however, 
the  delay  principally  arose  from  daring  pro 
jects  of  separation  and  independence,  which 
\vere  entertained  by  Tyrconnel :  and  of  which 
a  short  statement  (in  its  most  important  parts 
hitherto  unknown  to  the  public)  will  conclude 
the  account  of  his  administration. 

In  the  year  1666,  towards  the  close  of  the 
first  Dutch  war,  Louis  XIV.  had  made  pre 
parations  for  invading  Ireland  with  an  army 
of  twenty  thousand  men,  under  the  Due  de 
Beaufort, — assured  by  the  Irish  ecclesiastics, 
that  he  would  be  joined  by  the  Catholics, 
then  more  than  usually  incensed  by  the  con 
firmation  of  the  Act  of  Settlement,  and  by 
the  English  statutes  against  the  importation 
of  the  produce  of  Ireland.  To  this  plot, 
(which  was  discovered  by  the  Queen-Mother 
at  Paris,  and  by  her  disclosed  to  Charles  II.,) 
it  is  not  probable  that  so  active  a  leader  as 

*  Sheridan  MS. 


Tyrconnel  could  have  been  a  stranger.*  We 
are  informed  by  his  secretary,  that,  during 
his  visits  to  England  in  1686,  he  made  no 
scruple  to  avow  projects  of  the  like  nature, 
when,  after  some  remarks  on  the  King's  de 
clining  age,  and  on  the  improbability  that 
the  Queen's  children,  if  ever  she  had  any, 
should  live  beyond  infancy,  he  declared, 
"  that  the  Irish  would  be  fools  or  madmen 
if  they  submitted  to  be  governed  by  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  or  by  Hyde's  grand-daugh 
ters  ;  that  they  ought  rather  lo  take  that 
opportunity  of  resolving  no  longer  to  be  the 
slaves  of  England,  but  to  set  up  a  king  of 
their  own  under  the  protection  of  France7 
which  he  was  sure  would  be  readily  grant 
ed  ;"  and  added  that  "  nothing  could  be  more 
advantageous  to  Ireland  or  ruinous  to  Eng 
land."  f  His  reliance  on  French  support 
was  probably  founded  on  the  general  policy 
of  Louis  XIV.,  on  his  conduct  towards  Ireland 
in  1666,  and,  perhaps,  on  information  from. 
Catholic  ecclesiastics  in  France  ;  but  he  was 
not  long  content  with  these  grounds  of  assur 
ance.  During  his  residence  in  England  in 
the  autumn  of  1687,  he  had  recourse  to  de 
cisive  arid  audacious  measures  for  ascertain 
ing  how  far  he  might  rely  on  foreign  aid  in 
the  execution  of  his  ambitious  schemes.  A 
friend  of  his  at  Court  (whose  name  is  con 
cealed,  but  who  probably  was  either  Henry 
Jermyn  or  Father  Petre)  applied  on  his  be 
half  to  Bonrepos  (then  employed  by  the 
Court  of  Versailles  in  London,  on  a  special 
mission,  )t  expressing  his  desire,  in  case  of 
the  death  of  James  II.,  to  take  measures  to 
prevent  Ireland  from  falling  under  the  domi 
nation  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  to  place 
that  country  under  the  protection  of  the  Most 
Christian  King.  Tyrconnel  expressed  his 
desire  that  Bonrepos  would  go  to  Chester  for 
the  sake  of  a  full  discussion  of  this  important 
proposition  ;  but  the  wary  minister  declined 
a  step  which  should  have  amounted  to  the 
opening  of  a  negotiation,  until  he  had  autho 
rity  from  his  Government.  He  promised, 
however,  to  keep  the  secret,  especially  from 
Barillon,  who  it  was  feared  would  betray  it 
to  Sunderland,  then  avowedly  distrusted  by 
the  Lord  Deputy.  Bonrepos,  in  communi 
cating  this  proposition  to  his  Court,  adds, 
that  he  very  certainly  knew  the  King  of  Eng- 

*  There  are  obscure  intimations  of  this  intended 
invasion  in  Carte,  Life  of  Ormonde,  vol.  ii.  p.  328. 
The  resolutions  of  the  Parliament  of  Ireland  con 
cerning  it  are  to  be  found  in  the  Gazette,  25th — 
28th  December,  1665.  Louis  XIV.  himself  tells 
us,  that  he  had  a  correspondence  with  those  whom 
he  calls  the  "  remains  of  Cromwell  "  in  England, 
and  "  with  the  Irish  Catholics,  who,  always  dis 
contented  with  their  condition,  seem  ever  ready 
to  join  any  enterprise  which  may  render  it  more 
supportable." — Oeuvres  de  Louis  XIV.,  vol.  ii. 
p.  203.  Sheridan's  MS.  contains  more  particu 
lars.  It  is  supported  by  the  printed  authorities  as 
far  as  they  so  ;  and  being  written  at  St.  Germains, 
probably  differed  little  in  matters  of  fact  from  the 
received  statements  of  the  Jacobite  exiles. 

t  Sheridan  MS. 

J  Bonrepos  to  Seignelai,  4th  Sept.  1G87. — Fox 
MSS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


319 


land's  intention  to  be  to  deprive  his  pre 
sumptive  heir  of  Ireland,  to  make  that  coun 
try  an  asylum,  for  all  his  Catholic  subjects, 
and  to  complete  his  measures  on  that  subject 
in  the  course  of  five  years, — a  time  which 
Tyrconnel  thought  much  too  long,  and  ear 
nestly  besought  the  King  to  abridge ;  and 
that  the  Prince  of  Orange  certainly  appre 
hended  such  designs.  James  himself  told 
the  Nuncio  that  one  of  the  objects  of  the  ex 
traordinary  mission  of  Dykveldt  was  the 
affair  of  Ireland,  happily  begun  by  Tyrcon 
nel  ;*  and  the  same  prelate  was  afterwards 
informed  by  Sunderland,  that  Dykveldt  had 
expressed  a  fear  of  some  general  designs 
against  the  succession  of  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Orange. t  Bbnrepos  was  speedily 
instructed  to  inform  Tyrconnel,  that  if  on  the 
dea.th  of  James  he  could  maintain  himself  in 
Ireland,  he  might  rely  on  effectual  aid  from 
Louis  to  preserve  the  Catholic  religion,  and 
to  separate  that  country  from  England,  when 
under  the  dominion  of  a  Protestant  sove 
reign. t  Tyrconnel  is  said  to  have  agreed, 
without  the  knowledge  of  his  own  master, 
to  put  four  Irish  sea-ports,  Kinsale.  Water- 
ford,  Limerick,  and  either  Gal  way  or  Cole- 
raine,  into  the  hands  of  France. §  The  re 
maining  particulars  of  this  bold  and  hazard 
ous  negotiation  were  reserved  by  Bonrepos 
till  his  return  to  Paris ;  but  he  closes  his  last 
despatch  with  the  singular  intimation  that 
several  Scotch  lords  had  sounded  him  on  the 
succour  they  might  expect  from  France,  on 
the  death  of  James,  to  exclude  the  Prince 
and  Princess  of  Orange  from  the  throne  of 
Scotland.  Objects  so  far  beyond  the  usual 
aim  of  ambition,  and  means  so  much  at  vari 
ance  with  prudence  as  \vell  as  duty,  could 
hardly  have  presented  themselves  to  any 
mind  whose  native  violence  had  not  been 
inflamed  by  an  education  in  the  school  of 
conspiracy  and  insurrection  ; — nor  even  to 
such  but  in  a  country  which,  from  the  divi 
sion  of  its  inhabitants,  and  the  impolicy  of 
its  administration,  had  constantly  stood  on 
the  brink  of  the  most  violent  revolutions; 
where  quiet  seldom  subsisted  longbut  as  the 
bitter  fruit  of  terrible  examples  of  cruelty 
and  rapine ;  and  where  the  majority  of  the 
people  easily  listened  to  offers  of  foreign  aid 
against  a  government  which  they  considered 
as  the  most  hostile  of  foreigners. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Rupture  with  the  Protestant  Tories. — Increas 
ed  decision  of  the  King's  designs. — En 
croachments  on  the  Church  establishment. — 
Charter- House.  —  Oxford,  University  Col 
lege. —  Christ  Church.  —  Exeter  College, 
Cambridge. — Oxford.  Magdalen  College. — 


*  D'Adda,  7th  Feb.  1687.— MS. 

t  Id.  20th  June. 

}  Seignelai  to  Bonrepos,  29th  Sept. — Fox  MSS. 

$  Sheridan  MS. 


Declaration  of  liberty  of  conscience. — Simi 
lar  attempts  of  Charles. — Proclamation  at 
Edinburgh. — Resistance  of  the  Church. — 
Attempt  to  conciliate  the  Nonconformists. 
— Review  of  their  sufferings.  —  Barter. — 
B  uny  an. — Presbyterians. — Independents. — 
Baptists. — Quakers. — Addresses  of  thanks 
for  the  declaration. 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  year  1687  the 
rupture  of  James  with  the  powerful  party 
who  were  ready  to  sacrifice  all  but  the 
Church  to  his  pleasure  appeared  to  be  irrepa 
rable.  He  had  apparently  destined  Scotland 
to  set  the  example  of  unbounded  submission, 
under  the  forms  of  the  constitution;  and  he 
undoubtedly  hoped  that  the  revolution  in 
Ireland  would  supply  him  with  the  means 
of  securing  the  obedience  of  his  English  sub 
jects  by  intimidation  or  force.  The  failure 
of  his  project  in  the  most  Protestant  part  of 
his  dominions,  and  its  alarming  success  in 
the  most  Catholic,  alike  tended  to  widen  the 
breach  between  parties  in  England.  The 
Tories  wrere  alienated  from  the  Crown  by  the 
example  of  their  friends  in  Scotland,  as  well 
as  by  their  dread  of  the  Irish.  An  unre 
served  compliance  with  the  King's  designs 
became  notoriously  the  condition  by  which 
office  was  to  be  obtained  or  preserved  :  and, 
except  a  very  few  instances  of  personal 
friendship,  the  public  profession  of  the  Ca 
tholic  faith  was  required  as  the  only  security 
for  that  compliance.  The  royal  confidence 
and  the  direction  of  public  affairs  were  trans 
ferred  from  the  Protestant  Tories,  in  spite  of 
their  services  and  sufferings  during  half  a 
century,  into  the  hands  of  a  faction,  who,  as 
their  title  to  power  was  zeal  for  the  advance 
ment  of  Popery,  must  be  called  "Papists;" 
though  some  of  them  professed  the  Protest 
ant  religion,  and  though  their  maxims  of 
policy,  both  in  Church  and  State,  were  dread 
ed  and  resisted  by  the  most  considerable  of 
the  English  Catholics. 

It  is  hard  to  determine, — perhaps  it  might 
have  been  impossible  for  James  himself  to 
say, — how  far  his  designs  for  the  advance 
ment  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  extend 
ed  at  the  period  of  his  accession  to  tho 
throne.  It  is  acreeable  to  the  nature  of  such 
projects  that  he  should  not,  at  first,  have 
dared  to  avow  to  himself  any  intention  be 
yond  that  of  obtaining  relief  for  his  religion, 
and  of  placing  it  in  a  condition  of  safety  and 
honour;  but  it  is  altogether  improbable  that 
he  had  even  then  steadily  fixed  on  a  secure 
toleration  as  the  utmost  limit  of  his  endea 
vours.  His  schemes  \vere  probably  vague 
and  fluctuating,  assuming  a  greater  distinct 
ness  wTith  respect  to  the  removal  of  grievous 
penalties  and  disabilities,  but  always  ready 
to  seek  as  much  advantage  for  his  Church  as 
the  progress  of  circumstances  should  render 
attainable; — sometimes  drawn  back  to  toler 
ation  by  prudence  or  fear,  and  on  other  oc 
casions  impelled  to  more  daring  counsels  by 
the  pride  of  success,  or  by  anger  at  resist 
ance.  In  this  state  of  fluctuation  it  is  no' 


320 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


altogether  irreconcilable  with  the  irregu 
larities  of  human  nature  that  he  might  have 
sometimes  yielded  a  faint  and  transient  as 
sent  to  those  principles  of  religious  liberty 
\vhich  he  professed  in  his  public  acts;  though 
even  this  superficial  sincerity  is  hard  to  be 
reconciled  with  his  share  in  the  secret  treaty 
of  1670. — with  his  administration  of  Scotland, 
where  he  carried  his  passion  for  intolerance 
so  far  as  to  be  the  leader  of  one  sect  of  here 
tics  in  the  bloody  persecution  of  another, — 
and  with  his  language  to  Barillon,  to  whom, 
at  the  very  moment  of  his  professed  tolera 
tion,  he  declared  his  approbation  of  the  cruel 
ties  of  Louis  XIV.  against  his  own  Protestant 
subjects.*  It  would  be  extravagant  to  ex 
pect  that  the  liberal  maxims  which  adorned 
his  public  declarations  had  taken  such  a  hold 
on  his  mind  as  to  withhold  him  from  endea 
vouring  to  establish  his  own  religion  as  soon 
as  his  sanguine  zeal  should  lead  him  to  think 
it  practicable ;  or  that  he  should  not  in  pro 
cess  of  time  go  on  to  guard  it  by  that  code 
of  disabilities  and  penalties  which  was  then 
enforced  by  every  state  in  Europe  except 
Holland,  and  deemed  indispensable  security 
for  then  religion  by  every  Christian  com 
munity,  except  the  obnoxious  sects  of  the 
Socinians,  Independents,  Anabaptists,  and 
Quakers.  Whether  he  meditated  a  violent 
change  of  the  Established  religion  from  the 
beginning,  or  only  entered  on  a  course  of 
measures  which  must  terminate  in  its  sub 
version,  is  rather  a  philosophical  than  a  poli 
tical  question.  In  both  cases,  apprehension 
arid  resistance  were  alike  reasonable;  and 
in  neither  could  an  appeal  to  arms  be  war 
ranted  until  every  other  means  of  self-de 
fence  had  proved  manifestly  hopeless. 

Whatever  opinions  may  be  formed  of  his 
intentions  at  an  earlier  period,  it  is  evident 
that  in  the  year  1687  his  resolution  was 
taken  :  though  still  no  doubt  influenced  by 
the  misgivings  and  fluctuations  incident  to 
vast  and  perilous  projects,  especially  when 
they  are  entertained  by  those  whose  charac 
ter  is  not  so  daring  as  their  designs.  All  the 
measures  of  his  internal  government,  during 
the  eighteen  months  which  ensued,  were 
directed  to  the  overthrow  of  the  Established 
Church, — an  object  which  was  to  be  attained 
by  assuming  a  power  above  law,  and  could 
only  be  preserved  by  a  force  sufficient  to 
bid  defiance  to  the  repugnance  of  the  nation. 
An  absolute  monarchy,  if  not  the  first  instru 
ment  of  his  purpose,  must  have  been  the 
last  result  of  that  series  of  victories  over  the 
people  which  the  success  of  his  design  re 
quired.  Such,  indeed,  were  his  conscientious 
opinions  of  the  constitution,  that  he  thought 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  inconsistent  with  it  ] 

"J'ai  dit  au  Roi  que  V.  M.  n'avoit  plus  au 
coeur  que  de  voir  prosperer  les  soins  qu'il  prends 
ici  pour  y  etablir  la  religion  Catholique.  S.  M.  B. 
me  dit  en  me  quittan,,  '  Vous  voyez  que  je 
n'omots  rien  de  ce  qui  est  en  mon  pouvoir.  J'es- 
pere  que  le  Roi  votre  maitre  nraidera,  et  que  nous 
ferons  de  concert  des  grandes  choses  pour  la  re 
ligion.'  "  Barillon,  12th  May,  1687.— Fox  MSS. 


and  so  strong  was  his  conviction  of  the  ne 
cessity  of  military  force  to  his  designs  at  that 
time,  that  in  his  dying  advice  to  his  son, 
written  long  afterwards,  in  secrecy  and  soli 
tude,  after  a  review  of  his  own  government, 
his  injunction  to  the  Prince  is, — "Keep  up  a 
considerable  body  of  Catholic  troops,  with 
out  which  you  cannot  be  safe."*  The  liberty 
of  the  people,  and  even  the  civil  constitu 
tion,  were  as  much  the  objects  of  his  hos 
tility  as  the  religion  of  the  great  majority, 
and  were  their  best  security  against  ultimate 
persecution. 

The  measures  of  the  King's  domestic  po 
licy,  indeed,  consisted  rather  in  encroach 
ments  on  the  Church  than  in  measures  of 
relief  to  the  Catholics.  He  had,  in  May, 
1686,  granted  dispensations  to  the  curate  of 
Putney,  a  convert  to  the  Church  of  Rome, 
enabling  him  to  hold  his  benefices,  and  re 
lieving  him  from  the  performance  of  all  the 
acts  inconsistent  with  his  new  religion,  which 
a  long  series  of  statutes  had  required  clergy 
men  of  the  Church  of  England  to  perform. t 
By  following  this  precedent,  the  King  might 
have  silently  transferred  to  ecclesiastics  of 
his  own  communion  many  benefices  in  every 
diocese  in  which  the  bishop  had  not  the 
courage  to  resist  the  dispensing  power.  The 
converted  incumbents  would  preserve  their 
livings  under  the  protection  of  that  preroga 
tive,  and  Catholic  priests  might  be  presented 
to  benefices  without  any  new  ordination  ;  for 
the  Church  of  England. — although  she  treats 
the  ministers  of  any  other  Protestant  commu 
nion  as  being  only  in  pretended  holy  orders, 
— recognises  the  ordination  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  which  she  sometimes  calls  '•'•  idola 
trous,"  in  order  to  maintain,  even  through 
such  idolatrous  predecessors,  that  unbroken 
connection  with  the  apostles  which  she  deems 
essential  to  the  power  of  conferring  the  sacer 
dotal  character.  This  obscure  encroachment, 
however,  escaped  general  observation. 

The  first  attack  on  the  laws  to  which  resist 
ance  was  made  was  a  royal  recommendation 
of  Andrew  Popham,  a  Catholic,  to  the  Gover 
nors  of  the  Charter  House  (a  hospital  school, 
founded  by  a  merchant  of  London,  named 
Sutton,  on  the  site  of  a  Carthusian  monas 
tery),  to  be  received  by  them  as  a  pensioner 
on  their  opulent  establishment,  without  taking 
the  oaths  required  both  by  the  general  law 
and  by  a  private  statute  passed  for  the  go 
vernment  of  that  foundation.!  Among  the 


*  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  ii.  p.  621. 

t  Gutch,  Collectanea  Curiosa,  vol.  i.  p.  290,  and 
Reresby,  p.  233.  Sclater  publicly  recanted  the 
Romish  religion  on  the  5th  of  May,  1689, — a 
pretty  rapid  retreat. — Account  of  E.  Sclafer's  Re 
turn  to  the  Church  of  England,  by  Dr.  Horneck. 
London,  1689.  It  is  remarkable  that  Sancroft  so 
far  exercised  his  archiepiscopal  jurisdiction  as  to 
authorise  Sclater's  admission  to  the  Protestant 
communion  on  condition  of  public  recantation,  at 


which  Burnet  preached  :  yet  the  pious  Horneck 
that  the  juncture  of  time  tempted 


him  to 


owns 
smile. 

\  Relation  of  the  Proceedings  at  the  Charter 
House,  London,  1689.— Carte,  Life  of  Ormonde, 
vol.  ii.  p.  246. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


321 


Governors  were  persons  of  the  highest  dis 
tinction  in  Church,  and  State.  The  Chan 
cellor,  at  their  first  meeting,  intimated  the 
necessity  of  immediate  compliance  with  the 
King's  mandate.  Thomas  Burnet,  the  Mas 
ter,  a  man  justly  celebrated  for  genius,  elo 
quence,  and  learning,  had  the  courage  to 
maintain  the  authority  of  the  laws  against 
an  opponent  so  formidable.  He  was  sup 
ported  by  the  aged  Duke  of  Ormonde,  and 
Jeffreys'  motion  was  negatived.  A  second 
letter  to  the  same  effect  was  addressed  to 
the  Governors,  which  they  persevered  in  re 
sisting;  assigning  their  reasons  in  an  answer 
to  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  which  was 
subscribed  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
the  Bishop  of  London,  Ormonde,  Halifax, 
Nottingham,  and  Danby.  This  courageous 
resistance  by  a  single  clergyman,  counte 
nanced  by  such  weighty  names,  induced  the 
Court  to  pause  till  experiments  were  tried  in 
other  places,  where  politicians  so  important 
could  not  directly  interfere.  The  attack  on 
the  Charter  House  was  suspended  and  never 
afterwards  resumed.  To  Burnet,  who  thus 
threw  himself  alone  into  the  breach,  much 
of  the  merit  of  the  stand  which  followed 
justly  belongs.  He  was  requited  like  other 
public  benefactors;  his  friends  forgot  the 
service,  and  his  enemies  were  excited  by 
the  remembrance  of  it  to  defeat  his  promo 
tion,  on  the  pretext  of  his  free  exercise  of 
reason  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures, 
— which  the  Established  Clergy  zealously 
maintained  in  vindication  of  their  own  sepa 
ration  from  the  Roman  Church,  but  treated 
with  little  tenderness  in  those  who  dissented 
from  their  own  creed. 

Measures  of  a  bolder  nature  were  resorted 
to  on  a  more  conspicuous  stage.  The  two 
great  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
the  most  opulent  and  splendid  literary  insti 
tutions  of  Europe,  were  from  their  foundation 
under  the'  government  of  the  clergy, — the 
only  body  of  men  who  then  possessed  suffi 
cient  learning  to  conduct  education.  Their 
constitution  had  not  been  much  altered  at 
the  Reformation :  the  same  reverence  which 
spared  their  monastic  regulations  happily 
preserved  their  rich  endowments  from  ra 
pine ;  and  though  many  of  their  members 
suffered  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  from 
their  adherence  to  the  vanquished  party,  the 
corporate  property  was  undisturbed,  and  their 
studies  flourished  both  under  the  Common 
wealth  and  the  Protectorate.  Their  fame  as 
seats  of  learning,  their  station  as  the  eccle 
siastical  capitals  of  the  kingdom,  and  their 
ascendant  over  the  susceptible  minds  of  all 
youth  of  family  and  fortune,  now  rendered 
them  the  chief  scene  of  the  decisive  contest 
between  James  and  the  Established  Church. 
Obacliah  Walker,  Master  of  University  Col 
lege,  Oxford,  a  man  of  no  small  note  for 
ability  and  learning,  and  long  a  concealed 
Catholic,  now  obtained  for  himself,  and  two 
of  his  fellows,  a  dispensation  from  all  those 
acts  of  participation  in  the  Protestant  wor 
ship  which  the  laws  since  the  Reformation 
41 


required,  together  with  a  license  for  the  pub 
lication  of  books  of  Catholic  theology.*  He 
established  a  printing  press,  and  a  Catholic 
chapel  in  his  college,  which  was  henceforth 
regarded  as  having  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
the  Catholics.  Both  these  exertions  of  the 
prerogative  had  preceded  the  determination 
of  the  judges,  which  was  supposed  by  the 
King  to  establish  its  legality. 

Animated  by  that  determination,  he  (con 
trary  to  the  advice  of  Simderland,  who 
thought  it  safer  to  choose  a  well-affected 
Protestant.)  proceeded  to  appoint  one  Mas- 
sey,  a  Catholic,  who  appears  to  have  been  a 
layman,  to  the  high  station  of  Dean  of 
Christ  Church,  by  which  he  became  a  dig 
nitary  of  the  Church  as  well  as  the  ruler  of 
the  greatest  college  in  the  University.  A 
dispensation  and  pardon  had  been  granted 
to  him  on  the  16th  of  December,  1686,  dis 
pensing  with  the  numerous  statutes  standing 
in  the  way  of  his  promotion,  one  of  which 
was  the  Act  of  Uniformity,— the  only  foun 
dation  of  the  legal  establishment  of  the 
Church. t  His  refusal  of  the  oath  of  supre 
macy  was  recorded ;  but  he  was,  notwith 
standing,  installed  in  the  deanery  without 
resistance  or  even  remonstrance,  by  Aldrich. 
the  Sub-Dean,  an  eminent  divine  of  the  High 
Church  party,  who,  on  the  part  of  the  Col 
lege,  accepted  the  dispensation  as  a  substi 
tute  for  the  oaths  required  by  law.  Massey 
appears,  to  have  attended  the  chapter  offi 
cially  on  several  occasions,  and  to  have  pre 
sided  at  the  election  of  a  Bishop  of  Oxford 
near  two  years  afterwards.  Thus  did  that 
celebrated  society,  overawed  by  power,  or 
still  misled  by  their  extravagant  principle  of 
unlimited  obedience,  or,  perhaps,  not  yet 
aware  of  the  extent  of  the  King's  designs, 
recognise  the  legality  of  his  usurped  power 
by  the  surrender  of  an  academical  office  of 
ecclesiastical  dignity  into  hands  which  the 
laws  had  disabled  from  holding  it.  It  was 
no  wonder,  that  the  unprecedented  vacancy 
of  the  archbishopric  of  York  for  two  years 
and  a  half  was  generally  imputed  to  the 
King's  intending  it  for  Father  Petre  : — a  sup 
position  countenanced  by  his  frequent  appli 
cation  to  Rome  to  obtain  a  bishopric  and  a 
cardinal's  hat  for  that  Jesuit  :t  for  if  he  had 
been  a  Catholic  bishop,  and  if  the  chapter 
of  York  were  as  submissive  as  that  of  Christ 
Church,  the  royal  dispensation  would  have 
seated  him  on  the  archiepiscopal  throne. 
The  Jesuits  were  bound  by  a  vow§  not  to 
accept  bishoprics  unless  ct  mpelled  byapre- 


*  Gutch,  Collectanea  Curiufca,  vol.  i.  p.  287. 
Athena?  Oxoniensis,  vol.  iv.  p.  438.  Dodd,  Church 
History,  vol.  iii.  p.  454. 

t  Gutch,  vol.  ii.  p.  294.  The  dispensation  to 
Ma?sey  contained  an  ostentatious  enumeration  of 
the  laws  which  it  sets  at  defiance. 

t  Dodd,  vol.  iii.  p.  511.     D'Adda  MSS. 

§  Imposed  by  Ignatius,  at  the  suggestion  of 
Claude  Le  Jay,  an  original  member  of  the  order, 
who  wished  to  avoid  a  bishopric,  probably  from 
humility  ;  but  the  regulation  afterwards  prevented 
the  Jesuits  from  looking  for  advancement  any 
where  but  to  Rome. 


322 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


cept  from  the  Pope,  so  that  his  interference 
was  necessary  to  open  the  gates  of  the  En 
glish  Church  to  Petre. 

An  attempt  was  made  on  specious  grounds 
to  take  possession  of  another  college  by  a 
suit  before  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners. 
in  which  private  individuals  were  the  appa 
rent  parties.  The  noble  family  of  Petre  (of 
whom  Father  Edward  Petre  was  one),  in 
January,  1687,  claimed  the  right  of  nomina 
tion  to  seven  fellowships  in  Exeter  College, 
which  had  been  founded  there  by  Sir  Wil 
liam  Petre,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  It 
was  acknowledged  on  trie  part  of  the  College, 
that  Sir  William  and  his  son  had  exercised 
that  power,  though  the  latter,  as  they  con 
tended,  had  nominated  only  by  sufferance. 
The  Bishop  of  Exeter,  the  Visitor,  had,  in 
the  reign  of  James  I.,  pronounced  an  opinion 
against  the  founder's  descendants;  and  a 
judgment  had  been  obtained  against  them 
in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  about  the 
same  time.  Under  the  sanction  of  these 
authorities,  the  College  had  for  seventy  years 
nominated  without  disturbance  to  these  fel 
lowships.  Allibone,  the  Catholic  lawyer, 
contended,  that  this  long  usage," which  would 
otherwise  have  been  conclusive,  deserved 
little  consideration  in  a  period  of  such  ini 
quity  towards  Catholics  that  they  were  de 
terred  from  asserting  their  civil  rights.  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Herbert  observed,  that  the  ques 
tion  turned  upon  the  agreement  between  Sir 
William  Petre  and  Exeter  College,  under 
which  that  body  received  the  fellows  on 
his  foundation.  Jeffreys,  perhaps,  fearful  of 
violent  measures  at  so  early  a  stage,  and 
taking  advantage  of  the  non-appearance  of 
the  Crown  as  an  ostensible  party,  declared 
his  concurrence  with  the  Chief  Justice  :  and 
the  Court  determined  that  the  suit  was  a 
civil  case,  dependent  on  the  interpretation 
of  a  contract,  and  therefore  not  within  their 
jurisdiction  as  Commissioners  of  Ecclesiasti 
cal  Causes.  Sprat  after\vards  took  some 
merit  to  himself  for  having  contributed  to 
save  Exeter  College  from  the  hands  of  the 
enemy :  but  the  concurrence  of  the  Chan 
cellor  and  Chief  Justice,  and  the  technical 
ground  of  the  determination,  render  the 
vigour  and  value  of  his  resistance  very 
doubtful.* 

The  honour  of  opposing  the  illegal  power 
of  the  Crown  devolved  on  Cambridge,  second 
to  Oxford  in  rank  and  magnificence,  but  then 
more  distinguished  by  zeal  for  liberty ; — a 
distinction  probably  originating  in  the  long 
residence  of  Charles  I.  at  Oxford,  and  in  the 
prevalence  of  the  Parliamentary  party  at  the 
same  period,  in  the  country  around  Cam 
bridge.  The  experiment  was  made  now  on 
the  whole  University ;  but  it  was  of  a  cautious 
and  timid  nature,  and  related  to  a  case  im 
portant  in  nothing  but  the  principle  which  it 


*  Sprat's  Letter  to  Lord  Dorset,  p.  12.  This 
case  is  now  published  from  the  Records  of  Exeter 
College,  for  the  first  time,  through  the  kind  per 
mission  of  Dr.  Jones,  the  present  [1826]  Rector 
(?.f  that  society. 


would  have  established.  Early  in  February, 
of  this  year,  the  King  had  recommended 
Alban  Francis,  a  Benedictine  monk  (said  to 
have  been  a  missionary  employed  to  convert 
the  young  scholars  to  the  Church  of  Rome? 
on  whom  an  academical  honour  could  hardly 
have  been  conferred  without  some  appear 
ance  of  countenancing  his  mission)  to  be  ad 
mitted  a  master  of  arts. — which  was  a  com 
mon  act  of  kingly  authority  \  and  had  granted 
him  a  dispensation  from  the  oaths  appointed 
by  law  to  be  taken  on  such  an  admission.* 
Peachell,  the  Vice-Chancellor,  declared,  that 
he  could  not  tell  what  to  do, — to  decline 
his  Majesty's  letter  or  his  laws.  Men  of 
more  wisdom  and  courage  persuaded  him  to 
choose  the  better  part :  and  he  refused  the 
degree  without  the  legal  condition.!  On  the 
complaint  of  Francis  he  was  summoned 
before  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners  to 
answer  for  his  disobedience,  and  (though 
vigorously  supported  by  the  University,  vho 
appointed  deputies  to  attend  him  to  the  bar 
of  the  hostile  tribunal),  after  several  hearings 
was  deprived  of  his  Vice-Chancellorship,  and 
suspended  from  his  office  of  Master  of  Mag 
dalen  College.  Among  those  deputies  at  trie 
bar.  and  probably  undistinguished  from  the 
rest  by  the  ignorant  and  arrogant  Chancellor, 
who  looked  down  upon  them  all  with  the 
like  scorn,  stood  Isaac  Newton,  Professor  of 
Mathematics  in  the  University,  then  employ 
ed  in  the  publication  of  a  work  which  will 
perish  only  with  the  world,  but  who  showed 
on  that,  as  on  every  other  fit  opportunity  in 
his  life,  that  the  most  sublime  contempla 
tions  and  the  most  glorious  discoveries  could 
not  withdraw  him  from  the  defence  of  the 
liberties  of  his  country. 

But  the  attack  on  Oxford,  which  imme 
diately  ensued,  was  the  most  memorable  of 
all.  The  Presidency  of  Magdalen  College, 
one  of  the  most  richly  endowed  communities 
of  the  English  Universities,  had  become  va 
cant  at  the  end  of  March,  which  gave  occa 
sion  to  immediate  attempts  to  obtain  from 
the  King  a  nomination  to  that  desirable 
office .  Smith,  one  of  the  fellows,  paid  his 
court,  with  this  view,  to  Parker,  the  treache 
rous  Bishop  of  Oxford,  who,  after  having 
sounded  his  friends  at  Court,  warned  him 
"  that  the  King  expected  the  person  to  be 
recommended  should  be  favourable  to  his 
religion."  Smith  answered  by  general  ex 
pressions  of  loyalty,  which  Parker  assured 
him  "  would  not  do."  A  few  days  after 
wards,  Bancroft  anxiously  asked  Smith  who 
was  to  be  the  President  •  to  which  he  an 
swered,  "Not  I;  I  never  will  comply  with 
the  conditions."  Some  rumours  of  the  pro- 


*  State  Trials,  vol.  xi.  p.  1350.  Narcissus  Lut- 
trell,  April  and  May,  1687.— MS. 

t  Pepys,  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  Correspondence,  p. 
79.  He  consistently  pursued  the  doctrine  of  pas 
sive  obedience.  "  If,"  says  he,  "  his  Majesty, 
in  his  wisdom,  and  according  to  his  supreme 
power,  contrive  other  methods  to  satisfy  himself, 
I  shall  be  no  murmurer  or  complainer,  but  can  he 
no  abettor." — Ibid.,  p.  81. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


323 


jects  of  James  having  probably  induced  the 
fellows  to  appoint  the  election  for  the  13th 
of  April,  on  the  5th  of  that  month  the  King 
issued  his  letter  mandatory,  commanding 
thorn  to  make  choice  of  Anthony  Farmer,* 
— not  a  member  of  the  College,  and  a  recent 
convert  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  "  any  statute 
or  custom  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding." 
On  the  9th,  the  fellows  agreed  to  a  petition  to 
the  King,  which  was  delivered  the  next  day 
to  Lord  Sunderland,  to  be  laid  before  his 
Majesty,  in  which  they  alleged  that  Farmer 
was  legally  incapable  of  holding  the  office, 
and  prayed  either  that  they  might  be  left  to 
make  a  free  election,  or  that  the  King  would 
recommend  some  person  fit  to  be  preferred. 
On  the  nth,  the  mandate  arrived,  and  on 
the  1 3th  the  election  was  postponed  to  the 
15th, — the  last  day  on  which  it  could  by  the 
statutes  be  held, — to  allow  time  for  receiving 
an  answer  to  the  petition.  On  that  day  they 
were  informed  that  the  King  '''expected  to 
be  obeyed."  A  small  number  of  the  senior 
fellows  proposed  a  second  petition  ;  but  the 
larger  and  younger  part  rejected  the  propo 
sal  with  indignation,  and  proceeded  to  the 
election  of  Mr.  Hough,  after  a  discussion 
more  agreeable  to  the  natural  feelings  of  in 
jured  men  than  to  the  principles  of  passive 
obedience  recently  promulgated  by  the  Uni 
versity. t  The  fellows  were  summoned,  in 
June,  before  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission, 
to  answer  for  their  contempt  of  his  Majesty's 
commands.  On  their  appearance,  Fairfax, 
one  of  their  body,  having  desired  to  know 
the  commission  by  which  the  Court  sat.  Jef 
freys  said  to  him,  "What  commission  have 
you  to  be  so  impudent  in  court?  This  man 
ought  to  be  kept  in  a  dark  room.  Why  do 
you  suffer  him  without  a  guardian  ?"j  On 
the  22d  of  the  same  month,  Hough's  elec 
tion  was  pronounced  to  be  void,  and  the 
Vice-President,  with  two  of  the  fellows,  were 
suspended.  But  proofs  of  such  notorious  and 
vulgar  profligacy  had  been  produced  against 
Farmer,  that  it  was  thought  necessary  to 
withdraw  him  in  August;  and  the  fellows 
were  directed  by  a  new  mandate  to  admit 
Parker,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  to  the  presidency. 
This  man  was  as  much  disabled  by  the  sta 
tutes  of  the  College  as  Farmer;  but  as  ser 
vility  and  treachery,  though  immoralities 
often  of  a  deeper  dye  than  debauchery,  are 
neither  so  capable  of  proof  nor  so  easily 
stripped  of  their  disguises,  the  fellows  were 
by  this  recommendation  driven  to  the  neces 
sity  of  denying  the  dispensing  power.  Their 
inducements,  however,  to  resist  him,  were 


*  State  Trials,  vol.  xii.  p.  1. 

t  "  Hot  debates  arose  about  the  King's  letter, 
and  horrible  rude  reflections  were  made  upon  his 
authority,  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  in  our  affair, 
and  things  of  a  far  worse  nature  and  consequence. 
I  told  one  of  them  that  the  spirit  of  Ferguson  had 
got  into  him." — Smith's  Diary,  State  Trials,  vol. 
xii.  p.  58. 

t  In  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary,  Jeffreys  is  made 
to  say  of  Fairfax,  "He  is  filter  to  be  in  a  mad 
house." 


strengthened  by  the  impossibility  of  repre 
senting  them  to  the  King.  Parker,  origi 
nally  a  fanatical  Puritan,  became  a  bigoted 
Churchman  at  the  Restoration,  and  disgraced 
abilities  not  inconsiderable  by  the  zeal  with 
which  he  defended  the  persecution  of  his 
late  brethren,  and  by  the  unbridled  ribaldry 
with  which  he  reviled  the  most  virtuous  men 
among  them.  His  labours  for  the  Church  of 
England  were  no  sooner  rewarded  by  the 
bishopric  of  Oxford,  than  he  transferred  his 
services,  if  not  his  faith,  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  which  then  began  to  be  openly  pa 
tronised  by  the  Court,  and  seems  to  have  re 
tained  his  station  in  the  Protestant  hierarchy 
in  order  to  contribute  more  effectually  to  its 
destruction.  The  zeal  of  those  who  are  more 
anxious  to  recommend  themselves  than  to 
promote  their  cause  is  often  too  eager :  and 
the  convivial  enjoyments  of  Parker  often 
betrayed  him  into  very  imprudent  and  un 
seemly  language.*  Against  such  an  intru 
der  the  College  had  the  most  powerful  mo 
tives  to  make  a  vigorous  resistance.  They 
were  summoned  into  the  presence  of  the 
King,  when  he  arrived  at  Oxford  in  Septem 
ber,  and  was  received  by  the  body  of  the 
University  with  such  demonstrations  of  loy 
alty  as  to  be  boasted  of  in  the  Gazette. 
i:  The  King  chid  them  very  much  for  their 
disobedience,"  says  one  of  his  attendants, 
"  and  with  a  much  greater  appearance  of 
anger  than  ever  I  perceived  in  his  Majesty ; 
who  bade  them  go  away  and  choose  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  or  else  they  should  cer 
tainly  feel  the  weight  of  their  Sovereign's 
displeasure."!  They  answered  respectfully, 
but  persevered.  They  further  received  pri 
vate  warnings,  that  it  was  better  to  acquiesce 
in  the  choice  of  a  head  of  suspected  religion, 
such  as  the  Bishop,  than  to  expose  them 
selves  to  be  destroyed  by  the  subservient 
judges,  in  proceedings  of  quo  warranto  (for 
which  the  inevitable  breaches  of  their  innu 
merable  statutes  would  supply  a  fairer  pre 
text  than  was  sufficient  in  the  other  corpora 
tions),  or  to  subject  themselves  to  innovations 
in  their  religious  worship  which  might  be 
imposed  by  the  King  in  virtue  of  his  unde 
fined  supremacy  over  the  Church. t 

These  insinuations  proving  vain,  the  King 
issued  a  commission  to  Cartwright,  Bishop 
of  Chester,  Chief  Justice  Wright,  and  Baron 
Jenner,  to  examine  the  state  of  the  College, 
with  full  power  to  alter  the  statutes  and 
frame  new  ones,  in  execution  of  the  autho 
rity  which  the  King  claimed  as  supreme 
visitor  of  cathedrals  and  colleges,  and  which 
was  held  to  supersede  the  powers  of  their 
ordinary  visitors.  The  commissioners  ac 
cordingly  arrived  at  Oxford  on  the  20th  of 
October,  for  the  purpose  of  this  royal  visita- 

*  Athense  Oxonienses,  vol.  ii.  p.  814.  It  ap 
pears  that  he  refused  on  his  death-bed  to  declare 
himself  a  Catholic,  which  Evelyn  justly  thinks 
stranse. — Memoirs,  vol.  i.  p.  605. 

t  Blathwayt,  Secretary  of  War,  Pepys,  vol.  ii 
Correspondence,  p.  86. 

1  State  Trials,  vol.  xii.  p.  19. 


324 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


tion ;  and  the  object  of  it  was  opened  by 
Cartwright  in  a  speech  full  of  anger  arid 
menace.  Hough  maintained  his  own  rights 
and  those  of  his  College  with  equal  decorum 
and  firmness.  On  being  asked  whether  he 
submitted  to  the  visitation,  he  answered, 
"  We  submit  to  it  as  far  as  it  is  consistent 
with  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  statutes 
of  the  College,  but  no  farther.  There  neither 
is  nor  can  be  a  President  as  long  as  I  live 
and  obey  the  statutes."  The  Court  cited 
five  cases  of  nomination  to  the  Presidency  by 
the  Crowrn  since  the  Reformation,  of  which 
he  appears  to  have  disputed  only  one.  But  he 
was  unshaken:  he  refused  to  give  up  posses 
sion  of  his  house  to  Parker;  and  wrhen,  on 
the  second  day  they  deprived  him  of  the 
Presidency,  and  struck  his  name  off  the 
books,  he  came  into  the  hall,  and  protested 
'•against  all  they  had  done  in  prejudice  of 
his  right,  as  illegal,  unjust,  and  null."  The 
strangers  and  young  scholars  loudly  ap 
plauded  his  courage,  which  so  incensed  the 
Court,  that  the  Chief  Justice  bound  him  to 
appear  in  the  King's  Bench  in  a  thousand 
pounds.  Parker  having  been  put  into  pos 
session  by  force,  a  majority  of  the  fellows 
were  prevailed  on  to  submit,  "as  far  as  was 
lawful  and  agreeable  to  the  statutes  of  the 
College."  The  appearance  of  compromise, 
to  wThich  every  man  feared  that  his  com 
panion  might  be  tempted  to  yield,  shook 
their  firmness  for  a  moment.  Fortunately 
the  imprudence  of  the  King  set  them  again 
at  liberty.  The  answer  with  which  the  com 
missioners  were  willing  to  be  content  did 
not  satisfy  him.  He  required  a  written  sub 
mission,  in  which  the  fellows  should  acknow 
ledge  their  disobedience,  and  express  their 
sorrow  for  it.  On  this  proposition  they  with 
drew  their  former  submission,  and  gave  in  a 
writing  in  which  they  finally  declared  "that 
they  could  not  acknowledge  themselves  to 
have  done  any  thing  amiss."  The  Bishop 
of  Chester,  on  the  16th  of  November,  pro 
nounced  the  judgment  of  the  Court;  by 
which,  on  their  refusal  to  subscribe  a  hum 
ble  acknowledgment  of  their  errors,  they 
were  deprived  and  expelled  from  their  fel 
lowships.  Cartwright,  like  Parker,  had  origi 
nally  been  a  Puritan,  and  was  made  a  Church 
man  by  the  Restoration  ;  and  running  the 
same  race,  though  with  less  vigorous  pow 
ers,  he  had  been  made  Bishop  of  Chester  for 
a  sermon,  inculcating  the  doctrine,  that  the 
promises  of  kings  were  not  binding.*  Within 
a  few  months  after  these  services  at  Oxford, 
he  was  rebuked  by  the  King,  for  saying  in 
his  cups  that  Jeffreys  and  Sunderland  would 
deceive  him.t  Suspected  as  he  was  of  more 
opprobious  vices,  the  merit  of  being  useful 
in  an  odious  project  was  sufficient  to  cancel 

*  The  King  hath,  indeed,  promised  to  govern  by 
law  ;  but  the  safety  of  the  people  (of  which  he  is 
judge)  is  an  exception  implied  in  every  monarchial 
promise." — Sermon  at  Ripon,  6th  February,  1686. 
See  also  his  sermon  on  the  30th  January,  1682,  at 
Holyrood  House,  before  the  Lady  Anne. 

t  Narcissus  Luttrell,  February,  1688. — MS. 


all  private  guilt;  and  a  design  wras  even 
entertained  of  promoting  him  to  the  see  of 
London,  as  soon  as  the  contemplated  depriva 
tion  of  Compton  should  be  carried  into  execu 
tion.* 

Early  in  December,  the  recusant  fellows 
were  incapacitated  from  holding  any  benefice 
or  preferment  in  the  Church  by  a  decree 
of  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners,  which 
passed  that  body,  however,  only  by  a  majo 
rity  of  one ; — the  minority  consisting  of  Lord 
Mulgrave,  Lord  Chief  Justice  Herbert,  Baron 
Jenner,  and  Sprat,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  who 
boasts,  that  he  laboured  to  make  the  Com 
mission,  which  he  countenanced  by  his  pre 
sence,  as  little  mischievous  as  he  could. f 
This  rigorous  measure  was  probably  adopted 
from  the  knowledge,  that  many  of  the  no 
bility  and  gentry  intended  to  bestow  livings 
on  many  of  the  ejected  fellows. t  The  King 
told  Sir  Edward  Seymour,  that  he  had  heard 
that  he  and  others  intended  to  take  some  of 
them  into  their  houses,  and  added  that  he 
should  look  on  it  as  a  combination  against 
himself.  §  But  in  spite  of  these  threats  con 
siderable  collections  were  made  for  them ; 
and  when  the  particulars  of  the  transaction 
were  made  known  in  Holland,  the  Princess 
of  Orange  contributed  two  hundred  pounds 
to  their  relief. II  It  was  probably  by  these 
same  threats  that  a  person  so  prudent  as 
well  as  mild  was  so  transported  beyond  her 
usual  meekness  as  to  say  to  D'Abbeville, 
James'  minister  at  the  Hague,  that  if  she 
ever  became  Queen,  she  would  signalise  her 
zeal  for  the  Church  more  than  Elizabeth. 

The  King  represented  to  Barillon  the  ap 
parently  triumphant  progress  which  he  had 
just  made  through  the  South  and  West  of 
England,  as  a  satisfactory  proof  of  the  popu 
larity  of  his  person  and  government.!"  But 
that  experienced  statesman,  not  deceived  by 
these  outward  shows,  began  from  that  mo 
ment  to  see  more  clearly  the  dangers  which 
James  had  to  encounter.  An  attack  on  the 
most  opulent  establishment  for  education  of 
the  kingdom,  the  expulsion  of  a  body  of 
learned  men  from  their  private  property 
without  any  trial  kno\vn  to  ihe  laws,  and  for 
no  other  offence  than  obstinate  adherence  to 
their  oaths,  and  the  transfer  of 'their  great 
endowments  to  the  clergy  of  the  King's  per 
suasion,  who  were  legally  unable  to  hold 
them,  even  if  he  had  justly  acquired  the 
power  of  bestowing  them,  were  measures  of 
bigotry  and  rapine, — odious  and  alarming 
without  being  terrible, — by  which  the  King 
lost  the  attachment  of  many  friends,  without 


*  Johnstone  (son  of  Warriston)  to  Burnet,  8th 
December,  1687.— Welbeck  MS.  Sprat,  in  his 
Letter  to  Lord  Dorset,  speaks  of  "farther  pro 
ceedings"  as  being  meditated  against  Compton. 

t  Johnstone,  ibid.  He  does  not  name  the  ma 
jority  :  they,  probably,  were  Jeffreys,  Sunderland, 
the  Bishops  of  Chester  and  Durham,  and  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Wright. 

t  Johnstone,  17th  November. — MS. 

$  Id.  8th  December.— MS. 

II  Smith's  Diary,  State  Trials,  vol.  xii.  p.  73. 

IT  Barillon,  23d— 29th  Sept —Fox  MSS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


325 


inspiring  his  opponents  with  much  fear.  The 
members  of  Magdalen  College  were  so  much 
the  objects  of  general  sympathy  and  respect 
that  though  they  justly  obtained  the  honours 
of  martyrdom,  they  experienced  little  of  its 
sufferings.  It  is  hard  to  imagine  a  more  un 
skilful  attempt  to  persecute,  than  that  which 
thus  inflicted  sufferings  most  easily  relieved 
on  men  who  were  most  generally  respected. 
In  corporations  so  great  as  the  University  the 
wrongs  of  every  member  were  quickly  felt 
and  resented  by  the  whole  body ;  and  the 
prevalent  feeling  was  speedily  spread  over 
the  kingdom,  every  part  of  which  received 
from  thence  preceptors  in  learning  and  teach 
ers  of  religion, — a  circumstance  of  peculiar 
importance  at  a  period  when  publication  still 
continued  to  be  slow  and  imperfect.  A  con 
test  for  a  corporate  right  has  the  advantage 
of  seeming  more  generous  than  that  for  indi 
vidual  interest:  and  corporate  spirit  itself  is 
one  of  the  most  steady  and  inflexible  prin 
ciples  of  human  action.  An  invasion  of  the 
legal  possessions  of  the  Universities  was  an 
attack  on  the  strong  holds  as  well  as  palaces 
of  the  Church,  where  she  was  guarded  by 
the  magnificence  of  art,  and  the  dignity  and 
antiquity  of  learning,  as  well  as  by  respect 
for  religion.  It  was  made  on  principles  which 
tended  directly  to  subject  the  whole  property 
of  the  Church  to  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown  ; 
and  as  soon  as,  in  a  conspicuous  and  exten 
sive  instance,  the  sacredness  of  legal  pos 
session  is  intentionally  violated,  the  security 
of  all  property  is  endangered.  Whether 
such  proceedings  were  reconcilable  to  law, 
and  could  be  justified  by  the  ordinary  au 
thorities  and  arguments  of  lawyers,  was  a 
question  of  very  subordinate  importance. 

At  an  early  stage  of  the  proceedings 
against  the  Universities,  the  King,  not  con 
tent  with  releasing  individuals  from  obedi 
ence  to  the  law  by  dispensations  in  particular 
cases,  must  have  resolved  on  altogether  sus 
pending  the  operation  of  penal  laws  relating 
to  religion  by  one  general  measure.  He  had 
accordingly  issued,  on  the  4th  of  April,  '•  A 
Declaration  for  Liberty  of  Conscience;" 
which,  after  the  statement  of  those  princi 
ples  of  equity  and  policy  on  which  religious 
liberty  is  founded,  proceeds  to  make  provi 
sions  in  their  own  natures  so  wise  and  just 
that  they  want  nothing  but  lawful  authority 
and  pure  intention  to  render  them  worthy 
of  admiration.  It  suspends  the  execution 
of  all  penal  laws  for  nonconformity,  and  of 
all  laws  which  require  certain  acts  of  con 
formity,  as  qualifications  for  civil  or  military 
office ;  it  gives  leave  to  all  men  to  meet  and 
serve  God  after  their  own  manner,  publicly 
and  privately ;  it  denounces  the  royal  dis 
pleasure  and  the  vengeance  of  the  land 
against  all  who  should  disturb  any  religious 
worship;  and,  finally,  "in  order  that  his 
loving  subjects  may  be  discharged  from  all 
penalties,  forfeitures,  and  disabilities,  which 
they  may  have  incurred,  it  grants  them  a 
free  pardon  for  all  crimes  by  them  committed 
against  the  said  penal  laws."  This  Declara 


tion,  founded  on  the  supposed  power  of  sus 
pending  laws,  was,  in  several  respects,  of 
more  extensive  operation  than  the  exercise 
of  the  power  to  dispense  with  them.  The 
laws  of  disqualification  only  became  penal 
when  the  Nonconformist  was  a  candidate  for 
office,  and  not  necessarily  implying  immo 
rality  in  the  person  disqualified,  might,  ac 
cording  to  the  doctrine  then  received,  be  the 
proper  object  of  a  dispensation.  But  some 
acts  of  nonconformity,  which  might  be  com 
mitted  by  all  men,  and  which  did  not  of  ne 
cessity  involve  a  conscientious  dissent,  were 
regarded  as  in  themselves  immoral,  and  to 
them  it  was  acknowledged  that  the  dispen 
sing  power  did  not  extend.  Dispensation?, 
however  multiplied,  are  presumed  to  be 
grounded  on  the  special  circumstances  of 
each  case.  But  every  exercise  of  the  power 
of  indefinitely  suspending  a  whole  class  of 
laws  which  must  be  grounded  on  general 
reasons  of  policy,  without  any  consideration 
of  the  circumstances  of  particular  individu 
als,  is  evidently  a  more  undisguised  assump 
tion  of  legislative  authority.  There  were 
practical  differences  of  considerable  import 
ance.  No  dispensation  could  prevent  a  legal 
proceeding  from  being  commenced  and  car 
ried  on  as  far  as  the  point  where  it  was  regu 
lar  to  appeal  to  the  dispensation  asa  defence. 
But  the  declaration  which  suspended  the 
laws  stopped  the  prosecutor  on  ihe  threshold; 
and  in  the  case  of  disqualification  it  seemed 
to  preclude  the  necessity  of  all  subsequent 
dispensations  to  individuals.  The  dispensing 
power  might  remove  disabilities,  and  protect 
from  punishment;  but  the  exemption  from 
expense,  and  the  security  against  vexation, 
were  completed  only  by  this  exercise  of  the 
suspending  power. 

Acts  of  a  similar  nature  had  been  twice 
attempted  by  Charles  II.  The  first  was  the 
Declaration  in  Ecclesiastical  Affairs,  in  the 
year  of  his  restoration  ;  in  which,  after  many 
concessions  to  Dissenters,  which  might  be 
considered  as  provisional,  and  binding  only 
till  the  negotiation  for  a  general  union  in  re 
ligion  should  be  closed,  he  adds.  "We  hereby 
renew  what  we  promised  in  our  Declaration 
from  Breda,  that  no  man  should  be  disquieted 
for  difference  of  opinion  in  matters  of  religion, 
which  do  not  disturb  the  peace  of  ihe  king 
dom."*  On  the  faith  of  that  promise  the 
English  Nonconformist  shad  concurred  in  the 
Restoration;  yet  the  Convention  Parliament 
itself,  in  which  the  Presbyterians  were 
powerful,  if  not  predominant,  refused,  though 
by  a  small  majority,  to  pass  a  bill  to  render 
this  tolerant  Declaration  effectual.!  But  the 
next  Parliament,  elected  under  the  preva 
lence  of  a  different  spirit,  broke  the  public 
faith  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  which  pro 
hibited  all  public  worship  and  religions  in 
struction,  except  such  as  were  conformable  to 


*  Kennet,  History,  vol.  iii.  p.  242. 

t  Commons'  Journals,  28th   November,  1660. 
On  the  second  reading  the  numbers  were,  ayes. 
157;  noes,  183.     Sir  G.  Booth,  a  teller  for  the 
ayes,  was  a  Presbyterian  leader. 
2C 


326 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  Established  Church.*  The  zeal  of  that 
assembly  had,  indeed,  at  its  opening,  been 
stimulated  by  Clarendon,  the  deepest  stain 
on  whose  administration  was  the  renewal  of 
intolerance. t  Charles,  whether  most  actu 
ated  by  love  of  quiet,  or  by  indifference  to 
religion,  or  by  a  desire  to  open  the  gates  to 
Dissenters,  that  Catholics  might  enter,  made 
an  attempt  to  preserve  the  public  faith, 
which  he  had  himself  pledged,  by  the  exer 
cise  of  his  dispensing  power,  In  the  end  of 
1662  he  had  published  another  Declaration, f 
in  which  he  assured  peaceable  Dissenters, 
who  were  only  desirous  modestly  to  perform 
their  devotions  in  their  own  way,  that  he 
would  make  it  his  special  care  to  incline  the 
wisdom  of  Parliament  to  concur  with  him  in 
making  some  act  which,  he  adds,  "  may 
enable  us  to  exercise,  with  a  more  universal 
satisfaction,  the  dispensing  power  which  we 
conceive  to  be  inherent  in  us."  In  the 
speech  with  which  he  opened  the  next  ses 
sion,  he  only  ventured  to  say,  "I  could 
heartily  wish  I  had  such  a  power  of  indul 
gence."  The  Commons,  however,  better 
royalists  or  more  zealous  Churchmen  than 
the  King,  resolved  "  that  it  be  represented 
to  his  Majesty,  as  the  humble  advice  of  this 
House,  that  no  indulgence  be  granted  to 
Dissenters  from  the  Act  of  Uniformity  ;"§ 
and  an  address  to  that  effect  was  presented 
to  him,  which  had  been  drawn  up  by  Sir 
Heneage  Finch,  his  own  Solicitor-General. 
The  King,  counteracted  by  his  ministers, 
almost  silently  acquiesced;  and  the  Parlia 
ment  proceeded,  in  the  years  which  immedi 
ately  followed,  to  enact  that  series  of  perse 
cuting  laws  which  disgrace  their  memory, 
and  dishonour  an  administration  otherwise 
not  without  claims  on  our  praise.  It  was  not 
till  the  beginning  of  the  second  Dutch  war, 
that  "a  Declaration  for  indulging  Noncon 
formists  in  matters  ecclesiastical"  was  ad 
vised  by  Sir  Thomas  Clifford,  for  the  sake  of 
Catholics,  and  embraced  by  Shaftesbury  for 
the  general  interests  of  religious  liberty. I!  A 


*  14  Car.  II.  c.  iv. 

t  Speeches,  8th  May,  1661,  and  19th  May, 
1662.  "  The  Lords  Clarendon  and  Southampton, 
together  with  the  Bishops,  were  the  great  oppo- 
sers  of  the  King's  intention  to  grant  toleration  to 
Dissenters,  according  to  the  promise  at  Breda." — 
Life  of  James  II.  vol.  i.  p.  391.  These,  indeed, 
are  not  the  words  of  the  King;  but  for  more  than 
twelve  years  on  this  part  of  his  Life,  the  compiler, 
Mr.  Dicconson,  does  not  quote  James'  MSS. 

i  Kennet,  Register,  p.  850. — The  concluding 
paragraph,  relating  to  Catholics,  is  a  model  of  that 
stately  ambiguity  under  which  the  style  of  Claren 
don  gave  him  peculiar  facilities  of  cloaking  an  un 
popular  proposal. 

$  Journals,  25th  Feb.,  1663. 

II  "  We  think  ourselves  obliged  to  make  use  of 
that  supreme  power  in  ecclesiastical  matters  which 
is  inherent  in  us.  We  declare  our  will  and  plea 
sure,  that  the  execution  of  all  penal  laws  in  mat 
ters  ecclesiastical  be  suspended ;  and  we  shall 
allow  a  sufficient  number  of  places  of  worship  as 
ihey  shall  be  desired,  for  the  use  of  those  who  do 
not  conform  to  the  Church  of  England  : — without 
allowing  public  worship  to  Roman  Catholics." 
Most  English  historians  tell  us  that  Sir  Orlando 


considerable  debate  on  this  Declaration  took 
place  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  which 
Waller  alone  had  the  boldness  and  liberality 
to  contend  for  the  toleration  of  the  Catholics ; 
but  the  principle  of  freedom  of  conscience, 
and  the  desire  to  gratify  the  King,  yielded  to 
the  dread  of  prerogative  and  the  enmity  to 
the  Church  of  Rome.  An  address  was  pre 
sented  to  the  King,  •'  to  inform  him  that 
penal  statutes  in  matters  ecclesiastical  can 
not  be  suspended  but  by  Act  of  Parlia 
ment;"  to  which  the  King  returned  an  eva 
sive  answer.  The  .House  presented  another 
address,  declaring  "  that  the  King  was  very 
much  misinformed,  no  such  power  having 
been  claimed  or  recognised  by  any  of  his 
predecessors,  and  if  admitted,  might  tend  to 
altering  the  legislature,  which  has  always 
been  acknowledged  to  be  in  your  Majesty 
and  your  two  Houses  of  Parliament ;" — in 
answer  to  which  the  King  said,  "If  any 
scruple  remains  concerning  the  suspension 
of  the  penal  laws,  I  hereby  faithfully  promise 
that  what  hath  been  done  in  that  particular 
shall  not  be  drawn  either  into  consequence 
or  example."  The  Chancellor  and  Secretary 
Coventry,  by  command  of  the  King,  acquaint 
ed  both  Houses  separately,  on  the  same  day, 
that  he  had  caused  the  Declaration  to  be  can 
celled  in  his  presence ;  on  which  both  Houses 
immediately  voted,  and  presented  in  a  body, 
an  unanimous  address  of  thanks  to  his 
Majesty,  "  for  his  gracious,  full,  and  satis 
factory  answer."*  The  whole  of  this  trans 
action  undoubtedly  amounted  to  a  solemn 
and  final  condemnation  of  the  pretension  to 
a  suspending  power  by  the  King  in  Parlia 
ment  :  it  was  in  substance  not  distinguishable 
from,  a  declaratory  law ;  and  the  forms  of  a 
statute  seem  to  have  been  dispensed  with 
only  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  distrust  or 
discourtesy  towards  Charles.  We  can  dis 
cover,  in  the  very  imperfect  accounts  which 
are  preserved  of  the  debates  of  1673,  that 
the.advocates  of  the  Crown  had  laid  main 
stress  on  the  King's  ecclesiastical  supremacy; 
it  being,  as  they  reasoned,  evident  that  the 
head  of  the  Church  should  be  left  to  judge 
when  it  was  wise  to  execute  or  suspend  the 
laws  intended  for  its  protection.  They  relied 
also  on  the  undisputed  right  of  the  Crown  to 
stop  the  progress  of  each  single  prosecution 
which  seemed  to  justify,  by  analogy,  a  more 
general  exertion  of  the  same  power. 

James,  in  his  Declaration  of  Indulgence, 
disdaining  any  appeals  to  analogy  or  to  su 
premacy,  chose  to  take  a  wider  and  higher 
ground,  and  concluded  the  preamble  in  the 
tone  of  a  master: — "We  have  thought  fit, 
by  virtue  of  our  royal  prerogative,  to  issue 

Bridgman  refused  to  put  the  Great  Seal  to  this 
Declaration,  and  that  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  made 
Chancellor  to  seal  it.  The  falsehood  of  this  state 
ment  is  proved  by  the  mere  inspection  of  the 
London  Gazette,  by  which  we  see  that  the  De 
claration  was  issued  on  the  15th  of  March,  1672, 
when  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  not  yet  appointed. 
— See  Locke's  Letter  from  a  Person  of  Quality, 
and  the  Life  of  Shaftesbury  (unpublished),  p.  247. 
*  Journals,  8th  March,  1673. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688.  327 


forth  this  our  Declaration  of  Indulgence, 
making  no  doubt  of  the  concurrence  of  our 
two  Houses  of  Parliament,  when  we  shall 
think  it  convenient  for  them  to  meet."  His 
Declaration  was  issued  in  manifest  defiance  of 
the  parliamentary  condemnation  pronounced 
on  that  of  his  brother,  and  it  was  introduced 
in  language  of  more  undefined  and  alarming 
extent.  On  the  other  hand,  his  measure  was 
countenanced  by  the  determination  of  the 
judges,  and  seemed  to  be  only  a  more  com 
pendious  and  convenient  manner  of  effecting 
what  these  perfidious  magistrates  had  de 
clared  he  might  lawfully  do.  Their  iniqui 
tous  decision  might  excuse  many  of  those 
who  were  ignorant  of  the  means  by  which  it 
was  obtained ;  but  the  King  himself,  who 
had  removed  judges  too  honest  to  concur  in 
it.  and  had  neither  continued  nor  appointed 
any  whose  subserviency  he  had  not  first  as 
certained,  could  plead  no  such  authority  in 
mitigation.  He  had  dictated  the  oracle  which 
he  affected  to  obey.  It  is  very  observable 
that  he  himself,  or  rather  his  biographer  (for 
it  is  not  just  to  impute  this  base  excuse  to 
himself),  while  he  claims  the  protecting  au 
thority  of  the  adjudication,  is  prudently  silent 
on  the  unrighteous  practices  by  which  that 
show  of  authority  was  purchased.* 

The  way  had  been  paved  for  the  English 
Declaration  by  a  Proclamationt  issued  at 
Edinburgh,  on  the  12th  of  February,  couched 
in  loftier  language  than  was  about  to  be 
hazarded  in  England: — uWe,  by  our  sove 
reign  authority,  prerogative  royal,  and  abso 
lute  power,  do  hereby  give  and  grant  our 
royal  toleration.  We  allow  and  tolerate  the 
moderate  Presbyterians  to  meet  in  their 
private  houses,  and  to  hear  such  ministers 
as  have  been  or  are  willing  to  accept  of  our 
indulgence;  but  they  are  not  to  build  meet 
ing-houses,  but  to  exercise  in  houses.  We 
tolerate  Quakers  to  meet  in  their  form  in  any 
place  or  places  appointed  for  their  worship. 
We,  by  our  sovereign  authority,  &c.  suspend, 
stop,  and  disable,  all  laws  or  Acts  of  Parlia 
ment  made  or  executed  against  any  of  our 
Roman  Catholic  subjects,  so  that  they  shall 
be  free  to  exercise  their  religion  and  to  enjoy 
all  ;  but  they  are  to  exercise  in  houses  or 
chapels.  And  we  cass,  annul,  and  discharge 
all  oaths  by  wrhich  our  subjects  are  disabled 
from  holding  offices."  He  concludes  by  con 
firming  the  proprietors  of  Church  lands  in 
their  possession,  which  seemed  to  be  wholly 
unnecessary  while  the  Protestant  establish 
ment  endured  ;  and  adds  an  assurance  more 
likely  to  disquiet  than  to  satisfy,  athat  he 
will  not  use  force  against  any  man  for  the 
Protestant  religion."  In  a  short  time  after 
wards  he  had  extended  this  indulgence  to 
those  Presbyterians  who  scrupled  to  take  the 
Test  or  any  other  oath;  and  in  a  few  months 
more,  on  the  5th  of  July,  all  restrictions  on 
toleration  had  been  removed,  by  the  per- 

*  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  ii.  p.  81.  "  He,"  says 
the  biographer,  "had  no  other  oracle  to  apply  to 
for  exposition  of  difficult  and  intricate  points." 

t  Wodrow,  vol.  ii.  app. 


mission  granted  to  all  to  serve  God  in  their 
own  manner,  whether  in  private  houses  or 
chapels,  or  houses  built  or  hired  for  the  pur- 
jose  :*  or,  in  other  words,  he  had  established, 
3y  his  own  sole  authority,  the  most  unbound 
ed  liberty  of  worship  and  religious  instruc 
tion  in  a  country  where  the  laws  treated 
every  act  of  dissent  as  one  of  the  most 
heinous  crimes.  There  is  no  other  example, 
perhaps,  of  so  excellent  an  object  being  pur 
sued  by  means  so  culpable,  or  for  purposes 
in  which  evil  was  so  much  blended  with 
ood. 

James  was  equally  astonished  and  incensed 
at  the  resistance  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Their  warm  professions  of  loyalty,  their  ac 
quiescence  in  measures  directed  only  against 
civil  liberty,  their  solemn  condemnation  of 
forcible  resistance  to  oppression  (the  lawful 
ness  of  which  constitutes  the  main  strength 
of  every  opposition  to  misgqvernment),  had 
persuaded  him  that  they  would  look  patiently 
on  the  demolition  of  all  the  bulwarks  of  their 

n  wealth,  and  greatness,  and  power,  and 
submit  in  silence  to  measures  which,  alter 
stripping  the  Protestant  religion  of  all  its 
temporal  aid,  might  at  length  leave  it  exposed 
to  persecution.  He  did  not  distinguish  be 
tween  legal  opposition  and  violent  resistance. 
He  believed  in  the  adherence  of  multitudes 
to  professions  poured  forth  in  a  moment  of 
enthusiasm ;  and  he  was  so  ignorant  of  hu 
man  nature  as  to  imagine,  that  speculative 
opinions  of  a  very  extravagant  sort,  even  if 
they  could  be  stable,  were  sufficient  to  su 
persede  interest  and  habits,  to  bend  the  pride 
of  high  establishments,  and  to  stem  the  pas- 
sions'of  a  nation  in  a  state  of  intense  excite 
ment.  Yet  James  had  been  admonished  by 
the  highest  authority  to  beware  of  this  de 
lusion.  Morley,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  a 
veteran  royalist  and  Episcopalian,  whose 
fidelity  had  been  tried,  but  whose  judgment 
had  been  informed  in  the  Civil  War,  almost 
with  his  dying  breath  desired  Lord  Dart 
mouth  to  warn  the  King,  that  if  ever  he  de 
pended  on  the  doctrine  of  Nonresistance  he 
would  find  himself  deceived ;  for  that  most 
of  the  Church  would  contradict  it  in  their 
practice,  though  not  in  terms.  It  was  to  no 
purpose  that  Dartmouth  frequently  reminded 
James  of  Morley's  last  message ;  for  he  an 
swered,  -'that  the  Bishop  was  a  good  man, 
but  grown  old  and  timid. "t 

It"must  be  owned,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
there  were  not  wanting  considerations  which 
excuse  the  expectation  and  explain  the  dis 
appointment  of  James.  Wiser  men  than  he 
have  been  the  dupes  of  that  natural  preju 
dice,  which  leads  us  to  look  for  the  same 
consistency  between  the  different  parts  of 
conduct  which  is  in  some  degree  found  to 
prevail  among  the  different  reasonings  and 
opinions  of  every  man  of  sound  mind.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  Church  had  done 


*  Wodrow.  vol.  ii.  app.  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p. 463. 
t  Burnet,  (Oxford,  1823),  vol.  ii.  p.  428.     Lord 
Dartmouth's  note. 


328 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


much  to  delude  him.  For  they  did  not  con 
tent  themselves  with  never  controverting,  nor 
even  confine  themselves  to  calmly  preaching 
the  doctrine  of  Nonresistance  (which  might 
be  justified  and  perhaps  commended) ;  but  it 
was  constantly  and  vehemently  inculcated. 
The  more  furious  preachers  treated  all  who 
doubted  it  with  the  fiercest  scurrility,*  and 
the  most  pure  and  gentle  were  ready  to  intro 
duce  it  harshly  and  unreasonably  ;t  and  they 
all  boasted  of  it,  perhaps  with  reason,  as  a  pe 
culiar  characteristic  which  distinguished  the 
Church  of  England  from  other  Christian  com 
munities.  Nay,  if  a  solemn  declaration  from 
an  authority  second  only  to  the  Church,  as 
sembled  in  a  national  council,  could  have 
been  a  security  for  their  conduct,  the  judg 
ment  of  the  University  of  Oxford,  in  their  Con 
vocation  in  1683,  may  seem  to  warrant  the 
utmost  expectations  of  the  King.  For  among 
other  positions  condemned  by  that  learned 
body,  one  was,  "that  if  lawful  governors  be 
come  tyrants,  or  govern  otherwise  than  by 
the  laws  of  God  or  man  they  ought  to  do. 
they  forfeit  the  right  they  had  unto  their 
government,  t  Now,  it  is  manifest,  that, 
according  to  this  determination,  if  the  King 
had  abolished  Parliaments,  shut  the  courts 
of  justice,  and  changed  the  laws  according 
to  his  pleasure,  he  would  nevertheless  retain 
the  same  rights  as  before  over  all  his  sub 
jects ;  that  any  part  of  them -who  resisted 
him  would  still  contract  the  full  guilt  of  re 
bellion  ;  and  that  the  co-operation  of  the 
sounder  portion  to  repress  the  revolt  would 
be  a  moral  duty  and  a  lawful  service.  How, 
then,  could  it  be  reasonable  to  withstand  him 
in  far  less  important  assaults  on  his  sub 
jects,  and  to  turn  against  him  laws  which 
owed  their  continuance  solely  to  his  good 
pleasure  ?  Whether  this  last  mode  of  rea 
soning  be  proof  against  all  objections  or  not. 
it  was  at  least  specious  enough  to  satisfy  the 
King,  when  it  agreed  with  his  passions  and 
supposed  interest.  Under  the  influence  of 
these  natural  delusions,  we  find  him  filled 
with  astonishment  at  the  prevalence  of  the 
ordinary  motives  of  human  conduct  over  an 
extravagant  dogma,  and  beyond  measure 
amazed  that  the  Church  should  oppose  the 


*  South,  passim. 

t  Tillotson,  On  the  Death  of  Lord  Russell. 
About  a  year  before  the  time  to  which  the  text 
alludes,  in  a  visitation  sermon  preached  before 
Bancroft  by  Kfittlewell,  an  excellent  man,  in 
whom  nothing  was  stern  but  this  doctrine,  it  is  in 
culcated  to  such  an  extent  as,  according  to  the 
usual  interpretation  of  the  passage  in  P, nil's  Epis 
tle  to  the  Romans  (xiii.  2.),  to  prohibit  resistance 
to  Nero  ;  "  who,"  says  nevertheless  the  preacher, 
"  invaded  honest  men's  estates  to  supply  his  own 
profusion,  and  embrued  his  hands  in  the  blood  of 
any  he  had  a  pique  against,  without  any  regard  to 
law  or  justice."  The  Homily,  or  exhortation  to 
obedience,  composed  under  Edward  VI.,  in  1547, 
by  Cranmer,  and  sanctioned  by  authority  of  the 
Church,  asserts  it  to  be  "the  calling  of  God's 
people  to  render  obedience  to  governors,  although 
they  be  wicked  or  wrong-doers,  and  in  no  case  to 
resist.'" 

t  Collier,  Ecclesiastical  History,  vol.  ii.  p.  902. 


Crown  after  the  King  had  become  the  ene 
my  of  the  Church.  "  Is  this  your  Church  of 
England  loyalty?"  he  cried  to  the  fellows 
of  Magdalen  College  ;  while  in  his  confiden 
tial  conversations  he  now  spoke  with  the 
utmost  indignation  of  this  inconsistent  and 
mutinous  Church.  Against  it,  he  told  the 
Nuncio,  that  he  had  by  his  Declaration  struck 
a  blow  which  would  resound  through  the 
country  } — ascribing  their  unexpected  resist 
ance  to  a  consciousness  that,  in  a  general 
liberty  of  conscience,  '•'  the  Anglican  religion 
would  be  the  first  to  decline.7'1*  Sunderland, 
in  speaking  of  the  Church  to  the  same  min 
ister,  exclaimed,  "Where  is  now  their  boast 
ed  fidelity7?  The  Declaration  has  mortified 
those  who  have  resisted  the  King's  pious  and 
benevolent  designs.  The  Anglicans  are  a 
ridiculous  sect,  who  affect  a  sort  of  modera 
tion  in  heresy,  by  a  compound  and  jumble 
of  all  other  persuasions:  and  who.  notwith 
standing  the  attachment  which  they  boast 
of  having  maintained  to  the  monarchy  and 
the  royal  family,  have  proved  on  this  occa 
sion  the  most  insolent  and  contumacious  of 
men."t  After  the  refusal  to  comply  with 
his  designs,  on  the  ground  of  conscience,  by 
Admiral  Herbert,  a  man  of  loose  life,  loaded 
with  the  favours  of  the  Crown,  and  supposed 
to  be  as  sensible  of  the  obligations  of  honour 
as  he  was  negligent  of  those  of  religion  and 
morality,  James  declared  to(Barillon,  that  he 
never  could  put  confidence  in  any  man,  how 
ever  attached  to  him,  who  affected  the  cha 
racter  of  a  zealous  Protestant. t 

The  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  however, 
had  one  important  purpose  beyond  the  asser 
tion  of  prerogative,  the  advancement  of  the 
Catholic  religion,  or  the  gratification  of  anger 
against  the  unexpected  resistance  of  the 
Church:  it  was  intended  to  divide  Protest 
ants,  and  to  obtain  the  support  of  the  Non 
conformists.  The  same  policy  had,  indeed, 
failed  in  the  preceding  reign;  but  it  was  not 
unreasonably  hoped  by  the  Court,  that  the 
sufferings  of  twenty  years  had  irreconcilably 
inflamed  the  dissenting  sects  against  the 
Establishment,  and  had  at  length  taught 
them  to  prefer  their  own  personal  and  reli 
gious  liberty  to  vague  and  speculative  oppo 
sition  to  the  Papacy, — the  only  bond  of  union 
between  the  discordant  communities  who 
were  called  Protestants.  It  was  natural 
enough  to  suppose,  that  they  would  show  no 
warm  interest  in  universities  from  which 
they  were  excluded,  or  for  prelates  who  had 
excited  persecution  against  them;  and  that 
they  would  thankfully  accept  the  blessings 
of  safety  and  repose,  without  anxiously  ex 
amining  whether  the  grant  of  these  advan 
tages  was  consistent  with  the  principles  of  a 
constitution  which  treated  them  as  unworthy 
of  all  trust  or  employment.  Certainly  the 
penal  law  from  which  the  Declaration  ten- 


*  D'Adda.  21st  March,  1687;  "  un  colpo  stre- 
pitoso."  "  Perche  la  religione  Anglicana  sarebbe 
stata  la  prima  a  declinare  in  questa  mutazione." 

t  D'Adda,  4th— 18th  April. 

t  Barillon,  24th  March.— Fox  MSS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


329 


dered  relief,  was  not  such  as  to  dispose  them 
to  be  very  jealous  of  the  mode  of  its  removal. 
An  Act  in  the  latter  years  of  Elizabeth* 
had  made  refusal  to  attend  the  established 
worship,  or  presence  at  that  of  Dissenters, 
punishable  by  imprisonment,  and,  unless 
atoned  for  by  conformity  within  three  months, 
by  perpetual  banishment,"!"  enforced  by  death 
if  the  offender  should  return.  Within  three 
years  after  the  solemn  promise  of  liberty  of 
conscience  from  Breda,  this  barbarous  law, 
which  had  been  supposed  to  be  dormant, 
was  declared  to  be  in  force,  by  an  Act  I  which 
subjected  every  one  attending  any  but  the 
established  worship,  where  more  than  five 
were  present,  on  the  third  offence,  to  trans 
portation  for  seven  years  to  any  of  the  colo 
nies  (except  New  England  and  Virginia, — 
the  only  ones  where  they  might  have  been 
consoled  by  their  fellow-religionists,  and 
where  labour  in  the  fields  was  not  fatal  to  an 
European) ;  and  which  doomed  them  in  case 
of  their  return, — an  event  not  very  probable, 
after  having  laboured  for  seven  years  as  the 
slaves  of  their  enemies  under  the  sun  of  Bar- 
badoes, — to  death.  Almost  every  officer, 
civil  or  military,  was  empowered  and  en 
couraged  to  disperse  their  congregations  as 
unlawful  assemblies,  and  to  arrest  their  ring- 
*  leaders.  A  conviction  before  two  magis 
trates,  and  in  some  cases  before  one,  without 
any  rjght  of  appeal  or  publicity  of  proceed 
ing,  was  sufficient  to  expose  a  helpless  or 
obnoxious  Nonconformist  to  these  tremen 
dous  consequences.  By  a  refinement  in  per 
secution,  the  jailer  was  instigated  to  disturb 
the  devotions  of  his  prisoners ;  being  subject 
to  a  fine  if  he  allowed  any  one  who  was  at 
large  to  join  them  in  their  religious  worship. 
The  pretext  for  this  statute,  which  was  how 
ever  only  temporary,  consisted  in  some  riots 
and  tumults  in  Ireland  and  in  Yorkshire, 
evidently  viewed  by  the  ministers  them 
selves  with  more  scorn  than  fear.§  A  per 
manent  law,  equally  tyrannical,  was  passed 
in  the  next  session. II  By  it  every  dissenting 
clergyman  was  forbidden  from  coming  within 
five  miles  of  his  former  congregation,  or  of 
any  corporate  town  or  parliamentary  borough, 
under  a  penalty  of  forty  pounds,  unless  he 
should  take  the  following  oath  : — "  I  swear 
that  it  is  not  lawful,  upon  any  pretence  what 
soever,  to  take  up  arms  against  the  King,  or 
those  commissioned  by  him,  and  that  I  will 
not  at  any  time  endeavour  any  alteration  of 
government  in  Church  or  State."  In  vain 
did  Lord  Southampton  raise  his  dying  voice 
against  this  tyrannical  act,  though  it  was 
almost  the  last  exercise  of  the  ministerial 


*  35  Eliz.  c.  1,  (1593.) 

t  A  sort  of  exile,  called,  in  our  old  law,  "  ab 
juring  the  realm,"  in  which  the  offender  was  to 
banish  himself. 

t  16  Car.  IT.  c.  4. 

§  Ralph,  History  of  England,  vol.  ii.  p.  97. 
"  As  these  plots,"  says  that  writer,  "  were  con 
temptible  or  formidable,  we  must  acquit  or  con 
demn  this  reign." 

11  17  Car.  II.  c.  2. 

42 


power  of  his  friend  and  colleague  Clarendon  ; 
— vehemently  condemning  the  oath,  which, 
royalist  as  he  was,  he  declared  that  neither 
he  nor  any  honest  man  could  take.*  A  faint 
and  transient  gleam  of  indulgence  followed 
the  downfall  of  Clarendon.  But,  in  the  year 
1670,  another  Act  was  passed,  reviving  that 
of  1664,  with  some  mitigations  of  punish- 
ment;  and  with  amendments  in  the  form  of 
proceeding  ;t  but  with  several  provisions  of 
a  most  unusual  nature,  which,  by  their  mani 
fest  tendency  to  stimulate  the  bigotry  of  ma 
gistrates,  rendered  it  a  sharper  instrument 
of  persecution.  Of  this  nature  was  the  de 
claration,  that  the  statute  was  to  be  construed 
most  favourably  for  the  suppression  of  con 
venticles,  and  for  the  encouragement  of  those 
engaged  in  carrying  it  into  effect ;  the  ma 
lignity  of  which  must  be  measured  by  its 
effect  in  exciting  all  public  officers,  especial 
ly  the  lowest,  to  constant  vexation  and  fre 
quent  cruelty  towards  the  poorer  Noncon 
formists,  marked  by  such  language  as  the 
objects  of  the  fear  and  hatred  of  the  legisla 
ture. 

After  the  defeat  of  Charles'  attempt  to  re 
lieve  all  Dissenters  by  his  usurped  preroga 
tive,  the  alarms  of  the  House  of  Commons 
had  begun  to  be  confined  to  the  Catholics; 
and  they  had  conceived  designs  of  union 
with  the  more  moderate  of  their  Protestant 
brethren,  as  well  as  of  indulgence  towards 
those  whose  dissent  was  irreconcilable.  But 
these  designs  proved  abortive  :  the  Court  re 
sumed  its  animosity  against  the  Dissenters, 
when  it  became  no  longer  possible  to  employ 
them  as  a  shelter  for  the  Catholics.  The 
laws  were  already  sufficient  for  all  practical 
purposes  of  intolerance,  and  their  execution 
was  in  the  hands  of  bitter  enemies,  from  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice  to  the  pettiest  constable. 
The  temper  of  the  Established  clergy  was 
such,  that  even  the  more  liberal  of  them 
'  gravely  reproved  the  victims  of  such  laws 
for  complaining  of  persecution.!  The  in 
ferior  gentry,  who  constituted  the  magistracy, 
— ignorant,  intemperate,  and  tyrannical, — • 
treated  dissent  as  rebellion,  and  in  their  con 
duct  to  Puritans  were  actuated  by  no  princi 
ples  but  a  furious  hatred  of  those  whom  they 
thought  the  enemies  of  the  monarchy.  The 
whole  jurisdiction,  in  cases  of  Nonconformity, 
was  so  vested  in  that  body,  as  to  release 
I  them  in  its  exercise  from  the  greater  part  of 
the  restraints  of  fear  and  shame.  With  the 
I  sanction  of  the  legislature,  and  the  counte- 
|  nance  of  the  Government,  what  indeed  could 
!  they  fear  from  a  proscribed  party,  consisting 
chiefly  of  the  humblest  and  poorest  men  ? 
From  shame  they  were  effectually  secured, 
since  that  which  is  not  public  cannot  be 
made  shameful.  The  particulars  of  the  con 
viction  of  a  Dissenter  might  be  unknown 
beyond  his  village;  the  evidence  against 


*  Locke,  Letter  from  a  Person  of  Quality, 
t  22  Car.  II.  c.  1. 

t  Stillingfleet,  Sermon  on  the  Mischief  of  Se 
paration. 

2c2 


330 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


him,  if  any,  might  be  confined  to  the  room 
where  he  was  convicted :  and  in  that  age  of 
slow  communication,  few  men  would  incur 
the  trouble  or  obloquy  of  conveying  to  their 
correspondents  the  hardships  inflicted,  with 
the  apparent  sanction  of  law,  in  remote  and 
ignorant  districts,  on  men  at  once  obscure 
an:1,  odious,  and  often  provoked  by  their  suf 
ferings  into  intemperance  and  extravagance. 
Imprisonment  is,  of  all  punishments,  the 
most  quiet  and  convenient  mode  of  persecu 
tion.  The  prisoner  is  silently  hid  from  the 
public  eye  ;  his  sufferings,  being  unseen, 
speedily  cease  to  excite  pity  or  indignation  : 
he  is  soon  doomed  to  oblivion.  As  it  is 
always  the  safest  punishment  for  an  op 
pressor  to  inflict,  so  it  was  in  that  age,  in 
England,  perhaps  the  most  cruel.  Some  esti 
mate  of  the  suffering  from  cold,  hunger,  and 
nakedness,  in  the  dark  and  noisome  dun 
geons,  then  called  prisons,  may  be  formed 
from  the  remains  of  such  buildings,  which 
industrious  benevolence  has  not  yet  every 
where  demolished.  Being  subject  to  no  re 
gulation,  and  without  means  for  the  regular 
sustenance  of  the  prisoners,  they  were  at 
once  the  scene  of  debauchery  and  famine. 
The  Puritans,  the  most  severely  moral  men 
of  any  age,  were  crowded  in  cells  with  the 
profligate  and  ferocious  criminals  with  whom 
the  kingdom  then  abounded.  We  learn  from 
the  testimony  of  the  legislature  itself,  that 
"needy  persons  committed  to  jail  many  times 
perished  before  their  trial."*  We  are  told 
by  Thomas  Ellwood,  the  Quaker,  a  friend  of 
Milton,  that  when  a  prisoner  in  Newgate  for 
his  religion,  he  saw  the  heads  and  quarters 
of  men  who  had  been  executed  for  treason 
kept  for  some  time  close  to  the  cells,  and 
the  heads  tossed  about  in  sport  by  the  hang 
man  and  the  more  hardened  malefactors  ;t 
and  the  description  given  by  George  Fox, 
the  founder  of  the  Quakers,  of1  his  own  treat 
ment  when  a  prisoner  at  Launceston,  too 
clearly  exhibits  the  unbounded  power  of  his 
jailers,  and  its  most  cruel  exercise. t  It  was 
no  wonder  that,  when  prisoners  were  brought 
to  trial  at  the  assizes,  the  contagion  of  jail 
fever  should  often  rush  forth  with  them  from 
these  abodes  of  all  that  was  loathsome  and 
hideous,  and  sweep  away  judges,  and  jurors, 
and  advocates,  with  its  pestilential  blast. 
The  mortality  of  such  prisons  must  have 
surpassed  the  imaginations  of  more  civilized 
times ;  and  death,  if  it  could  be  separated 
from  the  long  sufferings  which  led  to  it,  might 


*  18  &  19  Car.  II.  c.  9.  Evidence  more  con 
clusive,  from  its  being  undesignedly  dropped,  of 
the  frequency  of  such  horrible  occurrences  in  the 
jail  of  Newgate,  transpires  in  a  controversy  be 
tween  a  Catholic  and  Protestant  clergyman,  about 
the  religious  sentiments  of  a  dying  criminal,  and 
is  preserved  in  a  curious  pamphlet,  called  "  The 
Pharisee  Unmasked,"  published  in  1687. 

t  "  This  prison,  where  are  so  many,  suffocateth 
the  spirits  of  aged  ministers."— -Life  of  Baxter 
(Calamy's  Abridgment),  part  iii.  p.  200. 

t  Journal,  p.  186,  where  the  description  of  the 
dungeon  called  "  Doomsdale"  surpasses  all  imagi 
nation. 


perhaps  be  considered  as  the  most  merciful 
part  of  the  prison  discipline  of  that  age.  It 
would  be  exceedingly  hard  to  estimate  the 
amount  of  this  mortality,  even  if  the  diffi 
culty  were  not  enhanced  by  the  prejudices 
which  led  either  to  its  extenuation  or  aggra 
vation.  Prisoners  were  then  so  forgotten, 
that  a  record  of  it  wras  not  to  be  expected ; 
and  the  very  nature  of  the  atrocious  wicked 
ness  which  employs  imprisonment  as  the  in 
strument  of  murder,  would,  in  many  cases; 
render  it  impossible  distinctly  and  palpably 
to  show  the  process  by  which  cold  and  hunger 
beget  mortal  disease.  But  computations  have 
been  attempted,  and,  as  was  natural,  chiefly 
by  the  sufferers.  William  Penn,  a  man  of 
such  virtue  as  to  make  his  testimony  weighty, 
even  when  borne  to  the  sufferings  of  his 
own  party,  publicly  affirmed  at  the  time,  that 
since  the  Restoration  umore  than  five  thou 
sand  persons  had  died  in  bonds  for  matters 
of  mere  conscience  to  God.';*  Twelve  hun 
dred  Quakers  were  enlarged  by  James. f 
The  calculations  of  Neale,  the  historian  of 
the  Nonconformists,  would  carry  the  num 
bers  still  farther ;  and  he  does  not  appear,  on 
this  point,  to  be  contradicted  by  his  zealous 
and  unwearied  antagonist. t  But  if  we  reduce 
the  number  of  deaths  to  one  half  of  Penn's 
estimate,  and  suppose  that  number  to  be  the 
tenth  of  the  prisoners,  it  will  afford  a  dread 
ful  measure  of  the  sufferings  of  twenty-five 
thousand  prisoners ;  and  the  misery  within 
the  jails  will  too  plainly  indicate  the  beg 
gary^  banishment,  disquiet,  vexation,  fear, 
and  horror,  which  were  spread  among  the 
wrhole  body  of  Dissenters. 

The  sufferings  of  two  memorable  men 
among  them,  differing  from  each  other  still 
more  widely  in  opinions  and  disposition  than 
in  station  and  acquirement,  may  be  selected 
as  proofs  that  no  character  was  too  high  to 
be  beyond  the  reach  of  this  persecution,  and 
no  condition  too  humble  to  be  beneath  its 
notice.  Richard  Baxter,  one  of  the  most 
acute  and  learned  as  well  as  pious  and  ex 
emplary  men  of  his  age,  was  the  most  cele 
brated  divine  of  the  Presbyterian  persua 
sion.  He  had  been  so  well  known  for  his 
moderation  as  well  as  his  general  merit,  that 
at  the  Restoration  he  had  been  made  chap 
lain  to  the  King,  and»a  bishopric  had  been 
offered  to  him,  which  he  declined,  not  be 
cause  he  deemed  it  unlawful,  but  because  it 
might  engage  him  in  severities  against  the 
conscientious,  and  because  he  was  unwilling 
to  give  scandal  to  his  brethren  by  accepting 
preferment  in  the  hour  of  their  affliction. I! 
He  joined  in  the  public  worship  of  the 


*  Good  Advice  to  the  Church  of  England. 

t  Address  of  the  Quakers  to  James  II. — Clark- 
son,  Life  of  William  Penn,  vol.  i.  p.  492.  Lon 
don  Gazette,  23d  and  26th  May,  1687. 

\  Grey,  Examination  of  Neale. 

§  "  Fifteen  thousand  families  ruined." — Good 
Advice,  &c.  In  this  tract,  very  little  is  said  of 
the  dispensing  power ;  the  far  greater  part  con 
sisting  of  a  noble  defence  of  religious  liberty, 
applicable  to  all  ages  and  communions 

II  Life  of  Baxter,  part  iii.  p.  281. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


331 


Church  of  England,  but  himself  preached 
to  a  small  congregation  at  Acton,  where  he 
soon  became  the  friend  of  his  neighbour,  Sir 
Matthew  Hale,  who,  though  then  a  magis 
trate  of  great  dignity,  avoided  the  society  of 
those  who  might  be  supposed  to  influence 
him,  and  from  his  jealous  regard  to  inde 
pendence,  chose  a  privacy  as  simple  and 
frugal  as  that  of  the  pastor  of  a  persecuted 
flock.  Their  retired  leisure  was  often  em 
ployed  in  high  reasoning  on  those  sublime 
subjects  of  metaphysical  philosophy  to  which 
both  had  been  conducted  by  their  theological 
studies,  and  which,  indeed,  few  contempla 
tive  men  of  elevated  thought  have  been  de 
terred  by  the  fate  of  their  forerunners  from 
aspiring  to  comprehend.  Honoured  as  he  was 
by  such  a  friendship,  esteemed  by  the  most 
distinguished  persons  of  all  persuasions,  and 
consulted  by  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  au 
thorities  in  every  project  of  reconciliation 
and  harmony,  Baxter  was  five  times  in  fif 
teen  years  dragged  from  his  retirement,  and 
thrown  into  prison  as  a  malefacter.  In  1669 
two  subservient  magistrates,  one  of  whom 
was  the  steward  of  the  Archbishop  of  Can 
terbury,  summoned  him  before  them  for 
preaching  at  a  conventicle ;  at  hearing  of 
which,  Hale,  too  surely  foreknowing  the 
event,  could  scarcely  refrain  from  tears. 
He  was  committed  to  prison  for  six  months; 
but,  after  the  unavailing  intercession  of  his 
friends  with  the  King,  was  at  length  enlarg 
ed  in  consequence  of  informalities  in  the 
commitment.*  Twice  afterwards  he  escaped 
by  irregularities  into  which  the  precipitate 
zeal  of  ignorant  persecutors  had  betrayed 
them ;  and  once,  when  his  physician  made 
oath  that  imprisonment  would  be  dangerous 
to  his  life,  he  owed  his  enlargement  to  the 
pity  or  prudence  of  Charles  II.  At  last,  in 
the  year  '1685,  he  was  brought  to  trial  for 
some  supposed  libels,  before  Jeffreys,  in  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench,  in  which  his  vener 
able  friend  had  once  presided, — where  two 
Chief  Justices,  within  ten  years,  had  exem 
plified  the  extremities  of  human  excellence 
and  depravity,  and  where  he,  whose  misfor 
tunes  had  almost  drawn  tears  down  the  aged 
cheeks  of  Hale  was  doomed  to  undergo  the 
most  brutal  indignities  from  Jeffreys. 

The  history  and  genius  of  Bunyan  were  as 
much  more  extraordinary  than  those  of  Bax 
ter  as  his  station  and  attainments  were  infe 
rior.  He  is  probably  at  the  head  of  unlettered 
men  of  genius ;  and  perhaps  there  is  no  other 
instance  of  any  man  reaching  fame  from  so 
abject  an  origin.  For  other  extraordinary 
men  who  have  become  famous  without  edu 
cation,  though  they  were  without  what  is 
called  "learning,"  have  had  much  reading 
and  knowledge ;  and  though  they  were  re 
pressed  by  poverty,  were  not,  like  him,  sul 
lied  by  a  vagrant  and  disreputable  occupa 
tion.  By  his  trade  of  a  travelling  tinker,  he 
had  been  from  his  earliest  years  placed  in 
:he  midst  of  profligacy,  and  on  the  verge  of 
dishonesty.  He  was  for  a  time  a  private  in  the 

*  Life  of  Baxter,  part  iii.  pp.  47—51. 


parliamentary  army, — the  only  military  ser 
vice  which  was  likely  to  elevate  his  senti 
ments  and  amend  his  life.  Having  embraced 
the  opinions  of  the  Baptists,  he  was  soon  ad 
mitted  to  preach  in  a  community  which  did 
not  recognise  the  distinction  between  the 
clergy  and  the  laity.*  Even  under  the  Pro 
tectorate  he  had  been  harassed  by  some  busy 
magistrates,  who  took  advantage  of  a  parlia 
mentary  ordinance,  excluding  from  toleration 
those  who  maintained  the  unlawfulness  of 
infant  baptism. t  But  this  officiousness  was 
checked  by  the  spirit  of  the  government ;  and 
it  was  not  till  the  return  of  intolerance  with 
Charles  II.  that  the  sufferings  of  Bunyan  be 
gan.  Within  five  months  after  the  Restora 
tion,  he  was  apprehended  under  the  statute 
35th  of  Elizabeth,  and  was  thrown  into  a  pri 
son, or  rather  dungeon,  at  Bedford,  where  he 
remained  for  twelve  years.  The  narratives  of 
his  life  exhibit  remarkable  specimens  of  the 
acuteness  and  fortitude  with  which  he  with 
stood  the  threats  and  snares  of  the  magistrates, 
and  clergymen,  and  attorneys,  who  beset 
him, — foiling  them  in  every  contest  of  argu 
ment,  especially  in  that  which  relates  to  the 
independence  of  religion  on  civil  authority, 
which  he  expounded  with  clearness  and 
exactness ;  for  it  was  a  subject  on  which  his 
naturally  vigorous  mind  was  better  educated 
by  his  habitual  meditations  than  it  could 
have  been  by  the  most  skilful  instructor.  In 
the  year  after  his  apprehension,  he  had  made 
some  informal  applications  for  release  to  the 
judges  of  assize,  in  a  petition  presented  by 
his  wife,  who  was  treated  by  one  of  them, 
Twisden,  with  brutal  insolence.  His  col 
league,  Sir  Mathew  Hale,  listened  to  her 
with  patience  and  goodness,  and  with  con 
solatory  compassion  pointed  out  to  her  the 
only  legal  means  of  obtaining  redress.  It  is 
a  singular  gratification  thus  to  find  a  human 
character,  which,  if  it  be  met  in  the  most 
obscure  recess  of  the  history  of  a  bad  time, 
is  sure  to  display  some  new  excellence.  The 
conduct  of  Hale  on  this  occasion  can  be  as 
cribed  only  to  strong  and  pure  benevolence  ; 
for  he  was  unconscious  of  Bunyan's  genius, 
he  disliked  preaching  mechanics,  and  he 
partook  the  general  prejudice  against  Ana 
baptists.  In  the  long  years  which  followed; 
the  time  of  Bunyan  wras  divided  between  the 
manufacture  of  lace,  which  he  learned  in 
order  to  support  his  family,  and  the  compo 
sition  of  those  works  which  have  given  cele 
brity  to  his  sufferings.  He  was  at  length  re 
leased,  in  1672,  by  Barlow,  Bishop  of  Lincoln; 


*  See  Grace  Abounding. 

t  Scobell's  Ordinances,  chap.  114.  This  excep 
tion  is  omitted  in  a  subsequent  Ordinance  against 
blasphemous  opinions,  (9th  August,  1650),  direct 
ed  chiefly  against  the  Antinomians,  who  were 
charged  with  denying  the  obligation  of  morality, 
— the  single  case  where  the  danger  of  nice  dis 
tinction  is  the  chief  objection  to  the  use  of  punish 
ment  against  the  promulgation  of  opinions.  Reli 
gious  liberty  was  afterwards  carried  much  nearer 
to  its  just  limits  by  the  letter  of  Cromwells' 
constitution,  and  probably  to  its  full  extent  by 
its  spirit. — See  Humble  Petition  and  Advice, 
sect.  xi. 


332 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


but  not  till  the  timid  prelate  had  received  an 
injunction  from  the  Lord  Chancellor*  to  that 
effect.  He  availed  himself  of  the  Indulgence 
of  James  II.  without  trusting  it,  and  died 
unmolested  in  the  last  year  of  that  prince's 
government.  His  Pilgrim's  Progress,  an  alle 
gorical  representation  of  the  Calvinistic  the 
ology,  at  first  found  readers  only  among  those 
of  that  persuasion,  but,  gradually  emerging 
from  this  narrow  circle,  by  the  natural  power 
of  imagination  over  the  uncorrupted  feelings 
of  the  majority  of  mankind,  has  at  length 
rivalled  Robinson  Crusoe  in  popularity.  The 
bigots  and  persecutors  have  sank  into  ob 
livion  ;  the  scoffs  of  witst  and  worldlings 
have  been  unavailing;  while,  after  the  lapse 
of  a  century,  the  object  of  their  cruelty  and 
scorn  has  touched  the  poetical  sympathy,  as 
well  as  the  piety,  of  Cowper ;  his  genius  has 
subdued  the  opposite  prejudices  of  Johnson 
and  of  Franklin;  and  his  name  has  been 
uttered  in  the  same  breath  with  those  of 
Spenser  and  Dante.  It  should  seem,  from 
this  statement,  that  Lord  Castlemaine,  him 
self  a  zealous  Catholic,  had  some  colour  for 
asserting,  that  the  persecution  of  Protestants 
by  Protestants,  after  the  Restoration,  was 
more  violent  than  that  of  Protestants  by 
Catholics  under  Mary;  and  that  the  perse 
cution  then  raging  against  the  Presbyterians 
in  Scotland  was  not  so  much  more  cruel,  as 
it  was  more  bloody,  than  that  which  silently 
consumed  the  bowels  of  England. 

Since  the  differences  between  Churchmen 
and  Dissenters,  as  such,  have  given  way  to 
other  Controversies,  a  recital  of  them  can 
have  no  other  tendency  than  that  of  dispos 
ing  men  to  pardon  each  other's  intolerance, 
and  to  abhor  the  fatal  error  itself,  which  all 
communions  have  practised,  and  of  which 
some  malignant  roots  still  lurk  among  all. 
Without  it,  the  policy  of  the  King,  in  his  at 
tempt  to  form  an  alliance  with  the  latter, 
could  not  be  understood.  The  general  body 
of  Nonconformists  were  divided  into  four 
parties,  on  whom  the  Court  acted  through 
different  channels,  and  who  were  variously 
affected  by  its  advances.. 

The  Presbyterians,  the  more  wealthy  and 
educated  sect,  were  the  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Puritans,  who  had  been  rather  de 
sirous  of  reforming  the  Church  of  England 
than  of  separating  from  it ;  and  though  the 
breach  was  widened  by  the  Civil  War,  they 
might  have  been  reunited  at  the  Restoration 
by  moderate  concession  in  the  form  of  wor 
ship,  and  by  limiting  the  episcopal  authority 
agreeably  to  the  project  of  the  learned  Usher, 
and  to  the  system  of  superintendency  esta 
blished  among  the  Lutherans.  Gradually, 
indeed,  they  learned  to  prefer  the  perfect 

*  Probably  Lord  Shaftesbury,  who  received  the 
Great  Seal  in  November,  1672.  The  exact  date 
of  Bunyan's  complete  liberation  is  not  ascertained  ; 
but  he  was  twelve  years  a  prisoner,  and  had  been 
apprehended  in  November,  1660.  Ivimey  (Life 
of  Bunyan,  p.  289)  makes  his  enlargement  to  be 
about  the  close  of  1672. 

t  Hudibras,  part  i.  canto  ii.  Grey's  notes. 


equality  of  the  Calvinistic  clergy ;  but  they 
did  not  profess  that  exclusive  zeal  for  it 
which  actuated  their  Scottish  brethren,  who 
had  received  their  Reformation  from  Geneva. 
Like  men  of  other  communions,  they  had 
originally  deemed  it  the  duty  of  the  magis 
trate  to  establish  true  religion,  and  to  punish 
the  crime  of  rejecting  it.  In  Scotland  they 
continued  to  be  sternly  intolerant;  while  in 
England  they  reluctantly  acquiesced  in  im 
perfect  toleration.  Their  object  was  now 
what  was  called  a  "  comprehension,"  or  such 
an  enlargement  of  the  terms  of  communion 
as  might  enable  them  to  unite  with  the 
Church; — a  measure  which  would  have 
broken  the  strength  of  the  Dissenters,  as  a 
body,  to  the  eminent  hazard  of  civil  liberty. 
From  them  the  King  had  the  least  hopes. 
They  were  undoubtedly  much  more  hostile 
to  the  Establishment  after  twenty-five  years' 
persecution ;  but  they  were  still  connected 
with  the  tolerant  clergy ;  and  as  they  con 
tinued  to  aim  at  something  besides  mere 
toleration,  they  considered  the  royal  Decla 
ration,  even  if  honestly  meant,  as  only  a 
temporary  advantage. 

The  Independents,  or  Congregation alists; 
were  so  called  from  their  adoption  of  the 
opinion,  that  every  congregation  or  assembly 
for  worship  was  a  church  perfectly  indepen 
dent  of  all  others,  choosing  and  changing 
their  own  ministers,  maintaining  with  others 
a  fraternal  intercourse,  but  acknowledging 
no  authority  in  all  the  other  churches  of 
Christendom  to  interfere  with  its  internal 
concerns.  Their  churches  were  merely  vo 
luntary  associations,  in  which  the  office  of 
teacher  might  be  conferred  and  withdrawn 
by  the  suffrages  of  the  members.  These 
members  were  equal,  and  the  government 
was  perfectly  democratical ;  if  the  term  "go 
vernment"  may  be  applied  to  assemblies 
which  endured  only  as  long  as  the  members 
agreed  in  judgment,  and  which,  leaving  all 
coercive  power  to  the  civil  magistrate,  exer 
cised  no  authority  but  that  of  admonition,  cen 
sure,  and  exclusion.  They  disclaimed  the 
qualification  of  "  national"  as  repugnant  to  the 
nature  of  a  "church."*  The  religion  of  the 
Independents,  therefore,  could  not,  without 
destroying  its  nature,  be  established  by  law. 
They  never  could  aspire  to  more  than  reli 
gious  liberty;  and  they  accordingly  have  the 
honour  of  having  been  the  first,  and  long  the 
only,  Christian  community  who  collectively 
adopted  that  sacred  principle.!  It  is  true, 


*  "  There  is  no  true  visible  Church  of  Christ 
but  a  particular  ordinary  congregation  only.  Every 
ordinary  assembly  of  the  faithful  hath  power  to 
elect  and  ordain,  deprive  and  depose,  their  minis 
ters.  The  pastor  must  have  others  joined  with 
him  by  the  congregation,  to  exercise  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  ;  neither  ought  he  and  they  to  perform 
any  material  act  without  the  free  consent  of  the 
congregation." — Christian  Offer  of  a  Conference 
tendered  to  Archbishops,  Bishops,  &c.  London, 
1606.) 

t  An  Humble  Supplication  for  Toleration  and 
Liberty  to  James  I.  (London,  1609): — a  tract 
which  affords  a  conspicuous  specimen  of  the  ability 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


333 


that  in  the  beginning  they  adopted  the  per 
nicious  and  inconsistent  doctrine  of  limited 
toleration  ;  excluding  Catholics,  as  idolaters, 
and  in  New  England  (where  the  great  ma 
jority  were  of  their  persuasion),  punishing, 
even  capitally,  dissenters  from  what  they  ac 
counted  as  fundamental  opinions.*  But;  as 
intolerance  could  promote  no  interest  of 
theirs,  real  or  imaginary,  their  true  princi 
ples  finally  worked  out  the  stain  of  these 
dishonourable  exceptions.  The  government 
of  Cromwell,  more  influenced  by  them  than 
by  any  other  persuasion,  made  as  near  ap 
proaches  to  general  toleration  as  public  pre 
judice  would  endure;  and  Sir  Henry  Vane, 
an  Independent,  was  probably  the  first  who 
laid  down,  with  perfect  precision,  the  invio 
lable  rights  of  conscience,  and  the  exemption 
of  religion  from  all  civil  authority.  Actuated 
by  these  principles,  and  preferring  the  free 
dom  of  their  worship  even  to  political  liberty, 
it  is  not  wonderful  that  many  of  this  persua 
sion  gratefully  accepted  the  deliverance  from 
persecution  which  was  proffered  by  the  King. 

Similar  causes  produced  the  like  disposi- 
si lions  among  the  Baptists, — a  simple  and 
pious  body  of  men,  generally  unlettered,  ob 
noxious  to  all  other  sects  for  their  rejection 
of  infant  baptism,  as  neither  enjoined  by  the 
New  Testament  nor  consonant  to  reason,  and 
in  some  degree,  also,  from  being  called  by 
the  same  name  with  the  fierce  fanatics  who 
had  convulsed  Lower  Germany  in  the  first 
age  of  the  Reformation.  Under  Edward  VI. 
and  Elizabeth  many  had  suffered  death  for 
their  religion.  At  the  Restoration  they  had 
been  distinguished  from  other  Nonconform 
ists  by  a  brand  in  the  provision  of  a  statute,! 
which  excluded  every  clergyman  who  had 
opposed  infant  baptism  from  re-establish 
ment  in  his  benefice ;  and  they  had  during 
Charles'  reign  suffered  more  than  any  other 
persuasion.  Publicly  professing  the  principles 
of  religious  liberty, J  and,  like  the  Indepen 
dents,  espousing  the  cause  of  republicanism, 
they  appear  to  have  adopted  also  the  congre 
gational  system  of  ecclesiastical  polity.  More 
incapable  of  union  with  the  Established 
Church,  and  having  less  reason  to  hope  for 
toleration  from  its  adherents  than  the  Inde 
pendents  themselves, — many,  perhaps  at 
first  most  of  them,  eagerly  embraced  the  In 
dulgence.  Thus,  the  sects  who  maintained 
the  purest  principles  of  religious  liberty,  and 
had  supported  the  most  popular  systems  of 
government,  were  the  most  disposed  to  fa 
vour  a  measure  which  would  have  finally 
buried  toleration  under  the  ruins  of  political 
freedom. 

But  of  all  sects,  those  who  needed  the 
royal  Indulgence  most,  and  who  could  accept 

and  learning  of  the  ancient  Independents,  often 
described  as  unlettered  fanatics. 

*  The  Way  of  the  Churches  in  New  England, 
by  Mr.  J.  Cotton  (London,  1645);  and  the  Way 
of  Congregational  Churches,  by  Mr.  J.  Cotton 
(London,  1648) ; — in  answer  to  Principal  Baillie. 

t  12  Car.  II.  c.  17. 

t  Crosby,  History  of  English  Baptists,  &c., 
vol.  ii.  pp.  100—144. 


it  most  consistently  with  their  religious  prin 
ciples,  were  the  Quakers.  Seeking  perfec 
tion,  by  renouncing  pleasures,  of  which  the 
social  nature  promotes  kindness,  and  by  con 
verting  self-denial,  a  means  of  moral  disci 
pline,  into  one  of  the  ends  of  life. — it  was 
their  more  peculiar  and  honourable  error, 
that  by  a  literal  interpretation  of  that  affec 
tionate  and  ardent  language  in  which  the 
Christian  religion  inculcates  the  pursuit  of 
peace  and  the  practice  of  beneficence,  they 
struggled  to  extend  the  sphere  of  these  most 
admirable  virtues  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
nature.  They  adopted  a  peculiarity  of  lan 
guage,  and  a  uniformity  of  dress,  indicative 
of  humility  and  equality,  of  brotherly  love — 
the  sole  bond  of  their  pacific  union,  and  of 
the  serious  minds  of  men  who  lived  only  for 
the  performance  of  duty, — taking  no  part  in 
strife,  renouncing  even  defensive  aims,  and 
utterly  condemning  the  punishment  of  death. 
George  Fox  had,  during  the  Civil  War, 
founded  this  extraordinary  community.  At 
a  time  when  personal  revelation  was  gene 
rally  believed,  it  was  a  pardonable  self-delu 
sion  that  he  should  imagine  himself  to  be 
commissioned  by  the  Deity  to  preach  a  sys 
tem  which  could  only  be  objected  to  as  too 
pure  to  be  practised  by  man.*  This  belief, 
and  an  ardent  temperament,  led  him  and 
some  of  his  followers  into  unseasonable  at 
tempts  to  convert  their  neighbours,  and  into 
unseemly  intrusions  into  places  of  worship 
for  that  purpose,  which  excited  general  hos 
tility  against  them,  and  exposed  them  to 
frequent  and  severe  punishments.  One  or 
two  of  them,  in  the  general  fermentation  of 
men's  minds  at  that  time,  had  uttered  what 
all  other  sects  considered  as  blasphemous 
opinions;  and  these  peaceable  men  became 
the  objects  of  general  abhorrence.  Their 
rejection  of  most  religious  rites,  their  refusal 
to  sanction  testimony  by  a  judicial  oath,  or 
to  defend  their  country  in  the  utmost  danger, 
gave  plausible  pretexts  for  representing  them 
as  alike  enemies  to  religion  and  the  common 
wealth  ;  and  the  fantastic  peculiarities  of 
their  language  and  dress  seemed  to  be  the 
badge  of  a  sullen  and  morose  secession  from 
human  society.  Proscribed  as  they  were  by 
law  and  prejudice,  the  Quakers  gladly  re 
ceived  the  boon  held  out  by  the  King.  They 
indeed  were  the  only  consistent  professors  of 
passive  obedience :  as  they  resisted  no  wrong, 
and  never  sought  to  disarm  hostility  other 
wise  than  by  benevolence,  they  naturally 
yielded  with  unresisting  submission  to  the 
injustice  of  tyrants'.  Another  circumstance 
also  contributed,  still  more  perhaps  than  these 
general,  causes,  to  throw  them  into  the  arms 
of  James.  Although  their  sect,  like  most 
other  sects,  had  sprung  from  among  the 
humbler  classes  of  society, — who,  from  their 


*  Journal  of  the  Life  of  George  Fox,  by  him- 
self: — one  of  the  most  extraordinary  and  instruc 
tive  narratives  in  the  world,  which  no  reader  of 
competent  judgment  can  peruse  without  revering 
the  virtue  of  the  writer,  pardoning  his  self-delu 
sion,  and  ceasing  to  smile  at  his  peculiarities. 


334 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


numbers  and  simplicity,  are  alone  suscepti 
ble  of  those  sudden  and  simultaneous  emo 
tions  which  change  opinions  and  institutions, 
— they  had  early  been  joined  by  a  few  per 
sons  of  superior  rank  and  education,  who.  in 
a  period  of  mutation  in  government  and  re 
ligion,  had  long  contemplated  their  benevo 
lent  visions  with  indulgent  complacency;  and 
had  at  length  persuaded  themselves  that  this 
pure  system  of  peace  and  charity  might  be 
realised,  if  not  among  all,  at  least  among  a  few 
of  the  wisest  and  best  of  men.  Such  a  hope 
would  gradually  teach  the  latter  to  tolerate, 
and  in  time  to  adopt,  the  peculiarities  of  their 
simpler  brethren,  and  to  give  the  most  rational 
interpretation  to  the  language  and  pretensions 
of  their  founders; — consulting  reason  in  their 
doctrines,  and  indulging  enthusiasm  only  in 
their  hopes  and  affections.*  Of  the  first  who 
thus  systematised,  and  perhaps  insensibly 
softened,  their  creed,  was  Barclay ;  whose 
Apology  for  the  Quakers — a  masterpiece  of 
ingenious  reasoning,  and  a  model  of  argu 
mentative  composition — extorted  praise  from 
Bayle,  one  of  the  most  acute  and  least  fana 
tical  of  men.t 

But  the  most  distinguished  of  their  con 
verts  was  William  Penn,  whose  father,  Ad 
miral  Sir  William  Penn,  had  been  a  personal 
friend  of  the  King,  and  one  of  his  instructors 
in  naval  affairs.  This  admirable  person  had 
employed  his  great  abilities  in  support  of 
civil  as  well  as  religious  liberty,  and  had  both 
acted  and  suffered  for  them  under  Charles 
II.  Even  if  he  had  not  founded  the  common 
wealth  of  Pennsylvania  as  an  everlasting 
memorial  of  his  love  of  freedom,  his  actions 
and  writings  in  England  would  have  been 
enough  to  absolve  him  from  the  charge  of 
intending  to  betray  the  rights  of  his  country 
men.  But  though,  as  the  friend  of  Algernon 
Sidney,  he  had  never  ceased  to  intercede, 
through  his  friends  at  Court,  for  the  perse 
cuted,!  still  an  absence  of  two  years  in 
America,  and  the  consequent  distraction  of 
his  mind,  had  probably  loosened  his  connec 
tion  with  English  politicians,  and  rendered 
him  less  acquainted  with  the  principles  of 
the  government.  On  the  accession  of  James 
he  was  received  by  that  prince  with  favour ; 
and  hopes  of  indulgence  to  his  suffering  bre 
thren  were  early  held  out  to  him.  He  was 
soon  admitted  to  term3  of  apparent  intimacy, 
and  was  believed  to  possess  such  influence 
that  two  hundred  suppliants  were  often  seen 
at  his  gates,  imploring  his  intercession  with 
the  King.  That  it  really  was  great,  appears 
from  his  obtaining  a  promise  of  pardon  for 
his  friend  Mr.  Locke,  which  that  illustrious 
man  declined,  because  he  thought  that  the 
•acceptance  of  it  would  have  been  a  confes 
sion  of  criminality  .$  Penn  appears  in  1679, 

*  Mr.  Swinton,  a  Scotch  judge  during  the  Pro 
tectorate,  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  these  con 
verts. 

t  Nouvelles  de  la  Republique  des  Lettres, 
Avril,  1684. 

t  Clarkson,  Life  of  William  Penn,  vol.  i.  p.  248. 

$  CJarkson,  vol.  i.  pp.  433,  438.  Mr.  Clarkson  is 


through  his  influence  with  James  when  in 
Scotland,  to  have  obtained  the  release  of  all 
the  Quakers  who  were  imprisoned  there  ;* 
and  he  subsequently  obtained  the  release  of 
many  hundred  English  ones,t  as  well  as  pro 
cured  letters  to  be  addressed  by  Lord  Sun- 
derland  to  the  various  Lord  Lieutenants  in 
England  in  favour  of  his  persuasion.!  several 
months  before  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence. 
It  w-as  no  wonder  that  he  should  have  been 
gained  over  by  this  power  of  doing  good. 
The  very  occupations  in  which  he  was  en 
gaged  brought  daily  before  his  mind  the 
general  evils  of  intolerance,  and  the  suffer 
ings  of  his  own  unfortunate  brethren.  Though 
well  stored  with  useful  and  ornamental  know 
ledge,  he  was  unpractised  in  the  wiles  of 
courts;  and  his  education  had  not  trained 
him  to  dread  the  violation  of  principle  so 
much  as  to  pity  the  infliction  of  suffering. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  he  believed  the 
King's  object  to  be  universal  liberty  in  re 
ligion,  and  nothing  further :  and  as  his  own 
sincere  piety  taught  him  to  consider  religious 
liberty  as  unspeakably  the  highest  of  human 
privileges,  he  was  too  just  not  to  be  desirous 
of  bestowing  on  all  other  men  that  which  he 
most  earnestly  sought  for  himself.  One  who 
refused  to  employ  force  in  the  most  just  de 
fence,  must  have  felt  a  singular  abhorrence 
of  its  exertion  to  prevent  good  men  from 
following  the  dictates  of  their  conscience. 
Such  seem  to  have  been  the  motives  which 
induced  this  excellent  man  to  lend  himself 
to  the  measures  of  the  King.  Compassion, 
friendship,  liberality,  and  toleration,  led  him 
to  support  a  system  the  success  of  which 
would  have  undone  his  country;  and  he 
afforded  a  remarkable  proof  that,  in  the  com 
plicated  combinations  of  political  morality,  a 
virtue  misplaced  may  produce  as  much  im 
mediate  mischief  as  a  vice.  The  Dutch 
minister  represents  "the  arch-quaker"  as 
travelling  over  the  kingdom  to  gain  proselytes 
to  the  dispensing  power ;  §  while  Duncombe; 
a  banker  in  London,  and  (it  must  in  justice, 
though  in  sorrow,  be  added)  Penn,  are  stated 
to  have  been  the  two  Protestant  counsellors 
of  Lord  Sunderland.il  Henceforward,  it  be 


an-ions;  the  few  writers  from  whom  I  should  ven 
ture  to  adopt  a  fact  for  which  the  original  authority 
is  not  mentioned.  By  his  own  extraordinary  ser 
vices  to  mankind  he  has  deserved  to  be  the  bio 
grapher  of  William  Penn. 

*  Address  of  Scotch  Quakers,  1687, 

t  George  Fox,  Journal,  p.  550. 

\  State  Paper  Office,  November  and  Decem 
ber,  1686. 

$  Van  Citters  to  the  States  General,  14th  Oct. 
1687. 

II  Johnstone,  25th  Nov.  1687.  — MS.  John- 
stone's  connections  afforded  him  considerable 
means  of  information.  Mrs.  Dawson,  an  attend 
ant  of  the  Queen,  was  an  intimate  friend  of  his 
sister,  Mrs.  Baillie  of  Jerviswood  :  another  of  his 
sisters  was  the  wife  of  General  Drummond,  who 
was  deeply  engaged  in  the  persecution  of  the 
Scotch  Presbyterians,  and  the  Earl  of  Melfort's 
son  had  married  his  niece.  His  letters  were  to  01 
for  Burnet,  his  cousin,  and  intended  to  be  read  by 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  to  both  of  whom  he  had 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


335 


came  necessary  for  the  friends  of  liberty  to 
deal  with  him  as  with  an  enemy, — to  be 
resisted  when  his  associates  possessed,  and 
watched  after  they  had  lost  power. 

Among  the  Presbyterians,  the  King's  chief 
agent  was  Alsop,  a  preacher  at  Westminster, 
who  was  grateful  to  him  for  having  spared 
the  life  of  a  son  convicted  of  treason.  Bax 
ter,  their  venerable  patriarch,  and  Howe,  one 
of  their  most  eminent  divines,  refused  any 
active  concurrence  in  the  King's  projects. 
But  Lobb,  one  of  the  most  able  of  the  Inde 
pendent  divines,  warmly  supported  the  mea 
sures  of  James:  he  was  favourably  received 
at  Court,  and  is  said  to  have  been  an  adviser 
as  well  as  an  advocate  of  the  King.*  An 
elaborate  defence  of  the  dispensing  power, 
by  Philip  Nye;  a  still  more  eminent  teacher 
of  the  same  persuasion,  who  had  been  dis 
abled  from  accepting  office  at  the  Restoration, 
written  on  occasion  of  Charles'  Declaration 
of  Indulgence  in  1672,  was  now  republished 
by  his  son,  with  a  dedication  to  James. t 
Kiffin,  the  pastor  of  the  chief  congregation 
of  the  Baptists,  and  at  the  same  time  an  opu 
lent  merchant  in  London,  who,  with  his  pas 
toral  office,  had  held  civil  and  military  stations 
under  the  Parliament,  withstood  the  preva 
lent  disposition  of  his  communion  towards 
compliance.  The  few  fragments  of  his  life 
that  have  reached  us  illustrate  the  character 
of  the  calamitous  limes  in  which  he  lived. 
Soon  after  the  Restoration,  he  had  obtained 
a  pardon  for  twelve  persons  of  his  persuasion, 
who  were  condemned  to  death  at  the  same 
assize  at  Aylesbury,  under  the  atrocious 
statute  of  the  35th  of  Elizabeth,  for  refus 
ing  either  to  abjure  the  realm  or  to  conform 
to  the  Church  of  England. J  Attempts  were 
made  to  ensnare  him  into  treason  by  anony 
mous  letters,  inviting  him  to  take  a  share  in 
plots  which  had  no  existence ;  and  he  was 
harassed  by  false  accusations,  some  of  which 
made  him  personally  known  to  Charles  II. 
arid  also  to  Clarendon.  The  King  applied  to 
him  personally  for  the  loan  of  40,OOOL  :  this  he 
declined,  offering  the  gift  of  10;OOOL.  and  on 
its  being  accepted,  congratulated  himself  on 
having  saved  30.000?.  Two  of  his  grandsons, 
although  he  had  offered  3000Z.  for  their  pre 
servation,  suffered  death  for  being  engaged 
in  Monmouth's  revolt;  and  Jeffreys,  on  the 
trial  of  one  of  them,  had  declared,  that  had 
their  grandfather  been  also  at  the  bar,  he 
would  have  equally  deserved  death.  James, 
at  one  of  their  interviews,  persuaded  him, 
partly  through  his  fear  of  incurring  a  ruinous 
fine  in  case  of  refusal,  in  spite  of  his  plead 
ing  his  inability  through  age  (he  was  then 

the  strongest  inducements  to  give  accurate  infor 
mation.  He  had  frequent  and  confidential  inter 
course  with  Halifax,  Tillotson,  and  Stillingfleet. 

*  Wilson,  History  and  Antiquities  of  Dissent- 
ingr  Churches,  &c. — (London,  1808),  vol.  iii.  p. 
436. 

t  Wilson,  vol.  iii.  p.  71.  The  Lawfulness  of 
the  Oath  of  Supremacy  asserted,  &c.,  by  Philip 
Nye.  '  (London,  1687'.) 

t  Orme,  Life  of  Kiffin,  p.  120.  Crosby,  vol.  ii. 
p.  181,  &c. 


!  seventy  years  old,  and  could  not  speak  of 

his  grandsons  without  tears)  to  accept   the 

office  of  an  a.lderman  under  the  protection 

of  the  dispensing  and  suspending  power. 

Every   means   were   employed  to  excite 

1  the  Nonconformists  to  thank  the  King  for 
his  Indulgence.  He  himself  assured  D'Adda 
that  it  would  be  of  the  utmost  service  to 
trade  and  population,  by  recalling  the  nu 
merous  emigrants  "  who  had  been  driven 

!  from  their  country  by  the  persecution  of  the 
Anglicans;"*  and  his  common  conversation 
now  turned  on  the  cruelty  of  the  Church  of 
England  towards  the  Dissenters,  which  he 
declared  that  he  would  have  closed  sooner, 
had  he  not  been  restrained  by  those  who 
promised  favour  to  his  own  religion,  if  they 
were  still  suffered  to  vex  the  latter. t  This 
last  declaration  was  contradicted  by  the  par 
ties  whom  he  named  ;  and  their  denial  might 
be  credited  with  less  reserve,  had  not  one  of 
the  principal  leaders  of  the  Episcopal  party 
in  Scotland  owned  that  his  friends  would 
have  been  contented  if  they  could  have  been 
assured  of  retaining  the  power  to  persecute 
Presbyterians. t  The  King  even  ordered  an 
inquiry  to  be  instituted  into  the  suits  against 
Dissenters  in  ecclesiastical  courts,  and  the 
compositions  which  they  paid,  in  order  to 
make  a  scandalous  disclosure  of  the  extortion 
and  venality  practised  under  cover  of  the 
penal  la\vs.§ — assuring  (as  did  also  Lord 
Sunderland)  the  Nuncio,  that  the  Established 
clergy  traded  in  such  compositions.il  The 
most  just  principles  of  unbounded  freedom 
in  religion  were  now  the  received  creed  at 
St.  James'.  Even  Sir  Roger  L'Estrange 
endeavoured  to  save  his  consistency  by  de 
claring,  that  though  he  had  for  twenty  years 
resisted  religious  liberty  as  a  right  of  the 
people,  he  acquiesced  in  it  as  a  boon  from 
the  King. 

On  the  other  hand,  exertions  were  made 
to  warn  the  Dissenters  of  the  snare  which 
was  laid  for  them  :  while  the  Church  began 
to  make  tardy  efforts  to  conciliate  them, 
especially  the  Presbyterians.  The  King  was 
agitated  by  this  canvass,  and  frequently 
trusted  the  Nunciol"  with  his  alternate  hopes 
and  fears  about  it.  Burnet,  then  at  the 
Hague,  published  a  letter  of  warning,  in 
which  he  owns  and  deplores  '•  the  persecu 
tion,"  acknowledging  "  the  temptation  under 
which  the  Nonconformists  are  to  receive 
every  thing  which  gives  them  present  ease 
with  a  little  too  much  kindness,"  blaming 
more  severely  the  members  of  the  Church 
who  applauded  the  Declaration,  but  entreat- 

*  D'Adda,  llth  April,  1687.— MS. 

t  Burner,  (Oxford,  1823),  vol.  iii.  p.  175. 

t  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  fears  of  encourag 
ing  by  such  a  liberty  the  fanatics,  then  almost  en 
tirely  ruined,  few  would  have  refused  to  comply 
with  all  your  Majesty's  demands." — Balcarras, 
t  Account  of  the  Affairs  of  Scotland,  p.  8. 

§  Burnet,  supra. 

11  D'Adda,  18th  April.— MS— Ministri  Angli- 
cani  che  facevano  mercanzia  sopra  le  leggi  fatti 
contro  le  Nonconformisti. 

IT  D'Adda,  2d  May,  4th  April.— MS 


336 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ing  the  former  not  to  promote  the  designs  of 
the  common  enemy.*  The  residence  and 
connections  of  the  writer  bestowed  on  this 
publication  the  important  character  of  an  ad 
monition  from  the  Prince  of  Orange.  He 
had  been  employed  by  some  leaders  of  the 
Church  party  to  procure  the  Prince's  inter 
ference  with  the  Dissenting  body:t  and 
Dykveldt,  the  Dutch  minister,  assured  both 
of  his  master's  resolution  to  promote  union 
between  them,  and  to  maintain  the  common 
interest  of  Protestants.  Lord  Halifax  also 
published,  on  the  same  occasion,  a  Letter  to 
a  Dissenter, — the  most  perfect  model,  per 
haps,  of  a  political  tract. — which,  although 
its  whole  argument,  unbroken  by  diversion 
to  general  topics,  is  brought  exclusively  to 
bear  with  concentrated  force  upon  the  ques 
tion,  the  parties,  and  the  moment,  cannot  be 
read,  after  an  interval  of  a  century  and  a 
half,  without  admiration  at  its  acuteness, 
address,  terseness,  and  poignancy.! 

The  Nonconformists  were  thus  acted  upon 
by  powerful  inducements  and  dissuasives. 
The  preservation  of  civil  liberty,  the  interest 
of  the  Protestant  religion,  the  secure  enjoy 
ment  of  freedom  in  their  own  worship,  were 
irresistible  reasons  against  compliance.  Gra 
titude  for  present  relief,  remembrance  of 
recent  wrongs,  and  a  strong  sense  of  the  obli 
gation  to  prefer  the  exercise  of  religion  to 
every  other  consideration,  were  very  strong 
temptations  to  a  different  conduct.  Many 
of  them  owed  their  lives  to  the  King,  and 
the  lives  of  others  were  still  in  his  hands. 
The  remembrance  of  Jeffreys'  campaign  was 
so  fresh  as  perhaps  still  rather  to  produce 
fear  than  the  indignation  and  distrust  which 
appear  in  a  more  advanced  stage  of  recovery 
from  the  wounds  inflicted  by  tyranny.  The 
private  relief  granted  to  some  of  their  minis 
ters  by  the  Court  on  former  occasions  afforded 
a  facility  for  exercising  adverse  influence 
through  these  persons, — the  more  dangerous 
because  it  might  be  partly  concealed  from 
themselves  under  the  disguise  of  gratitude. 
The  result  of  the  action  of  these  conflicting 
motives  seerns  to  have  been,  that  the  far 
greater  part  of  all  denominations  of  Dissen 
ters  availed  themselves  of  the  Declaration  so 
far  as  to  resume  their  public  worship  ;§  that 
the  most  distinguished  of  their  clergy,  and 
the  majority  of  the  Presbyterians,  resisted 
the  solicitations  of  the  Court  to  sanction  the 
dispensing  power  by  addresses  of  thanks  for 
this  exertion  of  it ;  and  that  all  the  Quakers, 


*  State  Tracts  from  Restoration  to  Revolution 
(London,  1639),  vol.  ii.  p.  289. 

t  Burnet,  Reflections  on  a  Book  called  "Rights, 
&c.  of  a  Convocation,"  p.  16. 

t  Halifax.  Miscellanies,  p.  233. 

$  Bates'  Life  of  Philip  Henry,  in  Wordsworth's 
Ecclesiastical  Biography,  vol.  vi.  p.  290.  "  They 
rejoiced  with  trentfiling."  Henry  refused  to  give 
in  a  return  of  the  money  levied  on  him  in  his  suf 
ferings,  having,  as  he  said,  "  long  since  from  his 
heart  forgiven  all  the  agents  in  that  matter." 
"  Mr.  Banyan  clearly  saw  through  the  designs  of 
the  Court,  though  he  accepted  the  Indulgence 
with  a  holy  fear." — Ivim-ey,  Life  of  Bunyan.  p.  297. 


the  greater  part  of  the  Baptists,  and  perhaps 
also  of  the  Independents,  did  not  scruple  to 
give  this  perilous  token  of  their  misguided 
gratitude,  though  many  of  them  confined 
themselves  to  thanks  for  toleration,  and 
solemn  assurances  that  they  would  not 
abuse  it. 

About  a  hundred  and  eighty  of  these 
addresses  were  presented  within  a  period 
of  ten  months,  of  which  there  are  only 
seventy-seven  exclusively  and  avowedly 
from  Nonconformists.  If  to  these  be  added 
a  fair  proportion  of  such  as  were  at  first 
secretly  and  at  last  openly  corporators  and 
grand  jurors,  and  a  larger  share  of  those 
who  addressed  under  very  general  descrip 
tions,  it  seems  .probable  that  the  numbers 
were  almost  equally  divided  between  the 
Dissenting  communions  and  the  Established 
Church.*"  We  have  a  specimen  of  these 
last  mentioned  by  Evelyn,  in  the  address  of 
the  Churchmen  and  dissenters  of  Coventry, t 
and  of  a  small  congregation  in  the  Isle  of 
Ely,  called  the  "Family  of  Love."  His 
corriplainti  that  the  Declaration  had  thinned 
his  own  parish  church  of  Deptford,  and  had 
sent  a  great  concourse  of  people  to  the  meet 
ing-house,  throws  light  on  the  extent  of  the 
previous  persecution,  and  the  joyful  eager 
ness  to  profit  by  their  deliverance. 

The  Dissenters  were  led  astray  not  only 
by  the  lights  of  the  Church,  but  by  the  pre 
tended  guardians  of  the  laws.  Five  bishops, 
Crew,  of  Durham,  with  his  chapter,  Cart- 
wright  of  Chester,  with  his  chapter,  Barlow, 
of  Lincoln,  Wood,  of  Lichfield,  and  Watson, 
of  St.  David's,  with  the  clergy  of  their  dio 
ceses,  together  with  the  Dean  and  Chapter 
of  Ripon,  addressed  the  King,  in  terms 
which  were  indeed  limited  to  his  assurance 
of  continued  protection  to  the  Church,  but 
at  a  time  which  rendered  their  addresses  a 
sanction  of  the  dispensing  power  ]  Croft,  of 
Hereford,  though  not  an  addresser,  was  a 
zealous  partisan  of  the  measures  of  the 
Court ;  while  the  profligate  Parker  was  un 
able  to  prevail  on  the  Chapter  or  clergy  of 
Oxford  to  join  him,  and  the  accomplished 
Sprat  was  still  a  member  of  the  Ecclesiasti- 


*  The  addresses  from  bishops  and  their  clergy 
were  seven ;  those  from  corporations  and  grand 
juries  seventy-five  ;  those  from  inhabitants,  &c., 
fourteen  ;  two  from  Catholics,  and  two  from  the 
Middle  and  Inner  Temple.  If  six  addresses  from 
Presbyterians  and  Quakers  in  Scotland,  Ireland, 
and  New  England  be  deducted,  as  it  seems  that 
they  ought  to  be,  the  proportion  of  Dissenting 
addresses  was  certainly  less  than  one  half.  Some 
of  them,  we  know,  were  the  produce  of  a  sort  of 
personal  canvass,  when  the  King  made  his  pro 
gress  in  the  autumn  of  1687,  "to  court  the  com 
pliments  of  the  people  ;"  and  one  of  them,  in 
which  Philip  Henry  joined,  "was  not  to  offer 
lives  and  fortunes  to  him,  but  to  thank  him  for 
the  liberty,  and  to  promise  to  demean  themselves 
quietly  in  the  use  of  it  " — Wordsworth,  vol.  v'.. 
p.  292.  Address  of  Dissenters  of  Nantwich, 
Wem,  and  Whitchurch.  London  Gazette,  29th 
August. 

t  Evelyn,  vol.  i.  Diary,  16th  June. 

t  Ibid.  10th  April. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


337 


cal  Commission,  in  which  character  he  held 
a  high  command  in  the  adverse  ranks : — so 
that  a  third  of  the  episcopal  order  refused  to 
concur  in  the  coalition  which  the  Church 
was  about  to  form  with  public  liberty.  A 
bold  attempt  was  made  to  obtain  the  appear 
ance  of  a  general  Concurrence  of  lawyers 
also  in  approving  the  usurpations  of  the 
Crown.  From  two  of  the  four  societies, 
called  "Inns  of  Court,"  who  have  the  exclu 
sive  privilege  of  admitting  advocates  to  prac 
tise  at  the  bar,  the  Middle  and  Inner  Temple, 
addresses  of  approbation  were  published  ; 
though,  from  recent  examination  of  the  re 
cords  of  these  bodies,  they  do  not  appear  to 
have  been  ever  voted  by  either.  That  of  the 
former,  eminent  above  the  others  for  fulsome 
servility,  is  traditionally  said  to  have  been 
the  clandestine  production  of  three  of  the 
benchers,  of  whom.  Chauncy,  the  historian 
of  Hertfordshire,  was  one.  That  of  the 
Inner  Temple  purports  to  have  been  the  act 
of  certain  students  and  the  '-comptroller." — 
an  office  of  whose  existence  no  traces  are 
discoverable.  As  Roger  North  had  been 
Treasurer  of  the  Middle  Temple  three  years 
before,  and  as  the  crown  lawyers  were  mem 
bers  of  these  societies,  it  is  scarcely  possible 
that  the  Government  should  not  have  been 
apprised  of  the  imposture  which  they  coun 
tenanced  by  their  official  publication  of  these 
addresses.*  The  necessity  of  recurring  to 
such  a  fraud,  and  the  silence  of  the  other 
law  societies,  may  be  allowed  to  afford  some 
proof  that  the  independence  of  the  Bar  was 
not  yet  utterly  extinguished.  The  subservi 
ency  of  the  Bench  was  so  abject  as  to  tempt 
the  Government  to  interfere  \vith  private 
suits,  which  is  one  of  the  last  and  rarest 
errors  of  statesmen  under  absolute  mo 
narchies.  An  official  letter  is  still  extantt 
from  Lord  Sunderland,  as  Secretary  of  State, 
to  Sir  Francis  Watkins,  a  judge  of  assize, 
recommending  him  to  show  all  the  favour  to 
Lady  Shaftesbury,  in  the  despatch  of  her 
suit,  to  be  tried  at  Salisbury,  which  the  jus 
tice  of  her  cause  should  deserve : — so  deeply 
degraded  were  the  judges  in  the  eyes  of  the 
ministers  themselves. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

D^Adda  publicly  received  as  the  Nuncio. — Dis 
solution  of  Parliament. — Find  breach. — 
Preparations  for  a  new  Parliament. — Neiv 
charters. — Removal  of  Lord  Lieutenants. — 
Patronage  of  the  Crown. — Moderate  views 
of  Sunderland. — House  of  Lords. — Royal 
progress. — Pregnancy  of  the  Queen. — Lon 
don  has  the  appearance  of  a  Catholic  city. 

THE  war  between  Religious  parties  had 
not  yet  so  far  subsided  as  to  allow  the 
avowed  intercourse  of  Princes  of  Protestant 
communions  with  the  See  of  Rome.  In  the 


*  London  Gazette,  June  9th. 
t  24th  February.— State  Paper  Office. 
43 


first  violence  of  hostility,  indeed,  laws  were 
passed  in  England  forbidding,  under  pain  of 
death,  the  indispensable  correspondence  of 
Catholics  with  the  head  of  their  Church,  and 
even  the  bare  residence  of  their  priests 
within  the  realm.*  These  laws,  never  to  be 
palliated  except  as  measures  of  retaliation 
in  a  warfare  of  extermination,  had  been  often 
executed  without  necessity  and  with  slight 
provocation.  It  was  most  desirable  to  pre 
vent  their  execution  and  to  procure  their  re 
peal.  But  the  object  of  the  King  in  his 
embassy  to  Rome  was  to  select  these  odious 
enactments,  as  the  most  specious  case,  in 
which  he  might  set  an  example  of  the  osten 
tatious  contempt  with  which  he  was  resolved 
to  trample  on  every  law  which  stood  in  the 
way  of  his  designs.  A  nearer  and  more 
signal  instance  than  that  embassy  was  re 
quired  by  his  zeal  or  his  political  projects. 
D'Adda  was  accordingly  obliged  to  undergo 
a  public  introduction  to  the  King  at  Windsor 
as  Apostolic  Nuncio  from  the  Pope  ;  and  his 
reception, — being  an  overt  act  of  high  trea 
son, — was  conducted  with  more  than  ordi 
nary  state,  and  announced  to  the  public  like 
that  of  any  other  foreign  minister. t  The 
Bishops  of  Durham  and  Chester  were  per 
haps  the  most  remarkable  attendants  at  the 
ceremonial.  The  Duke  of  Somerset,  the 
second  Peer  of  the  kingdom,  was  chosen 
from  the  Lords  of  the  Bedchamber  as  the 
introducer;  and  his  attendance  in  that  cha 
racter  had  been  previously  notified  to  the 
Nuncio  by  the  Earl  of  Mulgrave,  Lord 
Chamberlain  :  but,  on  the  morning  of  the 
ceremony,  the  Duke  besought  his  Majesty 
to  excuse  him  from  the  performance  of  an 
act  which  might  expose  him  to  the  most 
severe,  animadversion  of  the  law.J  The 
King  answered,  that  he  intended  to  confer 
an  honour  upon  him,  by  appointing  him  to 
introduce  the  representative  of  so  venerable 
a  potentate;  and  that  the  royal  power  of 
dispensation  had  been  solemnly  determined 
to  be  a  sufficient  warrant  for  such  acts. — 
The  King  is  said  to  have  angrily  asked,  "  Do 
you  not  know  that  I  am  above  the  law  ?"§ 
to  which  the  Duke  is  represented  by  the 
same  authorities  to  have  replied.  "  Your 
Majesty  is  so,  but  I  am  not;" — an  answer 
which  was  perfectly  correct,  if  it  be  under 
stood  as  above  punishment  by  the  law.  The 
Duke  of  Grafton  introduced  the  Nuncio ;  and 
it  was  observed,  that  while  the  ambassadors 
of  the  Emperor,  and  of  the  crowns  of  France 
and  Spain,  were  presented  by  Earls,  persons 
of  superior  dignity  were  appointed  to  do 
the  same  office  to  the  Papal  minister; — 
a  singularity  rather  rendered  alarming  than 
acceptable  by  the  example  of  the  Court 
of  France,  which  was  appealed  to  by  the 
courtiers  on  this  occasion.  The  same  cere- 


*  13  Eliz.  c.  2.— 35  Eliz.  c.  1. 

t  D'Adda,  llth  July.— MS.  London  Gazette, 
4th  to  7th  July. 

t  Van  Citters,  15th  July.— MS. 

$  Perhaps  saying,  or  meaning  to  say,  "in  this 
respect." 

2D 


338 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


monions  introduction  to  the  Queen  Dowager 
immediately  followed.  The  King  was  very 
desirous  of  the  like  presentation  being  made 
to  the  Princess  Anne,  to  whom  it  was  cus 
tomary  to  present  foreign  ministers ;  but  the 
Nuncio  declined  a  public  audience  of  an 
heretical  princess  :*  and  though  we  learn  that. 
a  few  days  after,  he  \vas  admitted  by  her  to 
what  is  called  "a  public  audience,"!  yet,  as 
it  was  neither  published  in  the  Gazette,  nor 
adverted  to  in  his  own  letter,  it  seems  pro 
bable  that  she  only  received  him  openly  as 
a  Roman  prelate,  who  \vas  to  be  treated 
with  the  respect  due  to  his  rank,  and  with 
whom  it  was  equally  politic  to  avoid  the  ap 
pearance  of  clandestine  intercourse  and  of 
formal  recognition.  The  King  said  to  the 
"Duke  of  Somerset,  '•'  As  you  have  not  chosen 
to  obey  my  commands  in  this  case,  I  shall 
not  trouble  you  with  any  other;'7  and  imme 
diately  removed  him  from  his  place  in  the 
Household,  from  his  regiment  of  dragoons, 
and  the  Lord-lieutenancy  of  his  county, — 
continuing  for  some  time  to  speak  with  indig 
nation  of  this  act  of  contumacy,  and  telling 
the  Nuncio,  that  the  Duke's  nearest  relations 
had  thrown  themselves  at  his  feet,  and  as 
sured  him.  that  they  detested  the  disobe 
dience  of  their  kinsman. t  The  importance 
of  the  transaction  consisted  in  its  being  a 
decisive  proof  of  how  little  estimation  were 
the  judicial  decisions  in  favour  of  the  dis 
pensing  power  in  the  eyes  of  the  most  loyal 
and  opulent  of  the  nobility. § 

The  most  petty  incidents  in  the  treatment 
of  the  Nuncio  \vere  at  this  time  jealously 
watched  by  the  public.  By  the  influence 
of  the  new  members  placed  by  James  in  the 
corporation,  he  had  been  invited  to  a  festival 
annually  given  by  the  city  of  London,  at 
which  the  diplomatic  body  were  then,  as 
now,  accustomed  to  be  present.  Fearful  of 
insult,  and  jealous  of  his  precedence,  he  con 
sulted  Lord  Sunderland,  and  afterwards  the 
King,  on  the  prudence  of  accepting  the  in 
vitation. II  The  King  pressed  him  to  go, 
also  signifying  to  all  the  other  foreign  min 
isters  that  their  attendance  at  the  festival 
would  be  agreeable  to  him.  The  DutchlF 
and  Swedish  ministers  were  absent.  The 
Nuncio  was  received  unexpectedly  well  by 
the  populace,  and  treated  with  becoming 
courtesy  by  the  magistrates.  But  though 
the  King  honoured  the  festival  with  his  pre 
sence,  he  could  not  prevail  even  on  the  alder 
men  of  his  own  nomination  to  forbear  from 
the  thanksgiving,  on  the  5th  of  November, 
for  deliverance  from  the  Gunpowder  Plot.** 
On  the  contrary,  Sir  John  Shorter,  the  Pres 
byterian  mayor,  made  haste  to  atone  for  the 
invitation  of  D'Adda,  by  publicly  receiving 


*  D'Adda,  16th  July.— MS. 

t  Van  Citters,  22d  July.— MS. 

t  D'Adda,  supra. 

$  Barillon,  21st  Julv.— Fox  MSS. 

II  D'Adda,  7th— 14th  Nov.— MS. 

IT  According  to  the  previous  instructions  of  the 
States  General,  and  the  practice  of  their  ministers 
at  the  Congresses  of  Munster  and  Nimeprten. 

**  Narcissus  Luttrell,  Nov.  1687.— MS. 


the  communion  according  to  the  rites  of  the 
hurch  of  England  ;* — a  strong  mark  of  dis 
trust  in  the  dispensing  power,  and  of  the  de 
termination  of  the  Presbyterians  to  adhere  to 
the  common  cause  of  Protestants.! 

Another  occasion  offered  itself,  then  es 
teemed  a  solemn  one,^or  the  King,  in  his 
royal  capacity,  to  declare  publicly  against 
the  Established  Church.  The  kings  of  Eng 
land  had,  from  very  ancient  times,  pretend 
ed  to  a  power  of  curing  scrofula  by  touching 
those  who  were  afflicted  by  that  malady; 
and  the  Church  had  retained,  after  the  Refor 
mation,  a  service  for  the  occasion,  in  which 
her  ministers  officiated.  James,  naturally 
enough,  employed  the  mass  book,  and  the 
aid  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy,  in  the 
exercise  of  this  pretended  power  of  his 
crowrn,  according  to  the  precedents  in  the 
reign  of  Mary.f  As  we  lind  no  complaint 
from  the  Established  clergy  of  the  perver 
sion  of  this  miraculous  prerogative,  we  are 
compelled  to  suspect  that  they  had  no  firm. 
faith  in  the  efficacy  of  a  ceremony  which 
they  solemnly  sanctioned  by  their  prayers. § 

On  the  day  before  the  public  reception  of 
the  Nuncio,  the  dissolution  of  Parliament  had 
announced  a  final  breach  between  the  Crown 
and  the  Church.  All  means  had  been  tried 
to  gain  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons : 
persuasion,  influence,  corruption,  were  in 
adequate;  the  example  of  dismissal  failed 
to  intimidate, — the  hope  of  preferment  to 
allure.  Neither  the  command  obtained  by 
the  Crown  over  the  corporations,  nor  the 
division  among  Protestants  excited  by  the 
Toleration,  had  sufficiently  weakened  the 
opposition  to  the  measures  of  the  Court.  It 
was  useless  to  attempt  the  execution  of  pro 
jects  to  subdue  the  resistance  of  the  Peers 
by  newr  creations,  till  the  other  House  was 
either  gained  or  removed.  The  unyielding 
temper  manifested  by  an  assembly  formerly 
so  submissive,  seems,  at  first  sight,  unac 
countable.  It  must,  however,  be  borne  in 
mind,  that  the  elections  had  taken  place 
under  the  influence  of  the  Church  party ; 
that  the  interest  of  the  Church  had  defeated 
the  ecclesiastical  measures  of  the  King  in 
the  two  former  sessions;  a«d  that  the  im- 


*  Van  Citters.  24th  Nov.— MS. 

t  Catharine  Shorter,  the  daughter  and  heiress 
of  this  Presbyterian  mayor,  became,  long  after, 
the  wife  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole. 

t  Van  Citters,  7th  June,  1686.— MS. 

§  It  is  well  known  that  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson 
was,  when  a  child,  touched  for  the  scrofula  by 
Queen  Anne.  The  princes  of  the  House  of  Bruns 
wick  relinquished  the  practice.  Cane,  the  his 
torian,  was  so  blinded  by  his  zeal  for  the  House 
of  Stuart  as  to  assure  the  public  that  one  Lovel,  a 
native  of  Bristol,  who  had  gone  to  Avignon  to  be 
touched  by  the  son  of  James  II.  in  1716,  was 
really  cured  by  that  prince.  A  small  piece  of  gold 
was  tied  round  the  patient's  neck,  which  explains 
the  number  of  applications.  The  gold  sometimes 
amounted  to  3000Z.  a  year.  Louis  XIV.  touched 
sixteen  hundred  patients  on  Easter  Sunday,  1686. 
— See  Barrington's  Observations  on  Ancient 
Statutes,  pp.  108,  109.  Lovel  relapsed  after  Carte 
had  seen  him. — General  Biographical  Dictionary, 
article  "  Carte." 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


339 


mense  influence  of  the  clergy  over  general 
opinion,  now  seconded  by  the  zealous  ex 
ertions  of  the  friends  of  liberty,  was  little 
weakened  by  the  servile  ambition  of  a  few 
of  their  number,  who,  being  within  the  reach 
of  preferment,  and  intensely  acted  upon  by 
its  attraction,  too  eagerly  sought  their  own 
advancement  to  regard  the  dishonour  of  de 
serting  their  body.  England  was  then  fast 
approaching  to  that  state  in  which  an  opinion 
is  so  widely  spread,  and  the  feelings  arising 
from  it  are  so  ardent,  that  dissent  is  account 
ed  infamous,  and  considered  by  many  as 
unsafe.  It  is  happy  when  such  opinions 
(however  inevitably  alloyed  by  base  ingre 
dients,  and  productive  of  partial  injustice) 
are  not  founded  in  delusion,  but  on  princi 
ples,  on  the  whole,  beneficial  to  the  commu 
nity.  The  mere  influence  of  shame,  of  fear, 
of  imitation,  or  of  sympathy,  is,  at  such  mo 
ments,  sufficient  to  give  to  many  men  the 
appearance  of  an  integrity  and  courage  little 
to  be  hoped  from  their  ordinary  conduct. 

The  King  had,  early  in  the  summer,  as 
certained  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  the 
consent  of  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons  to  a  repeal  of  the  Test  and  penal  laws. 
and  appears  to  have  shown  a  disposition  to 
try  a  new  Parliament.*  His  more  moderate 
counsellors,"!"  however,  headed,  as  it  appears, 
by  the  Earl  of  Sunderland,t  did  not  fail  to 
represent  to  him  the  mischiefs  and  dangers 
of  that  irrevocable  measure.  u  It  was,"  they 
said,  "a  perilous  experiment  to  dissolve  the 
union  of  the  Crown  with  the  Church,  and 
to  convert  into  enemies  an  order  which 
had  hilherto  supported  unlimited  autho 
rity,  and  inculcated  unbounded  submission. 
The  submission  of  the  Parliament  had  no 
bounds  except  the  rights  or  interests  of 
the  Church.  The  expense  of  an  increas 
ing  army  would  speedily  require  parliamen 
tary  aid  ,  the  possible  event  of  the  death  of 
the  King  of  Spain  without  issue  might  in 
volve  all  Europe  in  war  :§  for  these  purposes, 

*  Van  Citters,  13th  June.— MS. 

tBarillon,  12th  June.— Fox  MSS. 

t  D'Adda,  7th— 22d  August.— M.S. 

§  The  exact  coincidence,  in  this  respect,  of  Sun- 
derland's  public  defence,  nearly  two  years  after 
wards,  with  the  Nuncio's  secret  despatches  of  the 
moment,  is  worthy  of  consideration  : — 

"I  hindered  the  dissolu 
tion  several  weeks,  by  tell-  "  DalP  altra  parte 
ing  the  King  that  the  Parlia-  si  poteva  promettere 
ment  would  do  every  thine  he  S.  M.  del  medesimo 
could  desire  but  the  taking  off  parlamento  ogni  as- 
the  tests  ;  that  another  Parlia-  sistenza  maggiore  de 
ment  would  probably  not  re-  denaro,  si  S.  M.  fosse 
peal  these  laws:  and,  if  they  obligate  di  entrare  in 
did,  would  do  nothing  else  for  una  guerra  straniera, 
the  support /if  government.  I  ponderando  il  caso 
said  often,  if  the  King  of  Spain  possibile  della  morte 
died,  his  Majesty  could  not  pre-  del  Re  di  Spagria  sen- 
Bervft  the  peace  of  Europe;  za  successione.  Ques- 
that  he  rnicht  be  sure  of  all  ti  e  simili  vantaggi 
the  help  and  service  he  could  non  doverse  attendere 
wish  from  the  present  Parlia-  d'un  nuovo  parlamen- 
ment,  but  if  he  dissolved  it  he  to  composto  di  Non- 
must  give  up  all  thoughts  of  conformist!,  nutrendo, 
foreign  affairs,  for  no  other  per  li  principi,  senti- 
would  ever  assist  him  but  on  menti  totalmerite  con- 
such  terms  as  would  ruin  the  trarii  alia  monarchia. 
monarcny." — Lord  Sunder-  "D'ADDA." 
land's  Letter,  licensed  23d 
March,  1689. 


and  for  every  other  that  concerned  the 
honour  of  the  Crown,  this  loyal  Parliament 
were  ready  to  grant  the  most  liberal  sup 
plies.  Even  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  though 
they  would  not  at  once  yield  all.  they  would 
in  time  grant  much :  when  the  King  had 
quieted  the  alarm  and  irritation  of  the  mo 
ment,  they  would,  without  difficulty,  repeal 
all  the  laws  commonly  called  "penal."  The 
King's  dispensations,  sanctioned  by  the  de 
cisions  of  the  highest  authority  of  the  law, 
obviated  the  evil  of  the  laws  of  disability  j 
and  it  would  be  wiser  for  the  Catholics  to 
leave  the  rest  to  time  and  circumstances, 
than  to  provoke  severe  retaliation  by  the 
support  of  measures  which  the  immense 
majority  of  the  people  dreaded  as  subversive 
of  their  religion  and  liberty.  What  hope  of 
ample  supply  or  steady  support  could  the 
King  entertain  from  a  Parliament  of  Non 
conformists,  the  natural  enemies  of  kingly 
power  ?  What  faith  could  the  Catholics  place 
in  these  sectaries,  the  most  Protestant  of 
Protestant  communions,  of  whom  the  larger 
part  looked  on  relief  from  persecution,  when 
tendered  by  Catholic  hands,  with  distrust 
and  fear:  and  who  believed  that  the  friend 
ship  of  the  Church  of  Rome  for  them  would 
last  no  longer  than  her  inability  to  destroy 
them?"  To  this  it  was  answered,  "  that  it  was 
now  too  late  to  inquire  whether  a  more  wary 
policy  might  not  have  been  at  first  more  ad 
visable  •  that  the  King  could  not  stand  where 
he  was;  that  he  would  soon  be  compelled  to 
assemble  a  Parliament :  and  that,  if  he  pre 
served  the  present,  their  first  act  would  be 
to  impeach  the  judges,  who  had  determined 
in  favour  of  the  dispensing  power.  To  call 
them  together,  would  be  to  abandon  to  their 
rage  all  the  Catholics  who  had  accepted  office 
on  the  faith  of  the  royal  prerogative.  If  the 
Parliament  were  not  to  be  assembled,  they 
were  at  least  useless;  and  their  known  dis 
position  would,  as  long  as  they  existed,  keep 
up  the  spirit  of  audacious  disaffection:  if 
they  were  assembled,  they  would,  even 
during  the  King's  life,  tear  away  the  shield 
of  the  dispensing  power,  which,  at  all  events, 
never  would  be  stretched  out  to  cover  Catho 
lics  by  the  hand  of  the  Protestant  successor. 
All  the  power  gained  by  the  monarchy  over 
corporations  having  been  used  in  the  last 
election  by  Protestant  Tories,  was  now  acting 
against  the  Crown  :  by  extensive  changes  in 
the  government  of  counties  and  corporations, 
a  more  favourable  House  of  Commons,  and 
if  an  entire  abrogation  should  prove  imprac 
ticable,  a  better  compromise,  might  be  ob 
tained." 

Sunderland  informed  the  Nuncio  that  the 
King  closed  these  discussions  by  a  declara 
tion  that,  having  ascertained  the  determina 
tion  of  the  present  Parliament  not  to  concur 
in  his  holy  designs,  and  having  weighed  all 
the  advantages  of  preserving  it.  he  consider 
ed  them  as  far  inferior  to  his 'great  object, 
which  was  the  advancement  of  the  Catholic 
religion.  Perhaps,  indeed,  this  determina 
tion,  thus  apparently  dictated  by  religious 
zeal,  was  conformable  to  the  maxims  of  civil 


340 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


prudence,  unless  the  King  was  prepared  to 
renounce  his  encroachments,  and  content 
himself  with  that  measure  of  toleration  for 
his  religion  which  the  most  tolerant  states 
then  dealt  out  to  their  dissenting  subjects. 

The  next  object  was  so  to  influence  the 
elections  as  to  obtain  a  more  yielding  ma 
jority.  At  an  early  period  Sunderland  had 
represented  two  hundred  members  of  the 
late  House  "as  necessarily  dependent  on  the 
Crown  ;"* — probably  not  so  much  a  sanguine 
hope  as  a  political  exaggeration,  which,  if 
believed,  might  realise  itself.  He  was  soon 
either  undeceived  or  contradicted  :  the  King 
desired  all  bound  to  him,  either  by  interest 
or  attachment,  to  come  singly  to  private  au 
diences  in  his  clo'set,f  that  he  might  ask  their 
support  to  his  measures;  and  the  answers 
which  he  received  were  regarded  by  by 
standers  as  equivalent  to  a  general  refusal.  J 
This  practice,  then  called  "closeting."  was, 
it  must  be  owned,  a  very  unskilful  species 
of  canvass,  where  the  dignity  of  the  King 
left  littls  room  for  more  than  a  single  ques 
tion  a'nd  answer,  and  where  other  parties 
were  necessarily  forewarned  of  the  subject 
of  the  interview,  which  must  have  soon  be 
come  so  generally  known  as  to  expose  the 
more  yielding  part  of  them  to  the  admoni 
tions  of  their  more  courageous  friends.  It 
was  easy  for  an  eager  monarch,  on  an  occa 
sion  which  allowed  so  little  explanation,  to 
mistake  evasion,  delay,  and  mere  courtesy, 
for  an  assent  to  his  proposal.  But  the  new 
influence,  and,  indeed,  power,  which  had 
been  already  gained  by  the  Crown  over  the 
elective  body  seemed  to  be  so  great  as  to 
afford  the  strongest  motives  for  assembling  a 
new  Parliament. 

In  the  six  years  which  followed  the  first 
judgments  of  forfeiture,  two  hundred  and 
forty-two  newr  charters  of  incorporation  had 
passed  the  seals  to  replace  those  which  had 
been  thus  judicially  annulled  or  voluntarily 
resigned. §  From  this  number,  however, 
must  be  deducted  those  of  the  plantations 
on  the  continent  and  islands  of  America, 
some  new  incorporations  on  grounds  of  gene 
ral  policy,!!  and  several  subordinate  corpora 
tions  in  cities  and  towns, — though  these  last 
materially  affected  parliamentary  elections. 
The  House  then  consisted  of  five  hundred 
and  five  members,  of  whom  two  hundred 
and  forty-four  were  returned  on  rights  of 
election  altogether  or  in  part  corporate;  this 
required  only  a  hundred  and  twenty-two 
new  charters.  But  to  many  corporations  more 
than  one  charter  had  been  issued,  after  the 
extorted  surrenders  of  others,  to  rivet  them 
more  firmly  in  their  dependency  ;  and  if  any 
were  spared,  it  can  only  have  been  because 

*  D'Adda,  10th  Oct.  1686.— 7th  Feb.  1687  — 
MS. 

t  Id.  24th  Jan.— MS. 

I  Van  Citters,  24th  Jan.— MS. 

$  Lords'  Journals,  20th  Dec.  1689. 

II  Of  these,  those  of  the  College  of  Physicians 
and  the  town  of  Bombay,  are  mentioned  by  Nar 
cissus  Luttrell. 


they  were  considered  as  sufficiently  enslaved, 
and  some  show  of  discrimination  was  con 
sidered  as  politic.  In  six  years,  therefore,  it 
is  evident,  that  by  a  few  determinations  of 
servile  judges,  the  Crown  had  acquired  the 
direct,  uncontrolled,  and  perpetual  nomina 
tion  of  nearly  one  half  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons  :  and  when  we  recollect  the  independ 
ent  and  ungovernable  spirit  manifested  by 
that  assembly  in  the  last  fifteen  years  of 
Charles  II.,  we  may  be  disposed  to  conclude 
that  there  is  no  other  instance  in  history  of 
so  great  a  revolution  effected  in  so  short  a 
time  by  the  mere  exercise  of  judicial  au 
thority.  These  charters,  originally  contrived 
so  as  to  vest  the  utmost  power  in  the  Crown, 
might,  in  any  instance  where  experience 
showed  them  to  be  inadequate,  be  rendered 
still  more  effectual,  as  a  power  of  substituting 
others  \vas  expressly  reserved  in  each.*  In 
order  to  facilitate  the  effective  exercise  of 
this  powTer,  commissioners  were  appointed  to 
be  "regulators"  of  corporations,  with  full 
authority  to  remove  and  appoint  freemen  and 
corporate  officers  at  their  discretion.  The 
Chancellor,  the  Lords  Powis,  Sunderland, 
Arundel,  and  Castlemaine,  with  Sir  Nicholas 
Butler  and  Father  Petre,  were  regulators  of 
the  first  class,  who  superintended  the  whole 
operation. t  Sir  Nicholas  Butler  and  Dun- 
combe,  a  banker,  "  regulated"  the  corpora 
tion  of  London,  from  which  they  removed 
nineteen  hundred  freemen ;  and  yet  Jeffreys 
incurred  a  reprimand,  from  his  impatient 
master,  for  want  of  vigour  in  changing  the 
corporate  bodies,  and  humbly  promised  to 
repair  his  fault :  for  "  every  Englishman  who 
becomes  rich,"  said  Barillon,  "is  more  dis 
posed  to  favour  the  popular  party  than  the 
designs  of  the  King. '''I  These  regulators 
wrere  sent  to  every  part  of  the  country,  and 
were  furnished  with  letters  from  the  Secre 
tary  of  State,  recommending  them  to  the  aid 
of  the  Lord  lieutenants  of  counties.^ 

When  the  election  was  supposed  to  be 
near,  circular  letters  were  sent  to  the  Lord 
lieutenants,  and  other  men  of  influence,  in 
cluding  even  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's 
Bench,  recommending  them  to  procure  the 
election  of  persons  mentioned  therein  by 
name,  to  the  number  of  more  than  a  hun 
dred.  Among  them  wTere  eighteen  members 
for  counties,  and  many  for  those  towns  which, 
as  their  rights  of  election  were  not  corporate, 
wrere  not  yet  subjected  to  the  Crown  by  le 
gal  judgments. II  In  this  list  we  find  the  un 
expected  name  of  John  Somers,  probably  se 
lected  from  a  hope  that  his  zeal  for  religious 
liberty  might  induce  him  to  support  a  Go- 


*  Reign  of  James  II.  p.  21. — Parliamentum 
Pacificum,  (London,  1688,)  p.  29.  The  latter 
pamphlet  boasts  of  these  provisions.  The  Pro 
testant  Tories,  says  the  writer,  cannot  question  a 
power  by  which  many  of  themselves  were  brought 
into  the  House. 

t  Lords'  Journals,  supra. 

t  Barillon,  8th  Sept.— MS. 

$  Dated  21st  July.— State  Paper  Office. 

II  Lord  Sunderland's  Letters,  Sept. — Ibid. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


341 


vernment  which  professed  so  comprehensive 
a  toleration:  but  it  was  quickly  discovered 
that  he  was  too  wise  to  be  ensnared,  and  the 
clerk  of  the  Privy  Council  was  six  days  after 
judiciously  substituted  in  his  stead.  It  is 
due  to  James  and  his  minister  to  remark, 
that  these  letters  are  conceived  in  that  official 
form  which  appears  to  indicate  established 
practice:  and,  indeed,  most  of  these  prac 
tices  were  not  only  avowed,  but  somewhat 
ostentatiously  displayed  as  proofs  of  the 
King's  confidence  in  the  legitimacy  and  suc 
cess  of  his  measures.  Official  letters*  had 
also  been  sent  to  the  Lord  lieutenants,  di 
recting  them  to  obtain  answers  from  the  de 
puty-lieutenants  and  justices  of  the  peace  of 
their  respective  counties,  to  the  questions, — 
Whether,  if  any  of  them  were  chosen  to 
serve  in  Parliament,  they  would  vote  for  the 
repeal  of  the  penal  laws  and  the  Test  ?  and 
Whether  they  would  contribute  to  the  elec 
tion  of  other  members  of  the  like  disposi 
tion  ?  and  also  to  ascertain  what  corporations 
in  each  county  were  well  affected,  what  in 
dividuals  had  influence  enough  to  be  elect 
ed,  and  what  Catholics  and  Dissenters  were 
qualified  to  be  deputy-lieutenants  or  justices 
of  the  peace. 

Several  refused  to  obey  so  unconstitutional 
a  command :  their  refusal  had  been  fore 
seen  ;  and  so  specious  a  pretext  as  that  of 
disobedience  was  thus  found  for  their  re 
moval  from  office.!  Sixteen  Lieutenancies,! 
held  by  fourteen  Lieutenants,  were  imme 
diately  changed ;  the  majority  of  whom 
were  among  the  principal  noblemen  of  the 
kingdom,  to  whom  the  government  of  the 
most  important  provinces  had,  according  to 
ancient  usage,  been  intrusted.  The  removal 
of  Lord  Scarsdale§  from  his  Lieutenancy  of 
Derbyshire  displayed  the  disposition  of  the 
Princess  Anne,  and  furnished  some  scope 
for  political  dexterity  on  her  part  and  on  that 
of  her  father.  Lord  Scarsdale  holding  an 
office  in  the  household  of  Prince  George,  the 
Princess  sent  Lord  Churchill  to  the  King 
from  herself  and  her  husband,  humbly  de 
siring  to  know  his  Majesty's  pleasure  how 
they  should  deal  with  one  of  the  Prince's 
servants  who  had  incurred  the  King's  dis 
favour.  The  King,  perceiving  that  it  was 
intended  to  throw  Scarsdale's  removal  from 
their  household  upon  him,  and  extremely 
solicitous  that  it  should  appear  to  be  his 
daughter's  spontaneous  act,  and  thus  seem 
a  proof  of  her  hearty  concurrence  in  his 
measures,  declared  his  reluctance  to  pre 
scribe  to  them  in  the  appointment  or  dis 
missal  of  their  officers.  The  Princess  (for 
Prince  George  was  a  cipher)  contented  her 
self  with  this  superficial  show  of  respect, 
and  resolved  that  the  sacrifice  of  Scarsdale, 
if  ever  made,  should  appear  to  be  no  more 

*  Dated  5th  Oct.— State  Paper  Office.  Van 
Citters'  account  exactly  corresponds  with  the 
original  document. 

t  Barillon,  8th  Dec— MS.  "  II  alloit  faire  cette 
tentative  pour  avoir  un  pretexte  de  les  changer." 

t  Id.  18th  Dec.  $  Id.  15th  Dec. 


than  the  bare  obedience  of  a  subject  and  a 
daughter.  James  was  soon  worsted  in  this 
conflict  of  address,  and  was  obliged  to  notify 
his  pleasure  that  Scarsdale  should  be  re 
moved,  to  avoid  the  humiliation  of  seeing 
his  daughter's  court  become  the  refuge  of 
those  whom  he  had  displaced.*  The  vacant 
Lieutenancies  were  bestowed  on  Catholics, 
with  the  exception  of  Mulgrave,  (who  had 
promised  to  embrace  the  King's  faith,  but 
whose  delays  begot  suspicions  of  his  sin 
cerity,)  and  of  Jeffreys,  Sunderland,  and 
Preston;  who,  though  they  continued  to  pro 
fess  the  Protestant  religion,  were  no  longer 
members  of  the  Protestant  party.  Five  co 
lonels  of  cavalry,  two  of  infantry,  and  four 
governors  of  fortresses,  (some  of  whom  were 
also  Lord  lieutenants,  and  most  of  them  of 
the  same  class  of  persons,)  were  removed 
from  their  commands.  Of  thirty-nine  new 
sheriffs,  thirteen  were  said  to  be  Roman  Ca 
tholics. t  Alihough  the  proportion  of  gentry 
among  the  Nonconformists  was  less,  yet 
their  numbers  being  much  greater,  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  a  considerable  majority  of 
these  magistrates  were  such  as  the  King 
thought  likely  to  serve  his  designs. 

Even  the  most  obedient  and  zealous  Lord 
lieutenants  appear  to  have  been  generally 
unsuccessful :  the  Duke  of  Beaufort  made 
an  unfavourable  report  of  the  principality  of 
Wales;  arid  neither  the  vehemence  of  Jef 
freys,  nor  the  extreme  eagerness  of  Roches 
ter,  made  any  considerable  impression  in 
their  respective  counties.  Lord  Waldegrave, 
a  Catholic,  the  King's  son-in-law,  found  in 
surmountable  obstacles  in  Somersetshire^ 
Lord  Molyneux,  also  a  Catholic,  appointed 
to  the  Lieutenancy  of  Lancashire,  made  an 
unfavourable  report  even  of  that  county, 
then  the  secluded  abode  of  an  ancient  Ca 
tholic  gentry;  and  Dr.  Leyburn,  who  had 
visited  every  part  of  England  in  the  dis 
charge  of  his  episcopal  duty,  found  little  to 
encourage  the  hopes  and  prospects  of  the 
King.  The  most  general  answer  appears  to 
have  been,  that  if  chosen  to  serve  in  Parlia 
ment,  the  individuals  to  whom  the  questions 
were  put  would  vote  according  to  their  con 
sciences,  after  hearing  the  reasons  on  both 
sides ;  that  they  could  not  promise  to  vote 
in  a  manner  which  their  own  judgment  after 
discussion  might  condemn ;  that  if  they  en 
tered  into  so  unbecoming  an  engagement, 
they  might  incur  the  displeasure  of  the 
House  of  Commons  for  betraying  its  privi 
leges;  and  that  they  would  justly  merit  con 
demnation  from  all  good  men  for  disabling 
themselves  from  performing  the  duty  of 

*  Barillon,  30ih  August.— Fox  MSS. 

t  The  names  are  marked  in  a  handwriting  ap 
parently  contemporary,  on  the  margin  of  the  list, 
in  a  copy  of  the  London  Gazette  now  before  me. 
Van  Citters  (14th  Nov.)  makes  the  sheriffs  almost 
all  either  Roman  Catholics  or  Dissenters, — pro 
bably  an  exaggeration.  In  his  despatch  of  16th 
Dec.,  he  states  the  sheriffs  to  be  thirteen  Catho 
lics,  thirteen  Dissenters,  and  thirteen  submissive 
Churchmen. 

t  D'Adda,  12th  Dec.— MS. 
2o  2 


342 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


faithful  subjects  by  the  honest  declaration 
of  their  judgment  on  those  arduous  affairs 
on  which  they  were  to  advise  and  aid  the 
King.  The  Court  was  incensed  by  these 
answers ;  but  to  cover  their  defeat,  and 
make  their  resolution  more  known,  it  was 
formally  notified  in  the  London  Gazette.* 
that  "  His  Majesty,  being  resolved  to  main 
tain  the  Declaration  of  Liberty  of  Conscience, 
and  to  use  the  utmost  endeavours  that  it  may 
pass  into  a  law,  and  become  an  established 
security  for  after  ages,  has  thought  fit  to  re 
view  the  lists  of  deputy-lieutenants  and  jus 
tices  of  the  peace;  that  those  may  continue 
who  are  willing  to  contribute  to  so  good  and 
necessary  a  work,  and  such  others  be  added 
from  whom  he  may  reasonably  expect  the 
like  concurrence." 

It  is  very  difficult  to  determine  in  what 
degree  the  patronage  of  the  Crown,  military, 
civil  and  ecclesiastical,  at  that  period,  influ 
enced  parliamentary  elections.  The  colonies 
then  scarcely  contributed  to  it.f  No  offices 
in  Scotland  and  few  in  Ireland,  were  bestow 
ed  for  English  purposes.  The  revenue  was 
small  compared  with  that  of  after  times, 
even  after  due  allowance  is  made  for  the 
subsequent  change  in  the  value  of  money : 
but  it  was  collected  at  such  a  needless  ex 
pense  as  to  become,  from  the  mere  ignorance 
and  negligence  of  the  Government,  a  source 
of  influence  much  more  than  proportioned 
to  its  amount.  The  Church  was  probably 
guarded  for  the  moment  by  the  zeal  and 
honour  of  its  members,  against  the  usual 
effects  of  royal  patronage ;  and  even  the 
mitre  lost  much  of  its  attractions,  while  the 
see  of  York  was  believed  to  be  kept  vacant 
for  a  Jesuit.  A  standing  army  of  thirty 
thousand  men  presented  new  means  of  pro 
vision,  and  objects  of  ambition  to  the  young 
gentry,  who  then  monopolized  military  ap 
pointments.  The  revenue,  small  as  it  now 
seems,  had  increased  in  proportion  to  the 
national  wealth,  more  in  the  preceding  half 
century  than  in  any  equal  time  since ;  and 
the  army  had  within  that  period  come  into 
existence.  It  is  not  easy  to  decide  whether 
the  novelty  and  rapid  increase  of  these  means 
of  bestowing  gratification  increased  at  the 
same  time  their  power  over  the  mind,  or 
whether  it  was  not  necessarily  more  feeble, 
until  long  experience  had  directed  the  eyes 
of  the  community  habitually  towards  the 
Crown  as  the  source  of  income  and  advance 
ment.  It  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
it  rniyht  at  first  produce  more  violent  move- 
ments;  and  in  the  sequel  more  uniform  sup 
port.  All  the  offices  of  provincial  adminis 
tration  were  then  more  coveted  than  they 
are  now.  Modern  legislation  and  practice 
had  not  yet  withdrawn  any  part  of  that  ad 
ministration  from  lieutenants,  deputy-lieu- 
tents,  sheriffs,  coroners,  which  had  been 
placed  in  their  hands  by  the  ancient  laws. 


*  Of  the  llth  Dec. 

t  Chamberlayne,    Present   State    of   England. 
London,  1674.) 


A  justice  of  the  peace  exercised  a  power  over 
his  inferior  never  controlled  by  public  opinion, 
and  for  the  exercise  of  which  he  could  hardly 
be  said  to  be  practically  amenable  to  law. 
The  influence  of  Government  has  abated  as 
the  powers  of  these  officers  have  been  con 
tracted,  or  their  exercise  more  jealously 
watched.  Its  patronage  cannot  be  justly 
estimated,  unless  it  be  compared  with  the 
advantage  to  be  expected  from  other  objects 
of  pursuit.  The  professions  called  "learn 
ed"  had  then  fewer  stations  and  smaller  in 
comes  than  in  subsequent  periods :  in  com 
merce,  the  disproportion  was  immense  :  there 
could  hardly  be  said  to  be  any  manufactures; 
and  agriculture  was  unskilful,  and  opulent 
farmers  unheard  of.  Perhaps  the  whole 
amount  of  income  and  benefits  at  the  dis 
posal  of  the  Crown  bore  a  larger  proportion 
to  that  which  might  be  earned  in  all  the 
other  pursuits  raised  above  mere  manual 
labour  than  might  at  first  sight  be  supposed  : 
how  far  the  proportion  was  less  than  at  pre 
sent  it  is  hard  to  say.  But  patronage  in  the 
hands  of  James  was  the  auxiliary  of  great 
legal  power  through  the  Lord  lieutenants, 
and  of  the  direct  nomination  of  the  members 
for  the  corporate  towns.  The  grossest  spe 
cies  of  corruption  had  been  practised  among 
members  ;*  and  the  complaints  which  were 
at  that  time  prevalent  of  the  expense  of 
elections,  render  it  very  probable  that  bribery 
was  spreading  among  the  electors.  Expen 
sive  elections  have,  indeed,  no  other  neces 
sary  effect  than  that  of  throwing  the  choice 
into  the  hands  of  wealthy  candidates ;  but 
they  afford  too  specious  pretexts  for  the 
purchase  of  votes,  not  to  be  employed  in 
eager  contests,  as  a  disguise  of  that  prac 
tice. 

The  rival,  though  sometimes  auxiliary,  influ 
ence  of  great  proprietors,  seems  to  have  been 
at  that  time,  at  least,  as  considerable  as  at  any 
succeeding  moment.  The  direct  power  of 
nominating  members  must  have  been  vested 
in  many  of  them  by  the  same  state  of  suf 
frage  and  property  which  confer  it  on  them 
at  present,  t  while"  they  were  not  rivalled  in 
more  popular  elections  by  a  moriied  interest. 
The  power  of  landholders  over  their  tenants 
was  not  circumscribed ;  and  in  all  country 
towns  they  were  the  only  rich  customers 
of  tradesmen  who  had  then  only  begun  to 
emerge  from  indigence  and  dependence.  The 
majority  of  these  landholders  were  Tories, 
and  now  adhered  to  the  Church;  the  mino 
rity,  consisting  of  the  most  opulent  and  noble, 
were  the  friends  of  liberty,  who  received 
with  open  arms  their  unwonted  allies. 

From  the  naturally  antagonist  force  of 
popular  opinion  little  was  probably  dreaded 
by  the  Court.  The  Papal,  the  French,  and 
the  Dutch  ministers,  as  well  as  the  King  and 
Lord  Sunderland,  in' their  unreserved  confer 
ences  with  the  first  two,  seem  to  have  point 
ed  all  their  expectations  and  solicitudes  to 
wards  the  uncertain  conduct  of  powerful  in- 


*  Pension  Parliament.         t  1826.— ED. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


343 


dividuals.  The  body  of  the  people  could  not 
read :  one  portion  of  them  had  little  knowledge 
of  the  sentiments  of  another ;  no  publication 
\vas  tolerated,  on  a  level  with  the  information 
then  possessed  even  by  the  middle  classes  : 
and  the  only  channel  through  which  they 
could  be  acted  upon  was  the  pulpit,  which 
the  King  had  vainly,  though  perfidiously, 
endeavoured  to  shut  up.  Considerable  im 
pediments  stood  in  the  way  of  the  King's 
direct  power  over  elections,  in  the  difficulty 
of  finding- candidates  for  Parliament  not  alto- 

f ether  disreputable,  and  corporators  whose 
clelity  might  be  relied  on.  The  moderate 
Catholics  reluctantly  concurred  in  the  preci 
pitate  measures  of  the  Court.  They  were 
disqualified,  by  long  exclusion  from  business, 
for  those  offices  to  which  their  rank  and  for 
tune  gave  them  a  natural  claim ;  and  their 
whole  number  was  so  small,  that  they  could 
contribute  no  adequate  supply  of  fit  persons 
for  inferior  stations.*  The  number  of  the 
Nonconformists  were,  on  the  other  hand, 
considerable  ;  amounting,  probably,  to  a  six 
teenth  of  the  whole  people,  without  includ 
ing  the  compulsory  and  occasional  Conform 
ists,  whom  the  Declaration  of  Indulgence 
had  now  encouraged  to  avow  their  real  sen 
timents. f  Many  of  them  had  acquired 
wealth  by  trade,  which  under  the  Republic 
and  the  Protectorate  began  to  be  generally 
adopted  as  a  liberal  pursuit;  but  they  were 
confined  to  the  great  towns,  and  were  chiefly 
of  the  Presbyterian  persuasion,  who  were  ill 
affected  to  the  Court.  Concerning  the  greater 
number,  who  were  to  form  the  corporations 
throughout  the  country,  it  was  difficult  to 
obtain  accurate  information,  and  hard  to  be 
lieve  that  in  the  hour  of  contest,  they  could 
forget  their  enthusiastic  animosity  against 
the  Church  of  Rome.  As  the  project  of  in 
troducing  Catholics  into  the  House  of  Com 
mons  by  an  exercise  of  the  dispensing  power 
had  been  abandoned,  nothing  could  be  ex 
pected  from  them  but  aid  in  elections ;  and 
if  one  eighth — a  number  so  far  surpassing 
their  natural  share — should  be  Nonconform 
ists,  they  would  still  bear  a  small  proportion 
to  the  whole  body.  These  intractable  diffi 
culties,  founded  in  the  situation,  habits,  and 
opinions  of  men,  over  which  measures  of 
policy  or  legislation  have  no  direct  or  sudden 
power,  early  suggested  to  the  more  wary  of  the 
King's  counsellors  the  propriety  of  attempting 
some  compromise,  by  which  he  might  imme 
diately  gain  more  advantage  and  security  for 
the  Catholics  than  could  have  been  obtained 

*  By  Sir  William  Petty's  computation,  which 
was  the  largest,  the  number  of  Catholics  in  Eng 
land  and  Wales,  about  the  accession  of  James, 
M-as  thirty-two  thousand.  The  survey  of  bishops 
in  1676,  by  order  of  Charles  II.,  made  it  twenty- 
seven  thousand.  Barlow  (Bishop  of  Lincoln.)  Ge 
nuine  Remains,  (London,  1693,)  p.  312.  "  George 
Fox,"  said  Petty,  "  made  five  times  more  Qua 
kers  in  forty-four  years  than  the  Pope,  with  all 
his  greatness,  has  made  Papists.1' 

t  Barlow,  supra. — About  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand,  when  the  population  was  little  more 
than  lour  millions. 


from  the  Episcopalian  Parliament,  and  open 
the  way  for  further  advances  in  a  more  fa 
vourable  season. 

Shortly  after  the  dissolution,  Lord  Sunder- 
land  communicated  to  the  Nuncio  his  opin 
ions  on  the  various  expedients  by  which  the 
jealousies  of  the  Nonconformists  might  be 
satisfied.*  "  As  we  have  wounded  the  An 
glican  party,"  said  he,  "we  must  destroy  it, 
and  use  every  means  to  strengthen  as  well 
as  conciliate  the  other,  that  the  whole  nation 
may  not  be  alienated,  and  that  the  army  may 
not  discover  the  dangerous  secret  of  the 
exclusive  reliance  of  the  Government  upon 
its  fidelity."  "Among  the  Nonconformists 
were,"  he  added,  "  three  opinions  relating 
to  the  Catholics :  that  of  those  w  ho  would  re 
peal  all  the  penal  laws  against  religious  wor 
ship,  but  maintain  the  disabilities  for  office 
and  Parliament:  that  of  those  who  would 
admit  the  Catholics  to  office,  but  continue 
their  exclusion  from  both  Houses  of  Par 
liament;  and  that  of  a  still  more  indul 
gent  party,  who  would  consent  to  remove 
the  recent  exclusion  of  the  Catholic  peers, 
trusting  to  the  oath  of  supremacy  in  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth,  as  a  legal,  though  it  had 
not  proved  in  practice  a  constant,  bar  against 
their  entrance  into  the  House  of  Commons: — 
to  say  nothing  of  a  fourth  project,  entertained 
by  zealous  Catholics  and  thorough  courtiers, 
that  Catholic  peers  and  commoners  should 
claim  their  seats  in  both  Houses  by  virtue 
of  royal  dispensations,  which  would  relieve 
them  from  the  oaths  and  declarations  against 
their  religion  required  by  law, — an  attempt 
which  the  King  himself  had  felt  to  be  too 
hazardous,  as  being  likely  to  excite  a  general 
commotion  on  the  first  day  of  the  session,  to 
produce  an  immediate  rupture  with  the  newr 
Parliament,  and  to  forfeit  all  the  advantage 
which  had  been  already  gained  by  a  deter 
mination  of  both  Houses  against  the  validity 
of  the  dispensations."  He  further  added, 
that  "  he  had  not  hitherto  conferred  on  these 
weighty  matters  with  any  but  the  King,  that 
he  wished  the  Nuncio  to  consider  them,  and 
was  desirous  to  govern  his  own  conduct  by 
that  prelate's  decision."  At  the  same  time 
he  gave  DrAdda  to  understand,  that  he  was 
inclined  to  some  of  the  above  conciliatory 
expedients,  observing,  "that  it  was  better  to 
go  on  step  by  step,  than  obstinately  to  aim 
at  all  with  the  risk  of  gaining  nothing;"  and 
hinting,  that  this  pertinacity  was  peculiarly 
dangerous,  where  all  depended  on  the  life 
of  James.  Sunderland's  purpose  was  to  in 
sinuate  his  own  opinions  into  the  mind  of  the 
Nuncio,  who  was  the  person  most  likely  to 
reconcile  the  King  and  his  priests  to  only 
partial  advantages.  But  a  prelate  of  the 
Roman  Court,  however  inferior  to  Sunder- 
land  in  other  respects,  was  more  than  his 
match  in  the  art  of  evading  the  responsi 
bility  which  attends  advice  in  perilous  con 
junctures.  With  many  commendations  of 
his  zeal.  D'Adda  professed  "his  incapacity 


D'Adda,  7th  August.— MS. 


344 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  judging  in  a  case  which  involved  the 
opinions  and  interests  of  so  many  individu- 
ils  and  classes;  hut  he  declared,  that  the 
fervent  prayers  of  his  Holiness,  and  his  own 
feeble  supplications,  would  be  offered  to  God, 
for  light  and  guidance  to  his  Majesty  and  his 
ministers  in  the  prosecution  of  their  wise  arid 
pious  designs." 

William  Perm  proposed  a  plan  different 
from  any  of  the  temperaments  mentioned 
above ;  which  consisted  in  the  exclusion  of 
Catholics  from  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
the  division  of  all  the  public  offices  into  three 
equal  parts,  one  of  which  should  belong  to 
the  Church,  another  should  be  open  to  the 
Nonconformists,  and  a  third  to  the  Catho 
lics:* — an  extremely  unequal  distribution, 
if  it  implied  the  exclusion  of  the  members 
of  the  Church  from  two  thirds  of  the  stations  I 
in  the  public  service;  and  not  very  mode 
rate,  if  it  should  be  understood  only  as  pro 
viding  against  the  admission  of  the  dissidents 
to  more  than  two  thirds  of  these  offices. 
Eligibility  to  one  third  would  have  been  a 
more  equitable  proposition,  and  perhaps  bet 
ter  than  any  but  that  which  alone  is  perfect 
ly  reasonable, — that  the  appointment  to  office 
should  be  altogether  independent  of  religious 
opinion.  An  equivalent  for  the  Test  was 
held  out  at  the  same  time,  which  had  a  very 
specious  and  alluring  appearance.  It  was 
proposed  that  an  Act  for  the  establishment 
of  religious  liberty  should  be  passed  ;  that 
all  men  should  be  sworn  to  its  observance; 
that  it  should  be  made  a  part  of  the  corona 
tion  oath,  and  rank  among  the  fundamental 
laws,  as  the  Magtia  Chart  a  of  Conscience ; 
and  that  any  attempt  to  repeal  it  should  be 
declared  to 'be  a  capital  crime. t 

The  principal  objections  to  all  these  miti 
gated  or  attractive  proposals  arose  from  dis 
trust  in  the  King's  intention.  It  did  not  de 
pend  on  the  conditions  offered,  and  was  as 
fatal  to  moderate  compromise  as  to  unclis- 
tinguishing  surrender.  The  nation  were  now 
in  a  temper  to  consider  every  concession 
made  to  the  King  as  an  advantage  gained  by 
an  enemy,  which  mortified  their  pride,  as 
well  as  lessened  their  safety  :  they  regarded 
negotiation  as  an  expedient  of  their  adver 
saries  to  circumvent,  disunite,  and  dishearten 
them. 

The  state  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  a  very 
formidable  obstacle.  Two  lists  of  the  pro 
bable  voles  in  that  assembly  on  the  Test  and 
penal  laws  were  sent  to  Holland,  and  one  to 
France,  which  are  still  extant. t  These  vary 
in  some  respects  from  each  other,  according 
to  the  information  of  the  writers,  and  proba 
bly  according  to  the  fluctuating  disposition 
of  some  Peers.  The  greatest  division  ad 
verse  to  the  Court  which  they  present,  is 

"T  Johnstone,  13th  Jan.  1688.— MS. 
t  •'  Good    Advice."     "  Parliamentum    Pacifi- 
cum." 

t  The  reports  sent  to  Holland  were  communi 
cated  to  me  by  the  Duke  of  Portland.  One  of 
them  purports  to  be  drawn  by  Lord  Willoughby, 
That  sent  by  Barillon  is  from  the  Depot  des  Af 
f'aires  Etrangeres  at  Paris. 


ninety-two  against  the  repeal  of  the  penal 
and  disabling  laws  to  thirty-five  for  it,  be 
sides  twenty  whose  votes  are  called  "doubt 
ful,"  and  twenty-three  disabled  as  Catholics : 
the  least  is  eighty-six  to  thirty-three,  besides 
ten  doubtful  and  twenty-one  Catholic.  Singu 
lar  as  it  may  seem,  Rochester,  the  leader  of 
the  Church  party,  is  represented  in  all  the 
lists  as  being  for  the  repeal.  From  this 
agreement,  and  from  his  officious  zeal  as 
Lord  Lieutenant  of  Hertfordshire,  it  cannot 
be  doubted  that  he  had  promised  his  vote 
to  the  King;  and  though  it  is  hard  to  say 
whether  his  promise  was  sincere,  or  whether 
treachery  to  his  parly  or  insincerity  to  his 
old  master  would  be  most  deserving  of 
blame,  he  cannot  be  acquitted  of  a  grave 
offence  either  against  political  or  personal 
morality.  His  brother  Clarendon,  a  man  of 
ess  understanding  and  courage,  is  numbered 
n  one  list  as  doubtful,  and  represented  by 
mother  as  a  supporter  of  the  Court.  Lord 
Churchill  is  stated  1o  be  for  the  repeal, — 
irobably  from  the  confidence  of  the  writers 
.hat  gratitude  would  in  him  prevail  over 
every  other  motive ;  for  it  appears  that  on 
his  subject  he  had  the  merit  of  not  having 
lissembled  his  sentiments  to  his  royal  bene 
factor.*  Lord  Godolphin,  engaged  rather  in 
ordinary  business  than  in  political  councils, 
was  numbered  in  the  ranks  of  official  sup 
porters.  As  Lord  Dartmouth,  Lord  Preston, 
ind  Lord  Feversham  never  fluctuated  on 
religion,  they  deserve  the  credit  of  being 
•ather  blinded  by  personal  attachment,  than 
tempted  by  interest  or  ambition,  in  their 
support  of  the  repeal. t  Howard  of  Escrick 
and  Grey  de  Werke,  who  had  saved  their 
own  lives  by  contributing  to  take  away  those 
of  their  friends,  appear  in  the  minority  as 
slaves  of  the  Court.  Of  the  bishops  only 
bur  had  gone  so  far  as  to  be  counted  in  all 
the  lists  as  voters  for  the  King.!'  Wood  of 
Lichfield  appears  to  be  with  the  four  in  one 
list,  and  doubtful  in  another.  The  compli 
ancy  of  Sprat  had  been  such  as  to  place  him 
perhaps  unjustly  in  the  like  situation.  Old 
Barlow  of  Lincoln  was  thought  doubtful. 
The  other  aged  prelate,  Crofts  of  Hereford, 
though  he  deemed  himself  bound  to  obey 
the  King  as  a  bishop,  claimed  the  exercise 
of  his  own  judgment  as  a  lord  of  Parliament. 
Sunderland,  who  is  marked  as  a  disabled 
Catholic  in  one  of  the  lists,  and  as  a  doubtful 
voter  in  another,  appears  to  have  obtained 


*  Coxe,  Memoirs,  &c.  vol.  i.  pp.  23—29,  where 
the  authorities  are  collected,  to  which  may  be  ad 
ded  the  tesiimony  of  Johnstone  : — "  Lord  Church 
ill  swears  he  will  not  do  what  the  King  requires 
from  him."— Letter  12th  Jan.  1688.— MS. 

t  Johnstone,  however,  who  knew  them,  did 
not  ascribe  their  conduct  to  frailties  so  generous  : 
"  Lord  Feversham  and  Lord  Dartmouth  are  de 
sirous  of  acting  honourably  :  but  the  first  is  mean- 
gpirited  ;  and  the  second  has  an  empty  purse,  yet 
aims  at  living  grandly.  Lord  Preston  desires  to 
be  an  honest  man  ;  but  if  he  were  not  your  friend 
and  my  relation,  I  should  say  that  he  is  both  Fe 
versham  and  Dartmouth." — Ibid. 

t  Durham  (Crew),  Oxford  (Parker),  Chester 
(Cartwright),  and  St.  David's  (Watson). 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


345 


the  royal  consent  to  a  delay  of  his  public 
profession,  of  the  Catholic  religion,  that  he 
might  retain  his  ability  to  serve  it  by  his  vote 
in  Parliament.*  Mulgrave  was  probably  in 
the  same  predicament.  If  such  a  majority 
was  to  continue  immovable,  the  counsels  of 
the  King  must  have  become  desperate,  or  he 
must  have  had  recourse  to  open  force :  but 
this  perseverance  was  improbable.  Among 
the  doubtful  there  might  have  been  some 
who  concealed  a  determined  resolution  under 
the  exterior  of  silence  or  of  hesitation.  Such, 
though  under  a  somewhat  different  disguise^ 
was  the  Marquis  of  Winchester,  who  in 
dulged  and  magnified  the  eccentricities  of 
an  extravagant  character;  counterfeited,  or 
rather  affected  a  disordered  mind,  as  a  secu 
rity  in  dangerous  times,  like  the  elder  Brutus 
in  the  legendary  history  of  Rome;  and  tra 
velling  through  England  in  the  summer  of 
1687,  with  a  retinue  of  four  coaches  and  a 
hundred  horsemen,  slept  during  the  day, 
gave  splendid  entertainments  in  the  night, 
and  by  torch-light,  or  early  dawn,  pursued 
the  sports  of  hunting  and  hawking.t  But 
the  majority  of  the  doubtful  must  have  been 
persons  who  assumed  that  character  to  en 
hance  their  price,  or  who  lay  in  wait  for  the 
turns  of  fortune,  or  watched  for  the  safe 
moment  of  somewhat  anticipating  her  deter 
mination:  of  such  men  the  powerful  never 
despair.  The  example  of  a  very  few  would 
be  soon  followed  by  the  rest,  and  if  they  or 
many  of  them  were  gained,  the  accession  of 
strength  could  not  fail  to  affect  the  timid  and 
mercenary  who  are  to  be  found  in  all  bodies, 
and  whose  long  adherence  to  the  Opposition 
was  already  wonderful.  . 

But  the  subtile  genius  of  Lord  Sunderland, 
not  content  with  ordinary  means  of  seduc 
tion  and  with  the  natural  progress  of  deser 
tion,  had  long  meditated  an  expedient  for 
quickening  the  latter,  and  for  supplying  in 
some  measure  the  place  of  both.  He  had 
long  before  communicated  to  the  Nuncio  a 
plan  for  subduing  the  obstinacy  of  the  Upper 
House  by  the  creation  of  the  requisite  num 
ber  of  new  Peerst  devoted  to  his  Majesty's 
measures.  He  proposed  to  call  up  by  writ 
the  elder  sons  of  friendly  Lords;  which 
would  increase  his  present  strength,  without 
the  incumbrance  of  new  peerages,  whose 
future  holders  might  be  independent.  Some 
of  the  Irish, §  and  probably  of  the  Scotch  no 
bility,  whose  rank  made  their  elevation  to 
the  English  peerage  specious,  and  whose 
fortunes  disposed  them  to  dependency  on 
royal  bounty,  attracted  his  attention,  as  they 
did  that  of  those  ministers  who  carried  his 
project  into  execution  twenty-five  years  after 
wards.  He  was  so  enamoured  of  this  plan, 

*  "  Ministers  and  others  about,  the  King,  who 
have  civen  him  grounds  to  expect  that  they  will 
turn  Papists,  say,  that  if  they  change  before  the 
Parliament  they  cannot  be  useful  ~to  H.  M.  in 
Parliament,  as  the  Test  will  exclude  them." — 
Johnstone,  8th  Dec.  1687.— MS. 

t  Reresby,  p.  247. 

JD'Adda,  llth  October,  1686.— MS. 

§  Johnstone,  27th  Feb.  1688.— MS. 
44 


that  in  a  numerous  company,  where  the  re 
sistance  of  the  Upper  House  was  said  to  be 
formidable,  he  cried  out  to  Lord  Churchill, 
"0  silly  !  why,  your  troop  of  guards  shall  be 
called  to  the  House  of  Lords  !??*  On  another 
occasion  (if  it  be  not  a  different  version  of 
the  same  anecdote)  he  declared,  that  sooner 
than  not  gain  a  majority  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  he  would  make  all  Lord  Feversham's 
troop  Peers. f  The  power  of  the  Crown  was 
in  this  case  unquestionable.  The  constitu 
tional  purpose  for  which  the  prerogative  of 
creating  Peers  exists,  is,  indeed,  either  to 
reward  public  service,  or  to  give  dignity  to 
important  offices,  or  to  add  ability  and  know 
ledge  to  a  part  of  the  legislature,  or  to  repair 
the  injuries  of  time,  by  the  addition  of  new 
wealth  to  an  aristocracy  which  may  have 
decayed.  But  no  law  limits  its  exercise. t 
By  the  bold  exercise  of  the  prerogative  of 
creating  Peers,  and  of  the  then  equally  un 
disputed  right  of  granting  to  towns  the  privi 
lege  of  sending  members  to  Parliament,  it  is 
evident  that  the  King  possessed  the  fullest 
means  of  subverting  the  constitution  by  law. 
The  obstacles  to  the  establishment  of  despo 
tism  consisted  in  his  own  irresolution  or  un- 
skilfulness,  in  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  suffi 
cient  number  of  trustworthy  agents,  and  in 
such  a  determined  hostility  of  the  body  of 
the  people  as  led  sagacious  observers  to  for- 
bode  an  armed  resistance. §  The  firmness 
of  the  Lords  has  been  ascribed  to  their  fears 
of  a  resumption  of  the  Church  property  con 
fiscated  at  the  Reformation :  but  at  the  dis 
tance  of  a  century  and  a  half,  and  after  the 
dispersion  of  much  of  that  property  by  suc 
cessive  sales,  such  fears  were  too  groundless 
to  have  had  a  considerable  influence.  But 
though  they  ceased  to  be  distinctly  felt,  and 
to  act  separately,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
the  remains  of  apprehensions  once  so  strong, 
still  contributed  to  fortify  that  dread  of  Po 
pery,  which  was  an  hereditary  point  of  ho 
nour  among  the  great  families  aggrandized 
and  enriched  under  the  Tudors. 

At  the  same  time  the  edge  of  religious 
animosity  among   the  people  at  large  was 


*  Burnet,  (Oxford,  1823),  vol.  iii.  p.  249;  Lord 
Dartmouth's  note. 

t  Halifax  MSS.  The  turn  of  expression  would 
seem  to  indicate  different  conversations.  At  all 
events,  Halifax  affords  a  strong  corroboration. 

t  It  is,  perhaps,  not  easy  to  devise  such  a  limi 
tation,  unless  it  should  be  provided  that  no  newly 
created  Peer  should  vote  till  a  certain  period  after 
his  creation  ;  which,  in  cases  of  signal  service, 
would  be  ungracious,  and  in  those  of  official  dig 
nity  inconvenient. 

§  On  suivra  ici  le  projet  d'avoir  un  parliament 
tant  qu'il  ne  paroitra  pas  impraticable  ;  mais  s'il 
ne  reussit  pas,  le  Roi  d'Angleterre  pretendra  lairo 
par  son  autorite  ce  qu'il  n'aura  pas  obtenu  pai  la 
voie  d'un  parliament.  C'est  en  ce  cas  la  qu'il 
aurabesoin  de  ses  amis  au  dedans  et  au  dehors,  et 
il  recevra  alors  des  oppositions  qui  approcheront 
fort  d'une  rebellion  ouverte.  On  ne  doit  pas 
douter  qu'elle  ne  soit  soutenue  par  M.  le  Prince 
d' Orange,  et  que  beaucoup  de  gens  quiparoissent 
attaches  au  Roi  d'Angleterre  ne  lui  manquenf  au 
besoin  ;  cette  epreuve  sera  fort  perilleuse."— Ba- 
rillon,  Windsor,  9th  October,  1687.— MS. 


346 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


sharpened  by  the  controversy  then  revived 
between  the  divines  of  the  two  Churches. 
A  dispute  about  the  truth  of  their  religion 
\vas  insensibly  blended  with  contests  con 
cerning  the  safety  of  the  Establishment ;  and 
complete  toleration  brought  with  it  that 
hatred  which  is  often  fiercer,  and  always 
more  irreconcilable,  against  the  opponents 
of  our  religious  opinions  than  against  the 
destroyers  of  our  most  important  interests. 
The  Protestant  Establishment  and  the  cause 
of  liberty  owed  much,  it  must  be  owned,  to 
this  dangerous  and  odious  auxiliary;  while 
the  fear,  jealousy,  and  indignation  of  the  peo 
ple  were  more  legitimately  excited  against  a 
Roman  Catholic  Government  by  the  barbar 
ous  persecution  of  the  Protestants  in  France, 
and  by  the  unprovoked  invasion  of  the  val 
leys  of  Piedmont ; — both  acts  of  a  monarch 
of  whom  their  own  sovereign  was  then  be 
lieved  to  be,  as  he  is  now  known  to  have 
been,  the  creature. 

The  King  had,  in  the  preceding  year,  tried 
the  efficacy  of  a  progress  through  a  part  of 
the  kingdom,  to  conciliate  the  nobility  by 
personal  intercourse,  and  to  gratify  the  peo 
ple  by  a  royal  visit  to  their  remote  abodes; 
which  had  also  afforded  an  opportunity  of 
rewarding  compliance  by  smiles,  and  of 
marking  the  contumacious.  With  these 
views  he  had  again  this  autumn  meditated  a 
journey  to  Scotland,  and  a  coronation  in  that 
kingdom :  but  he  confined  himself  to  an 
excursion  through  some  southern  and  wes 
tern  counties,  beginning  at  Portsmouth,  and 
proceeding  through  Bath  (at  which  place 
the  Queen  remained  during  his  journey) 
to  Chester,  where  he  had  that  important 
interview  with  Tyrconnel.  of  which  we 
have  already  spoken.  James  was  easily 
led  to  consider  the  courtesies  of  the  nobility 
due  to  his  station,  and  the  acclamations  of 
the  multitude  naturally  excited  by  his  pre 
sence,  as  symptoms  of  an  inflexible  attach 
ment  to  his  person,  and  of  a  general  acqui 
escence  in  his  designs.  These  appearances, 
however,  were  not  considered  as  of  serious 
importance,  either  by  the  Dutch  minister, 
who  dreaded  the  King's  popularity,  or  by 
the  French  ambassador,  who  desired  its  in 
crease,  or  by  the  Papal  Nuncio,  \vho  \vas  so 
friendly  to  the  ecclesiastical  policy  of  the 
Court,  and  so  adverse  to  its  foreign  connec 
tions  as  to  render  him  in  some  measure  an 
impartial  observer.  The  journey  was  at 
tended  by  no  consequences  more  important 
than  a  few  addresses  extorted  from  Dissent 
ers  by  the  importunity  of  personal  canvass, 
and  the  unseemly  explosion  of  royal  anger 
at  Oxford  against  the  fellows  of  Magdalen 
College.*  Scarcely  any  of  the  King's  mea 


sures  seem  to  have  had  less  effect  on  general 
opinion,  and  appear  less  likely  to  have  in- 
.  fluenced   the   election   for  which    he    v.as 
I  preparing. 

But  the  Royal  Progress  was  speedily  fol- 
•  lowed  by  an  occurrence  which  strongly 
I  excited  the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  public, 
j  and  at  length  drove  the  opponents  of  the 
King  to  decisive  resolutions.  Soon  after  the 
return  of  the  Court  to  Whitehall,*'  it  began 
to  be  whispered  that  the  Queen  was  preg 
nant.  This  event  in  the  case  of  a  young 
princess,  and  of  a  husband  still  in  the  vigour 
of  life,  might  seem  too  natural  to  have  ex 
cited  surprise.  But  five  years  had  elapsed 
since  her  last  childbirth,  and  out  of  eleven 
children  who  were  born  to  James  by  both 
his  \vives,  only  two  had  outlived  the  years 
of  infancy.  Of  these,  the  Princess  of  Orange 
was  childless,  and  the  Princess  Anne,  who 
had  had  six  children,  lost  five  within  the 
first  year  of  their  lives,  while  the  survivor 
only  reached  the  age  of  eleven.  Such  an 
apparent  peculiarity  of  constitution,  already 
transmitted  from  parent  to  child,  seemed  to 
the  credulous  passions  of  the  majority,  un 
acquainted  as  they  were  with  the  latitude 
and  varieties  of  nature,  to  be  a  sufficient 
security  against  such  an  accession  to  the 
royal  progeny  as  should  disturb  the  order  of 
succession  to  the  crown.  The  rumour  of  the 
Queen's  condition  suddenly  dispelled  this 
security.  The  Catholics  had  long  and  fer 
vently  prayed  for  the  birth  of  a  child,  who 
being  educated  in  their  communion,  might 
prolong  the  blessings  which  they  were  begin* 
riing  to  enjoy.  As  devotion,  like  other  warm 
emotions,  is  apt  to  convert  wishes  into  hopes, 
they  betrayed  a  confidence  in  the  efficacy 
of  their  prayers,  which  early  excited  sus 
picions  among  their  opponents  that  less 
pure  means  might  be  employed  for  the  at 
tainment  of  the  object.  Though  the  whole 
importance  of  the  pregnancy  depended  upon 
a  contingency  so  utterly  beyond  the  reach 
of  human  foresight  as  the  sex  of  the  child, 
the  passions  of  both  parties  were  too  much 
excited  to  calculate  probabilities;  and  the 
fears  of  the  Protestants  as  well  as  the  hopes 
of  the  Catholics  anticipated  the  birth  of  a 
male  heir.  The  animosity  of  the  former 
imputed  to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  that 
unscrupulous  use  of  any  means  for  the  at 
tainment  of  an  object  earnestly  desired, 
which  might  more  justly  be  ascribed  to  in 
flamed  zeal  for  any  religious  system,  or  with 
still  greater  reason  to  all  those  ardent  pas 
sions  of  human  nature,  which,  when  shared 
by  multitudes,  are  released  from  the  re 
straints  of  fear  or  shame.  In  the  latter  end 
of  November  a  rumour  that  the  Queen  had 


The  King  has  returned  from  his  progress  so 
far  as  Oxford,  on  his  way  to  the  Bath,  and  we  do 
not  hear  that  his  observations  or  his  journey  can 
give  him  any  great  encouragement.  Besides 
the  considerations  of  conscience  and  the  public 
interest,  it  is  grown  into  a  point  of  honour  uni 
versally  received  by  the  nation  not  to  change 
tbeir  opinions,  which  will  make  all  attempts 


f.: 


to  the  contrary  ineffectual."  —  Halifax  to  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  1st  Sept.  Dalrymple,  app.  to 
book  v. 

*  James  rejoined  the  Queen  at  Bath  on  the  6th 
September.  On  the  16th  he  returned  to  Windsor, 
where  the  Queen  came  on  the  6th  October.  On 
the  llth  of  that  month  they  went  to  Whitehall. — 
London  Gazettes. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


347 


been  pregnant  for  two  months  became  gene 
rally  prevalent;*  and  early  in  December, 
surmises  of  imposture  began  to  circulate  at 
Court.t  Time  did  not  produce  its  usual 
effect  of  removing  uncertainty,  for,  in  the 
middle  of  the  same  month,  the  Queen's 
symptoms  were  represented  by  physicians 
as  still  ambiguous,  in  letters,  which  trie  care 
ful  balance  of  facts  on  both  sides,  and  the 
cautious  abstinence  from  a  decisive  opinion, 
seem  to  exempt  from  the  suspicion  of  bad 
faith-i  On  the  23d  of  December,  a  general 
thanksgiving  for  the  hope  of  increasing  the 
royal  family  was  ordered;  but  on  the  loth 
of  the  next  month,  when  that  thanksgiving 
was  observed  in  London,  Lord  Clarendon 
remarked  with  winder,  "that  not  above  two 
or  three  in  the  church  brought  the  form  of 
prayer  with  them ;  and  that  it  was  strange 
to  see  how  the  Queen's  pregnancy  was  every 
where  ridiculed,  as  if  scarce  any  body  be 
lieved  it  to  be  true/'  The  Nuncio  early 
expressed  his  satisfaction  at  the  pregnancy, 
as  likely  to  contribute  "  to  the  re-establish 
ment  of  the  Catholic  religion  in  these  king 
doms;'^  and  in  the  following  month,  he 
pronounced  to  her  Majesty  the  solemn  bene 
diction  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  on  a  preg 
nancy  so  auspicious  to  the  Church. II  Of  the 
other  ministers  most  interested  in  this  event, 
Barillon,  a  veteran  diplomatist,  too  cool  and 
experienced  to  be  deluded  by  his  wishes, 
informed  his  master,  "that  the  pregnancy 
was  not  believed  to  be  true  in  London  ;  and 
that  in  the  country,  those  who  spread  the 
intelligence  were  laughed  at  ;"1T  while  the 
Republican  minister,  Van  Citters,  coldly 
communicated  the  report,  with  some  of  the 
grounds  of  it,  to  the  States-General,  without 
hazarding  an  opinion  on  a  matter  so  delicate. 
The  Princess  Anne,  in  confidential  letters** 
to  her  sister  at  the  Hague,  when  she  had  no 
motive  to  dissemble,  signified  her  unbelief, 
which  continued  even  after  the  birth  of  the 
child,  and  was  neither  subdued  by  her 
father's  solemn  declarations,  nor  by  the  testi 
mony  which  he  produced.tt  On  the  whole, 
the  suspicion,  though  groundless  and  cruel, 
was  too  general  to  be  dishonest :  there  is  no 


*  Narcissus  Luttrell,  28th  Nov. — MS. 

t  Johnstone,  8th  Dec. — MS. 

t  Johnstone,  16th  Dec. — MS., — containing  a 
statement  of  the  symptoms  by  Sir  Charles  Scar 
borough,  and  another  physician  whose  name  I 
have  been  unable  to  decipher. 

$  D'Adda,  2dDec— MS. 

II  Id.  20th  Feb.  1688 —MS. 

IT  Barillon,  llth  Dec.— MS. 

:*  March  14th— 20th,  1688.— Dalrymple,  app. 
to  book  v.  "  Her  being  so  positive  it  will  be  a 
son,  and  the  principles  of  that  religion  being  such 
that  they  will  stick  at  nothing,  be  it  ever  so 
wicked,  it  it  will  promote  their  interest,  gave 
some  cause  to  fear  that  there  is  foul  play  intended." 
On  the  18th  June,  she  says,  "Except  they  give 
very  plain  demonstration,  which  seems  almost 
impossible  now,  I  shall  ever  be  of  the  number  of 
unbelievers."  Even  the  candid  and  loyal  Evelyn 
(Diary,  10th  and  17th  of  June)  very  intelligibly 
intimates  his  suspicions. 

tt  Clarendon,  Diary,  31st  Oct. 


evidence  that  the  rumour  originated  in  the 
contrivance  of  any  individuals;  and  it  is  for 
that  reason  more  just,  as  well  as  perhaps  in 
itself  more  probable,  to  conclude  that  it  arose 
spontaneously  in  the  minds  of  many,  influ 
enced  by  the  circumstances  and  prejudices 
of  the  time.  The  currency  of  the  like  ru 
mours,  on  a  similar  occasion,  five  years 
before,  favours  the  opinion  that  they  arose 
from  the  obstinate  prejudices  of  the  people 
rather  than  from  the  invention  of  design 
ing  politicians.*  The  imprudent  confidence 
of  the  Catholics  materially  contributed  to 
strengthen  suspicion.  When  the  King  and 
his  friends  ascribed  the  pregnancy  to  his 
own  late  prayers  at  St.  Winifred's  well,f  or 
to  the  vows  while  living,  and  intercession 
after  death  of  the  Duchess  of  Modena,  the 
Protestants  suspected  that  effectual  mea 
sures  would  be  taken  to  prevent  the  inter 
position  of  Heaven  from  being  of  no  avail 
to  the  Catholic  cause ;  and  their  jealous  appre 
hensions  were  countenanced  by  the  expecta 
tion  of  a  son,  which  was  indicated  in  the  pro 
clamation  for  thanksgiving,!  and  unreserv 
edly  avowed  in  private*  conversation.  As 
straws  shows  the  direction  of  the  wind,  the 
writings  of  the  lowest  scribblers  may  some 
times  indicate  the  temper  of  a  party;  and 
one  such  writing,  preserved  by  chance,  may 
probably  be  a  sample  of  the  multitudes  which 
have  perished.  Mrs.  Behn,  a  loose  and  paltry 
poetastress  of  that  age,  was  bold  enough  in 
the  title  page  of  what  she  calls  "  A  Poem  to 
their  Majesties,"  to  add,  "on  the  hopes  of 
all  loyal  persons  for  a  Prince  of  Wales,"  and 
ventures  in  her  miserable  verses  already  to 
hail  the  child  of  unknown  sex;  as  "  Royal 
Boy."§  The  lampooners  of  the  opposite 
party,  in  verses  equally  contemptible,  show 
ered  down  derision  on  the  Romish  imposture, 
and  pointed  the  general  abhorrence  and  alarm 
towards  the  new  Perkin  Warbeck  whom  the 
Jesuits  were  preparing  to  be  the  instrument 
of  their  designs. 

While  these  hopes  and  fears  agitated  the 
multitude  of  both  parties,  the  ultimate  ob 
jects  of  the  King  became  gradually  more 
definite,  while  he  at  the  same  time  delibe 
rated,  or  perhaps,  rather  decided,  about  the 
choice  of  his  means.  His  open  policy  as 
sumed  a  more  decisive  tone :  Castlemaine, 
who  in  his  embassy  had  acted  with  the 
most  ostentatious  defiance  of  the  laws,  and 
Petre,  the  most  obnoxious  clergyman  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  were  sworn  of  the  Privy 

*  "If  it  had  pleased  God  to  have  given  his 
Highness  the  blessing  of  a  son,  as  it  proved  a 
daughter,  you  were  prepared  to  make  a  Perkin 
of  him." — L'Estrange,  Observator,  23d  August, 
1682. 

t  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  ii.  p.  129. 

t  The  object  of  the  thanksgiving  was  indicated 
more  plainly  in  the  Catholic  form  of  prayer  on  that 
occasion  : — "  Concede  propifius  ut  famula  tua  re- 
gina  nostra  Maria  partu  felici  prolem  edat  tibi 
fideliter  servituram." 

$  State  Poems,  vol.  iii.  and  iv.;  a  collection  at 
once  the  most  indecent  and  unpoetical  probably 
extant  in  any  language. 


348 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Council.*  The  latter  was  even  promoted  to 
an  ecclesiastical  office  in  the  household  of  a 
prince,  who  still  exercised  all  the  powers  of 
the  supreme  head  of  a  Protestant  Church. 
Corker,  an  English  Benedictine,  the  superior 
of  a  monastery  of  that  order  in  London,  had 
an  audience  of  the  King  in  his  ecclesiastical 
habits,  as  envoy  from  the  Elector  of  Cologne.! 
doubtless  by  a  secret  understanding  between 
James  and  that  prince  ; — an  act,  which  Louis 
XIV.  himself  condemned  as  unexampled  in 
Catholic  countries,  and  as  likely  to  provoke 
heretics,  whose  prejudices  ought  not  to  be 
wantonly  irritated. i  As  the  animosity  of 
the  people  towards  the  Catholic  religion  in 
creased,  the  designs  of  James  for  its  re-es 
tablishment  became  bolder  and  more  open. 
The  monastic  orders,  clad  in  garments  long 
strange  and  now  alarming  to  the  people,  filled 
the  streets:  and  the  King  prematurely  exulted 
that  his  capital  had  the  appearance  of  a  Ca 
tholic  city,§ — little  aware  of  the  indignation 
with  which  that  obnoxious  appearance  in 
spired  the  body  of  his  Protestant  subjects. 
He  must  now  have  felt  that  his  contest  had 
reached  that  point  in  which  neither  party 
would  submit  without  a  total  defeat. 

The  language  used  or  acquiesced  in  by 
him  in  the  most  confidential  intercourse. 
does  not  leave  his  intention  to  be  gathered 
by  inference.  For  though  the  words,  "  to 
establish  the  Catholic  religion,"  may  denote 
no  more  than  to  secure  its  free  exercise, 
another  expression  is  employed  on  this  sub 
ject  for  a  long  time,  and  by  different  persons, 
in  correspondence  with  him,  which  has  no 
equivocal  sense,  and  allows  no  such  limita 
tion.  On  the  12th  of  May,  1687,  Barillon 
had  assured  him,  that  the  most  Christian 
King  "had  nothing  so  much  at  heart  as  to 
see  the  success  of  his  exertions  to  re-establish 
the  Catholic  religion."  Far  from  limiting 
this  important  term,  James  adopted  it  in  its 
full  extent,  answering,  "  You  see  that  I  omit 
nothing  in  my  power;"  and  not  content  with 
thus  accepting  the  congratulation  in  its  ut 
most  latitude,  he  continued,  "  I  hope  the  King 
your  master  will  aid  me  ;  and  that  we  shall, 
in  concert,  do  great  things  for  religion."  In 
a  few  months  afterwards,  when  imitating 
another  part  of  the  policy  of  Louis  XIV.,  he 
had  established  a  fund  for  rewarding  converts 
to  his  religion,  he  solicited  pecuniary  aid 
from  the  Pope  for  that  very  ambiguous  pur 
pose.  The  Nuncio,  in  answer,  declared  the 
sorrow  of  his  Holiness,  at  being  disabled  by 
the  impoverished  state  of  his  treasury  from 
contributing  money,  notwithstanding  "  his 
paternal  zeal  for  the  promoting,  in  every 
way,  the  re-establishment  of  the  Catholic 
religion  in  these  kingdoms;"]!  as  he  had 
shortly  before  expressed  his  hope,  that  the 

*  London  Gazette,  25ih  Sept.  and  llth  Nov. 
1687;  in  the  last  Petre  is  styled  "  Clerk  of  the 
Closet." 

t  Narcissus  Luttrell,  Jan.  1688. — MS. 

t  The  King  to  Barillon,  26th  Feb.— MS 

$  D'Adda,  9th  March.— MS. 

II  Ibid.  2d  Jan.  1688.— MS. 


Queen's  pregnancy  would  insure  "  the  re- 
establishment  of  the  true  religion  in  these 
kingdoms."*  Another  term  in  familiar  use 
at  Court  for  the  final  object  of  the  royal  pur 
suit  was  "the  great  work," — a  phrase  bor 
rowed  from  the  supposed  transmutation  of 
metals  by  the  alchemists,  which  naturally 
signified  a  total  change,  and  which  never 
could  have  been  applied  to  mere  toleration 
by  those  who  were  in  system,  if  not  in  prac 
tice,  the  most  intolerant  of  an  intolerant  age. 
The  King  told  the  Nuncio,  that  Holland  was 
the  main  obstacle  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Catholic  religion  in  these  kingdoms:  and 
D'Abbeville  declared,  that  without  humbling 
the  pride  of  that  republic,  there  could  be  no 
hope  of  the  success  "of  the  great  work."t 
Two  years  afterwards,  James,  after  review 
ing  his  whole  policy  and  its  consequences, 
deliberately  and  decisively  avows  the  extent 
of  his  own  designs : — "Our  subjects  opposed 
our  government,  from  the  fear  that  we  should 
introduce  the  orthodox  faith,  which  we  were, 
indeed,  labouring  to  accomplish  when  the 
storm  began,  and  which  we  have  done  in 
our  kingdom  of  Ireland. "J  Mary  of  Este, 
during  the  absence  of  her  husband  in  Ireland, 
exhorts  the  Papal  minister,  "to  earn  the 
glorious  title  of  restorer  of  the  faith  in  the 
British  kingdoms,"  and  declares,  that  she 
"hopes  much  from  his  administration  for  the 
re-establishment  both  of  religion  and  the 
royal  family. "§  Finally,  the  term  "re-estab 
lish,"  which  can  refer  to  no  time  subsequent 
to  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  had  so  much 
become  the  appropriate  term,  that  Louis 
XIV.,  assured  the  Pope  of  his  determination 
to  aid  "the  King  of  England,  arid  to  re-estab 
lish  the  Catholic  religion  in  that  island  "|| 

None  of  the  most  discerning  friends  or  op 
ponents  of  the  King  seem  at  this  time  to  have 
doubted  that  he  meditated  no  less  than  to 
transfer  to  his  own  religion  the  privileges  of 
an  Established  Church.  Gourville,  one  of 
the  most  sagacious  men  of  his  age,  being 
asked  by  the  Duchess  of  Tyrconnel,  when 
about  to  make  a  journey  to  London,  what 
she  should  say  to  the  King  if  he  inquired 
about  the  opinion  of  his  old  frie'nd  Gourville, 
of  his  measures  for  the  "re-establishment" 
of  the  Catholic  religion  in  England,  begged 
her  to  answer, — "If  I  were  Pope/I  should 
have  excommunicated  him  for  exposing  all 
the  English  Catholics  to  the  risk  of  being 
hanged.  I  have  no  doubt,  that  what  he  sees 
done  in  France  is  his  model ;  but  the  circum 
stances  are  very  different.  In  my  opinion, 
he  ought  to  be  content  with  favouring  the 
Catholics  on  every  occasion,  in  order  to  aug 
ment  their  number,  and  he  should  leave  to 
his  successors  the  care  of  gradually  subject 
ing  England  altogether  to  the  authority  of 


*  D'Adda,  2d  Dec.  1687.— MS. 

t  Ibid.  22d  August,  1687.— MS. 

t  James  II.  to  Cardinal  Ottoboni.  Dublin, 
15th  Feb.  1690.— Papal  MSS. 

§  Mary  to  Ottoboni,  St.  Germains,  4th — 15th 
Dec.  1689.— Papal  MSS. 

II  Louis  to  the  Pope,  17th  Feb.  1689.— MS, 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


349 


the  Pope."*  Bossuet,  the  most  learned, 
vigorous,  and  eloquent  of  controversialists, 
ventured  at  this  critical  time  to  foretel,  that 
the  pious  efforts  of  James  would  speedily  be 
rewarded  by  the  reconciliation  of  the  British 
islands  to  the  Universal  Church,  and  their 
filial  submission  to  the  Apostolic  See  t 

If  Gourville  considered  James  an  injudi 
cious  imitator  of  Louis  XIV.,  it  is  easy  to 
imagine  what  was  thought  on  the  subject  in 
England,  at  a  time  when  one  of  the  mildest, 
not  to  say  most  courtly,  writers,  in  the  quiet 
ness  and  familiarity  of  his  private  diary, 
speaks  of  "  the  persecution  raging  in  France," 
and  so  far  forgets  his  own  temper,  and  the 
style  suitable  to  such  writings,  as  to  call 
Louis  "the  French  tyrant."!  Lord  Halifax, 
Lord  Nottingham,  and  Lord  Danby,  the  three 
most  important  opponents  of  the  King's  mea 
sures,  disagreeing  as  they  did  very  consi 
derably  in  opinion  and  character,  evidently 
agreed  in  their  apprehension  of  the  extent 
of  his  designs.^  They  advert  to  them  as 
too  familiar  to  themselves  and  their  corres 
pondent  to  require  proof,  or  even  develop 
ment  j  they  speak  of  them  as  being  far  more 
extensive  than  the  purposes  avowed ;  and 
they  apply  terms  to  them  which  might  be 
reasonable  in  the  present  times,  when  many 
are  willing  to  grant  and  to  be  contented  with 
religious  liberty,  but  which  are  entirely  fo 
reign  to  the  conceptions  of  an  age  when 
toleration  (a  term  then  synonomous  with 
connivance)  was  the  ultimate  object  of  no 
great  party  in  religion,  but  was  sometimes 
sought  by  Dissenters  as  a  step  towards  es 
tablishment,  and  sometimes  yielded  by  the 
followers  of  an  Established  Church  under 
the  pressure  of  a  stern  necessity.  Some 
even  of  those  who,  having  been  gained  over 
by  the  King,  were  most  interested  in  main 
taining  his  sincerity,  were  compelled  at  length 
to  yield  to  the  general  conviction.  Colonel 
Titus,  a  veteran  politician,  who  had  been 
persuaded  to  concur  in  the  repeal  of  the 
penal  laws  (a  measure  agreeable  to  his 
general  principles),  declared  "  that  he  would 
have  no  more  to  do  with  him ;  that  his  ob 
ject  was  only  the  repeal  of  the  penal  laws ; 
that  his  design  was  to  bring  in  his  religion 
right  or  wrong, — to  model  the  army  in  order 
to  effect  that  purpose ;  and,  if  that  \vas  not 
sufficient,  to  obtain  assistance  from  France. "II 

*  Memoires  de  Gourville,  vol.  ii.  p.  254. 

t  Histoire  des  Variations  des  Eglises  Protest 
ants,  liv.  vii. 

t  Evelyn,  vol.  i.  Diary,  3d  Sept.  1687.— 23d 
Feb.  1688. 

§  Lord  Halifax  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  7th 
Dec.  1686--18th  Jan.— 31st  May,  1687.  "  Though 
there  appears  the  utmost  vigour  to  pursue  the 
object  which  has  been  so  long  laid,  there  seemeth 
to  be  no  less  firmness  in  the  nation  and  aversion 
to  change." — "  Every  day  will  give  more  light  to 
what  is  intended  ;  though  it  is  already  no  more  a 
mystery." — Lord  Nottingham  to  the  Prince,  2d 
Sent.  1687.  "  For  though  the  end  at  which  they 
aim  is  very  plain  and  visible,  the  methods  of  ar 
riving  at  that  end  have  been  variable  and  uncer 
tain." — Dalrymple,  app.  to  book  v. 

II  Johnstone    16th  Feb  —MS. 


The  converts  to  the  religious  or  political 
party  of  the  King  were  few  and  discreditable. 
Lord  Lorn,  whose  predecessors  and  succes 
sors  were  the  firmest  supporters  of  the  reli 
gion  and  liberty  of  his  country,  is  said  to 
have  been  reduced  by  the  confiscation  of 
his  patrimony  to  the  sad  necessity  of  pro 
fessing  a  religion  which  he  must  have  re 
garded  with  feelings  more  hostile  than  those 
of  mere  unbelief.*  Lord  Salisbury,  whose 
father  had  been  engaged  with  Russell  and 
Sydney  in  the  consultation  called  the  "  Rye- 
house  Plot,"  and  whose  grandfather  had  sat 
in  the  House  of  Commons  after  the  abolition 
of  the  monarchy  and  the  peerage,  embraced 
the  Catholic  religion,  and  adhered  to  it  during 
his  life.  The  offices  of  Attorney  and  Solici 
tor-general,  which  acquire  a  fatal  importance 
in  this  country  under  Governments  hostile  to 
liberty,  were  newly  filled.  Sawyer,  who  had 
been  engaged  in  the  worst  prosecutions  of 
the  preceding  ten  years,  began  to  tremble 
for  his  wealth,  and  retired  from  a  post  of 
dishonourable  danger.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Sir  Thomas  Powis,  a  lawyer  of  no  known 
opinions  or  connections  in  politics,  who  acted 
on  the  unprincipled  maxim,  that,  having  had 
too  little  concern  for  his  country  to  show 
any  preference  for  public  men  or  measures, 
he  might  as  lawfully  accept  office  under  any 
Government,  as  undertake  the  defence  of  any 
client.  Sir  William  Williams,  the  confiden 
tial  adviser  of  Lord  Russell,  on  whom  a  fine 
of  1G,000/.  had  been  inflicted,  for  having 
authorised,  as  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  a  publication,  though  solemnly  pledged 
both  to  men  and  measures  in  the  face  of  the 
public,  now  accepted  the  office  of  Solicitor- 
general,  without  the  sorry  excuse  of  any  of 
those  maxims  of  professional  ethics  by  which 
a  powerful  body  countenance  each  other  in 
their  disregard  of  public  duty.  A  project 
was  also  in  agitation  for  depriving  the  Bishop 
of  London  by  a  sentence  of  the  Ecclesiasti 
cal  Commissioners  for  perseverance  in  his 
contumacy  ;t  but  Cartwright,  of  Chester,  his 
intended  successor,  having,  in  one  of  his 
drunken  moments,  declared  the  Chancellor 
and  Lord  Sunderland  to  be  scoundrels  who 
would  betray  the  King  (which  he  first  de 
nied  by  his  sacred  order,  but  was  at  last  re 
duced  to  beg  pardon  for  in  tearsj).  the  plan 
of  raising  him  to  the  see  was  abandoned. 
Crew,  Bishop  of  Durham,  was  expected  to  be 
come  a  Catholic,  and  Parker  of  Oxford, — the 
only  prelate  whose  talents  and  learning,  se 
conded  by  a  disregard  of  danger  and  disgrace, 
qualified  him  for  breaking  the  spirit  of  the 
clergy  of  the  capital, — though  he  had  support 
ed  the  Catholic  party  during  his  life,  refused 
to  conform  to  their  religion  on  his  death-bed  ;§ 
leaving  it  doubtful,  by  his  habitual  aliena 
tion  from  religion  and  honour,  to  the  linger- 


*  Narcissus  Luttrell.lst  April. — MS.: — "ar 
rested  for  3000Z.  declares  himself  a  Catholic." 

t  Johnstone,  8th  Dec.  1687.— MS. 

t  Johnstone,  27th  Feb. — MS.     Narcissus  Lut 
trell,  llth  Feb.— MS. 

$  Evelyn,  vol.  i.  Diary.  23d  March. 
2E 


350 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ing  remains  or  the  faint  revival  of  which  of 
these  principles  the  unwonted  delicacy  of 
his  dying  moments  may  be  most  probably 
ascribed. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Remarkable  quiet. — Its  peculiar  causes. — Coa 
lition  of  Nottingham  and  Halifax. — Fluc 
tuating  counsels  of  the  Court. — i:  Parlia 
ment  urn  Paci/icum.''' — Bill  for  liberty  of 
conscience. — Conduct  of  Sunderland. — Je 
suits. 

ENGLAND  perhaps  never  exhibited  an  ex 
ternal  appearance  of  more  undisturbed  and 
profound  tranquillity  than  in  the  momentous 
seven  months  which  elapsed  from  the  end 
of  the  autumn  of  1687  to  the  beginning  of 
the  following  summer.  Not  a  speck  in  the 
heavens  seemed  to  the  common  eye  to  fore 
bode  a  storm  None  of  the  riots  now  oc 
curred  which  were  the  forerunners  of  the 
civil  war  under  Charles  I. :  nor  were  there 
any  of  those  numerous  assemblies  of  the 
people  which  affright  by  their  force,  when 
they  do  not  disturb  by  their  violence,  and 
are  sometimes  as  terrific  in  disciplined  in 
action,  as  in  tumultuous  outrage.  Even  the 
ordinary  marks  of  national  disapprobation, 
which  prepare  and  announce  a  legal  resist 
ance  to  power,  were  wanting.  There  is  no 
trace  of  any  public  meetings  having  been 
held  in  counties  or  great  towns  where  such 
demonstrations  of  public  opinion  could  have 
been  made.  The  current  of  flattering  ad 
dresses  continued  to  flow  towards  the  throne, 
uninterrupted  by  a  single  warning  remon 
strance  of  a  more  independent  spirit,  or 
even  of  a  mere  decent  servility.  It  does  not 
appear  that  in  the  pulpit,  where  alone  the 
people  could  be  freely  addressed,  political 
topics  were  discussed  ;  though  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  the  controversial  sermons 
against  the  opinions  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
which  then  abounded,  proved  in  effect  the 
most  formidable  obstacle  to  the  progress  of 
her  ambition. 

Various  considerations  will  serve  to  lessen 
our  wonder  at  this  singular  state  of  silence 
and  inactivity.  Though  it  would  be  idle  to 
speak  gravely  of  the  calm  which  precedes 
the  storm,  and  thus  to  substitute  a  trite  illus 
tration  for  a  reason,  it  is  nevertheless  true, 
that  there  are  natural  causes  which  com 
monly  produce  an  interval,  sometimes,  in 
deed,  a  very  short  one,  of  more  than  ordinary 
quiet  between  the  complete  operation  of  the 
measures  which  alienate  a  people,  arid  the 
final  resolution  which  precedes  a  great 
change.  Amidst  the  hopes  and  fears  which 
succeed  each  other  in  such  a  state,  every 
man  has  much  to  conceal ;  and  it  requires 
some  time  to  acquire  the  boldness  to  disclose 
it.  Distrust  and  suspicion,  the  parents  of 
silence,  which  easily  yield  to  sympathy  in 
ordinary  and  legal  opposition,  are  called  into 


full  activity  by  the  first  secret  consciousness 
of  a  disposition  to  more  daring  designs.  It 
is  natural  for  men  in  such  circumstances  to 
employ  time  in  watching  their  opponents,  as 
well  as  in  ascertaining  the  integrity  and 
courage  of  their  friends.  When  human  na 
ture  is  stirred  by  such  mighty  agents,  the 
understanding,  indeed,  rarely  deliberates; 
but  the  conflict  and  alternation  of  strong 
emotions,  which  assume  the  appearance  and 
receive  the  name  of  deliberation,  produce 
naturally  a  disposition  to  pause  before  irre 
vocable  action.  The  boldest  must  occasion 
ally  contemplate  their  own  danger  with  ap 
prehension  ;  the  most  sanguine  must  often 
doubt  their  success ;  those  who  are  alive  to 
honour  must  be  visited  by  the  sad  reflection, 
that  if  they  be  unfortunate  they  may  be  in 
sulted  by  the  multitude  for  whom  they  sacri 
fice  themselves;  and  good  men  will  be  fre 
quently  appalled  by  the  inevitable  calamities 
to  which  they  expose  their  country  for  !ho 
uncertain  chance  of  deliverance.  When  the 
fluctuation  of  mind  has  terminated  in  bold 
resolution,  a  farther  period  of  reserve  must 
be  employed  in  preparing  the  means  of  co 
operation  and  maturing  the  plans  of  action. 

But  there  were  some  circumstances  pecu 
liar  to  the  events  now  under  consideration, 
which  strengthened  and  determined  the  ope 
ration  of  general  causes.  In  1640,  the  gentry 
and  the  clergy  had  been  devoied  to  the 
Court,  while  the  higher  nobility  and  the  great 
townsadhered  to  the  Parliament.  The  people 
distrusted  their  divided  superiors,  and  the 
tumultuous  display  of  their  force  (the  natural 
result  of  their  angry  suspicions)  served  to 
manifest  their  own  inclinations,  while  it 
called  forth  their  friends  and  intimidated 
their  enemies  among  the  higher  orders.  In 
1688,  the  state  of  the  country  was  reversed. 
The  clergy  and  gentry  were  for  the  first  time 
discontented  with  the  Crown ;  and  the  ma 
jority  of  the  nobility,  and  the  growing  strength 
of  me  commercial  classes,  reinforced  by 
these  unusual  auxiliaries,  and  by  all  who 
either  hated  Popery  01  loved  liberty,  were 
fully  as  much  disaffected  to  the  King  as  the 
great  body  of  the  people.  The  nation  trusted 
their  natural  leaders,  who,  perhaps,  gave, 
more  than  they  received,  the  impulse  on  this 
occasion.  No  popular  chiefs  were  necessary, 
and  none  arose  to  supply  the  place  of  their 
authority  with  the  people,  who  reposed  in 
quiet  and  confidence  till  the  signal  for  action 
was  made.  This  important  circumstance 
produced  another  effect :  the  whole  guidance 
of  the  opposition  fell  gradually  into  fewer  and 
fewer  hands;  it  became  every  day  easier  to 
carry  it  on  more  calmly ;  popular  commotion 
could  only  have  disturbed  councils  where 
the  people  did  not  suspect  their  chiefs  of 
lukewarmness,  and  the  chiefs  were  assured 
of  the  prompt  and  zealous  support  of  the 
peop.le.  It  was  as  important  now  to  restrain 
the  impetuosity  of  the  multitude,  as  it  might 
be  necessary  in  other  circumstances  to  in 
dulge  it.  Hence  arose  the  facility  of  caution 
and  secrecy  at  one  timej  of  energy  and 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


351 


speed  at  another,  of  concert  and  co-operation 
throughout,  which  are  indispensable  in  en 
terprises  so  perilous.  It  must  not  be  for 
gotten  that  a  coalition  of  parties  was  neces 
sary  on  this  occasion.  It  was  long  before  the 
Tories  could  be  persuaded  to  oppose  the 
monarch;  and  there  was  always  some  rea 
son  to  apprehend,  that  he  might  by  timely 
concessions  recal  them  to  their  ancient 
standard :  it  was  still  longer  before  they 
could  so  far  relinquish  their  avowed  princi 
ples  as  to  contemplate,  without  horror,  any 
resistance  by  force,  however  strictly  defen 
sive.  Two  parties,  who  had  waged  war 
against  each  other  in  the  contest  between 
monarchy  and  popular  government,  during 
half  a  century,  even  when  common  danger 
tauirht  them  the  necessity  of  sacrificing  their 
differences,  had  still  more  than  common  rea 
son  to  examine  each  other's  purposes  before 
they  at  last  determined  on  resolutely  and 
heartily  acting  together;  and  it  required 
some  time  after  a  mutual  belief  in  sincerity, 
before  habitual  distrust  could  be  so  much 
subdued  as  to  allow  reciprocal  communica 
tion  of  opinion.  In  these  moments  of  hesi 
tation,  the  friends  of  liberty  must  have  been 
peculiarly  desirous  not  to  alarm  the  new 
born  zeal  of  their  important  and  unwonted 
confederates  by  turbulent  scenes  or  violent 
councils.  The  state  of  the  succession  to  the 
crown  had  also  a  considerable  influence,  as 
will  afterwards  more  fully  appear.  Suffice 
it  for  the  present  to  observe,  that  the  expec 
tation  of  a  Protestant  successor  restrained 
the  impetuosity  of  the  more  impatient  Ca 
tholics,  and  disposed  the  more  moderate 
Protestants  to  an  acquiescence,  however 
sullen,  in  evils  which  could  only  be  tempo 
rary.  The  rumour  of  the  Queen's  pregnancy 
had  roused  the  passions  of  both  parties;  but 
as  soon  as  the  first  shock  had  passed,  the 
uncertain  result  produced  an  armistice,  dis 
tinguished  by  the  silence  of  anxious  expecta 
tion,  during  which  each  eagerly  but  resolutely 
waited  for  the  event,  which  might  extinguish 
the  hopes  of  one.  and  release  the  other  from 
the  restraint  of  fear. 

It  must  be  added,  that  to  fix  the  precise 
moment  when  a  wary  policy  is  to  be  ex 
changed  for  bolder  measures,  is  a  problem 
so  important,  that  a  slight  mistake  in  the 
attempt  to  solve  it  may  be  fatal,  and  yet  so 
difficult,  that  its  solution  must  generally  de 
pend  more  on  a  just  balance  of  firmness  and 
caution  in  the  composition  of  character,  than 
on  a  superiority  of  any  intellectual  faculties. 
The  two  eminent  persons  who  were  now  at 
the  head  of  the  coalition  against  the  Court, 
afforded  remarkable  examples  of  this  truth. 
Lord  Nottingham,  who  occupied  that  leading 
station  among  the  Tories,  which  the  timidity 
if  not  treachery  of  Rochester  had  left  vacant, 
was  a  man  of  firm  and  constant  character, 
but  solicitous  to  excess  for  the  maintenance 
of  that  uniformity  of  measures  and  language 
which,  indeed,  is  essential  to  the  authority 
of  a  decorous  and  grave  statesman.  Lord 
Halifax,  sufficiently  pliant,  or  perhaps  fickle, 


though  the  boldest  of  politicians  in  specula 
tion,  became  refined,  sceptical,  and  irreso 
lute,  at  the  moment  of  action.  Both  hesi 
tated  on  the  brink  of  a  great  enterprise  :  Lord 
Nottingham  pleaded  conscientious  scruples, 
and  recoiled  from  the  avowal  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  resistance  which  he  had  long  re 
probated  ;  Lord  Halifax  saw  difficulty  too 
clearly,  and  continued  too  long  lo  advise 
delay.  Those  who  knew  the  state  of  the 
latter's  mind,  observed  "the  war  between 
his  constitution  and  his  judgment;"*  in 
which,  as  usual,  the  former  gained  the  as 
cendant  for  a  longer  period  than,  in  the 
midst  of  the  rapid  progress  of  great  events, 
was  conducive  to  his  reputation. 

Some  of  the  same  causes  which  restrained 
the  manifestation  of  popular  discontent,  con 
tributed  also  to  render  the  counsels  of  the 
Government  inconstant.  The  main  subject 
of  deliberation,  regarding  the  internal  affairs 
of  the  kingdom,  continued  to  be  the  possibi 
lity  of  obtaining  the  objects  sought  for  by  a 
compliant  Parliament,  or  the  pursuit  of  them 
by  means  of  the  prerogative  and  the  army. 
On  these  questions  a  more  than  ordinary 
fluctuation  prevailed.  Early  in  the  preceding 
September,  Bonrepos,  who,  on  landing,  met 
the  King  at  Portsmouth,  had  been  surprised 
at  the  frankness  with  which  he  owned,  that 
the  repairs  and  enlargements  of  that  import 
ant  fortress  were  intended  to  strengthen  it 
against  his  subjects  :t  and  at  several  periods 
the  King  and  his  most  zealous  advisers  had 
spoken  of  the  like  projects  writh  as  little  re 
serve.  In  October  it  was  said,  "  that  if  no 
thing  could  be  done  by  parlimentary  means, 
the  King  would  do  all  by  his  prerogative  ;'; — 
an  attempt  from  which  Barillon  expected  that 
insurrection  would  ensue. J  Three  months 
after,  the  bigoted  Romanists,  whether  more 
despairing  of  a  Parliament  or  more  confident 
in  their  own  strength,  and  incensed  at  resist 
ance,  no  longer  concealed  their  contempt. for 
the  Protestants  of  the  Royal  Family,  and  the 
necessity  of  recurring  to  arms.§  The  same 
temper  showed  itself  at  the  eve  of  the  birth 
of  a  Prince.  The  King  then  declared,  that, 
rather  than  desert,  he  should  pursue  his  ob 
jects  without  a  Parliament,  in  spite  of  any 
laws  which  might  stand  in  his  way ; — a  pro 
ject  which  Louis  XIV.,  less  bigoted  and  more 
politic,  considered  "as  equally  difficult  and 
dangerous. "II  But  the  sea  might  as  well  cease 

*  Johnstone,  4th  April,— MS. 
•  Bonrepos  to  Seignelai,  4th  Sept.— Fox  MSS. 

t  Barillon,  10th  Oct.  Bonrepos  to  Seignelai 
same  date. — Fox  MSS. 

§  Johnstone,  29th  Jan.— MS.  Lady  Melfort 
overheard  the  priests  speak  to  her  husband  of 
"  blood,"  probably  with  reference  to  foreign  war, 
as  well  as  to  the  suppression  of  the  disaffected  at 
home. — "  Sidney  vous  fera  savoir  qn'apres  des 
grandes  contestations  on  est  enfin  rcsolu  de  faire 
leurs  affaires  sans  un  parlement." 

II  Barillon,  6th  May.  The  King  to  Barillon, 
14th  May. — Fox  MSS. — "  Le  projet  que  fait  la 
cour  on  vous  etes  de  renverser  toutes  les  lois 
d'Angleterre  pour  parvenir  au  but  qu'elle  se  pro 
pose,  me  paroit  d'une  difficile  et  perilleuse  execu 
tion." 


352 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


to  ebb  and  flow,  as  a  council  to  remain  for  so 
many  months  at  precisely  the  same  point  in 
regard  to  such  hazardous  designs.  In  the 
interval  between  these  plans  of  violence, 
hopes  were  sometimes  harboured  of  obtaining 
from  the  daring  fraud  of  returning  officers, 
such  a  House  of  Commons  as  could  not  be 
hoped  for  from  the  suffrages  of  any  electors ; 
but  the  prudence  of  the  Catholic  gentry,  who 
were  named  sheriffs,  appears  to  have  speed 
ily  disappointed  this  expectation.*  Neither 
do  the  Court  appear  to  have  even  adhered 
for  a  considerable  time  to  the  bold  project 
of  accomplishing  their  purposes  without  a 
Parliament.  In  moments  of  secret  misgiv 
ing,  when  they  shrunk  from  these  despe 
rate  counsels,  they  seem  frequently  to  have 
sought  refuge  in  the  flattering  hope,  that 
their  measures  to  fill  a  House  of  Commons 
with  their  adherents,  though  hitherto  so  ob 
stinately  resisted,  would  in  due  time  prove 
successful.  The  meeting  of  a  Parliament 
was  always  held  out  to  the  public,  and  was 
still  sometimes  regarded  as  a  promising  expe 
dient  :t  while  a  considerable  time  for  sound 
ing  and  moulding  the  public  temper  yet  re 
mained  before  the  three  years  within  which 
the  Triennial  Act  required  that  assembly  to 
be  called  together,  would  elapse  •  and  it 
seemed  needless  to  cut  off  all  retreat  to  le 
gal  means  till  that  time  should  expire.  The 
Queen's  pregnancy  affected  these  consulta 
tions  in  various  modes.  The  boldest  consi 
dered  it  as  likely  to  intimidate  their  enemies, 
and  to  afford  the,  happiest  opportunity  for 
immediate  action.  A  Parliament  might,  they 
said,  be  assembled,  that  would  either  yield 
to  the  general  joy  at  the  approaching  birth 
of  a  prince,  or  by  their  sullen  and  mutinous 
spirit  justify  the  employment  of  more  decisive 
measures.  The  more  moderate,  on  the  other 
hand,  thought,  that  if  the  birth  of  a  prince 
was  followed  by  a  more  cautious  policy,  and 
if  the  long  duration  of  a  Catholic  government 
were  secured  by  the  parliamentary  esta 
blishment  of  a  regency,  there  was  a  better 
chance  than  before  of  gaining  all  important 
objects  in  no  very  long  time  by  the  forms  of 
Jaw  and  without  hazard  to  the  public  quiet. 
Penn  desired  a  Parliament,  as  the  only  mode 
of  establishing  toleration  without  subverting 
the  laws,  and  laboured  to  persuade  the  King 
to  spare  the  Tests,  or  to  offer  an  equivalent 
for  such  parts  of  them  as  he  wished  to  take 
away.t  Halifax  said  to  a  friend,  who  argued 
for  the  equivalent,  "  Look  at  my  nose;  it  is 
a  very  ugly  one,  but  I  would  not  take  one 
five  hundred  times  better  as  an  equivalent, 
because  my  own  is  fast  to  my  face  ;"§  and 
made  a  more  serious  attack  on  these  danger 
ous  and  seductive  experiments,  in  his  mas 
terly  tract,  entitled  "The  Anatomy  of  an 


*  Johhstone,  8th  Dec.— MS.  "Many  of  the 
Popish  sheriffs  have  estates,  and  declare  that 
whoever  expects  false  returns  from  them  will  be 
deceived." 

t  Ibid.  21st  Feb.— MS. 

t  Ibid.  6th  Feb.— MS. 

$  Ibid.  12th  March.— MS. 


Equivalent."  Another  tract  was  published 
to  prepare  the  way  for  what  was  called  "  A 
Healing  Parliament,"  which,  in  the  midst 
of  tolerant  professions  and  conciliatory  lan- 
uage,  chiefly  attracted  notice  by  insult  and 
menace.  In  this  publication,  which,  being 
licensed  by  Lord  Sunderland,*  was  treated 
as  the  act  of  the  Government,  the  United 
Provinces  were  reminded,  that  "  their  com 
monwealth  was  the  result  of  an  absolute 
rebellion,  revolt,  and  defection,  from  their 
prince ;"  and  they  were  apprised  of  the  re 
spect  of  the  King  for  the  inviolability  of  their 
territory,  by  a  menace  thrown  out  to  Burnet, 
that  he  <•'  might  be  taken  out  of  their  country, 
and  cut  up  alive  in  England,"  in  imitation 
of  a  supposed  example  in  the  reign  of  Eliza 
beth  jt — a  threat  the  more  alarming  because 
it  was  well  known  that  the  first  part  of  such 
a  project  had  been  long  entertained,  and 
that  attempts  had  already  been  made  for  its 
execution.  Van  Citters  complained  of  this 
libel  in  vain :  the  King  expressed  wonder 
and  indignation,  that  a  complaint  should  be 
made  of  the  publication  of  an  universally 
acknowledged  truth, — confounding  the  fact 
of  resistance  with  the  condemnation  pro 
nounced  upon  it  by  the  opprobrious  terms, 
which  naturally  imported  and  were  intended 
to  affirm  that  the  resistance  was  criminal. t 
Another  pamphlet,  called  "A  New  Test  of 
the  Church  of  England's  Loyalty,"§  expos 
ed  with  scurrility  the  inconsistency  of  the 
Church's  recent  independence  with  her  long 
professions  and  solemn  decrees  of  nori-resist- 
ance,  and  hinted  that  "  His  Majesty  would 
withdraw  his  royal  protection,  which  was 
promised  upon  the  account  of  her  constant 
fidelity."  Such  menaces  were  very  serious, 
at  a  moment  when  D' Abbeville,  James'  mi 
nister  at  the  Hague,  told  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
that  "upon  some  occasions  princes  must  for 
get  their  promises ;"  and  being  "  reminded 
by  William,  that  the  King  ought  to  have  more 
regard  to  the  Church  of  England,  which  was 
the  main  body  of  the  nation,"  answered, 
"  that  the  body  called  the  <  Church  of  Eng 
land'  w^ould  riot  have  a  being  in  two  years. "|| 
The  great  charter  of  conscience  was  now 
drawn  up,  in  the  form  of  a  biJl,  and  prepared 
to  be  laid  before  Parliament.  It  was  entitled 
"  An  Act  for  granting  of  Liberty  of  Con 
science,  without  imposing  of  Oaths  and 
Tests."  The  preamble  thanks  the  King  for 
the  exercise  of  his  dispensing  power,  and 
recognises  it  as  legally  warranting  his  sub 
jects  to  enjoy  their  religion  and  their  offices 
during  his  reign  :  but,  in  order  to  perpetuate 
his  pious  and  Christian  bounty  to  his  people, 
the  bill  proceeds  to  enact,  that  all  persons 
professing  Christ  may  assemble  publicly  or 
privately,  without  any  licence,  for  the  exer 
cise  of  their  religious  worship,  and  that  all 
laws  against  nonconformity  and  recusancy, 


*  Johnstone,  15th  Feb. 
t  Parliamentum  Pacificum,  p.  57. 
t  Barillon,  19th  April.— MS. 
$  Somers'  Tracts,  vol.  ix.  p.  195. 
II  Burnet,  vol.  Hi.  p.  207. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


353 


or  exacting  oaths,  declarations,  or  tests,  or 
imposing  disabilities  or  penalties  on  religion, 
shall  be  repealed ;  and  more  especially  in 
order  "  that  his  Majesty  may  not  be  debarred 
of  the  service  of  his  subjects,  which  by  the 
law  of  nature  is  inseparably  annexed  to  his 
person,  and  over  which  no  Act  of  Parliament 
can  have  any  control,  any  further  than  he  is 
pleased  to  allow  of  the  same/''*  it  takes  away 
the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy,  and 
the  tests  and  declarations  required  by  the 
25th  and  30th  of  the  late  king,  as  qualifica 
tions  to  hold  office,  or  to  sit  in  either  House 
of  Parliament.  It  was,  moreover,  provided 
that  meetings  for  religious  worship  should 
be  open  and  peacealle;  that  notice  of  the 
place  of  assembly  should  be  given  to  a  jus 
tice  ot  the  peace  ;  that  no  seditious  sermons 
should  be  preached  in  them ;  and  that  in 
cathedral  and  collegiate  churches,  parish 
churches,  and  chapels,  no  persons  shall  offi 
ciate  but  such  as  are  duly  authorised  accord 
ing  to  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  and  no  worship 
be  used  but  what  is  conformable  to  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  therein  established;  for 
the  observance  of  which  provision, — the  only 
concession  made  by  the  bill  to  the  fears  of 
the  Establishment, — it  was  further  enacted, 
that  the  penalties  of  the  Act  of  Uniformity 
should  be  maintained  against  the  contraven 
tion  of  that  statute  in  the  above  respects.  Had 
this  bill  passed  into  a  law,  and  had  such  a 
law  been  permanently  and  honestly  execu 
ted,  Great  Britain  would  have  enjoyed  the 
blessings  of  religious  liberty  in  a  degree  un- 
imagined  by  the  statesmen  of  that  age,  and 
far  surpassing  all  that  she  has  herself  gained 
during  the  century  and  a  half  of  the  subse 
quent  progress  of  almost  all  Europe  towards 
tolerant  principles.  But  such  projects  were 
examined  by  the  nation  with  a  view  to  the 
intention  of  their  authors,  and  to  the  ten 
dency  of  their  provisions  in  the  actual  cir 
cumstances  of  the  time  and  country  ;  and  the 
practical  question  was,  whether  such  inten 
tion  and  tendency  were  not  to  relieve  the 
minority  from  intolerance,  but  to  lessen  the 
security  of  the  great  majority  against  it.  The 
speciousness  of  the  language,  and  the  libe 
rality  of  the  enactments,  in  which  it  rivalled 
the  boldest  speculations  at  that  time  hazard 
ed  by  philosophers,  were  so  contrary  to  the 
opinions,  and  so  far  beyond  the  sympathy, 
of  the  multitude,  that  none  of  the  great  divi 
sions  of  Christians  could  heartily  themselves 
adopt,  or  could  prudently  trust  each  other's 

*  This  language  seems  to  have  been  intention 
ally  equivocal.  The  words  "  allow  of  the  same," 
may  in  themselves  mean  till  he  gives  his  royal 
assent  to  the  Act.  But  in  this  construction  the 
paragraph  would  be  an  unmeaning  boast,  since  no 
bill  can  become  an  Act  of  Parliament  till  it  re 
ceives  the  royal  assent;  and,  secondly,  it  would 
be  inconsistent  with  the  previous  recognition  of 
the  legality  of  the  King's  exercise  of  the  dispens 
ing  power  ;  Charles  II.  having  given  his  assent 
to  the  Acts  dispensed  with.  It  must  therefore  be 
understood  to  declare,  that  Acts  of  Parliament 
disabling  individuals  from  serving  the  public,  re 
strain  the  King  only  till  he  dispenses  with  them. 
45 


'  sincerity  in  holding  them  forth :  they  were 
regarded  not  as  a  boon,  but  as  a  snare.  From 
the  ally  of  Louis  XIV.,  three  years  after  the 
persecution  of  the  Protestants,  they  had  the 
appearance  of  an  insulting  mockery ;  even 
though  it  was  not  then  known  that  James 
had  during  his  whole  reign  secretly  congratu 
lated  that  monarch  on  his  barbarous  mea 
sures. 

The  general  distrust  of  the  King's  designs 
arose  from  many  circumstances,  separately 
too  small  to  reach  posterity,  but,  taken  to 
gether,  sufficient  to  entitle  near  observers  to 
form  an  estimate  <?f  his  character.  When, 
about  1679,  he  had  visited  Amsterdam,  he 
declared  to  the  magistrates  of  that  liberal  and 
tolerant  city,  that  he  (i  never  was  for  oppres 
sing  tender  consciences. '/:*  The  sincerity 
of  these  tolerant  professions  was  soon  after 
tried  when  holding  a  Parliament  as  Lord 
High  Commissioner  at  Edinburgh,  in  1681, 
he  exhorted  that  assembly  to  suppress  the 
conventicles,  or,  in  other  words,  the  religious 
worship  of  the  majority  of  the  Scottish  peo- 
ple.t  It  being  difficult  for  the  fiercest  zealots 
to  devise  any  new  mode  of  persecution  which 
the  Parliament  had  not  already  tried,  he  was 
content  to  give  the  royal  assent  to  an  act 
confirmatory  of  all  those  edicts  of  blood 
already  in  force  against  the  proscribed  Pres 
byterians,  i  But  very  shortly  after,  when  the 
Earl  of  Argyle,  acting  evidently  from  the 
mere  dictates  of  conscience,  added  a  modest 
and  reasonable  explanation  to  an  oath  re 
quired  of  him,  which  without  it  would  have 
been  contradictory,  the  Lord  Commissioner 
caused  that  nobleman  to  be  prosecuted  for 
high  treason,  and  to  be  condemned  to  death 
on  account  of  his  conscientious  scruples. § 
To  complete  the  evidence  of  his  tolerant 
spirit,  it  is  only  necessary  to  quote  one  pas 
sage  which  he  himself  has  fortunately  pre 
served.  He  assures  us  that,  in  his  confi 
dential  communication  with  his  brother,  he 
represented  it  as  an  act  of  "  imprudence  to 
have  proposed  in  Parliament  the  repeal  of 
the  35th  of  Elizabeth,'5 II— a  statute  almost 
as  sanguinary  as  those  Scottish  acts  which 
he  had  sanctioned.  The  folly  of  believing 
his  assurances  of  equal  toleration  was  at  the 
time  evinced  by  his  appeal  to  those  solemn 
declarations  of  a  resolution  to  maintain  the 
Edict  of  Nantz,  with  which  Louis  XIV.  had 
accompanied  each  of  his  encroachments  on  it. 


*  Account  of  James  II. 's  visit  to  Amsterdam, 
by  William  Carr,  then  English  consul  (said  by 
mistake  to  be  in  1681). — Gentleman's  Magazine, 
vol.  lix.  part  2.  p.  659. 

t  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  i.  p.  694.  The  words 
of  his  speech  are  copied  from  his  own  MS.  Me 
moirs. 

t  Acts  of  Parliament,  vol.  viii.  p.  242. 

§  State  Trials,  vol.  viii.  p.  843.  Wodrow,  vol. 
i.  pp.  205 — 217, — a  narrative  full  of  interest,  and 
obviously  written  with  a  careful  regard  to  truth. 
Laing,  vol.  iv.  p.  125, — where  the  moral  feelings 
of  that  upright  and  sagacious  historian  are  con* 
spicuous. 

II  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  ii.  p.  656,  verbatim 
from  the  King's  Memoirs. 


354 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Where  a  belief  prevailed  that  a  law  was 
passed  without  an  intention  to  observe  it  all 
scrutiny  of  its  specific  provisions  became 
needless  : — yet  it  ought  to  be  remarked,  that 
though  it  might  be  fair  to  indemnify  those 
who  acted  under  the  dispensing  power,  the 
recognition  of  its  legality  was  at  least  a  wan 
ton  insult  to  the  Constitution,  and  appeared 
to  betray  a  wish  to  reserve  that  power  for 
further  and  more  fatal  measures.  The  dis 
pensation  which  had  been  granted  to  the 
incumbent  of  Putney  showed  the  facility 
with  which  such  a  prerogative  might  be 
employed  to  elude  the  whole  proviso  of  the 
proposed  bill  in  favour  of  the  Established 
Church.  It  contained  no  confirmation  of  the 
King's  promises  to  protect  the  endowments 
of  the  Protestant  clergy  :  and  instead  of  com 
prehending,  as  all  wise  laws  should  do,  the 
means  of  its  own  execution,  it  would  have 
facilitated  the  breach  of  its  own  most  im 
portant  enactments.  If  it  had  been  adopted 
by  the  next  Parliament,  another  still  more 
compliant  would  have  found  it  easier,  instead 
of  more  difficult,  to  establish  the  Catholic 
religion,  arid  to  abolish  toleration.  This 
essential  defect  was  confessed  rather  than 
obviated  by  the  impracticable  remedies  re 
commended  in  a  tract,*  which,  for  the  secu 
rity  of  the  great  charter  of  religious  liberty 
about  to  be  passed,  proposed  -( that  every 
man  in  the  kingdom  should,  on  obtaining  the 
age  of  twenty-one,  swear  to  observe  it ;  that 
no  Peer  or  Commoner  should  take  his  seal 
in  either  House  of  Parliament  till  he  had 
taken  the  like  oath ;  and  that  all  sheriffs,  or 
others,  making  false  returns,  or  Peers  or 
Commoners,  presuming  to  sit  in  either  House 
without  taking  the  oath,  or  who  should  move 
or  mention  any  thing  in  or  out  of  Parliament 
that  might  tend  to  the  violating  or  altering 
the  liberty  of  conscience,  should  be  hanged 
on  a  gallows  made  out  of  the  timber  of  his 
own  house,  which  was  for  that  purpose  to 
be  demolished.''!  It  seems  not  to  have 
occurred  to  this  writer  that  the  Parliament 
whom  he  thus  proposes  to  restrain,  might 
have  begun  their  operations  by  repealing  his 
oenal  laws. 

Notwithstanding  the  preparations  for  con 
vening  a  Parliament,  it  was  not  believed,  by 
the  most  discerning  and  well-informed,  that 
any  determination  was  yet  adopted  on  the 
subject.  Lord  Nottingham  early  thought 
that,  in  case  of  a  general  election,  "  few  Dis 
senters  would  be  chosen,  and  that  such  as 
were,  would  not,  in  present  circumstances , 
concur  in  the  repeal  of  so  much  as  the  penal 
laws;  because  to  do  it  might  encourage  the 
Papists  to  greater  attempts. "t  Lord  Halifax, 

*  A  New  Test  instead  of  the  Old  One.  By 
G.  S.  Licensed  24th  March,  1688. 

t  The  precedent  alleged  for  this  provision  is  the 
decree  of  Darius,  for  rebuilding  the  temple  of 
Jerusalem: — "And  I  have  made  a  decree  that 
whoever  shall  alter  this  word,  let  timber  be  pulled 
down  from  his  house,  and  being  set  up,  let  him 
hfi  hanged  thereon." — Ezra,  chap.  vi.  v.  11. 

$  Lord  Nottingham  to  the  Prince  of  Orange, 
2d  Sept.  1687.— Dalrymple,  app.  to  book  v. 


at  a  later  period,  observes.  c'  that  the  mode 
rate  Catholics  acted  reluctantly;  that  the 
Court,  rinding  their  expectations  not  answer 
ed  by  the  Dissenters,  had  thoughts  of  return 
ing  to  their  old  friends'the  High  Churchmen; 
and  that  he  thought  a  meeting  of  Parliament 
impracticable,  and  continued  as  much  an 
unbeliever  for  October,  as  he  had  before  been 
for  April."*  In  private,  he  mentioned,  as 
one  of  the  reasons  of  his  opinion,  that  some 
of  the  courtiers  had  declined  to  take  up  a 
bet  for  five  hundred  pounds,  which  he  had 
offered,  that  the  Parliament  would  not  meet 
in  October;  and  that,  though  they  liked  him 
very  little,  they  liked  his  money  as  well  as 
any  other  man's. f 

The  perplexities  and  variations  of  the 
Court  were  multiplied  by  the  subtile  and 
crooked  policy  of  Sunderland,  who,  though 
willing  to  purchase  his  continuance  in  office 
by  unbounded  compliance,  was  yet  extreme 
ly  solicitous,  by  a  succession  of  various  pro 
jects  and  reasonings  adapted  to  the  circum 
stances  of  each  moment,  to  divert  the  mind 
of  James  as  long  as  possible  from  assembling" 
Parliament,  or  entering  on  a  foreign  war,  or 
committing  any  acts  of  unusual  severity  or 
needless  insult  to  the  Constitution,  or  under 
taking  any  of  those  bold  or  even  decisive 
measures,  the  consequences  of  which  to  his 
own  power,  or  to  the  throne  of  his  sove 
reign,  no  man  could  foresee.  Sunderland 
had  gained  every  object  of  ambition  :  he 
could  only  lose  by  change,  and  instead  of 
betraying  James  by  violent  counsels,  he  ap 
pears  to  have  better  consulted  his  own  inte 
rest,  by  offering  as  prudent  advice  to  him  as 
he  could  venture  without  the  risk  of  incur 
ring  the  royal  displeasure.  He  might  lose 
his  greatness  by  hazarding  too  good  counsel, 
and  he  must  lose  it  if  his  master  was  ruined. 
Thus  placed  between  two  precipices,  and 
winding  his  course  between  them,  he  could 
fintj  safety  only  by  sometimes  approaching 
one,  and  sometimes  the  other.  Another  cir 
cumstance  contributed  to  augment  the  seem 
ing  inconsistencies  of  the  minister: — he  was 
sometimes  tempted  to  deviate  from  his  own 
path  by  the  pecuniary  gratifications  which, 
after  the  example  of  Charles  and  James,  he 
clandestinely  received  from  France: — an  in 
famous  practice,  in  that  age  very  prevalent 
|  among  European  statesmen,  and  regarded 
I  by  many  of  them  as  little  more  than  forming 
!  part  of  the  perquisites  of  office.!  It  will  ap- 
j  pear  in  the  sequel  that,  like  his  master,  he 
received  French  money  only  for  doing  what 
he  otherwise  desired  to  do :  and  that  it  rather 
induced  him  to  quicken  or  retard,  to  enlarge 
I  or  contract,  than  substantially  to  alter  his 
|  measures.  But  though  he  was  too  prudent 
I  to  hazard  the  power  which  produced  all  his 
emolument  for  a  single  gratuity,  yet  this 
dangerous  practice  must  have  multiplied  the 


*  Lord  Halifax  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  12th 
April,  168d. — Dalrymple,  app.  to  book  v. 

t  Johnstone,  27th  Feb.— MS. 

t  D'Avaux,  passim.  See  Lettres  de  De  Witt, 
vol.  iv.,  and  Ellis,  History  of  the  Iron  Mask. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


355 


windings  of  his  course  ;  and  from  these  de 
viations  arose,  in  some  measure,  the  fluc 
tuating  counsels  and  varying  language  of 
the  Government  of  which  he  was  the  chief. 
The  divisions  of  the  Court,  and  the  variety 
of  tempers  and  opinions  by  which  he  was 
surrounded,  added  new  difficulties  to  the 
game  which  he  played.  This  was  a  more 
simple  one  at  first,  while  he  coalesced  with 
the  Queen  arid  the  then  united  Catholic 
party,  and  professed  moderation  as  his  sole 
defence  against  Rochester  and  the  Protestant 
Tories;  but  after  the  defeat  of  the  latter,  and 
the  dismissal  of  their  chief,  divisions  began 
to  show  themselves  among  the  victorious 
Catholics,  which  gradually  widened  as  the 
moment  of  decisive  action  seemed  to  ap 
proach.  It  was  then*  that  he  made  an  effort 
to  strengthen  himself  by  the  revival  of  the 
office  of  Lord  Treasurer  in  his  own  person; 
— a  project  in  which  ha  endeavoured  to  en 
gage  Father  Petre  by  proposing  that  Jesuit 
to  be  his  successor  as  Secretary  of  State,  and 
in  which  he  obtained  the  co-operation  of  Sir 
Nicholas  Butler,  a  new  convert,  by  suggest 
ing  that  he  should  be  Chancellor  of  the  Ex 
chequer.  The  King,  however,  adhered  to 
his  determination  that  the  treasury  should 
be  in  commission  notwithstanding  the  ad 
vice  of  Butler,  and  the  Queen  declined  to 
interfere  in  a  matter  where  her  husband  ap 
peared  to  be  resolute.  It  should  seem,  from 
the  account  of  this  intrigue  by  James  him 
self,  that  Petre  neither  discouraged  Sunder- 
land  in  his  plan,  nor  supported  it  by  the  ex 
ercise  of  his  own  ascendency  over  the  mind 
of  the  King. 

In  the  spring  of  1688.  the  Catholics  formed 
three  separate~and  unfriendly  parties,  whose 
favour  it  was  not  easy  for  a  minister  to  pre 
serve  at  ths  same  time.  The  nobility  and 
gentry  of  England  were,  as  they  continued 
to  the  last,  adverse  to  those  rash  courses 
which  honour  obliged  them  apparently  to 
support,  but  which  they  had  always  dreaded 
as  dangerous  to  their  sovereign  and  their  re 
ligion.  Lords  Powis,  Bellasis.  and  Arundel. 
vainly  laboured  to  inculcate  their  wise  max 
ims  on  the  mind  of  James :  while  the  remains 
of  the  Spanish  influence,  formerly  so  power 
ful  among  British  Catholics,  were  employed 
by  the  ambassador,  Don  Pedro  Ronquillo,  in 
support  of  this  respectable  party.  Sunder 
land.  though  he  began,  soon  after  his  victory 
over  Rochester,  to  moderate  and  temper  the 
royal  measures,  was  afraid  of  displeasing  his 
impatient  master  by  openly  supporting  them. 
The  second  party,  which  may  be  called  the 
Papal,  was  that  of  the  Nuncio,  who  had  at 
first  considered  the  Catholic  aristocracy  as 
lukewarm  in  the  cause  of  their  religion,  but 
who,  though  he  continued  outwardly  to  coun 
tenance  all  domestic  efforts  for  the  advance- 

*  "  A  little  before  Christmas." — Life  of  James 
]T.  vol.  ii.  p.  131  ;  passages  quoted  from  James' 
Memoirs.  The  King's  own  Memoirs  are  always 
deserving  of  great  consideration,  and  in  unmixed 
cases  of  fact  are,  1  am  willing  to  hope,  generally 
conclusive. 


ment  of  the  faith,  became  at  length  more 
hostile  to  the  connection  of  James  with 
France,  than  zealous  for  the  speedy  accom 
plishment  of  that  Prince's  ecclesiastical  po 
licy  in  England.  To  him  the  Queen  seems 
to  have  adhered,  both  from  devotion  to  Rome, 
and  from  that  habitual  apprehension  of  the 
displeasure  of  the  House  of  Austria  which 
an  Italian  princess  naturally  entertained  to 
wards  the  masters  of  Lombardy  and  Na 
ples.*  When  hostility  towards  Holland  was 
more  openly  avowed,  and  when  Louis  XIV., 
no  longer  content  with  acquiescence,  began 
to  require  from  England  the  aid  of  arma 
ments  and  threats,  if  not  co-operation  in  war, 
Sunderland  and  the  Nuncio  became  more 
closely  united,  and  both  drew  nearer  to  the 
more  moderate  party.  The  third,  known  by 
the  name  of  the  French  or  Jesuit  party,  sup 
ported  by  Ireland  and  the  clergy,  and  pos 
sessing  the  personal  favour  and  confidence 
of  the  King,  considered  all  delay  in  the  ad 
vancement  of  their  religion  as  dangerous, 
and  were  devoted  to  Fiance  as  the  only  ally 
able  and  willing  to  insure  the  success  of 
their  designs.  Emboldened  by  the  preg 
nancy  of  the  Queen,  and  by  so  signal  a  mark 
of  favour  as  the  introduction  of  Father  Petre 
into  the  Council, — an  act  of  folly  which  the 
moderate  Catholics  would  have  resisted,  if 
the  secret  had  riot  been  kept  from  them  till 
the  appointment,t — they  became  impatient 
of  Sunderland's  evasion  and  procrastination, 
especially  of  his  disinclination  to  all  hostile 
demonstrations  against  Holland.  Their  agent, 
Skelton.  the  British  minister  at  Paris,  repre 
sented  the  minister's  policy  to  the  French 
Government,  as  "a  secret  opposition  to  all 
measures  against  the  interest  of  the  Prince 
of  Orange;''J  and  though  Barillon  acquits 
him  of  such  treachery,§  it  would  seem  that 
from  that  moment  he  ceased  to  enjoy  the 
full  confidence  of  the  French  party. 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  at  the  beginning 
of  the  year  Sunderland  had  prevailed  on  the 
majority  of  the  Council  to  postpone  the  call 
ing  a  Parliament  till  they  should  be  strength 
ened  by  the  recall  of  the  English  troops  from 
the  Dutch  service  :||  and  when,  two  months 
later,  just  before  the  delivery  of  the  Queen, 
(in  which  they  would  have  the  advantage  of 
the  expectation  of  a  Prince  of  Wales,)  the 
King  and  the  majority  of  the  Council  declared 
for  this  measure,  conformably  to  his  policy  of 
delaying  decisive,  and  perhaps  irretrievable 

*  The  King  to  Barillon,  2d  June. — MS.  Louis 
heard  of  this  partiality  from  his  ministers  at  Ma 
drid  and  Vienna,  and  desired  Barillon  to  insinuate 
to  her  that  neither  she  nor  her  husband  had  any 
thing  to  hope  from  Spain. 

t  The  account  of  Petre's  advancement  by  Dodd 
is  a  specimen  of  the  opinion  entertained  by  the 
secular  clergy  of  the  regulars,  but  especially  of 
the  Jesuits. 

t  The  King  to  Barillon,  llth  Dec.  1687.— MS. 

$  Barillon  to  the  King,  5th  Jan.  1688.— MS. 

II  Johnstone,  16th  Jan. — MS.  "  Sidney  believes 
that  Sunderland  has  prevailed,  after  a  great  strug 
gle,  to  dissuade  the  Council  from  a  war  or  a  Par 
liament.'' 


356 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


steps,  he  again  resisted  it  with  success,  on 
the  ground  that  matters  were  not  ripe,  that 
it  required  much  longer  time  to  prepare  the 
corporations,  and  that,  if  the  Nonconformists 
in  the  Parliament  should  prove  mutinous,  an 
opposition  so  nafional  would  render  the  em 
ployment  of  any  other  means  more  hazard 
ous.*  Sunderland  owed  his  support  to  the 
Queen,  who.  together  with  the  Nuncio,  pro 
tected  him  from  the  attack  of  Father  Petre, 
•who.  after  a  considerable  period  of  increasing 
estrangement,  had  now  declared  against  him 
with  violence.!  In  the  meantime  the  French 
Government,  which  had  hitherto  affected 
impartiality  in  the  divisions  of  the  British 
Catholics,  had  made  advances  to  Petre  as  he 
receded  from  Sunderland  ;  while  the  former 
had.  as  long  ago  as  January,  declared  in 
Council,  that  the  Kin^  ought  to  be  solicitous 
only  for  the  friendship  of  France. $  James 
now  desired  Barillon  to  convey  the  assurances 
of  his  high  esteem  for  the  Jesuit  ;§  and  the 
ambassador  undertook  to  consider  of  some 
more  efficacious  proof  of  respect  to  him, 
agreeably  to  the  King's  commands. II 

Henceforward  the  power  of  Sunderland 
was  seen  to  totter.  It  was  thought  that  he 
himself  saw  that  it  could  not,  even  with  the 
friendship  of  the  Queen,  stand  long,  since 
the  French  ambassador  had  begun  to  trim, 
and  the  whole  French  party  leant  against 
him. IF  Petre,  through  whom  Sunderland  for 
merly  had  a  hold  on  the  Jesuit  party,  became 
now  himself  a  formidable  rival  for  power, 
and  was  believed  to  be  so  infatuated  by  am 
bition  as  to  pursue  the  dignity  of  a  cardinal, 
that  he  might  more  easily  become  prime 
minister  of  England.**  At  a  later  period, 
Barclay,  the  celebrated  Quaker,  boasted  of 
having  reconciled  Sunderland  to  Melfort, 
trusting  that  it  would  be  the  ruin  of  Petre  ;tt 
and  Sunderland  then  told  thetyuricio  that  he 
considered  it  as  the  first  principle  of  the 
King's  policy  to  frame  all  his  measures  with 
a  view  to  their  reception  by  Parliament  ;tt — 
a  strong  proof  of  the  aversion  to  extreme 
measures,  to  which  he  afterwards  adhered. 
A  fitter  opportunity  wall  present  itself  here 
after  for  relating  the  circumstances  in  which 
he  demanded  a  secret  gratuity  from  France, 
in  addition  to  his  pension  from  that  Court  of 
60.000  livres  yearly  (2500L);  of  the  skill 
with  which  Barillon  beat  down  his  demands, 

"  D'Adda,  12th  March.— MS.  "II  y  avaient 
beaucoup  d'intrigues  et  de  cabales  de  coursur  cela 
dirigees  contre  mi  Lord  Sunderland  :  la  reine  le 
soutient,  etil  aemporte." — Barillon,  Mazure,  His- 
toire  de  la  Revolution,  vol.  ii.  p.  399.  Shrewsbury 
to  the  Prince  of  Orange  (communicating  the  dis 
union),  14th  March,  1688.  Dalrymple,  app.  to 
books  v.  and  vi. 

t  Van  Citters,  9t.h  April.— MS. 

t  Barillon,  2d  Feb.— MS. 

$  The  King  to  Barillon,  19th  March.— MS. 

II  Barillon,  29th  March.— MS. 

If  Johnstone,  12th  March  and  2d  April.— MS. 

**  Lettre  au  Roi,  1  Aout,  1687,  in  the  Depot  des 
Affaires  Etrangeres  at  Paris,  not  signed,  but  pro 
bably  from  Bonrepos. 

tt  Clarendon,  Diary,  23d  June. 

M  D' Adda,  4th  June.— MS. 


and  made  a  bargain  less  expensive  to  his 
Government  j  and  of  the  address  with  which 
Sunderland  claimed  the  bribe  for  measures 
on  which  he  had  before  determined, — so  that 
he  might  seem  rather  to  have  obtained  it 
under  false  pretences,  than  to  have  been 
diverted  by  it  from  his  own  policy.  It  is 
impossible  to  trace  clearly  the  serpentine 
course  of  an  intriguing  minister,  whose  opi 
nions  were  at  variance  with  his  language, 
and  whose  craving  passions  often  led  him 
astray  from  his  interest:  but  an  attempt  to 
discover  it  is  necessary  to  the  illustration  of 
the  government  of  James.  In  general,  then, 
it  seems  to  be  clear  that,  from  the  beginning 
of  1687,  Sunderland  had  struggled  in  secret 
to  moderate  the  measures  of  the  Govern 
ment:  and  that  it  was  not  till  the  spring  of 
1688,  when  he  carried  that  system  to  the 
utmost,  that  the  decay  of  his  power  became 
apparent.  As  Halifax  had  lost  his  office  by 
liberal  principles,  and  Sunderland  had  out 
bidden  Rochester  for  the  King's  favour,  so 
Sunderland  himself  was  now  on  the  eve  of 
being  overthrown  by  the  influence  of  Petre, 
at  a  time  when  no  successor  of  specious  pre 
tensions  presented  himself.  He  seems  to 
have  made  one  attempt  to  recover  strength, 
by  remodelling  the'  Cabinet  Council.  For  a 
considerable  Time  the  Catholic  counsellors 
had  been  summoned  separately,  together 
with  Sunderland  himself,  on  all  confidential 
affairs,  while  the  more  ordinary  business  only 
was  discussed  in  the  presence  of  the  Protest 
ants: — thus  forming  t\vo  Cabinets;  one  os 
tensible,  the  other  secret.  He  now  proposed 
to  form  them  into  one,  in  order  to  remove  the 
jealousy  of  the  Protestant  counsellors,  and 
to  encourage  them  to  promote  the  King's 
designs.  To  this  united  Cabinet  the  affairs 
of  Scotland  arid  Ireland  were  to  be  commit 
ted,  which  had  been  separately  administered 
before,  with  manifest  disadvantage  to  uni 
formity  and  good  order.  Foreign  affairs,  and 
others  requiring  the  greatest  secrecy,  were 
still  to  be  reserved  to  a  smaller  number. 
The  public  pretences  for  this  change  were 
specious:  but  the  object  was  to  curb  the 
power  of  Petre,  who  now  ruled  without  con 
trol  in  a  secret  cabal  of  his  own  communion 
and  selection.* 

The  party  which  had  now  the  undisputed 
ascendant  were  denominated  u  Jesuits."  as 
a  term  of  reproach,  by  the  enemies  of  that 
famous  society  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  as 
well  as  by  those  among  the  Protestant  com 
munions.  A  short  account  of  their  origin 
and  character  may  facilitate  a  faint  concep 
tion  of  the  admiration,  jealousy,  fear,  and 
hatred, — the  profound  submission  or  fierce 
resistance,  —  which  that  formidable  name 
once  inspired.  Their  institution  originated 
in  pure  zeal  for  religion,  glowing  in  the  breast 
of  Loyola,  a  Spanish  soldier, — a  man  full  of 
imagination  and  sensibility,  —  in  a  country 
where  wars,  rather  civil  than  foreign,  waged 
against  unbelievers  for  ages,  had  rendered  a 


D'Adda,  23d April— MS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  i688. 


357 


passion  for  spreading  the  Catholic  faith  a 
national  point  of  honour,  and  blended  it  with 
the  pursuit  of  glory  as  well  as  with  the  me 
mory  of  past  renown.  The  legislative  fore 
thought  of  his  successors  gave  form  and  order 
to  the  product  of  enthusiasm,  and  bestowed 
laws  and  institutions  on  their  society  which 
were  admirably  fitted  to  its  various  ends.* 
Having  arisen  in  the  age  of  the  Reformation, 
they  naturally  became  the  champions  of  the 
Church  against  her  new  enemies, — and  in 
that  also  of  the  revival  of  letters,  instead  of 
following  the  example  of  the  unlettered 
monks,  who  decried  knowledge  as  the  mo 
ther  of  heresy,  they  joined  in  the  general 
movement  of  mankind ;  they  cultivated  polite 
literature  with  splendid  success;  they  were 
the  earliest  and,  perhaps,  most  extensive  re 
formers  of  European  education,  which,  in 
their  schools,  made  a  larger  stride  than  it  has 
done  at  any  succeeding  moment  ;t  and,  by 
the  just  reputation  of  their  learning,  as  well 
as  by  the  weapons  with  which  it  armed  them, 
they  were  enabled  to  carry  on  a  vigorous 
contest  against  the  most  learned  impugners 
of  the  authority  of  the  Church.  Peculiarly 
subjected  to  the  See  of  Rome  by  their  con 
stitution,  they  became  ardently  devoted  to 
its  highest  pre;ensions,  in  order  to  maintain  a 
monarchical  power,  the  necessity  of  which 
they  felt  for  concert,  discipline,  and  energy 
in  their  theological  warfare. 

While  the  nations  of  the  Peninsula  hasten 
ed  with  barbaric  chivalry  to  spread  religion 
by  the  sword  in  the  newly  explored  regions 
of  the  East  and  West,  the  Jesuits  alone,  the 
missionaries  of  that  age.  either  repaired  or 
atoned  for  the  evils  caused  by  the  misguided 
zeal  of  their  countrymen.  In  India,  they 
suffered  martyrdom  with  heroic  constancy. J 
They  penetrated  through  the  barrier  which 


*  Originally  consisting  of  seven  men,  the  so 
ciety  possessed,  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury,  one  thousand  five  hundred  colleges,  and  con 
tained  twenty-two  thousand  avowed  members. 
Parts  of  their  constitution  were  allowed  (by  Paul 
IIL )  to  be  kept  and  to  be  altered,  without  the 
privity  of  the  Pope  himself.  The  simple  institu 
tion  of  lay  brethren,  combined  with  the  privilege 
of  secrecy,  afforded  the  means  of  enlisting  power 
ful  individuals,  among  whom  Louis  XIV.  and 
James  II.  are  generally  numbered. 

t  "  For  education,"  says  Bacon,  within  fifty 
years  of  the  institution  of  the  Order,  "consult  the 
schools  of  the  Jesuits.  Nothing  hitherto  tried  in 
practice  surpasses  them.'' — De  Augment.  Scient. 
lib.  vi.  cap.  4.  "  Education,  that  excellent  part  of 
ancient  discipline,  has  been,  in  some  sorts,  revived 
of  late  times  in  the  colleges  of  the  Jesuits,  of 
whom,  in  regard  of  this  and  of  some  other  points' 
of  human  learning  and  moral  matters,  I  may  say, 
"  Talis  cum  sis  utinam  npster  esses." — Advance 
ment  of  Learning,  book  i.  Such  is  the  disinter 
ested  testimony  of  the  wisest  of  men  to  the  merit 
of  the  Jesuits,  to  the  unspeakable  importance  of 
reforming  education,  and  to  the  infatuation  of  those 
who,  in  civilized  nations,  attempt  to  resist  new 
opinions  by  mere  power,  without  calling  in  aid 
such  a  show  of  reason,  if  not  the  whole  substance 
of  reason,  as  cannot  be  maintained  without  a  part 
of  the  substance. 

t  See  the  Lettres  Edifiantes,  &c. 


Chinese  policy  opposed  to  the  entrance  of 
strangers, — cultivating  the  most  difficult  of 
languages  with  such  success  as  to  compose 
hundreds  of  volumes  in  it ;  and,  by  the  pub 
lic  utility  of  their  scientific  acquirements, 
obtained  toleration,  patronage,  and  personal 
honours,  from  that  jealous  government.  The 
natives  of  America,  who  generally  felt  the 
comparative  superiority  of  the  European  race 
only  in  a  more  rapid  or  a  more  gradual  de 
struction,  and  to  whom  even  the  excellent 
Quakers  dealt  out  little  more  than  penurious 
justice,  were,  under  the  paternal  rule  of  the 
Jesuits,  reclaimed  from  savage  manners, 
and  instructed  in  the  arts  and  duties  of  civi 
lized  life.  At  the  opposite  point  of  society, 
they  were  fitted  by  their  release  from  con 
ventual  life,  arid  their  allowed  intercourse 
with  the  world,  for  the  perilous  office  of 
secretly  guiding  the  conscience  of  princes. 
They  maintained  the  highest  station  as  a 
religions  body  in  the  literature  of  Catholic 
countries.  No  other  association  ever  sent 
forth  so  many  disciples  who  reached  such 
eminence  in  departments  so  various  and  un 
like.  While  some  of  their  number  ruled 
the  royal  penitents  at  Versailles  or  the  Escu- 
rial,  others  were  teaching  the  use  of  the 
spade  and  the  shuttle  to  the  naked  savages 
of  Paraguay;  a  third  body  daily  endangered 
their  lives  in  an  attempt  to  convert  the  Hin 
dus  to  Christianity;  a  fourth  carried  on  the 
controversy  against  the  Reformers  ;  a  portion 
were  at  liberty  to  cultivate  polite  literature; 
while  the  greater  part  continued  to  be  em 
ployed  either  in  carrying  on  the  education 
of  Catholic  Europe,  or  in  the  government  of 
their  society,  and  in  ascertaining  the  ability 
and  disposition  of  the  junior  members,  so 
that  well-qualified  men  might  be  selected 
for  the  extraordinary  variety  of  offices  in  their 
immense  commonwealth.  The  most  famous 
constitutionalists,  the  most  skilful  casuists, 
the  ablest  schoolmasters,  the  most  celebrated 
professors,  the  best  teachers  of  the  humblest 
mechanical  arts,  the  missionaries  who  could 
most  bravely  encounter  martyrdom,  or  who 
wTith  most  patient  skill  could  infuse  the  rudi 
ments  of  religion  into  the  minds  of  ignorant 
tribes  or  prejudiced  nations,  were  the  growth 
of  their  fertile  schools.  The  prosperous  ad 
ministration  of  such  a  society  for  two  cen 
turies,  is  probably  the  strongest  proof  afford 
ed  from  authentic  history  that  an  artificially- 
formed  system  of  government  and  education 
is  capable,  under  some  circumstances,  of 
accomplishing  greater  things  than  the  gene 
ral  experience  of  it  would  warrant  us  in  ex 
pecting. 

Even  here,  however,  the  materials  were 
supplied,  and  the  first  impulse  given  by  en 
thusiasm  :  and  in  this  memorable  instance 
the  defects  of  such  a  system  are  discover 
able.  The  whole  ability  of  the  members 
being  constantly,  exclusively,  and  intensely 
directed  to  the  various  purposes  of  their 
Order,  their  minds  had  not  the  leisure,  or 
liberty,  necessary  for  works  of  genius,  or 
even  for  discoveries  *in  science, — to  say  no- 


358 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


thing  of  the  original  speculations  in  philoso 
phy  which  are  interdicted  by  implicit  faith. 
That  great  society,  which  covered  the  world 
for  two  hundred  years,  has  no  names  wrhich 
can  be  opposed  to  those  of  Pascal  and  Ra 
cine,  produced  by  the  single  community  of 
Port  Royal,  persecuted  as  it  was  during  the 
greater  part  of  its  short  existence.  But  this 
remarkable  peculiarity  amounts  perhaps  to 
little  more  than  that  they  were  more  emi 
nent  in  active  than  in  contemplative  life. 
A  far  more  serious  objection  is  the  manifest 
tendency  of  such  a  system,  while  it  produces 
the  precise  excellences  aimed  at  by  its  mode 
of  cultivation,  to  raise  up  all  the  neighbour 
ing  evils  with  a  certainty  and  abundance, — 
a  size  and  malignity, — unknown  to  the  freer 
growth  of  nature.  The  mind  is  narrowed  by 
the  constant  concentration  of  the  understand 
ing  ;  and  those  who  are  habitually  intent  on 
one  object  learn  at  last  to  pursue  it  at  the 
expense  of  others  equally  or  more  important. 
The  Jesuits,  the  reformers  of  education, 
sought  to  engross  it,  as  well  as  to  stop  it  at 
their  own  point.  Placed  in  the  front  of  the 
battle  against  the  Protestants,  they  caught  a 
more  than  ordinary  portion  of  that  theolo 
gical  hatred  against  their  opponents  which 
so  naturally  springs  up  where  the  greatness 
of  the  community,  the  fame  of  the  contro 
versialist,  and  the  salvation  of  mankind  seem 
to  be  at  stake.  Affecting  more  independence 
in  their  missions  than  other  religious  orders, 
they  were  the  formidable  enemies  of  episco 
pal  jurisdiction,  and  thus  armed  against  them 
selves  the  secular  clergy,  especially  in  Great 
Britain,  where  they  were  the  chief  mission 
aries.  Intrusted  with  the  irresponsible  guid 
ance  of  Kings,  they  were  too  often  betrayed 
into  a  compliant  morality, — excused  probably 
to  themselves,  by  the  great  public  benefits 
which  they  might  thus  obtain,  by  the  nume 
rous  temptations  which  seemed  to  palliate 
royal  vices,  and  by  the  real  difficulties  of 
determining,  in  many  instances,  whether 
there  was  more  danger  of  deterring  such 
persons  from  virtue  by  unreasonable  auste 
rity,  or  of  alluring  them  into  vice  by  unbe 
coming  relaxation.  This  difficulty  is  indeed 
so  great,  that  casuistry  has,  in  general,  vi 
brated  between  these  extremes,  rather  than 
rested  near  the  centre.  To  exalt  the  Papal 
power  they  revived  the  scholastic  doctrine 
of  the  popular  origin  of  government, — that 
rulers  might  be  subject  to  the  people,  while 
the  people  themselves,  on  all  questions  so 
difficult  as  those  which  relate  to  the  limits 
of  obedience,  were  to  listen  with  reverential 
submission  to  the  judgment  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  the  common  pastor  of  sovereigns  and 
subjects,  and  the  unerring  oracle  of  riumble 
Christians  in  all  cases  of  perplexed  con 
science.*  The  ancient  practice  of  excom- 

*  It  is  true  that  Mariana  (De  Rege  et  Regis  In- 
stituiione)  only  contends  for  the  right  of  the  people 
to  depose  sovereigns,  without  building  the  autho 
rity  of  the  Pope  on  that  principle,  as  the  school 
men  have  expressly  done  ;  but  his  manifest  appro 
bation  of  the  assassination  of  Henry  III.  by  Cle- 


munication,  which,  in  its  original  principle, 
was  no  more  than  the  expulsion  from  a  com 
munity  of  an  individual  who  did  not  observe 
its  rules,  being  stretched  so  far  as  to  inter 
dict  intercourse  writh  offenders,  and,  by  con 
sequence,  to  suspend  duty  towards  them, 
became,  in  the  middle  age,  the  means  of  ab 
solving  nations  from  obedience  to  excommu 
nicated  sovereigns.*  Under  these  specious 
colours  both  Popes  and  Councils  had  been 
guilty  of  alarming  encroachments  on  the 
civil  authority.  The  Church  had,  indeed, 
never  solemnly  adopted  the  principle  of  these 
usurpations  into  her  rule  of  faith  or  of  life, 
though  many  famous  doctors  gave  them  a 
dangerous  countenance:  but  she  had  not 
condemned  or  even  disavowed  those  equally 
celebrated  divines  who  resisted  them  :  arid 
though  the  Court  of  Rome  undoubtedly  pa 
tronised  opinions  so  favourable  to  its  power, 
the  Catholic  Church,  which  had  never  pro 
nounced  a  collective  judgment  on  them,  was 
still  at  liberty  to  disclaim  them,  without 
abandoning  her  haughty  claim  of  exemption 
from  fundamental  error.! 

On  the  Jesuits,  as  the  most  staunch  of  the 
polemics  who  struggled  to  exalt  the  Church 
above  the  State,  and  who  ascribed  to  the 
Supreme  Pontiff  an  absolute  power  over  the 
Church,  the  odium  of  these  doctrines  princi 
pally  fell.t  Among  Reformed  nations,  and 
especially  in  Great  Britain,  the  greatest  of 
them,  the  whole  Order  were  regarded  as  in 
cendiaries  who  were  perpetually  plotting  the 
overthrow  of  all  Protestant  governments,  and 
as  immoral  sophists  who  employed  their 
subtle  casuistry  to  silence  the  remains  of 
conscience  in  tyrants  of  their  own  persua 
sion.  Nor  was  the  detestation  of  Protestants 
rewarded  by  general  popularity  in  Catholic 
countries:  all  other  regulars  envied  their 
greatness;  the  universities  dreaded  their  ac 
quiring  a  monopoly  of  education  ;  while  mo- 
narchs  the  most  zealously  Catholic,  though 
they  often  favoured  individual  Jesuits,  looked 
with  fear  and  hatred  on  a  society  which 
would  reduce  them  to  the  condition  of  vas 
sals  of  the  priesthood.  In  France,  the  ma- 
I  gistrates,  who  preserved  their  integrity  and 
dignity  in  the  midst  of  general  servility, 
maintained  a  more  constant  conflict  with 
these  formidable  adversaries  of  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  State  and  the  Church.  The 
Kings  of  Spain  and  Portugal  envied  their 
well-earned  authority,  in  the  missions  of 


merit,  a  fanatical  partisan  of  the  League,  suffi 
ciently  discloses  his  purpose.  See  La  Mennais, 
La  Religion  considered  dans  ses  Rapports  avec 
1'Ordre  politique.  (Paris,  1826.) 

*  Fleury,  Discours  sur  1'Histoire  Ecclesiastique. 
No.  iii.  sect.  18. 

t  "  II  est  vrai  que  Gregoire  VII.  n'a  jamais  fait 
aucune  decision  sur  ce  point.  Dieu  ne  Vapas  per- 
wiis." — Ibid.  It  is  evident  that  if  such  a  determi 
nation  had,  in  Fleury's  opinion,  subsequently  been 
pronounced  by  the  Church,  the  last  words  of  this 
passage  would  have  been  unreasonable. 

t  Bayle,  Dictionnaire  Historique,  &c.,  article 
"  Bellarmine," — who  is  said  by  that  unsuspected 
judge  to  have  had  the  best  pen  for  controversy  of 
any  man  of  that  age. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


359 


Paraguay  and  California,  over  districts  which 
they  had  conquered  from  the  wilderness. 
The  impenetrable  mystery  in  which  a  part 
of  their  constitution  was  enveloped,  though 
it  strengthened  their  association,  and  secured 
the  obedience  of  its  members,  was  an  irre 
sistible  temptation  to  abuse  power,  and  justi 
fied  the  apprehensions  of  temporal  sove 
reigns,  while  it  opened  an  unbounded  scope 
for  heinous  accusations.  Even  in  the  eigh 
teenth  century,  when  many  of  their  peculi 
arities  had  become  faint,  and  when  they 
were  perhaps  little  more  than  the  most  ac 
complished,  opulent,  and  powerful  of  religi 
ous  orders,  they  were  charged  with  spread 
ing  secret  confraternities  over  France.*  The 
greatness  of  the  body  became  early  so  in 
vidious  as  to  be  an  obstacle  to  the  advance 
ment  of  their  members;  arid  it  was  generally 
believed  that  if  Bellarmine  had  belonged  to 
any  other  than  the  most  powerful  Order  in 
Christendom,  he  would  have  been  raised  to 
the  chair  of  Peter.t  The  Court  of  Rome 
itself,  for  whom  they  had  sacrificed  all, 
dreaded  auxiliaries  so  potent  that  they  might 
easily  become  masters;  and  these  cham 
pions  of  the  Papal  monarchy  were  regarded 
with  jealousy  by  Popes  whose  policy  they 
aspired  to  dictate  or  control.  But  temporary 
circumstances  at  this  time  created  a  more 
than  ordinary  alienation  between  them. 

In  their  original  character  of  a  force  raised 
for  the  defence  of  the  Church  against  the 
Lutherans,  the  Jesuits  always  devoted  them 
selves  to  the  temporal  sovereign  who  was  at 
the  head  of  the  Catholic  party.  They  were 
attached  to  Philip  II.,  at  the  time  when  Sex- 
tus  V.  dreaded  his  success;  and  they  now 

E laced  their  hopes  on  Louis  XIV.,  in  spite  of 
is  patronage,  for  a  time,  of  the  independent 
rnaxims  of  the  Gallican  Church. i  On  the 
other  hand,  Odeschalchi,  who  governed  the 
Church  under  the  name  of  Innocent  XL, 
feared  the  growing  power  of  France,  resent 
ed  the  independence  of  the  Gallican  Church, 
and  was,  to  the  last  degree,  exasperated  by 
the  insults  offered  to  him  in  his  capital  by 
the  command  of  Louis.  He  was  born  in  the 
Spanish  province  of  Lombardy,  and,  as  an 
Italian  sovereign,  he  could  riot  be  indifferent 
to  the  bombardment  of  Genoa,  and  to  the 
humiliation  of  that  respectable  republic,  in 
the  required  public  submission  of  the  Doge 
at  Versailles.  As  soon  then  as  James  be 
came  the  pensioner  and  creature  of  Louis,  the 
resentments  of  Odeschalchi  prevailed  over 
his  zeal  for  the  extension  of  the  Church. 


*  Montlosier  Mcmoire  a  consulter  (Paris,  1826), 
pp.  20,  22, — quoted  only  to  prove  that  such  accu 
sations  were  made. 

t  Bayle,  article  "Bellarmine." 

t  Bayle,  Nouvelles  de  la  Republique  des  Let- 
tres,  April,  1686.  "  Aujourd'hui  plus  attaches  a 
la  France  qu'a  1'Espagne." — Ibid.  Nov.  They 
were  charged  with  giving  secret  intelligence  to 
Louis  XIV.  of  the  state  of  the  Spanish  Nether 
lands.  The  French  Jesuits  suspended  for  a  year 
the  execution  of  the  Pope's  order  to  remove 
Father  Maimbourg  from  their  society,  in  conse 
quence  of  a  direction  from  the  King. 


The  Jesuits  had  treated  him  and  those  of  his 
predecessors  who  hesitated  between  them 
and  their  opponents  with  offensive  liberty;* 
but  while  they  bore  sway  at  Versailles  and 
St.  James',  they  were,  on  that  account,  less 
obnoxious  to  the  Roman  Court.  Men  of  wit, 
remarked  at  Paris,  that  things  would  never 
go  on  well  till  the  Pope  became  a  Catho 
lic,  and  King  James  a  Huguenot.t  Such 
were  the  intricate  and  dark  combinations  of 
opinions,  passions,  and  interests  which  placed 
the  Nuncio  in  opposition  to  the  most  potent 
Order  of  the  Church,  and  completed  the 
alienation  of  the  British  nation  from  James, 
by  bringing  on  the  party  which  now  ruled 
his  councils,  the  odious" and  terrible  name 
of  Jesuits. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Declaration  of  Indulgence  renewed. — Order 
that  it  should  be  read  in  Churches. — Delibe 
rations  of  the  Clergy. — Petition  of  the 
Bishops  to  the  King. — Their  examination 
before  the  Privy  Council,  Committal^  Trial, 
and  Acquittal. — Rejections. — Conversion  of 
Sundcrland. — Birth  of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 
—State  of  Affairs. 

WHEN  the  changes  in  the  secret  councils 
of  the  King  had  rendered  them  most  irre 
concilable  to  the  national  sentiments,  and 
wrhen  the  general  discontent  produced  by 
progressive  encroachment  had  quietly  grown 
into  disaffection,  nothing  was  wanting  to  the 
least  unfortunate  result  of  such  an  alienation, 
but  that  an  infatuated  Government  should  ex 
hibit  to  the  public  thus  disposed  one  of  those 
tragic  spectacles  of  justice  violated,  of  reli 
gion  menaced,  of  innocence  oppressed,  of 
unarmed  dignity  outraged,  with  all  the  con 
spicuous  solemnities  of  abused  law,  in  the 
persons  of  men  of  exalted  rank  and  venerated 
functions  who  encounter  wrongs  and  indigni 
ties  with  mild  intrepidity.  Such  scenes,  per 
formed  before  a  whole  nation,  revealed  to 
each  man  the  hidden  thoughts  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  added  the  warmth  of  personal  feel 
ing  to  the  strength  of  public  principle,  ani 
mated  patriotism  by  the  pity  and  indignation 
which  the  sufferings  of  good  men  call  forth, 
and  warmed  every  heart  by  the  reflection  of 
the  same  passions  from  the  hearts  of  thou 
sands;  until  at  length  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
nation,  springing  up  in  the  bosoms  of  the 
generous  and  brave,  breathed  a  momentary 
spirit  into  the  most  vulgar  souls,  and  dragged 


*  Ibid.,  Oct.  and  Nov. 

t      "  Le  chevalier  de  Silleri, 

En  parlant  de  ce  Pape-ci, 
Souhaitoit,  pour  la  paix  publiquo, 
Qu'il  se  flit  rendu  Catholique, 
Et  le  roi  Jacques  Huguenot." 

La  Fontaine  to  the  Due  de  Vendome. 

Racine  (Prologue  to  Esther)  expresses  the  same 

sentiments  in  a  milder  form  : — 

"  Et  1'enfer,  couvrant  tout  de  sesvapeursfunebres, 

Sur  les  yeux  les  plus  saints  a  jete  les  tenebres." 


360 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


into  its  service  the  herd  of  the  selfish,  the 
cold,  the  mean,  and  the  cowardly.  The  com 
bustibles  were  accumulated:  a  spark  was 
only  wanting  to  kindle  the  flame.  Accidents 
in  themselves  trivial,  seem  on  this  occasion, 
as  in  other  times  and  countries,  to  have  filled 
up  the  measure  of  provocation.  In  such  a 
government  as  that  of  James,  formed  of  ad 
verse  parties,  more  intent  on  weakening  or 
supplanting  each  other  than  on  securing  their 
common  foundation,  every  measure  was  too 
much  estimated  by  its  bearing  on  these  un- 
avowed  objects,  to  allow  a  calm  considera 
tion  of  its  effect  on  the  interest  or  even  on 
the  temper  of  the  public. 

On  the  27th  of  April,  the  King  republished 
his  Declaration  of  the  former  year  for  Lib 
erty  of  Conscience  ; — a  measure,  apparently 
insignificant,*  which  was  probably  proposed 
by  Sunderland,  to  indulge  his  master  in  a 
harmless  show  of  firmness,  which  might  di 
vert  him  from  rasher  councils.!  To  this 
Declaration  a  supplement  was  annexed,  de 
claring,  that  the  King  was  confirmed  in  his 
purpose  by  the  numerous  addresses  which 
had  assured  him  of  the  national  concurrence  : 
that  he  had  removed  all  civil  and  military 
officers  who  had  refused  to  co-operate  with 
him-  and  that  he  trusted  that  the  people 
would  do  their  part,  by  the  choice  of  fit 
members  to  serve  in  Parliament,  which  he 
was  resolved  to  assemble  in  November  "  at 
farthest."  This  last,  and  only  important 
part  of  the  Proclamation,  was  promoted  by 
the  contending  parties  in  the  Cabinet  with 
opposite  intentions.  The  moderate  Catho 
lics,  and  Penn,  whose  fault  was  only  an  un 
seasonable  zeal  for  a  noble  principle,  desired 
a  Parliament  from  a  hope,  that  if  its  convo 
cation  were  not  too  long  delayed,  it  might 
produce  a  compromise,  in  which  the  King- 
might  for  the  time  be  contented  with  an 
universal  toleration  of  worship.  The  Jesuiti 
cal  party  also  desired  a  Parliament ;  but  it 
was  because  they  hoped  that  it  would  pro 
duce  'a  final  rupture,  and  a  recurrence  to 
those  more  vigorous  means  which  the  age  of 
the  King  now  required,  and  the  safety  of 
which  the  expected  birth  of  a  Prince  of 
Wales  appeared  to  warrant. I  Snnderiand 
acquiesced  in  the  insertion  of  this  pledge, 
because  he  hoped  to  keep  the  violent  in 
check  by  the  fear  of  the  Parliament,  and 
partly,  also,  because  he  by  no  means  had 
determined  to  redeem  the  pledge.  '-This 
language  is  held,"  said  he  to  Barillon  (who 
was  alarmed  at  the  sound  of  a  Parliament). 
il  rather  to  show,  that  Parliament  will  not 
meet  for  six  months,  than  that  it  will  be  then 
assembled,  which  must  depend  on  the  pub 
lic  temper  at  that  time."§  For  so  far,  it 

*  "  The  Declaration,  so  long  spoken  of,  isipub- 
lished.  As  nothing  is  said  more  than  last  year, 
politicians  cannot  understand  the  reason  of  so  ill 
umed  a  measure." — Van  Citters,  llth  May.  (Se 
cret  Despatch.)  MS. 

t  Barillon,  6ih  May.— MS. 

t  Burnett,  vol.  iii.  p.  211. 

$  Barillon    13th  May.— MS. 


seems,  did  this  ingenious  statesman  carry 
his  system  of  liberal  interpretation,  that  he 
employed  words  in  the  directly  opposite 
sense  to  that  in  which  they  were  understood. 
So  jarring  were  the  motives  from  which  this 
Declaration  proceeded,  and  so  opposite  the 
constructions  of  which  its  authors  represent 
ed  it  to  be  capable.  Had  no  other  step, 
however,  been  taken  but  the  publication,  it 
is  not  probable  that  it  would  have  been  at 
tended  by  serious  consequences. 

But  in  a  week  afterwards,  an  Order  was 
made  by  the  King  in  Council,  commanding 
the  Declaration  to  be  read  at  the  usual  time 
of  divine  service,  in  all  the  churches  in  Lon 
don  on  the  20th  and  27th  of  May,  and  in  all 
those  in  the  country  on  the  3d  and  10th  of 
June.*  Who  was  the  adviser  of  this  Order, 
which  has  acquired  such  importance  from  its 
immediate  effects,  has  not  yet  been  ascer 
tained.  It  was  publicly  disclaimed  by  Sun 
derland,!  but  at  a  time  which  would  have 
left  no  value  to  his  declaration,  but  what  it 
might  derive  from  being  uncontradicted  :  and 
it  was  agreeable  to  the  general  tenor  of  his 
policy.  It  now  appears,  however,  that  he 
and  other  counsellors  disavowed  it  at  the 
time  ]  and  they  seem  to  have  been  believed 
by  keen  arid  watchful  observers.  Though  it 
was  then  rumoured  that  Petre  had  also  disa 
vowed  this  fatal  advice,  the  concurrent  tes 
timony  of  all  contemporary  historians  ascribe 
it  to  him  ;  and  it  accords  well  with  the  policy 
of  that  party,  which  received  in  some  degree 
from  his  ascendant  over  them  the  unpopular 
appellation  of  Jesuits.  It  must  be  owned, 
indeed,  that  it  was  one  of  the  numerous 
cases  in  which  the  evil  effects  of  an  impru 
dent  measure  proved  far  greater  than  any 
foresight  could  have  apprehended.  There 
\vas  considerable  reason  for  expecting  sub 
mission  from  the  Church. 

The  clergy  had  very  recently  obeyed  a 
similar  order  in  two  obnoxious  instances.  In 
compliance  with  an  Order  made  in  Council 
by  Charles  II.  (officiously  suggested  to  him, 
it  is  said,  by  Sancroft  himself),t  they  had 
read  from  their  pulpits  that  Prince's  apology 
for  the  dissolution  of  his  two  last  Parliaments, 
severally  arraigning  various  Parliamentary 
proceedings,  and  among  others  a  Resolution 
of  the  House  of  Commons  against  the  per 
secution  of  the  Protestant  Dissenters. §  The 
compliance  of  the  clergy  on  this  occasion 
was  cheerful,  though  they  gave  offence  by  it 
to  many  of  the  people.!!  Now,  this  seemed 
to  be  an  open  interference  of  the  ecclesiasti 
cal  order  in  the  fiercest  contests  of  political 


*  Letter  from  the  Hague,  28th  March,  1689.— 
MS. 

t  Johnstone,  23d  May. — MS.  "  Sunderland, 
Melfbnt,  Penn,  and,  they  so?/,  Petre,  deny  having 
advised  this  Declaration*"  But  Van  Citters.  (25th 
May),  says  that  Petre  is  believed  to  have  advised 
the  order. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  iii.  p.  212. 

$  London  Gazette,  7th— llth  April,  1681. 

11  Kennet,  History,  vol.  iii.  p.  388.  Echard, 
History  of  England,  vol.  iii.  p.  625. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


361 


parties,  which  the  duty  of  undistinguishing 
obedience  alone  could  warrant.*  The  same 
principle  appears  still  more  necessary  to  jus 
tify  their  reading  the  Declaration  of  Charles 
ou  the  Rye  House  Plot,t  published  within 
a  week  of  the  death  of  Lord  Russell;  when 
it  was  indecent  for  the  ministers  of  religion 
to  promulgate  their  approval  of  bloodshed, 
arid  unjust  to  inflame  prejudice  against  those 
who  remained  to  be  tried.  This  Declaration 
had  been  immediately  preceded  by  the 
famous  decree  of  the  University  of  Oxford, 
and  had  been  followed  by  a  persecution  of 
the  Nonconformists,  on  whom  it  reflected  as 
the  authors  of  the  supposed  conspiracy. t 
These  examples  of  compliance  appeared  to 
De  grounded  on  the  undefined  authority 
claimed  by  the  King,  as  supreme  ordinary, 
on  the  judicial  determinations,  which  recog 
nised  his  right  in  that  character  to  make  or 
dinaries  for  the  outward  rule  of  the  Church, § 
and  on  the  rubric  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  (declared,  by  the  Act  of  Uniformity, II 
to  be  a  part  of  that  statute),  which  directs. 
u  that  nothing  shall  be  published  in  church 
oy  the  minister,  but  what  is  prescribed  by 
this  book,  or  enjoined  by  the  King."  These 
reasonings  and  examples  were  at  least  suffi 
cient  to  excuse  the  confidence  with  which 
some  of  the  Royal  advisers  anticipated  the 
obedience  either  of  the  whole  Church,  or  of 
so  large  a  majority  as  to  make  it  safe  and 
easy  to  punish  the  disobedient. 

A  variation  from  the  precedents  of  a  seem 
ingly  slight  and  formal  nature  seems  to  have 
had  some  effect  on  the  success  of  the  mea 
sure.  The. bishops  were  now,  for  the  first 
time,  commanded  by  the  Order  published  in 
the  Gazette  to  distribute  the  Declaration  in 
their  dioceses,  in  order  to  its  being  read  by 
the  clergy.  Whether  the  insertion  of  this 
unusual  clause  was  casual,  or  intended  to 
humble  the  bishops,  it  is  now  difficult  to 
conjecture  :  it  was  naturally  received  and 
represented  in  the  most  offensive  sense. T  It 
fixed  the  eyes  of  the  whole  nation  on  the 
prelates,  rendering  the  conduct  of  their  clergy 
visibly  dependent  solely  on  their  determina 
tion,  and  thus  concentrating,  on  a  small  nurn- 

*  It  was  accompanied  by  a  letter  from  the  King 
to  Sancroft,  which  seems  to  imply  a  previous  usage 
in  such  cases.  "  Our  will  is,  that  you  give  such 
directions  as  have  been  usual  in  such  cases  for  the 
reading  of  our  said  Declaration." — Kennet,  supra. 
Note  from  Lambeth  MSS.  D'Oyley,  Life  of 
Sancroft,  vol.  i.  p.  253.  "Now,"  says  Ralph, 
(vol.  i.  p.  590),  "  the  cry  of  Church  and  King  was 
echoed  from  one  side  of  the  kingdom  to  the  other." 
Immediately  after  began  the  periodical  libels  of 
L'Estrange,  and  the  invectives  against  Parliament, 
under  the  form  of  loyal  addresses. 

.  t  London  Gazette,  2d— 6th  August,  1683.  Ken- 
net,  vol.  iii.  p.  408.  Echard,  vol.  iii.  p.  695. 

I  This   fact  is  reluctantly  admitted  by  Roger 
North.     Examen,  p.  369. 

$  Cro.  Jac.  p.  87. 

II  14  Car.  If.  chap.  4. 

IT  Van    Citters,    15th— 25th  May.     MS      One 
of  the  objections  was,  that  the   Order  was   not 
transmitted  in  the  usual  and  less  ostentatious  man 
ner,  through  the  Primate,  a^  in  1681. 
46 


ber,  the  dishonour  of  submission  which  would 
have  been  lost  by  dispersion  among  the 
whole  body.  So  strongly  did  the  belief  that 
insult  was  intended  prevail,  that  Petre,  to 
whom  it  was  chiefly  ascribed,  was  said  to 
have  declared  it  in  the  gross  and  contumeli- 
o-us  language  used  of  old,  by  a  barbarous  in 
vader,  to  the  deputies  of  a  besieged  city.* 
But  though  the  menace  be  imputed  to  him 
by  most  of  his  contemporaries,!  yet,  as  they 
were  all  his  enemies,  and  as  no  ear- witness 
is  quoted,  we  must  be  content  to  be  doubtful 
whether  he  actually  uttered  ihe  offensive 
words,  or  was  only  so  generally  imprudent 
as  to  make  it  easily  so  believed. 

The  first  effect. of  this  Order  was  to  place 
the  prelates  who  were  then  in  the  capital  or 
its  neighbourhood  in  a  situation  of  no  small 
perplexity.  They  must  have  been  still  more 
taken  by  surprise  than  the  more  moderate 
ministers ;  and,  in  that  age  of  slow  convey 
ance  and  rare  publication,  they  were  allowed 
only  sixteen  days  from  the  Order,  and  thir 
teen  from  its  official  publication. I  to  ascertain 
the  sentiments  of  their  brethren  and  of  their 
clergy,  without  the  knowledge  of  which  their 
determination,  whatever  it  was.  might  pro 
mote  that  division  which  it  was  one  of  the 
main  objects  of  their  enemies,  by  this  mea 
sure,  to  excite.  Resistance  could  be  formida 
ble  only  if  it  were  general.  It  is  one  of  the 
severest  tests  of  human  sagacity  to  call  for 
instantaneous  judgment  from  a  few  leaders 
when  they  have  not  support  enough  to  be 
assured  of  the  majority  of  their  adherents. 
Had  the  bishops  taken  a  single  step  without 
concert,  they  would  have  been  assailed  by 
charges  of  a  pretension  to  dictatorship, — 
equally  likely  to  provoke  the  proud  to  deser 
tion,  and  to  furnish  the  cowardly  with  a 
pretext  for  it.  Their  difficulties  were  in 
creased  by  the  character  of  the  most  distin 
guished  laymen  whom  it  was  fit  to  consult. 
Rochester  was  no  longer  trusted  :  Clarendon 
was  zealous,  but  of  small  judgment :  and 
both  Nottingham,  the  chief  of  their  party, 
and  Halifax,  with  whom  they  were  now 
compelled  to  coalesce,  hesitated  at  the  mo 
ment  of  decision. § 

The  first  body  whose  judgment  was  to  be 
ascertained  was  the  clergy  of  London,  among 
whom  were,  at  that  time,  the  lights  aifd 
ornaments  of  the  Church.  They  at  first 
ventured  only  to  converse  and  correspond 
privately  witli  each  other.  ||  A  meeting  be- 


*  Rabshekah,  the  Assyrian  general,  to  the  ofh- 
cers  of  Hezekiah,  2  Kings,  xviii.  27. 

t  Burnet,  Echard,  Oldmixon,  Ralph.  The 
earliest  printed  statement  of  this  threat  is  proba 
bly  in  a  pamphlet,  called,  "  An  Answer  from  a 
Country  Clergyman  to  the  Letter  of  his  Brother 
in  the  City"  (Dr.  Sherlock),  which  must  have 
been  published  in  June,  1668. — Baldwin's  Farther 
State  Tracts,  p.  314.  (London,  1692.) 

t  London  Gazette,  7th  April. 

§  "  Halifax  and  Nottingham  wavered  at  first, 
which  had  almost  ruined  the  business." — John- 
stone,  27th  May.  MS. 

II  Van  Citters,  28th  May.  (Secret  Despatch.)— 
MS. 

2F 


362 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


came  necessary,  and  was  hazarded.  A  di 
versity  of  opinions  prevailed.  It  was  urged 
on  one  side  that  a  refusal  was  inconsistent 
•with  the  professions  and  practice  of  the 
Church ;  that  it  would  provoke  the  King  to 
desperate  extremities,  expose  the  country  to 
civil  confusions,  and  be  represented  to  the 
Dissenters  as  a  proof  of  the  incorrigible  in 
tolerance  of  the  Establishment ;  that  the 
reading  of  a  Proclamation  implied  no  assent 
to  its  contents;  and  that  it  would  be  pre 
sumption  in  the  clergy  to  pronounce  a  judg 
ment  against  the  legality  of  the  Dispensing 
Power,  which  the  competent  tribunal  had 
already  adjudged  to  be  lawful.  Those  of 
better  spirit  answered,  or  might  have  an 
swered,  that  the  danger  of  former  examples 
of  obsequiousness  was  now  so  visible  that 
they  were  to  be  considered  as  warnings 
rather  than  precedents :  that  compliance 
\vould  bring  on  them  command  after  com 
mand,  till  at  last  another  religion  would  be 
established ;  that  the  reading,  unnecessary 
for  the  purpose  of  publication,  would  be  un 
derstood  as  an  approval  of  the  Declaration 
by  the  contrivers  of  the  Order,  and  by  the 
body  of  the  people;  that  the  Parliamentary 
condemnations  of  the  Dispensing  Power  were 
a  sufficient  reason  to  excuse  them  from  a 
doubtful  and  hazardous  act ;  that  neither 
conscience  nor  the  more  worldly  principle  of 
honour  would  suffer  them  to  dig  the  grave 
of  the  Protestant  Church,  and  to  desert  the 
cause  of  the  nobility,  the  gentry,  and  the 
whole  nation  ;  and  finally,  that  in  the  most 
unfavourable  event,  it  was  better  to  fall  then 
under  the  King's  displeasure,  when  support 
ed  by  the  consolation  of  having  fearlessly 
performed  their  duty,  than  to  fall  a  little 
later  unpitied  and  despised,  amid  the  curses 
of  that  people  whom  their  compliance  had 
ruined.  From  such  a  fall  they  would  rise 
no  more.*  One  of  those  middle  courses 
was  suggested  which  is  very  apt  to  captivate 
a  perplexed  assembly  : — it  was  proposed  to 
gain  time,  and  smooth  a  way  to  a  compro 
mise,  by  entreating  the  King  to  revert  to  the 
ancient  methods  of  communicating  his  com 
mands  to  the  Church.  The  majority  ap 
peared  at  first  to  lean  towards  submission,  or 
evasion,  which  was  only  disguised  and  de 
ferred  submission  ;  when,  happily,  a  decisive 
answer  was  produced  to  the  most  plausible 
argument  of  the  compliant  party.  Some  of 
the  chief  ministers  and  laymen  among  the 
Nonconformists  earnestly  besought  the  clergy 
not  to  judge  them  by  a  handful  of  their  num 
ber  who  had  been  gained  by  the  Court,  but 
to  be  assured  that,  instead  of  being  alienated 
from  the  Church,  they  would  be  drawn  closer 
to  her,  by  her  making  a  stand  for  religion 
and  liberty .t  A  clergyman  present  read  a 
note  of  these  generous  declarations,  which 
he  was  authorized  by  the  Nonconformists  to 
exhibit  to  the  meeting.  The  independent 
portion  of  the  clergy  made  up,  by  zeal  and 

*  Sherlock's  "  Letter  from  a  Gentleman  in  the 
City  to  a  Friend  in  the  Country."-Baldwin,  p.  309. 
t  Johnstone,  18th  May.— MS. 


activity,  for  their  inferiority  in  numbers. 
Fatal  concession,  however,  seemed  to  be  at 
hand,  when  the  spirit  of  an  individual,  mani 
fested  at  a  critical  moment,  contributed  to 
rescue  his  order  from  disgrace,  arid  his  coun 
try  from  slavery.  This  person,  whose  fortu 
nate  virtue  has  hitherto  remained  unknown, 
was  Dr.  Edward  Fowler,  then  incumbent  of 
a  parish  in  London,  who,  originally  bred  a 
Dissenter,  had  been  slow  to  conform  at  the 
Restoration,  was  accused  of  the  crime  of 
Whiggism*  at  so  dangerous  a  period  as  that 
of  Mon mouth's  riot,  and,  having  been  pro 
moted  to  the  See  of  Gloucester,  combined  so 
much  charity  with  his  unsuspected  oithodoxy 
as  to  receive  the  last  breath  of  Firmin,  the 
most  celebrated  Unitarian  of  that  period. f 
When  Fowler  perceived  that  the  courage 
of  his  brethren  faltered,  he  addressed  them 
shortly: — "I  must  be  plain.  There  has 
been  argument  enough :  more  only  will  heat 
us.  Let  every  man  now  say  c  Yea'  or  'Nay.' 
I  shall  be  sorry  to  give  occasion  to  schism, 
but  I  cannot  in  conscience  read  the  Declara 
tion  ;  for  that  reading  would  be  an  exhortation 
to  my  people  to  obey  commands  which  I 
deem  unlawful."  Stillingfieet  declared,  on 
the  authority  of  lawyers,  that  reading  the 
Declaration  would  be  an  offence,  as  the  pub 
lication  of  an  unlawful  document ;  but  ex 
cused  himself  from  being  the  first  subscriber 
to  an  agreement  not  to  comply,  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  already  proscribed  for  the  pro 
minent  part  which  he  had  taken  in  the  con 
troversy  against  the  Romanists.  Patrick 
offered  to  be  the  first,  if  any  man  would 
second  him  ;  and  Fowler  answered  to  the 
appeal  which  his  own  generosity  had  called 
forth. t  They  were  supported  by  Tjllotson, 
though  only  recovering  from  an  attack  of 
apoplexy,  and  by  Sherlock,  who  then  atoned 
for  the  slavish  doctrines  of  former  times. 
The  opposite  parly  were  subdued  by  this 
firmness,  declaring  that  they  would  not 
divide  the  Church  :§  and  the  sentiments  of 
more  than  fourscore  of  the  London  clergy!! 
were  made  known  to  the  Metropolitan. 

At  a  meeting  at  Lambeth,  on  Saturday, 
the  12th  of  May,  where  there  were  present, 
besides  San  croft  himself,  only  the  Earl  of 
Clarendon,  three  bishops,  Compton,  Turner, 
and  White,  together  with  Tenison,  it  was 
resolved  not  to  read  the  Declaration,  to  peti 
tion  the  King  that  he  would  dispense  with 
that  act  of  obedience,  and  to  entreat  all  the 
prelates  within  reach  of  London,  to  repair 
thither  to  the  aid  of  their  brethren. If  It  was 
fit  to  wait  a  short  time  for  the  concurrence 
of  these  absent  bishops.  Lloyd  of  St.  Asaph, 
late  of  Chichester,  Ken  of  Bath  and  Wells, 
and  Trelawriey,  quickly  complied  with  the 

*  Athens)  Oxonienses,  vol.  ii.  p.  1029. 

t  Birch,  Life  of  Tillotson,  p.  320. 

t  Rennet,  vol.  iii.  p.  570,  note.  This  narrative 
reconciles  Johnstone,  Van  Citters,  and  Kennet. 

§  Johnstone,  23d  May.— MS. 

II  This  victory  was  early  communicated  to  the 
Dutch  ambassador.  Van  Citters,  25th  May.— MS. 

IT  Clarendon,  12th  May. 


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363 


summons ;  and  were  present  at  another  and 
more  decisive  meeting  at  the  archiepiscopal 
palace  on  Friday,  the  18th,  where,  with  the 
assent  of  Tillotson.  Stillingfleet,  Patrick,  Teni- 
son,  Grove,  and  Sherlock,  it  was  resolved, 
that  a  Petition,  prepared  and  written  by  San- 
croft,  should  be  forthwith  presented  to  His 
Majesty.  It  is  a  calumny  against  the  memory 
of  these  prelates  to  assert,  that  they  post 
poned  their  determination  till  within  two 
days  of  the  Sunday  appointed  for  reading 
the  Declaration,  in  order  to  deprive  the  King 
of  time  to  retire  from  his  purpose  with  dignity 
or  decency :  for  we  have  seen  that  the  period 
since  the  publication  of  the  Order  was  fully 
occupied  by  measures  for  concert  and  co 
operation;  and  it  would  have  been  treachery 
to  the  Church  and  the  kingdom  to  have  sa 
crificed  any  portion  of  time  so  employed  to 
relieve  their  most  formidable  enemy.*  The 
Petition,  after  setting  forth  that  "  their  averse- 
ness  to  read  the  King's  Declaration  arose 
neither  from  want  of  the  duty  and  obedience 
which  the  Church  of  England  had  always 
practised,  nor  from  want  of  tenderness  to 
Dissenters,  to  whom  they  were  willing  to 
come  to  such  a  temper  as  might  be  thought 
fit  in  Parliament  and  Convocation,  but  be 
cause  it  was  founded  in  a  Dispensing  Power 
declared  illegal  in  Parliament ;  and  that  they 
could  not  in  prudence  or  conscience  make 
themselves  so  far  parties  to  it  as  the  publi 
cation  of  it  in  the  church  at  the  time  of 
divine  service  must  amount  to  in  common 
and  reasonable  construction,"  concludes,  by 
"  humbly  and  earnestly  beseeching  His  Ma 
jesty  not  to  insist  on  their  distributing  and 
reading  the  said  Declaration."  It  is  easy  to 
observe  the  skill  with  which  the  Petition 
distinguished  the  case  from  the  two  recent 
examples  of  submission,  in  which  the  Royal 
declarations,  however  objectionable,  con 
tained  no  matter  of  questionable  legality. 
Compton,  being  suspended,  did  not  subscribe 
the  Petition ;  and  Sancroft,  having  had  the 
honour  to  be  forbidden  the  Court  nearly  two 
years,  took  no  part  in  presenting  it.  Nor 
was  it  thought  proper  that  the  private  di- 


*  Life  of  James  II.,  vol.  ii.  p.  158.  But  this  is 
the  statement,  not  of  the  King,  but  of  Mr.  Dic- 
conson  the  compiler,  who  might  have  been  misled 
by  the  angry  traditions  of  his  exiled  friends.  A 
week  is  added  to  the  delay,  by  referring  the  com 
mencement  of  it  to  the  Declaration  of  the  27ih  of 
April,  instead  of  the  Order  of  the  4th  of  May, 
which  alone  called  on  the  bishops  to  deliberate. 
The  same  suppression  is  practised,  and  the  same 
calumny  insinuated,  in  "An  Answer  to  the 
Bishops'  Petition,"  published  at  the  time. — So- 
rners'  Tracts,  vol.  ix.  p.  119.  In  the  extract  made, 
either  by  Carte  or  Macpherson,  an  insinuation 
against  the  bishops  is  substituted  for  the  bold 
charge  made  by  Dicconson.  "  The  bishops'  peti 
tion  on  the  18th  of  May,  against  what  they  are  to 
read  on  the  20th  " — (Macpherson,  Original  Pa 
pers,  vol.  i.  p.  151.)  But  as  throughout  that  inac 
curate  publication  no  distinction  is  made  between 
•what  was  written  by  James,  and  what  was  added 
by  his  biographer,  the  disgrace  of  the  calumnious 
insinuation  is  unjustly  thrown  on  the  Kings'  me 
mory. 


vines,  who  were  the  most  distinguished  mem 
bers  of  the  meeting,  should  attend  the  pre 
sentation. 

With  no  needless  delay,  six  Bishops  pro 
ceeded  to  Whitehall  about  ten  o'clock  in  the 
evening, — no  unusual  hour  of  audience  at 
the  accessible  courts  of  Charles  and  James. 
They  were  remarked,  as  they  came  from 
the  landing-place,  by  the  watchful  eyes  of 
the  Dutch  ambassador.*  who  was  not  unin 
formed  of  their  errand.  They  had  remained 
at  the  house  of  Lord  Dartmouth,  till  Lloyd 
of  St.  Asaph,  the  boldest  of  their  number, 
should  ascertain  when  and  where  the  King 
would  receive  them.  He  requested  Lord 
Sunderland  to  read  the  Petition,  and  to  ac 
quaint  the  King  with  its  contents,  that  His 
Majesty  might  not  be  surprised  at  it.  The 
wary  minister  declined,  but  informed  the 
King  of  the  attendance  of  the  Bishops,  who 
were  then  introduced  into  the  bedchamber.t 
When  they  had  knelt  down  before  the  mo 
narch,  St.  Asaph  presented  the  Petition,  pur 
porting  to  be  that  "of  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  with  divers  suffragan  bishops  of 
his  province,  in  behalf  of  themselves  and 
several  of  their  absent  brethren,  and  of  the 
clergy  of  their  respective  dioceses."  The 
King,  having  been  told  by  the  Bishop  of 
Chester,  that  they  would  desire  no  more  than 
a  recurrence  to  the  former  practice  of  send 
ing  Declarations  to  chancellors  and  arch 
deacons,?  desired  them  to  rise,  and  received 
them  at  first  graciously,  saying,  on  opening 
the  Petition,  "This  is  my  Lord  of  Canter 
bury's  handwriting;"  but  when  he  read  it 
over,  and  after  he  had  folded  it  up,  he  spoke 
to  them  in  another  tone  :§ — "This  is  a  great 
surprise  to  me.  Here  are  strange  words.  I 
did  not  expect  this  from  you.  This  is  a 
standard  of  rebellion."  St.  Asaph  replied, 
"We  have  adventured  our  lives  for  Your 
Majesty,  and  would  lose  the  last  drop  of  our 
blood  rather  than  lift  up  a  finger  against 
you."  The  King  continued: — "I  tell  you 
this  is  a  standard  of  rebellion.  I  never  saw 
such  an  address."  Trelawney  of  Bristol, 
falling  again  on  his  knees,  said,  "Rebellion, 
Sir !  I  beseech  your  Majesty  not  to  say  any 
thing  so  hard  of  us.  For  God's  sake,  do  not 
believe  we  are  or  can  be  guilty  of  rebellion." 
It  deserves  remark,  that  the  two  who  uttered 
these  loud  and  vehement  protestations  were 
the  only  prelates  present  who  were  conscious 
of  having  harboured  projects  of  more  deci 
sive  resistance.  The  Bishops  of  Chichester 
and  Ely  made  professions  of  unshaken  loy- 


*  Van  Citters,  28th  May.— MS. 

t  Gutch,  Collectanea  Curiosa,  vol.  i.  p.  335. 
Clarendon,  State  Papers,  vol.  i.  p.  287,  and 
D'Oyley,  vol.  i.  p.  263. 

t  Burnet,  iii.  216. 

$  "  S.  M.  rispose  loro  con  ardezza." — D' Adda, 
30th  May ;  or,  as  the  same  circumstance  was 
viewed  by  another  through  a  different  medium, — 
"  The  King  answered  very  disdainfully,  and  with 
the  utmost  anger." — Van  Citters,  1st  June.  The 
mild  Evelyn  (Diary,  18th  May)  says,  "  the  King 
was  so  incensed,  that,  with  threatening  language, 
he  commanded  them  to  obey  at  their  peril." 


364 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


alty,  which  they  afterwards  exemplified.  The 
Bishop  of  Bath  and  Wells  pathetically  and 
justly  said,  "Sir.  I  hope  you  will  give  that 
liberty  to  us,  which  you  allow  to  all  man 
kind."  He  piously  added,  "  We  will  honou 
the  King,  but  fear  God.'7  James  answered 
at  various  times,  "It  tends  to  rebellion.  Is 
this  what  I  have  deserved  from  the  Church 
of  England  ?  I  will  remember  you  who  have 
signed  this  paper.  I  will  keep  this  paper:  I 
will  not  part  with  it.  I  did  not  expect  this 
from  you,  especially  from  some  of  you.  I 
will  be  obeyed."  Ken,  in  the  spirit  of  a 
martyr,  answered  only  with  a  humble  voice. 
"God's  will  be  done."  The  ansrry  monarch 
called  out,  "What's  that?"  the  Bishop, 
and  one  of  his  brethren,  repeated  what  had 
been  said.  James  dismissed  them  with  the 
same  unseemly,  unprovoked,  and  incoherent 
language  : — "  If  I  think  fit  to  alter  my  mind, 
I  will  send  to  you.  God  has  given  me  this 
Dispensing  Power,  and  I  will  maintain  it.  I 
tell  you,  there  are  seven  thousand  men,  and 
of  the  Church  of  England  too,  that  have  not 
bowed  the  knee  to  Baal."  Next  morning, 
when,  on  his  way  to  chapel,  he  said  to  the 
Bishop  of  St.  David's,  "My  Lord,  your 
brethren  presented  to  me,  yesterday,  the 
most  seditious  paper  that  ever  was  penned. 
It  is  a  trumpet  of  rebellion."  He  frequently 
repeated  what  Lord  Halifax  said  to  him, — 
"  Your  father  suffered  for  the  Church,  not 
the  Church  for  him."* 

The  Petition  was  printed  and  circulated 
during  the  night,  certainly  not  by  the  Bishops, 
who  delivered  to  the  King  their  only  copy, 
written  in  the  hand  of  Sancroft,  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  preventing  publication, — 
probably,  therefore,  by  some  attendant  of 
the  Court,  for  lucre  or  from  disaffection.  In 
a  few  days,  six  other  prelates!  had  declared 
their  concurrence  in  the  Petition ;  and  the 
Bishop  of  Carlisle  agreed  to  its  contents,  la 
menting  that  he  could  not  subscribe  it,  be 
cause  his  diocese  was  not  in  the  province  of 
Canterbury  :t  two  others  agreed  to  the  mea 
sure  of  not  reading. §  The  archbishopric  of 
York  had  now  been  kept  vacant  for  Petre 
more  than  two  years :  and  the  vacancy 
which  delivered  Oxford  from  Parker  had  not 
yet  been  filled  up.  Lloyd  of  Bangor.  who  died 
a  few  months  afterwards,  was  probably  pre 
vented  by  age  and  infirmities  from  taking  any 
part  in  this  transaction.  The  see  of  Lichfield, 
though  not  vacant,  was  deserted  by  Wood, 
who  (having  been  appointed  by  the  Duchess 
of  Cleveland,  in  consequence  of  his  bestow 
ing  his  neice,  a  rich  heiress,  of  whom  he 
was  guardian,  on  one  of  her  sons,)l!  had 
openly  and  perpetually  abandoned  his  dio 
cese  :  for  this  he  had  been  suspended  by 
Sancroft,  and  though  restored  on  submission, 


*  Van  Citters,  1st  June.— MS. 

t  London,  Norwich,  Gloucester,  Salisbury, 
Winchester,  and  Exeter. — D'Oyley,  vol.  i.  p.  269. 

t  Gutch,  vol.  i.  p.  334. 

$  Llandaffand  Worcester. — Gutch.vol.  i.  p.  331. 

II  Kennet  in  Lansdowne  MSS.  in  the  British 
Museum.— D'Oyley,  vol.  i.  p.  193. 


had  continued  to  reside  at  Hackney,  without 
professing  to  discharge  any  duty,  till  his 
death.  Sprat,  who  would  have  honoured 
the  episcopal  dignity  by  his  talents,  if  he 
had  not  earned  it  by  a  prostitution  of 
them,*  Cartwright,  who  had  already  ap 
proved  himself  the  ready  instrument  of  law 
less  power  against  his  brethren,  Crewe, 
whose  servility  was  rendered  more  conspi 
cuously  disgraceful  by  birth  and  wealth, 
Watson,  who,  after  a  long  train  of  offences, 
was  at  length  deprived  of  his  see,  together 
with  Croft,  in  extreme  old  age,  and  Barlow, 
who  had  fallen  into  second  childhood,  were, 
since  the  death  of  Parker,  the  only  faithless 
members  of  an  episcopal  body,  which  in  its 
then  incomplete  state  amounted  to  twenty- 
two. 

On  Sunday,  the  20th,  the  first  day  ap 
pointed  for  reading  the  Declaration  in  Lon 
don,  the  Order  was  generally  disobeyed; 
though  the  administration  of  the  diocese 
during  the  suspension  of  the  bishop,  was 
placed  in  the  perfidious  hands  of  Sprat  and 
Crewe.  Out  of  a  hundred,  the  supposed 
number  of  the  London  clergy  at  that  time, 
seven  were  the  utmost  who  are,  by  the 
largest  account,  charged  with  submission.! 
Sprat  himself  chose  to  officiate  as  Dean  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  where,  as  soon  as  he 
gave  orders  for  the  reading,  so  great  a  mur 
mur  arose  that  nobody  could  hear  it ;  and, 
before  it  was  finished,  no  one  was  left  in  the 
church  but  a  few  prebendaries,  the  choris 
ters,  and  the  Westminster  scholars.  He, 
himself,  could  hardly  hold  the  Proclamation 
in  his  hands  for  trembling. J  Even  in  the 
chapel  at  Whitehall,  it  was  read  by  a  cho 
rister. §  At  Serjeant's  Inn,  on  the  Chief 
Justice  desiring  that  it  should  be  read,  the 
clerk  said  that  he  had  forgotten  it. II  The 
names  of  four  complying  clergymen  only 
are  preserved, — Elliott,  Martin,  Thomson, 
and  Hall, — who,  obscure  as  they  were,  may 
be  enumerated  as  specimens  of  so  rare  a 
vice  as  the  sinister  courage  which,  for  base 
ends,  can  brave  the  most  generous  feelings 
of  all  the  spectators  of  their  conduct.  The 
temptation  on  this  occasion  seems  to  have 
been  the  bishopric  of  Oxford  ;  in  the  pursuit 
of  which,  Hall,  who  had  been  engaged  in 
negotiations  with  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth 
for  the  purchase  of  Hampden's  pardon,!  by 
such  connections  and  services  prevailed  over 
his  competitors.  On  the  following  Sunday 
the  disobedience  was  equally  general ;  and 
the  new  reader  at  the  Chapel  Royal  was  so 
agitated  as  to  be  unable  to  read  the  Declara- 


*  Narrative  of  the  Rye  House  Plot. 

t  "  La  lettura  non  se  essequi  che  in  pochissimi 
luoghi."  D'Adda,  30ih  May.— MS.  Clarendon 
states  the  number  to  be  four;  Kennet  and  Burnet, 

ren.  Perhaps  the  smaller  number  refers  to  pa 
rochial  clergy,  and  the  larger  to  those  of  every  de 
nomination. 

Burnet,  vol.  iii.  p.  2J8,  note  by  Lord  Dart 
mouth,  then  present  as  a  Westminster  scholar. 
Evelyn,  20ih  May. 

I  Van  Citters,  supra.— MS. 

T  Lords'  Journals,  19th  Dec.  1689. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


365 


tion  audibly.*  In  general,  the  clergy  of  the 
country  displayed  the  same  spirit.  In  the 
dioceses  of  the  faithful  bishops,  the  example 
of  the  diocesan  \vas  almost  universally  fol 
lowed;  in  that  of  Norwich,  which  contains 
twelve  hundred  parishes,  the  Declaration 
was  not  read  by  more  than  three  or  four.t 
In  Durham,  on  the  other  side,  Crewe  found 
so  great  a  number  of  his  poor  clergy  more 
independent  than  a  vast  revenue  could 
render  himself,  that  he  suspended  many  for 
disobedience.  The  other  deserters  were 
disobeyed  by  nineteen  twentieths  of  their 
clergy ;  and  not  more  than  two  hundred  in 
all  are  said  to  have  complied  out  of  a  body 
of  ten  thousand.*  "The  whole  Church," 
says  the  Nuncio,  "  espouses  the  cause  of  the 
Bishops.  There  is  no  reasonable  expectation 
of  a  division  among  the  Anglicans,  and  our 
hopes  from  the  Nonconformists  are  vanish 
ed.  "§  Well,  indeed,  might  he  despair  of 
the  Dissenters,  since,  on  the  20th  of  May, 
the  venerable  Baxter,  above  sectarian  inte 
rests,  and  unmindful  of  ancient  wrongs,  from 
his  tolerated  pulpit  extolled  the  Bishops  for 
their  resistance  to  the  very  Declaration  to 
which  he  now  owed  the  liberty  of  com 
mending  them. II 

It  was  no  wonder  that  such  an  appearance 
of  determined  resistance  should  disconcert 
the  Government.  No  prospect  now  remained 
of  seducing  some,  and  of  punishing  other 
Protestants,  and,  by  this  double  example,  of 
gaming  the  greater  part  of  the  rest.  The 
King,  after  so  many  previous  acts  of  violence, 
seemed  to  be  reduced  to  the  alternative  of 
either  surrendering  to  exasperated  antago 
nists,  or  engaging  in  a  mortal  combat  with 
all  his  Protestant  subjects.  In  the  most 
united  and  vigorous  government,  the  choice 
would  have  been  among  the  most  difficult 
which  human  wisdom  is  required  to  make, 
la  the  distracted  councils  of  James,  where 
secret  advisers  thwarted  responsible  minis 
ters,  and  fear  began  to  disturb  the  judgment 
of  some,  while  anger  inflamed  the  minds  of 
others,  a  still  greater  fluctuation  and  contra 
diction  prevailed,  than  would  have  naturally 
arisen  from  the  great  difficulty  of  the  situa 
tion.  Pride  impelled  the  King  to  advance  ; 
Caution  counselled  him  to  retreat ;  Calm 
Reason,  even  at  this  day,  discovers  nearly 
equal  dangers  in  either  movement.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  unfortunate  circumstances  in 
human  affairs,  that  the  most  important  ques 
tions  of  practice  either  perplex  "the  mind  so 
much  by  their  difficulty,  as  to  be  always 
really  decided  by  temper,  or  excite  passions 
too  strong  for  such  an  undisturbed  exercise 
of  the  understanding  as  alone  affords  a  pro 
bability  of  right  judgment.  The  nearer  ap 
proach  of  perils,  both  political  and  personal, 
rendered  the  counsels  of  Sunderland  more 


*  Van  Citters.— MS. 

t  D'Oyley,  vol.  i.  p.  270. 

t  Van  Citters,  25th  June.— MS. 

§  D'Adda,  llth  June.— MS. 

II  Johnstone,  23d  May.— MS. 


decisively  moderate  -*  in  which  he  was  sup 
ported  by  the  Catholic  lords  in  office,  con 
formably  to  their  uniform  principles.!  and 
by  Jeffreys,  who.  since  he  had  gained  the 
prize  of  ambition,  began  more  and  more  to 
think  of  safety.!  It  appears,  also,  that  those 
who  recoiled  from  an  irreparable  breach 
with  the  Church,  the  nation,  and  the  Pro 
testants  of  the  Royal  Family,  were  now  not 
unwilling  that  their  moderation  should  bo 
known.  Jeffreys  spoke  to  Lord  Clarendon  of 
'•moderate  counsels,"  declared,  that  "some 
men  would  drive  the  King  to  destruction," 
and  made  professions  of  "  service  to  the 
Bishops,"  which  he  went  so  far  as  to  desire 
him  to  communicate  to  them.  William  Penn, 
on  a  visit,  after  a  very  long  interval,  to  Cla 
rendon,  betrayed  an  inquietude,  \vhich  some 
times  prompts  men  almost  instinctively  to 
acquire  or  renew  friendships. §  Sunderland 
disclosed  the  nature  and  grounds  of  his  own 
counsels,  very  fully,  both  to  the  Nuncio  and 
to  the  French  ambassador.il  "The  great 
question,"  he  said,  u  was  how  the  punish 
ment  of  the  Bishops  would  affect  the  pro 
bability  of  accomplishing  the  King's  purpose 
through  a  Parliament.  Now,  it  was  not  to 
be  expected,  that  any  adequate  penalty  could 
be  inflicted  on  them  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  law.  Recourse  must  be  had  to  the  Eccle 
siastical  Commission,  which  \vas  already 
sufficiently  obnoxious.  Any  legal  proceed 
ing  would  be  long  enough,  in  the  present 
temper  of  men,  to  agitate  all  England.  The 
suspension  or  deprivation  by  the  Ecclesiasti 
cal  Commissioners,  which  might  not  exclude 
the  Bishops  from  their  Parliamentary  seats, 
would,  in  a  case  of  so  extensive  delinquency, 
raise  such  a  fear  and  cry  of  arbitrary  power, 
as  to  render  all  prospect  of  a  Parliament  des 
perate,  and  to  drive  -the  King  to  a  reliance 
on  arms  alone ; — a  fearful  resolution,  not  to 
be  entertained  without  fuller  assurance  that 
the  army  was  and  would  remain  untainted." 
He  therefore  advised,  that  "His  Majesty 
should  content  himself  with  publishing  a  de 
claration,  expressing  his  high  and  just  resent 
ment  at  the  hardihood  of  the  Bishops,  in  dis 
obeying  the  supreme  head  of  their  Church, 
and  disputing  a  Royal  prerogative  recently 
recognised  by  all  the  judges  of  England  ;  but 
stating  that,  in  consideration  of  the  fidelity 
of  the  Church  of  England  in  past  times,  from 
which  these  prelates  had  been  the  first  to 
depart,  his  Majesty  was  desirous  of  treating 
their  offence  with  clemency,  and  would  re 
fer  their  conduct  to  the  consideration  of  the 
next  Parliament,  in  the  hope  that  their  inter 
mediate  conduct  might  warrant  entire  for- 


*  D'Adda  and  Barillon,  3d  June.— MS. 

t  "  Lords  Powis,  Arundel,  Dover,  and  Bellasis, 
are  very  zealous  for  moderation." — Van  Citters, 
llth  June.— MS. 

t  Clarendon,  14th  and  27th  June,  5th  July,  13th 
August. 

$  Clarendon,  21st  May.  "  The  first  time  I  had 
seen  him  for  a  long  time.  He  professed  great 
kindness." 

I!  D'Adda  and  Barillon,  supra. 


366 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


giveness."  It  was  said,  on  the  other  hand, 
"  that  the  safety  of  the  government  depend 
ed  on  an  immediate  blow ;  that  the  impunity 
of  such  audacious  contumacy  would  embol 
den  every  enemy  at  home  and  abroad  ;  that 
all  lenity  would  be  regarded  as  the  effect  of 
weakness  and  fear ;  and  that  the  opportu 
nity  must  now  or  never  be  seized,  of  em 
ploying  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  to 
strike  down  a  Church,  which  supported  the 
Crown  only  as  long  as  she  dictated  to  it, 
and  became  rebellious  at  the  moment  when 
she  was  forbidden  to  be  intolerant.'''  To 
strengthen  these  topics,  it  was  urged  "  that 
the  factions  had  already  boasted  that  the 
Court  would  not  dare  to  proceed  juridically 
against  the  Bishops." 

Both  the  prudent  ministers,  to  whom  these 
discussions  were  imparted,  influenced  proba 
bly  by  their  wishes,  expected  that  modera 
tion  would  prevail.*  But,  after  a  week  of 
discussion.  Jeffreys,  fearing  that  the  King 
could  not  be  reconciled  to  absolute  forbear 
ance,  and  desirous  of  removing  the  odium 
from  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission,  of  which 
he  was  the  head,t  proposed  that  the  Bishops 
should  be  prosecuted  in  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  and  the  consideration  of  mercy  or 
rigour  postponed  till  after  judgment; — a  com 
promise  probably  more  impolitic  than  either 
of  the  extremes,  inasmuch  as  it  united  a  con 
spicuous  and  solemn  mode  of  proceeding, 
and  a  form  of  trial  partly  popular,  with  room 
for  the  utmost  boldness  of  defence,  some 
probability  of  acquittal,  and  the  least  pun 
ishment  in  case  of  conviction.  On  the  even 
ing  of  the  27th,  the  second  Sunday  appointed 
for  reading  the  Declaration,  it  was  accord 
ingly  determined  to  prosecute  them ;  and 
they  were  summoned  to  appear  before  the 
Privy  Council  on  the  8th  of  June,  to  answer  a 
charge  of  misdemeanour. 

In  obedience  to  this  summons,  the  Bishops 
attended  at  Whitehall  on  the  day  appointed, 
about  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  being 
called  into  the  Council  Chamber,  were  gra 
ciously  received  by  the  King.  The  Chancel 
lor  asked  the  Archbishop,  whether  a  paper 
now  shown  to  him  was  the  Petition  written 
by  him,  and  presented  by  the  other  Bishops 
to  his  Majesty.  The  Archbishop,  addressing 
himself  to  the  King,  answered,  "  Sir,  I  am 
called  hither  as  a  criminal,  which  I  never 
was  before  :  since  I  have  that  unhappiness, 
I  hope  your  Majesty  will  not  be  offended  that 

*  D'Adda  and  Barillon,  llth  June.— MS. 

t  Van  Citters.  llth  June. — MS.  The  biogra 
pher  of  James  II.  (Life,  vol.  ii.  p.  158,)  tells  us 
that  the  Chancellor  advised  the  King  to  prosecute 
the  Bishops  for  tumultuous  petitioning,  ignoranily 
supposing  the  statute  passed  at  the  Restoration 
against  such  petitioning  to  be  applicable  to  their 
case.  The  passage  in  the  same  page,  which 
quotes  the  King's  own  MSS.,  is  more  naturally 
referable  to  the  secret  advisers  of  the  Order  in 
Council.  The  account  of  Van  Citters.  adopted 
in  the  text,  reconciles  the  Jacobite  tradition  fol 
lowed  by  Dicconson  with  the  language  of  Jeffreys 
to  Clarendon,  and  with  the  former  complaints  of 
Catholics  against  his  lukewarmness  mentioned  by 
Barillon. 


I  am  cautious  of  answering  questions  which 
may  tend  to  accuse  myself."  The  King 
called  this  chicanery  ;  adding,  "  I  hope  you 
will  not  deny  your  own  hand."  The  Arch 
bishop  said,  "  The  only  reason  for  the  ques 
tion  is  to  draw  an  answer  which  may  be 
ground  of  accusation  ;"  and  Lloyd,  of  St. 
Asaph,  added,  "All  divines  of  all  Christian 
churches  are  agreed  that  no  man  in  our  situ 
ation  is  obliged  to  answer  such  questions  :" 
but  the  King  impatiently  pressing  for  an 
answer,  the  Archbishop  said,  '^Sir,  though 
not  obliged  to  answer,  yet,  if  Your  Majesty 
commands  it,  we  are  willing  to  obey,  trusting 
to  your  justice  and  generosity  that  we  shall 
not  suffer  for  our  obedience."  The  King 
said  he  should  not  command  them,  and 
Jeffreys  directed  them  to  withdraw.  On 
their  return,  being  commanded  by  the  King 
to  answer,  they  owned  the  Petition.  There 
is  some  doubt  whether  they  repeated  the 
condition  on  which  they  made  their  first 
offer  of  obedience  ;*  but,  if  they  did  not, 
their  forbearance  must  have  arisen  from  a 
respectful  confidence,  which  disposed  them, 
with  reason,  to  consider  the  eilerice  of  the 
King  as  a  virtual  assent  to  their  unretracted 
condition.  A  tacit  acceptance  of  conditional 
obedience  is  indeed  as  distinct  a  promise  to 
perform  the  condition  as  the  most  express 
words.  They  were  then  again  commanded 
to  withdraw;  and  on  their  return  a  third 
time,  they  were  told  by  Jeffreys  that  they 
would  be  proceeded  against,  "but,"  he 
added  (alluding  to  the  obnoxious  Com  mis- 
mission),  '-'with  all  fairness,  in  Westminister 
Hall."  He  desired  them  to  enter  into  a  re 
cognisance  (or  legal  engagement)  to  appear. 
They  declared  their  readiness  to  answer, 
whenever  they  were  called  upon,  without  it, 
and,  after  some  conversation,  insisted  on 
their  privilege  as  Peers  not  to  be  bound  by 
a  recognisance  in  misdemeanour.  After 
several  ineffectual  attempts  to  prevail  on 
them  to  accept  the  offer  of  being  discharged 
on  their  own  recognisances,  as  a  favour, 
they  were  committed  to  the  Tower  by  a 
warrant,  which  all  the  Privy  Councillors 
present  (except  Lord  Berkeley  and  Father 
Petre)  subscribed;  of  whom  it  is  observable, 
that  nine  only  were  avowed  Catholics,  and 
nine  professed  members  of  the  English 
Church,  besides  Sunderland,  whose  renun 
ciation  of  that  religion  was  not  yet  made 
public. t  The  Order  for  the  prosecution  was. 
however,  sanctioned  in  the  usual  manner, 
by  placing  the  names  of  all  Privy  Council 
lors  present  at  its  head. 

The  people  who  saw  the  Bishops  as  they 
walked  to  the  barges  which  were  to  conduct 


*  D'Oyley,  (vol.  i.  p.  278,)  seems  on  this  point 
to  vary  from  the  narrative  in  Gutch  (vol.  i.  p.  351.) 
It  seems  to  me  more  probable  that  the  condition 
was  repeated  after  the  second  entrance  ;  for  Dr. 
D'Oyley  is  certainly  right  in  thinking  that  the 
statement  of  the  Archbishop's  words,  as  having 
been  spoken  "  after  the  third  or  fourth  coming 
in,"  must  be  a  mistake.  It  is  evidently  at  vari 
ance  with  the  whole  course  of  the  examination. 

t  Gutch,  vol.  i.  p.  353. 


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367 


them  to  the  Tower,  were  deeply  affected  by 
the  spectacle,  and,  for  the  first  time,  manifest 
ed  their  emotions  in  a  manner  which  would 
have  still  served  as  a  wholesome  admonition 
to  a  wise  Government.  The  demeanour  of 
the  Prelates  is  described  by  eye-witnesses 
as  meek,  composed,  cheerful,  betraying  no 
fear,  and  untainted  by  ostentation  or  defiance, 
but  endowed  with  a  greater  power  over  the 
fellow-feeling  of  the  beholders  by  the  ex 
hortations  to  loyalty,  which  were  doubtless 
uttered  with  undesigning  sincerity  by  the 
greater  number  of  the  venerable  sufferers.* 
The  mode  of  conveyance,  though  probably 
selected  for  mere  convenience,  contributed 
to  deepen  and  prolong  the  interest  of  the 
scene.  The  soldiers  who  escorted  them  to 
the  shore  had  no  need  to  make  any  demon 
strations  of  violence  ;  for  the  people  were  too 
much  subdued  by  pity  and  reverence  to  vent 
their  feelings  otherwise  than  by  tears  and 
prayers.  Having  never  before  seen  prelates 
in  opposition  to  the  King,  and  accustomed  to 
look  at  them  only  in  a  state  of  pacific  and 
inviolate  dignity,  the  spectators  regarded 
their  fall  to  ths  condition  of  prisoners  and 
the  appearance  of  culprits  with  amazement, 
awe.  and  compassion.  The  scene  seemed  to 
be  a  procession  of  martyrs.  ''Thousands,'' 
says  Van  Citters.  probably  an  eye-witness, 
'•begged  their  blessing."t  Some  ran  into 
the  water  to  implore  ilT  Both  banks  of  the 
Thames  were  lined  with  multitudes,  who, 
when  they  were  too  distant  to  be  heard, 
manifested  their  feelings  by  falling  down  on 
their  knees,  and  raising  up  their  hands,  be 
seeching  Heaven  to  guard  the  sufferers  for 
religion  and  liberty.  On  landing  at  the  Tower, 
several  of  the  guards  knelt  down  to  receive 
their  blessing;  while  some  even  of  the  offi 
cers  yielded  to  the  general  impulse.  As  the 
Bishops  chanced  to  land  at  the  accustomed 
hour  of  evening  prayer,  they  immediately 
repaired  to  the  chapel ;  where  they  heard, 
in  the  ordinary  lesson  of  the  day.  a  remark 
able  exhortation  to  the  primitive  teachers  of 
Christianity,  "to  approve  themselves  the 
ministers  of  God,  in  much  patience,  in 
afflictions,  in  imprisonments.''!  The  Court 
ordered  the  guard  to  be  doubled. 

On  the  following  days  multitudes  crowded 
to  the  Tower,  §  of  \vhom  the  majority  gazed 
on  the  prison  with  distant  awe,  while  a  few 
entered  to  offer  homage  and  counsel  to  the 
venerable  prisoners.  '-'If  it  be  a  crime  to 
lament,"  said  a  learned  contemporary,  in  a 
confidential  letter,  "innumerable  are  the 
transgressors.  The  nobles  of  both  sexes, 
as  it  were,  keep  their  court  at  the  Tower, 
whither  a  vast  concourse  daily  go  to  beg  the 
holy  men's  blessing.  The  very  soldiers  act  as 
mourners. "II  The  soldiers  on  guard,  indeed, 
drank  their  healths,  and  though  reprimanded 
by  Sir  Edward  Hales,  now  Lieutenant  of  the 
Tower,  declared  that  they  would  persevere. 

*  Rereshy.  p.  261.  t  18th  June.— MS. 

J  2  Corinthians,  vi.  4,  5. 

$  Clarendon,  9th,  10th,  12th  June. 

il  Dr.  Nelson,  Gutch,  vol.  i.  p.  360. 


The  amiable  Evelyn  did  not  fail  to  visit 
them  on  the  day  previous  to  that  on  which 
he  was  to  dine  with  the  Chancellor,  appear 
ing  to  distribute  his  courtesies  with  the  neu 
trality  of  Atticus:*  but  we  now  know  that 
Jeffreys  himself,  on  the  latter  of  these  days, 
had  sent  a  secret  message  by  Clarendon,  as 
suring  the  Bishops  that  he  was  much  troubled 
at  the  prosecution,  and  offering  his  services 
to  them.t  None  of  their  visiters  were  more 
remarkable  than  a  deputation  of  ten  Non 
conformist  ministers,  which  so  incensed  the 
King  that  he  personally  reprimanded  them  ; 
but  they  answered,  that  they  could  not  but 
adhere  to  the  Bishops,  as  men  constant  to 
the  Protestant  religion, — an  example  of  mag 
nanimity  rare  in  the  conflicts  of  religious 
animosities.  The  Dissenting  clergy  seem, 
indeed,  to  have  been  nearly  unanimous  in 
preferring  the  general  interest  of  religious 
liberty  to  the  enlargement  of  their  peculiar 
privileges. f  Alsop  was  full  of  sorrow  for 
his  compliances  in  the  former  year.  LuLb, 
who  was  seized  with  so  enthusiastic  an  at 
tachment  to  James,  that  he  was  lonir  after 
known  by  the  singular  name  of  the  "Jacob 
ite  Independent."  alone  persevered  in  de- 
votedriess  to  the' Court;  and  when  the  King 
asked  his  advice  respecting  the  treatment 
of  the  Bishops,  advised  that  they  should  be 
sent  to  the  Tower. § 

No  exertion  of  friendship  or  of  public  zeal 
was  wanting  to  prepare  the  means  of  their 
defence,  and  to  provide  for  their  dignity,  in 
every  part  of  the  proceeding.  The  Bishop 
of  London,  Dr.  Tennyson,  and  Johnstone,  the 
secret  agent  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  appear 
to  have  been  the  most  active  of  their  friends. 
Pemberton  and  Pollexfen.  accounted  the  most 
learned  among  the  elder  lawyers,  were  en 
gaged  in  their  cause.  Sir  John  Holt,  destined 
to  be  the  chief  ornament  of  a  bench  purified 
by  liberty,  contributed  his  valuable  advice. 
John  Somers.  then  in  the  thirty-eight  year 
of  his  age,  was  objected  to  at  one  of  their 
consultations,  as  too  young  and  obscure  to  be 
one  of  their  counsel;  and.  if  we  may  believe 
Johnstone,  it  was  owing  to  him  that  this  me 
morable  cause  afforded  the  earliest  opportu 
nity  of  making  known  the  superior  intellect 
of  that  great  man.  Twenty-eight  peers  were 
prepared  to  bail  them,  if  bail  should  be  re 
quired. II  Stanley,  chaplain  to  the  Princess 
of  Orange,  had  already  "assured  Sancroft  that 
the  Prince  and  Princess  approved  their  firm 
ness,  and  were  deeply  interested  in  their 
fate. IF  One  of  them,  probably  Trelawney, 
a  prelate  who  had  served  in  the  Civil  War, 
had  early  told  Johnstone  that  if  they  were 
sent  to  the  Tower,  he  hoped  the  Prince  of 

*  Diary,  13th— 14th  June. 

t  Clarendon,  14th  June. 

t  Johnstone,  13th  June. — MS. 

$  Johnstone,  13th  June. — MS.  "I  told  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury, "  says  Johnstone, 
"  that  their  fate  depended  oh  very  mean  persons." 
— Burnet,  vol.  iii.  p.  217. 

II  Gutch,  vol.  i.  p.  357,  where  their  names  ap 
pear. 

IT  Ibid.  p.  307. 


368 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Orange  would  take  them  out,  which  two  re 
giments  and  his  authority  would  do;*  and. 
a  little  later,  the  Bishop  of  St.'  Asaph  assured 
the  same  trusty  agent,  who  was  then  collect 
ing  the  opinions  of  several  eminent  persons 
on  the  seasonableness  of  resistance,  that  "the 
matter  would  be  easily  done."t  This  bold 
Pi-elate  had  familiarised  himself  with  extra 
ordinary  events,  and  was  probably  tempted 
to  daring  counsels  by  an  overweening  confi 
dence  in  his  own  interpretation  of  mysterious 
prophecies,  which  he  had  long  laboured  to 
illustrate  by  vain  efforts  of  ability  and  learn 
ing.  He  made  no  secret  of  his  expectations ; 
but,  at  his  first  interview  with  a  chaplain  of 
the  Archbishop,  exhorted  him  to  be  of  good 
courage,  and  declared  that  the  happiest  re 
sults  were  now  to  be  hoped  ;  for  that  the  people, 
incensed  by  tyranny,  were  ready  to  take  up 
arms  to  expel  the  Papists  from  the  kingdom, 
and  to  punish  the  King  himself,  which  was 
to  be  deprecated,  by  banishment  or  death; 
adding,  that  if  the  Bishops  escaped  from 
their  present  danger,  they  would  reform  the 
Church  from  the  corruptions  which  had  crept 
into  her  frame,  throw  open  her  gates  for  the 
joyful  entrance  of  the  sober  and  pious  among 
Protestant  Dissenters,  and  relieve  even  those 
who  should  continue  to  be  pertinacious 
in  their  Nonconformity  from  the  grievous 
yoke  of  penal  laws.J  During  the  imprison 
ment,  Sunderland  and  the  Catholic  lords,  now 
supported  by  Jeffreys,  used  every  means  of 
art  and  argument  to  persuade  James  that  the 
birth  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  (which  will  pre 
sently  be  related)  afforded  a  most  becoming 
opportunity  for  signalising  that  moment  of 
national  joy  by  a  general  pardon,  which 
would  comprehend  the  Bishops,  without  in 
volving  any  apparent  concession  to  them.§ 
The  King,  as  usual,  fluctuated.  A  Proclama 
tion,  couched  in  the  most  angry  and  haughty 
language,  commanding  all  clergymen,  under 
pain  of  immediate  suspension,  to  read  the 
Declaration,  was  several  times  sent  to  the 
press,  and  as  often  withdrawn.il  "The King," 
said  Jeffreys.  ':  had  once  resolved  to  let  the 
proceedings  fall;  but  some  men  would  hurry 
him  to  destruction. ;'1[  The  obstinacy  of 
James,  inflamed  by  bigoted  advisers,  and 
supported  by  commendation,  with  proffered 
aid  from  France,  prevailed  over  sober  coun 
sels. 

On  the  15th  of  June,  the  prisoners  were 

*  Johnstone,  27th  May.— MS. 

"f  Johnstone,  18th  June. — MS.  The  Bishop's 
observation  is  placed  between  the  opinions  of  Mr. 
Hampden  and  Sir  J.  Lee,  both  zealous  for  imme 
diate  action. 

t  Diary  of  Henry  Wharton,  25th  June,  1686. 
D'Oyley,  vol.  ii.  p.  134.  The  term  "  ponteficious," 
which  is  rendered  in  the  text  by  Papists,  may  per 
haps  be  limited,  by  a  charitable  construction,  to  the 
more  devoted  partisans  of  Papal  authority.  "The 
Bishop  of  St.  Asaph  was  a  secret  favourer  of  a 
foreign  interest." — Life  of  Kettlewell,  p.  175, 
compiled  (London,  1718)  from  the  papers  of  Hicks 
and  Nelson. 

§  Johnstone,  13th  June.— MS. 

II  Van  Citters,  8th  June.— MS. 

1T  Clarendon,  14th  June. 


brought  before  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  by 
a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus.  On  leaving  the 
Tower  they  refused  to  pay  the  fees  required 
by  Sir  Edward  Hales  as  lieutenant,  whom 
they  charged  with  discourtesy.  He  so  far 
forgot  himself  as  to  say  that  the  fees  were 
a  compensation  for  the  irons  with  which  he 
might  have  loaded  them,  and  the  bare  walls 
and  floor  to  which  he  might  have  confined 
their  accommodation.*  They  answered, 
"We  lament  the  King's  displeasure;  but 
every  other  man  loses  his  breath  who  at 
tempts  to  intimidate  us."  On  landing  from 
their  barge,  they  were  received  with  in 
creased  reverence  by  a  great  multitude,  who 
made  a  lane  for  them,  and  followed  them 
into  Westminster  Hall.t  The  Nuncio,  un 
used  to  the  slightest  breath  of  popular  feel 
ing,  was  subdued  by  these  manifestations  of 
enthusiasm,  which  he  relates  with  more 
warmth  than  any  other  contemporary.  "Of 
the  immense  concourse  of  people,"  says  he, 
"  who  received  them  on  the  bank  of  the 
river,  the  majority  in  their  immediate  neigh 
bourhood  were  on  their  knees:  the  Arch 
bishop  laid  his  hands  on  the  heads  of  such 
as  he  could  reach,  exhorting  them  to  con 
tinue  stedfast  in  their  faith ;  they  cried  aloud 
that  all  should  kneel,  while  tears  flowed 
from  the  eyes  of  many.J  In  the  court  they 
were  attended  by  the  twenty-nine  Peers 
who  offered  to  be  their  sureties ;  and  it  was 
instantly  filled  by  a  crowd  of  gentlemen  at 
tached  to  their  cause. 

The  return  of  the  lieutenant  of  the  Tower 
to  the  writ  set  forth  that  the  Bishops  were 
committed  under  a  warrant  signed  by  cer 
tain  Privy  Councillors  for  a  seditious  libel. 
The  Attorney  General  moved,  that  the  infor 
mation  should  be  read,  and  that  the  Bishops 
should  be  called  on  to  plead,  or,  in  common 
language,  either  to  admit  the  fact,  deny  it, 
or  allege  some  legal  justification  of  it.  The 
counsel  for  the  Bishops  objected  to  reading 
the  information,  on  the  ground  that  they 
were  riot  legally  before  the  court,  because 
the  warrant,  though  signed  by  Privy  Coun 
cillors,  was  not  stated  to  be  issued  by  them 
in  that  capacity,  and  because  the  Bishops, 
being  Peers  of  Parliament,  could  not  law 
fully  be  committed  for  a  libel.  The  Court 
over-ruled  these  objections; — the  first  with 
evident  justice,  because  the  warrant  of  com 
mitment  set  forth  its  execution  at  the  Council 
Chamber,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  King, 
which  sufficiently  showed  it  to  be  the  act 
of  the  subscribing  Privy  Councillors  acting 
as  such,  —  the  second,  with  much  doubt 
touching  the  extent  of  privilege  of  Parlia 
ment,  acknowledged  on  both  sides  to  exempt 
from  apprehension  in  all  cases  but  treason, 
felony,  and  breach  of  the  peace,  which  last 
term  was  said  by  the  counsel  for  the  Crown 
to  comprehend  all  such  constructive  offences 


*  Johnstone,  18th  June. — MS.  See  a  more 
general  statement  to  the  same  effect,  in  Evelyn's 
Diary,  29th  June. 

t  Clarendon,  15th  June. 

t  D'Adda,  22d  June.— MS. 


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369 


against  the  peace  as  libels,  and  argued  on 
behalf  of  the  Bishops,  to  be  confined  to 
those  acts  or  threats  of  violence  which,  in 
common  language,  are  termed  u  breaches 
of  the  peace."  The  greatest  judicial  au 
thority  on  constitutional  law  since  the  acces 
sion  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  has  pro 
nounced  the  determination  of  the  Judges  in 
1688  to  be  erroneous.*  The  question  de 
pends  too  much  upon  irregular  usage  and 
technical  subtilties  to  be  brought  under  the 
cognisance  of  the  historian,  who  must  be 
content  with  observing,  that  the  error  was 
not  so  manifest  as  to  warrant  an  imputation 
of  bad  faith  in  the  Judges.  A  delay  of 
pleading  till  the  next  term,  which  is  called 
an  "  imparlance,"  was  then  claimed.  The 
officers  usually  referred  to  for  the  practice 
of  the  Court  declared  such  for  the  last 
twelve  years  to  have  been  that  the  defend 
ants  should  immediately  plead.  Sir  Robert 
Sawyer.  Mr.  Finch,  Sir  Francis  Pemberton, 
and  Mr.'  Pollexfen,  bore  a  weighty  testimony, 
from  their  long  experience,  to  the  more  in 
dulgent  practice  of  the  better  times  which 
preceded;  but  Sawyer,  covered  with  the 
guilt  of  so  many  odious  proceedings,  Finch, 
who  was  by  no  means  free  from  participa 
tion  in  them,  and  even  Pemberton,  who  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  Chief  Justice  in  evil 
days,  seemed  to  contend  against  the  prac 
tice  of  their  own  administration  with  a  bad 
grace :  the  veteran  Pollexfen  alone,  without 
lear  of  retaliation,  appealed  to  the  pure  age 
of  Sir  Matthew  Hale.  The  Court  decided 
that  the  Bishops  should  plead;  but  their 
counsel  considered  themselves  as  having 
gained  their  legitimate  object  by  showing 
that  the  Government  employed  means  at 
Jeast  disputable  against  them.t  The  Bishops 
then  pleaded  "Not  guilty,"  and  were  en 
larged,  on  their  own  undertaking  to  appear 
on  the  trial,  which  wras  appointed  for  the 
29th  of  June. 

As  they  left  the  court  they  were  sur 
rounded  by  crowds,  who  begged  their  bless 
ing.  The  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  detained  in 
Palace  Yard  by  a  multitude,  who  kissed  his 
hands  and  garments,  wras  delivered  from  their 
importunate  kindness  by  Lord  Clarendon, 
who,  taking  him  into  his  carriage,  found  it 
necessary  to  make  a  circuit  through  the  Park 
to  escape  from  the  bodies  of  people  by  w7hom 
the  streets  were  obstructed. J  Shouts  and 
huzzas  broke  out  in  the  court,  and  were  re 
peated  all  around  at  the  moment  of  the  en- 


*  Lord  Camden  in  Wilkes'  case,  1763. 

t  State  Trials,  vol.  xii.  p.  183.  The  general 
reader  may  be  referred  with  confidence  to  the 
excellent  abridgment  of  the  State  Trials,  by  Mr. 
Phillipps, — a  work  probably  not  to  be  paralleled 
by  the  union  of  discernment,  knowledge,  imparti 
ality,  calmness,  clearness,  and  precision,  it  exhibits 
on  questions  the  most  angrily  contested.  It  is, 
indeed,  far  superior  to  the  huge  and  most  unequal 
compilation  of  which  it  is  an  abridgment, — to  say 
nothing  of  the  instructive  observations  on  legal 
questions  in  which  Mr.  Phillipps  rejudges  the 
determinations  of  past  times. 

t  Clarendon,  15th  June. 
47 


largement.  The  bells  of  the  Abbey  Church  of 
Westminster  had  begun  to  ring  a  joyful  peal, 
when  they  were  stopped  by  Sprat  amidst  the 
execrations  of  the  people.*  "  No  one  knew." 
said  the  Dutch  minister,  "what  to  do  for 
joy."  When  the  Archbishop  landed  at  Lam 
beth,  the  grenadiers  of  Lord  Lichfield?s  regi 
ment,  though  posted  there  by  his  enemies, 
received  him  with  military  honours,  made  a 
lane  for  his  passage  from  the  river  to  his 
palace,  and  fell  on  their  knees  to  ask  his 
blessing.!  In  the  evening  the  premature 
joy  at  this  temporary  liberation  displayed 
itself  in  bonfires,  and  in  some  outrages  to 
Roman  Catholics,  as  the  supposed  instigators 
of  the  prosecution. I 

No  doubt  was  entertained  at  Court  of  the 
result  of  the  trial,  which  the  King  himself 
took  measures  to  secure  by  a  private  inter 
view  with  Sir  Samuel  Astry,  the  officer 
whose  province  it  was  to  form  the  jury.§  It 
was  openly  said  that  the  Bishops  would  be 
condemned  to  pay  large  fines,  to  be  im 
prisoned  till  payment,  and  to  be  suspended 
from  their  functions  and  revenues. II  A  fund 
would  thus  be  ready  for  the  King's  liberality 
to  Catholic  colleges  and  chapels;  while  the 
punishment  of  the  Archbishop  would  re 
move  the  only  licenser  of  the  pressIF  who 
was  independent  of  the  Crown.  Sunderland 
still  contended  for  the  policy  of  being  gene 
rous  after  victory,  and  of  not  seeking  to 
destroy  those  who  would  be  sufficiently  de 
graded  ;  and  he  believed  that  he  had  made 
a  favourable  impression  on  the  King.**  But 
the  latter  spoke  of  the  feebleness  which 
had  disturbed  the  reign  of  his  brother,  and 
brought  his  father  to  the  scaffold  ;  and  Ba- 
rillon  represents  him  as  inflexibly  resolved 
on  rigour.tf  which  opinion  seems  to  have 
been  justified  by  the  uniform  result  of  every 
previous  deliberation.  Men  of  common 
understanding  are  much  disposed  to  con 
sider  the  contrary  of  the  last  unfortunate 
error  as  being  always  the  sound  policy; 
they  are  incapable  of  estimating  the  various 
circumstances  which  may  render  vigour  or 
caution  applicable  at  different  times  and  in 
different  stages  of  the  same  proceedings, 
and  pursue  their  single  maxim,  often  founded 
on  shallow  views,  even  of  one  case,  with 
headlong  obstinacy.  If  they  be  men  also 
of  irresolute  nature,  they  are  unable  to  re 
sist  the  impetuosity  of  violent  counsellors, 
they  are  prone  to  rid  themselves  of  the  pain 


*  Van  Citters,  25th  June.— MS. 

t  Johnstone,  18th  June.— MS. 

t  Narcissus  Luttrell,  MS. ;  and  the  two  last- 
mentioned  authorities. 

$  Clarendon,  21st — 27th  June,  where  an  agent 
of  the  Court  is  said  to  have  busied  himself  in 
striking  the  jury. 

II  Barillon,  1st  July.— MS.  Van  Citters,  2d 
July.— MS. 

IT  It  appears  from  Wharton's  Diary,  that  the 
chaplains  at  Lambeth  discharged  this  duty  with 
more  regard  even  then  to  the  feelings  of  the  King 
than  to  the  rights  of  Protestant  controversialists. 

**  D'Adda,  9th  July.— MS. 

tt  Barillon,  1st  July.— MS. 


370 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  fluctuation  by  a  sudden  determination  to 
appear  decisive,  and  they  often  take  refuge 
from  past  fears?  and  seek  security  from 
danger  to  come,  by  a  rash  and  violent  blow. 
"Lord  Sunderland,"  says  Barillon,  "like  a 
good  courtier  and  an  able  politician,  every 
where  vindicates,  with  warmth  and  vigour, 
the  measures  which  he  disapproved  and  had 
opposed."* 

The  Bishops,  on  the  appointed  day,  en 
tered  the  court,  surrounded  by  the  lordst 
and  gentlemen  who,  on  this  solemn  occa 
sion,  chose  that  mode  of  once  more  testify 
ing  their  adherence  to  the  public  cause. 
Some  previous  incident?  inspired  courage. 
Levinz,  one  of  the  counsel  retained,  having 
endeavoured  to  excuse  himself  from  an  ob 
noxious  duty,  was  compelled,  by  the  threats 
of  attorneys,  to  perform  it.  The  venerable 
Serjeant  Maynard,  urged  to  appear  for  the 
Crown,  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty  as  King's 
Serjeant,  boldly  answered,  that  if  he  did  he 
was  bound  also  to  declare  his  conscientious 
opinion  of  the  case  to  the  King's  Judges. i 
The  appearance  of  the  bench  was  not  con 
solatory  to  the  accused.  Powell  was  the 
only  impartial  and  upright  Judge.  Allibone, 
as  a  Roman  Catholic,  was,  in  reality,  about 
to  try  the  question  whether  he  was  himself 
legally  qualified  for  his  office.  Wright  and 
Holloway  were  placed  there  to  betray  the 
law.  Jeffreys  himself,  who  had  appointed 
the  Judges,  now  loaded  them  with  the 
coarsest  reproaches,^—  more,  perhaps,  from 
distrust  of  their  boldness  than  from  appre 
hension  of  their  independence.  Symptoms 
of  the  overawing  power  of  national  opinion 
are  indeed  perceptible  in  the  speech  of  the 
Attorney-General,  which  was  not  so  much 
the  statement  of  an  accusation  as  an  apology 
for  a  prosecution.  He  disclaimed  all  attack 
on  the  Bishops  in  their  episcopal  character, 
and  did  not  now  complain  of  their  refusal  to 
read  the  King's  Declaration  ;  but  only  charged 
them  with  the  temporal  offence  of  composing 
and  publishing  a  seditious  libel,  under  pre 
tence  of  presenting  a  humble  petition  to  His 
Majesty.  His  doctrine  on  this  head  was,  in 
deed,  subversive  of  liberty ;  but  it  has  often 
been  repeated  in  better  times,  though  in 
milder  terms,  and  with  some  reservations. 
"The  Bishops,"  said  he,  "are  accused  of 
censuring  the  government,  and  giving  their 
opinion  about  affairs  of  State.  No  man  may 
say  of  the  great  officers  of  the  kingdom,  fai 
less  of  the  King,  that  they  act  unreasonably, 
for  that  may  beget  a  desire  of  reformation, 


*  Barillon,  1st  July.— MS. 

t  "  Thirty-five  lords." — (Johnstone,  2d  July 
MS.);  probably  about  one  half  of  the  legally 
qualified  peers  then  in  England  and  able  to  attend. 
There  were  eighty-nine  temporal  lords  who  were 
Protestants.  Minority,  absence  from  the  king 
clom,  and  sickness,  may  account  for  nineteen. 

t  Johnstone,  2d  July.— MS. 

§  "  Rogues,"  ;*  Knaves,"  "  Fools."— Claren 
don,  27th  June— 5th  July.    He  called  Wright  "  a 
beast;"  but  this,  it  must  be  observed,  was  after 
his  defeat. 


and  the  last  age  will  abundantly  satisfy  us 
.vhitlier  such  a  thing  does  tend." 

The  first  difficulty  arose  as  to  the  proof  of 
he  handwriting,  which  seems  to  have  been 
lecisive  against  Bancroft,  sufficient  against 
some  others,  and  altogether  wanting  in  the 
cases  of  Ken  and  Lake.  All  the  witnesses 
m  this  subject  gave  their  testimony  with 
he  most  evident'reluctance.  The  Court  was 
equally  divided  on  the  question  \\hether 
.here  was  sufficient  proof  of  it  to  warrant  the 
•eading  of  the  Petition  in  evidence  against 
he  accused.  The  objection  to  its  being  so 
read  was  groundless;  but  the  answers  to  it 
were  so  feeble  as  to  betray  a  general  irre 
solution  and  embarrassment.  The  counsel 
or  the  Crown  were  then  driven  to  the  ne 
cessity  of  calling  the  clerk  oi  the  Privy  Coun 
cil  to  prove  the  confessions  before  that  body, 
n  obedience  to  the  commands  of  the  King. 
When  they  were  proved,  Pemberton,  with 
considerable  dexterity,  desired  the  witness 
to  relate  all  the  circumstances  which  at 
tended  these  confessions.  Blathwaite.  the 
clerk,  long  resisted,  and  evaded  the  ques 
tion,  of  which  he  evidently  felt  the  impor 
tance;  but  he  was  at  length  compelled  to 
acknowledge  that  the  Bishops  had  accom 
panied  their  offer  to  submit  to  the  Uoyal 
command,  with  an  expression  of  their  hope 
that  no  advantage  would  be  taken  of  their 
confession  against  them.  He  could  not  pre 
tend  that  they  had  been  previously  warned 
against  such  a  hope;  but  he  eagerly  added, 
that  no  promise  to  such  an  effect  had  been 
made, — as  if  chicanery  could  be  listened  to 
in  a  matter  which  concerned  the  personal 
honour  of  a  sovereign.  Williams,  the  only 
one  of  the  counsel  for  the  Crown  who  was 
more  provoked  than  intimidated  by  the  pub 
lic  voice,  drew  the  attention  of  the  audience 
to  this  breach  of  faith  by  the  vehemence 
with  which  he  resisted  the  admission  of  the 
evidence  which  proved  it. 

Another  subtile  question  sprung  from  the 
principle  of  English  law,  that  crimes  are 
triable  only  in  the  county  where  they  are 
committed.  It  was  said  that  the  alleged 
libel  was  written  at  Lambeth  in  Surrey,  and 
not  proved  to  have  been  published  in  Middle 
sex  :  so  that  neither  of  the  offences  charged 
could  be  tried  in  the  latter  county.  That  it 
could  not  have  been  written  in  Middlesex 
was  proved  by  the  Archbishop,  who  was  the 
writer,  having  been  confined  by  illness  to 
his  palace  for  some  months.  The  prosecutor 
then  endeavoured  to  show  by  the  clerks  of 
the  Privy  Council,*  that  the  Bishops  had 
owned  the  delivery  of  the  Petition  to  the 
King,  which  would  have  been  a  publication 
in  Middlesex:  but  the  witnesses  proved  only 
an  admission  of  the  signatures.  On  every 
failure,  the  audience  showed  their  feelings 
by  a  triumphant  laugh  or  a  shout  of  joy. 
The  Chief  Justice,  who  at  first  feebly  repri- 

*  Pepys,  the  noted  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty, 
was  one  of  the  witnesses  examined.  He  was  pro 
bably  a  Privy  Councillor. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


371 


manded  them,  soon  abandoned  the  attempt 
to  check  them.  In  a  long  and  irregular  al 
tercation,  the  advocates  of  the  accused  spoke 
\vith  increasing  boldness,  and  those  for  the 
prosecution  with  more  palpable  depression, 
— except  Williams,  who  vented  the  painful 
consciousness  of  inconsistency,  unvarnished 
by  success,  in  transports  of  rage  which  de 
scended  to  the  coarsest  railing.  The  Court 
had  already,  before  the  examination  of  the 
latter  witnesses,  determined  that  there  was 
no  evidence  of  publication;  notwithstanding 
which,  and  the  failure  of  these  last,  the  At 
torney  and  Solicitor  General  proceeded  to 
argue  that  the  case  was  sufficient, — chiefly, 
it  would  seem,  to  prolong  the  brawl  till  the 
arrival  of  Lord  Sunderland,  by  whose  testi 
mony  they  expected  to  prove  the  delivery 
of  the  Petition  to  the  King.  But  the  Chief 
Justice,  who  could  no  longer  endure  such 
wearisome  confusion,  began  to  sum  up  the 
evidence  to  the  Jury,  whom,  if  he  had  ad 
hered  to  his  previous  declarations,  he  must 
have  instructed  to  acquit  the  accused.  Finch, 
either  distrusting  the  Jury,  or  excused,  if  not 
justified,  by  the  Judge's  character,  by  the 
suspicious  solemnity  of  his  professions  of  im 
partiality,  and  by  his  own  too  long  familiarity 
with  the  darkest  mysteries  of  state  trials, 
suspected  some  secret  design,  and  respect 
fully  interrupted  Wright,  in  order  to  ascer 
tain  whether  he  still  thought  that  there  was 
no  sufficient  proof  of  writing  in  Middlesex, 
or  of  publication  any  where.  Wright,  who 
seemed  to  be  piqued,  said,  ahe  was  sorry 
Mr.  Finch  should  think  him  capable  of  not 
leaving  it  fairly  to  the  Jury," — scarcely  con 
taining  his  exultation  over  his  supposed  in 
discretion.*  Pollexfen  requested  the  Judge 
to  proceed ;  and  Finch  pressed  his  interrup 
tion  no  farther.  But  Williams,  who,  when 
Wrijjhl  had  began  to  sum  up,  countermanded 
his  request  for  the  attendance  of  Lord  Sun 
derland  as  too  late,  seized  the  opportunity  of 
this  interruption  to  despatch  a  second  mes 
sage,  urging  him  to  come  without  delay,  and 
begged  the  Court  to  suspend  the  summing 
up,  as  a  person  of  great  quality  was  about  to 
appear  who  would  supply  the  defects  in  the 
evidence, — triumphantly  adding,  that  there 
was  a  fatality  in  this  case.  Wright  then  said 
to  the  accused's  counsel,  "You  see  what 
comes  of  the  interruption ;  now  we  must 
stay."  All  the  bystanders  condemned  Finch 


*  "The  C.  J.  said,  'Gentlemen,  you  do  not 
know  your  own  business ;  hut  since  you  will  he 
heard,  you  shall  be  heard.'  "  Johnstone,  2d  July. 
— MS.  He  seems  to  have  been  present,  and,  as  a 
Scotchman,  was  not  very  likely  to  have  invented 
so  afood  an  illustration  of  the  future  tense.  It  is 
difficult  not  to  suspect  that  Wright,  after  admitting 
that  there  was  no  positive  evidence  of  publication 
in  Middlesex,  did  not  intend  to  tell  the  Jury  that 
there  were  circumstances  proved  from  which  they 
might  reasonably  infer  the  fact.  The  only  cir 
cumstance,  indeed,  which  could  render  it  doubtful 
that  he  would  lay  down  a  doctrine  so  well  founded, 
and  so  suitable  to  his  purpose,  at  a  time  when  he 
could  no  longer  be  contradicted,  is  the  confusion 
which,  on  this  trial,  seems  to  have  more  than 
usually  clouded  his  weak  understanding. 


as  much  as  he  soon  afterwards  compelled 
hem  to  applaud  him.  An  hour  was  spent 
in  waiting  for  Sunderland.  It  appears  to  have 
been  during  this  fortunate  delay  that  the 
Bishops'  counsel  determined  on  a  defence 
founded  on  the  illegality  of  the  Dispensing 
Power,  from  which  they  had  before  been 
either  deterred  from  an  apprehension  that 
they  would  not  be  suffered  to  question  an 
adjudged  point,  or  diverted  at  the  moment 
by  the  prospect  that  the  Chief  Justice  would 
sum  up  for  an  acquittal.*  By  this  resolution, 
the  verdict,  instead  of  only  insuring  the  es 
cape  of  the  Bishops,  became  a  triumph  of 
the  constitution.  At  length  Sunderland  was 
carried  through  Westminster  in  a  chair,  the 
head  of  which  was  down  : — no  one  saluting 
him,  and  the  multitude  hooting  arid  hissing 
and  crying  out  '-Popish  dog!"  He  was  so 
disordered  by  this  reception  that  when  he 
came  into  court  he  trembled,  changed  colour, 
and  looked  down,  as  if  fearful  of  the  coun 
tenances  of  ancient  friends,  and  unable  to 
bear  the  contrast  between  his  own  disgrace 
ful  greatness  and  the  honourable  calamity  of 
the  Bishops.  He  only  proved  that  the  Bishops 
came  to  him  with  a  petition,  which  he  de 
clined  to  read ;  and  that  he  introduced  them 
immediately  to  the  King,  to  whom  he  had 
communicated  the  purpose  for  which  they 
prayed  an  audience. 

The  general  defence  then  began,  and  the 
counsel  for  the  Bishops,  without  relinquish 
ing  their  minor  objections,  arraigned  the  Dis 
pensing  Power,  and  maintained  the  right  of 
petition  with  a  vigour  and  boldness  which 
entitles  such  of  them  as  were  only  mere  ad 
vocates  to  great  approbation,  and  those  among 
them  who  were  actuated  by  higher  principles 
to  the  everlasting  gratitude  of  their  country. 
When  Sawyer  began  to  question  the  legality 
of  the  Declaration,  Wright,  speaking  aside, 
said,  "I  must  not  suffer  them  to  dispute  the 
King's  power  of  suspending  laws."  Powell 
answered,  "  They  must  touch  that  point  j  for 
if  the  King  had  no  such  power  (as  clearly  he 
hath  not ,)  the  Petition  is  no  attack  on  the 
King's  legal  power,  and  therefore  no  libel." 
Wright  peevishly  replied.  •''  I  know  you  are 
full  of  that  doctrine,  but  the  Bishops  shall 
have  no  reason  to  say  I  did  not  hear  them. 
Brother,  you  shall  have  your  way  for  once. 
I  will  hear  them.  Let  them  talk  till  they  are 
weary."  The  substance  of  the  argument  was, 
that  a  Dispensing  Power  was  unknown  to  the 
ancient  constitution  ;  that  the  Commons,  in 
the  reign  of  Richard  II.,  had  formally  con 
sented  that  the  King  should,  with  the  as 
sent  of  the  Lords,  exercise  such  a  power  re 
specting  a  single  law  till  the  next  Parlia- 


t  "They  waited  about  an  hour  for  Sunderland, 
which  luckily  fell  out,  for  in  this  time  the  Bishops' 
lawyers  recollected  themselves,  in  order  to  what 
followed."  A  minute  examination  of  the  trial 
explains  these  words  of  Johnstone,  and  remark 
ably  proves  his  accuracy.  From  the  eagerness  of 
Pollexfen  that  Wright  should  proceed  wiih  his 
address  to  the  Jury,  it  is  evident  that  they  did  not 
then  intend  to  make  the  defence  which  was  after 
wards  made. 


372 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ment  ;*  that  the  acceptance  of  such  a  trust  was 
a  Parliamentary  declaration  against  the  exist 
ence  of  such  a  prerogative  ;  that  though  there 
were  many  cases  of  dispensations  from  pen 
alties  granted  to  individuals,  there  never  was 
an  instance  of  a  pretension  to  dispense  with 
laws  before  the  Restoration  •  that  it  was  in 
the  reign  of  Charles  II.  twice  condemned  by 
Parliament,  twice  relinquished,  and  once 
disclaimed  by  the  Crown ;  that  it  was  de 
clared  to  be  illegal  by  the  House  of  Commons 
in  their  very  last  session :  and  finally,  that 
the  power  to  suspend  was'  in  effect  a  power 
to  abrogate  ;  that  it  was  an  assumption  of  the 
whole  legislative  authority,  and  laid  the  laws 
and  liberties  of  the  kingdom  at  the  mercy  of 
the  King.  Mr.  Somers,  whose  research  had 
supplied  the  ancient  authorities  quoted  by 
his  seniors,  closed  the  defence  in  a  speech 
admirable  for  a  perspicuous  brevity  well 
adapted  to  the  stage  of  the  trial  at  which  he 
spoke ;  in  which,  with  a  mind  so  unruffled 
by  the  passions  which  raged  around  him  as 
even  to  preserve  a  beautiful  simplicity  of 
expression, — rarely  reconcilable  with  anxi 
ous  condensation,  —  he  conveyed  in  a  few 
luminous  sentences  the  substance  of  all  that 
had  been  dispersed  over  a  rugged,  prolix, 
and  disorderly  controversy.  "My  Lord,  I 
would  only  mention  the  case  respecting  a 
dispensation  from  a  statute  of  Edward  VI., 
wherein  all  the  judges  determined  that  there 
never  could  be  an  abrogation  or  suspension 
(which  is  a  temporary  abrogation)  of  an  Act 
of  Parliament  but  by  the  legislative  power. 
It  was,  indeed,  disputed  how  far  the  King 
might  dispense  with  the  penalties  of  such  a 
particular  law,  as  to  particular  persons  ;  but 
it  was  agreed  by  all  that  the  King  had  no 
power  to  suspend  any  law.  Nay,  I  dare  ven 
ture  to  appeal  to  Mr.  Attorney-General,  whe 
ther,  in  the  late  case  of  Sir  Edward  Hales, 
he  did  not  admit  that  the  King  could  not 
suspend  a  law,  but  only  grant  a  dispensation 
from  its  observance  to  a  particular  person. 
My  Lord,  by  the  law  of  all  civilized  nations, 
if  the  prince  requires  something  to  be  done, 
which  the  person  who  is  to  do  it  takes  to  be 
unlawful,  it  is  not  only  lawful,  but  his  duty, 
rescribere  principij —  to  petition  the  sove 
reign.  This  is  all  that  is  done  here  ;  and  that 
in  the  most  humble  manner  that  could  be 
thought  of.  Your  Lordships  will  please  to 
observe  how  far  that  humble  caution  went : 
how  careful  they  were  that  they  might  not 
in  any  way  justly  offend  the  King :  they  did 
not  interpose  by  giving  advice  as  peers ; 
they  never  stirred  till  it  was  brought  home  to 
themselves  tis  bishops.  When  they  made 
this  Petition,  all  they  asked  was,  that  it  might 
not  be  so  far  insisted  on  by  his  Majesty  as 
to  oblige  them  to  read  it.  Whatever  they 
thought  of  it,  they  do  not  take  it  upon  them 

*  15  Ric.  II. 

t  This  phrase  of  the  Roman  law,  which  at  first 
bight  seems  mere  pedantry,  conveys  a  delicate  and 
happy  allusion  to  the  liberty  of  petition,  which  was 
allowed  even  under  the  despotism  of  the  Em- 
oerors  of  Rome. 


to  desire  the  Declaration  to  be  revoked.  My 
Lord,  as  to  the  matters  of  fact  alleged  in  the 
Petition,  that  they  are  perfectly  true  we  have 
shown  by  the  Journals  of  both  Houses.  In 
every  one  of  those  years  which  are  men 
tioned  in  the  Petition,  this  power  was  con 
sidered  by  Parliament,  and  upon  debate 
declared  to  be  contrary  to  law.  There  could 
then  be  no  design  to  diminish  the  prerogative, 
for  the  King  has  no  such  prerogative.  Sedi 
tious,  my  Lord,  it  could  not  be,  nor  could  it 
possibly  stir  up  sedition  in  the  minds  of  the 
people,  because  it  was  presented  to  the  King 
in  private  and  alone ;  false  it  could  not  be, 
for  the  matter  of  it  was  true ;  there  could  be 
nothing  of  malice,  for  the  occasion  was  not 
sought,  but  the  thing  was  pressed  upon  them  ; 
and  a  libel  it  could  not  be,  because  the  in 
tent  was  innocent,  and  they  kept  within  the 
bounds  set  up  by  the  law  that  gives  the  sub 
ject  leave  to  apply  to  his  prince  by  petition 
when  he  is  aggrieved.53 

The  Crown  lawyers,  by  whom  this  ex 
tensive  and  bold  defence  seems  to  have  been 
unforeseen,  manifested  in  their  reply  their 
characteristic  faults.  Powis  was  feebly  tech 
nical,  and  Williams  was  offensively  violent.* 
Both  evaded  the  great  question  of  the  pre 
rogative  by  professional  common-places  of 
no  avail  with  the  Jury  or  the  public.  They 
both  relied  on  the  usual  topics  employed  by 
their  predecessors  arid  successors,  that  the 
truth  of  a  libel  could  not  be  the  subject  of  in 
quiry  j  and  that  the  falsehood,  as  well  as  the 
malice  and  sedition  charged  by  the  informa 
tion,  were  not  matters  of  fact  to  be  tried  by 
the  Jury,  but  qualifications  applied  by  the 
law  to  every  writing  derogatory  to  the  go 
vernment.  Both  triumphantly  urged  that 
the  Parliamentary  proceedings  of  the  last 
and  present  reign,  being  neither  acts  nor 
judgments  of  Parliament,  were  no  proof  of 
the  illegality  of  what  they  condemned, — 
withow.t  adverting  to  the  very  obvious  con 
sideration  that  thj  Bishops  appealed  to  them 
only  as  such  manifestations  of  the  sense  of 
Parliament  as  it  would  be  imprudent  in  them 
to  disregard.  Williams,  in  illustration  of 
this  argument,  asked  "Whether  the  name 
of  <a  declaration  in  Parliament'  could  be 
given  to  the  Bill  of  Exclusion,  because  it  had 
passed  the  Commons  (where  he  himself  had 
been  very  active  in  promoting  it)?"  This 
indiscreet  allusion  was  received  with  a  gene 
ral  hiss.t  He  was  driven  to  the  untenable 
position,  that  a  petition  from  these  prelates 
was  warrantable  only  to  Parliament;  and 
that  they  were  bound  to  delay  it  till  Parlia 
ment  should  be  assembled. 


*  "  Pollexfen  and  Finch  took  no  small  pains  to 
inveigh  against  the  King's  Dispensing  power. 
The  counsel  for  the  Crown  waived  that  point, 
ihousrh  Mr.  Solicitor  was  fiercely  earnest  against 
the  Bishops,  and  took  the  management  upon  him 
self ;  Mr.  Attorney's  province  being  to  put  a 
smooth  question  now  and  then." — Mr.  (after 
wards  Baron)  Price  to  the  Duke  of  Beaufort. — 
Macpherson,  Original  Papers,  vol.  i.  p.  266. 

t  Van  Cillers,  9th  July.— MS. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


373 


Wright,  waiving  the  question  of  the  Dis 
pensing  Power,*  instructed  the  Jury  that  a 
delivery  to  the  King  was  a  publication  ]  and 
that  any  writing  which  was  adapted  to  dis 
turb  the  government,  or  make  a  stir  among 
the  people,  was  a  libel ; — language  of  fearful 
import,  but  not  peculiar  to  him,  nor  confined 
to  his  time.  Holloway  thought,  that  if  the 
intention  of  the  Bishops  was  only  to  make 
an  innocent  provision  for  their  own  security, 
the  writing  could  not  be  a  libel.  Powell  de 
clared  that  they  were  innocent  of  sedition,  or 
of  any  other  crime,  saying,  "If  such  a  Dis 
pensing  Power  be  allowed,  there  will  need 
no  Parliament ;  all  the  legislature  will  be  in 
the  King.  I  leave  the  issue  to  God  and  to 
your  consciences."  Allibone  overleaped  all 
the  fences  of  decency  or  prudence  so  far  as 
to  affirm,  li  that  no  man  can  take  upon  him 
self  to  write  against  the  actual  exercise  of 
the  government,  unless  he  have  leave  from 
the  government,  but  he  makes  a  libel,  be 
what  he  writes  true  or  false.  The  govern 
ment  ought  not  to  be  impeached  by  argu 
ment.  This  is  a  libel.  No  private  man  can 
write  concerning  the  government  at  all,  un 
less  his  own  interest  be  stirred,  and  then  he 
must  redress  himself  by  law.  Every  man 
may  petition  in  what  relates  to  his  private  in 
terest  ;  but  neither  the  Bishops,  nor  any  other 
man,  has  a  right  to  intermeddle  in  affairs  of 
government." 

After  a  trial  which  lasted  ten  hours,  the 
Jury  retired  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening 
to  consider  their  verdict.  The  friends  of  the 
Bishops  watched  at  the  door  of  the  jury- 
room,  and  heard  loud  voices  at  midnight  and 
at  three  o'clock ;  so  anxious  were  they  about 
the  issue,  though  delay  be  in  such  cases  a 
sure  symptom  of  acquittal.  The  opposi 
tion  of  one  Arnold,  the  brewer  of  the  King's 
house,  being  at  length  subdued  by  the  steadi 
ness  of  the  others,  the  Chief  Justice  was  in 
formed,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  that 
the  Jury  were  agreed  in  their  verdict. t  The 
Court  met  at  nine  o'clock.  The  nobility  and 
gentry  covered  the  benches;  and  an  im 
mense  concourse  of  people  filled  the  Hall, 


"  The  Dispensing  Power  is  more  effectually 
knocked  on  the  head  than  if  an  Act  of  Parliament 
had  been  made  against  it.  The  Judges  said  no 
thing  about  it,  except  Powell,  who  declared  against 
it:  so  it  is  given  up  in  Westminster  Hall.  My 
Lord  Chief  Justice  is  much  blamed  at  Court  for 
allowing  it  to  be  debated." — Johnstone,  2d  Julv- 
—MS. 

t  Letter  of  Ince,  the  solicitor  for  the  Bishops,  to 
Sancroft.  Gutch,  vol.  i.  p.  374.  From  this  letter 
we  learn  that  the  perilous  practice  then  prevailed 
of  successful  parties  giving  a  dinner  and  money  to 
the  jury.  The  solicitor  proposed  that  the  dinner 
should  be  omitted,  but  that  150  or  200  guineas 
should  be  distributed  among  twenty-two  of  the 
panel  who  attended.  "  Most  of  them  (i.  e.  the 
panel  of  the  Jury)  are  Church  of  England  men  ; 
several  are  employed  by  the  King  in  the  navy  and 
revenue;  and  some  are  or  once  were  of  the  Dis 
senters'  party." — Ellis,  Original  Letters,  2d  se 
ries,  vol.  iv.  p.  105.  Of  this  last  class  we  are  told  by 
Johnstone,  that,  "  on  being  sounded  by  the  Court 
agents,  they  declared  that  if  they  were  jurors, 
they  should  act  according  to  their  conscience." 


and  blocked  up  the  adjoining  streets.  Sir 
Robert  Langley,  the  foreman  of  the  Jury, 
being,  according  to  established  form,  askeu 
whether  the  accused  were  guilty  or  not 
guilty,  pronounced  the  verdict,  "  Not  guilty." 
No  sooner  were  these  words  uttered  than  a 
loud  huzza  arose  from  the  audience  in  the 
court.  It  was  instantly  echoed  from  without 
by  a  shout  of  joy,  which  sounded  like  a  crack 
of  the  ancient  and  massy  roof  of  Westminster 
Hall.*  It  passed  with  electrical  rapidity  from 
voice  to  voice  along  the  infinite  multitude 
who  waited  in  the  streets,  reaching  the  Tem 
ple  in  a  few  minutes.  For  a  short  time  no 
man  seemed  to  know  where  he  was.  No 
business  was  done  for  hours.  The  Solicitor- 
General  informed  Lord  Sunderlarid,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Nuncio,  that  never  within 
the  remembrance  of  man  had  there  been 
heard  such  cries  of  applause  mingled  with 
tears  of  joy.t  '-'The  acclamations,"  says 
Sir  John  Reresby,  "  were  a  very  rebellion  in 
noise."  In  no  long  time  they  ran  to  the 
camp  at  Hounslow,  and  were  repeated  with 
an  ominous  voice  by  the  soldiers  in  the  hear 
ing  of  the  King,  who.  on  being  told  that  they 
were  for  the  acquittal  of  the  Bishops,  said, 
with  an  ambiguity  probably  arising  from 
confusion,  "So  much  the  worse  for  them." 
The  Jury  were  every  where  received  with 
the  loudest  acclamations:  hundreds,  with 
tears  in  their  eyes,  embraced  them  as  de 
liverers.!  The  Bishops,  almost  alarmed  at 
their  own  success,  escaped  from  the  huzzas 
of  the  people  as  privately  as  possible,  exhort 
ing  them  to  -'fear  God  and  honour  the  King." 
Cartwright,  Bishop  of  Chester,  had  remained 
in  court  during  the  trial  unnoticed  by  any  of 
the  crowd  of  nobility  and  gentry,  and  Sprat 
met  with  little  more  regard. §  The  former, 
in  going  to  his  carriage,  was  called  a  '•  wolf 
in  sheep's  clothing;"  and  as  he  was  very 
corpulent,  the  mob  cried  out,  "Room  for  the 
man  with  a  pope  in  his  belly  !"  They  be 
stowed  also  on  Sir  William  "Williams  very 
mortifying  proofs  of  disrespect.il 

Money  having  been  thrown  among  the 
populace  for  that  purpose,  they  in  the  evening 
drank  the  healths  of  the  King,  the  Bishops, 
and  the  Jury  together  with  confusion  to  the 
Papists,  amidst  the  ringing  of  bells,  and 
around  bonfires  blazing  before  the  windows 
of  the  King's  palace  :1F  where  the  Pope  was 
burnt  in  effigy**  by  those  who  were  not  aware 
of  his  lukewarm  friendship  for  their  enemies. 
Bonfires  were  also  kindled  before  the  doors 
of  the  most  distinguished  Roman  Catholics, 
who  were  required  to  defray  the  expense  of 
this  annoyance.  Lord  Arundel.  and  others, 
submitted  :  Lord  Salisbury,  with  the  zeal  of 
a  new  convert,  sent  his  servants  to  disperse 
the  rabble ;  but  after  having  fired  upon  and 


*  Clarendon.  30th  June, 
t  D'Adda,  16th  July.— MS. 
t  Van  Citters,  13th  July.— MS. 
§  Gutch,  vol.  i.  p.  382. 

II  Van  Citters,  13th  July.— MS.  IT  Ibid. 

**  Johnstone,  2d  July.— MS.     Gerard,  News 
Letter,  4th  July. 

2G 


374 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


killed  only  the  parish  beadle,  who  came  to 
quenc  i  the  bonfire,  they  were  driven  back 
into  the  house.  All  parties,  Dissenters  as 
well  as  Churchmen,  rejoiced  in  the  acquittal  : 
the  Bishops  and  their  friends  vainly  laboured 
to  temper  the  extravagance  with  which  their 
joy  was  expressed.*  The  Nuncio,  at  first 
touched  by  the  effusion  of  popular  feeling, 
but  now  shocked  by  this  boisterous  triumph, 
declared,  (rthat  the  fires  over  the  whole  city, 
the  drinking  in  every  street,  accompanied  by 
cries  to  the  health  of  the  Bishops  and  confu 
sion  to  the  Catholics,  with  the  play  of  fire 
works,  and  the  discharge  of  fire-arms,  and 
the  other  demonstrations  of  furious  glad 
ness,  mixed  with  impious  outrage  against 
religion,  which  were  continued  during  the 
night,  formed  a  scene  of  unspeakable  horror, 
displaying,  in  all  its  rancour,  the  malignity 
of  this  heretical  people  against  the  Church."f 
The  bonfires  were  kept  up  during  the  whole 
of  Saturday  ;  and  the  disorderly  rejoicings  of 
the  multitude  did  not  cease  till  the  dawn 
of  Sunday  reminded  them  of  the  duties  of 
their  religion.]:  These  same  rejoicings  spread 
through  the  principal  towns.  The  Grand 
Jury  of  Middlesex  refused  to  find  indict 
ments  for  a  riot  against  some  parties  who 
had  tumultuously  kindled  bonfires,  though 
four  times  sent  out  with  instructions  to  do  so.§ 

The  Court  also  manifested  its  deep  feelings 
on  this  occasion.  In  two  days  after  the  ac 
quittal,  the  rank  of  a  baronet  was  conferred 
upon  Williams ;  while  Powell  for  his  honesty, 
and  Holloway  for  his  hesitation,  were  re 
moved  from  the  bench.  The  King  betrayed 
the  disturbance  of  his  mind  even  in  his 
camp;||  and,  though  accustomed  to  unre 
served  conversation  with  Barillon,  observed 
a  silence  on  the  acquittal  which  that  minister 
\vas  too  prudent  to  interrupt.!" 

In  order  to  form  a  just  estimate  o^this 
memorable  trial,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish 
its  peculiar  grievances  from  the  evils  vvhich 
always  attend  the  strict  administration  of 
the  laws  against  political  libels.  The  doc 
trine  that  every  writing  which  indisposes 
the  people  towards  the  administration  of 
the  government,  however  subversive  of  all 
political  discussion,  is  not  one  of  these  pecu 
liar  grievances,  for  it  has  often  been  held  in 

*  News  Letter,  4th  July. 

t  D'Adda,  16th  July.— MS. 

t  Ellis,  vol.  iv.  p.  110. 

§  Reresby,  p.  265.  Gerard,  News  Letter,  7th 
July. 

II  Reresby,  supra. 

IT  "  His  Majesty  has  been  pleased  to  remove 
Sir  Richard  Holloway  and  Sir  John  Powell  from 
being  justices  of  the  King's  Bench."  London 
Gazette,  6th  July.  In  the  Life  of  James  II.,  (vol. 
ii.  p.  163.)  it  is  said,  that  "  the  King  gave  no  marks 
of  his  displeasure  to  the  Judges  Holloway  and 
Powell."  It  is  due  to  the  character  of  James,  to 
say  that  this  falsehood  does  not  proceed  from  him  ; 
and  justice  requires  it  to  be  added,  that  as  Dic- 
conson,  the  compiler,  thus  evidently  neglected 
the  most  accessible  means  of  ascertaining  the 
truth,  very  little  credit  is  due  to  those  portions  of 
his  narrative  for  which,  as  in  the  present  case,  he 
cites  no  auihority. 


other  cases,  and  perhaps  never  distinctly  dis 
claimed  ;  and  the  position  that  a  libel  may  be 
conveyed  in  the  form  of  a  petition  is  true, 
though  the  case  must  be  evident  and  fla 
grant  which  would  warrant  its  application. 
The  extravagances  of  Williams  and  Allibone 
might  in  strictness  be  laid  out  of  the  case,  as 
peculiar  to  themselves,  and  not  necessary  to 
support  the  prosecution,  were  it  not  that  they 
pointed  out  the  threatening  positions  which 
success  in  it  might  encourage  and  enable  the 
enemy  to  occupy.  It  was  absolutely  neces 
sary  for  the  Crown  to  contend  that  the  matter 
of  the  writing  was  so  inflammatory  as  to 
change  its  character  from  that  of  a  petition 
to  that  of  a  libel;  that  the  intention  in  com 
posing  it  was  not  to  obtain  relief,  but  to  ex 
cite  discontent;  and  that  it  was  presented  to 
the  King  to  insult  him.  and  to  make  its  con 
tents  known  to  others.  But  the  attempt  to 
extract  such  conclusions  from  the  evidence 
against  the  Bishops  was  an  excess  beyond 
the  furthest  limits  of  the  law  of  libel,  as  it 
was  even  then  received.  The  generous 
feelings  of  mankind  did  not,  however,  so 
scrupulously  weigh  the  demerits  of  the  pro 
secution.  The  effect  of  this  attempt  was  to 
throw  a  strong  light  on  all  the  odious  quali 
ties  (hid  from  the  mind  in  their  common 
state  by  familiarity)  of  a  jealous  and  restric 
tive  legislation,  directed  against  the  free  ex 
ercise  of  reason  and  the  fair  examination  of 
the  interests  of  the  community.  All  the 
vices  of  that  distempered  state  in  which  a 
Government  cannot  endure  a  fearless  discus 
sion  of  its  principles  and  measures,  appeared 
in  the  peculiar  evils  of  a  single  conspicuous 
prosecution.  The  feelings  of  mankind,  in 
this  respect  more  provident  than  their  judg 
ment,,  saw,  in  the  loss  of  every  post,  the 
danger  to  the  last  entrenchments  of  public 
liberty.  A  multitude  of  contemporary  cir 
cumstances,  wholly  foreign  to  its  character 
as  a  judicial  proceeding,  gave  the  trial  the 
strongest  hold  on  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
Unused  to  popular  meetings,  and  little  ac 
customed  to  political  writings,  the  whole 
nation  looked  on  this  first  public  discussion 
of  their  rights  in  a  high  place,  surrounded 
by  the  majesty  of  public  justice,  with  that 
new  and  intense  interest  which  it  is  not  easy 
for  those  who  are  familiar  with  such  scenes 
to  imagine.  It  was  a  prosecution  of  men  of 
the  most  venerable  character  and  of  mani 
festly  innocent  intention,  after  the  success 
of  which  no  good  man  could  have  been 
secure.  It  was  an  experiment,  in  some 
measure,  to  ascertain  the  means  and  proba 
bilities  of  general  deliverance.  The  Govern 
ment  was  on  its  trial;  and  by  the  verdict  of 
acquittal,  the  King  was  justly  convicted  of  a 
conspiracy  to  maintain  usurpation  by  oppres 
sion. 

The  solicitude  of  Sunderland  for  modera 
tion  in  these  proceedings  had  exposed  him 
to  such  charges  of  lukewarmness,  that  he 
deemed  it  necessary  no  longer  to  delay  the 
long-promised  and  decisive  proof  of  his  iden 
tifying  his  interest  with  that  of  his  master. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1C88. 


375 


Sacrifices  of  a  purely  religious  nature  cost 
him  little,*  Some  time  before,  he  had  com 
pounded  for  his  own  delay  by  causing  his 
eldest  son  to  abjure  Protestantism  ;  '•  choos 
ing  rather,"  says  Barillon,  "  to  expose  his 
son  than  himself  to  future  hazard."  The 
specious  excuse  of  preserving  his  vote  in 
Parliament  had  hitherto  been  deemed  suffi 
cient  j  while  the  shame  of  apostasy,  and  an 
anxiety  not  to  embroil  himself  irreparably 
\vith  a  Protestant  successor,  were  the  real 
motives  for  delay.  But  nothing  less  than  a 
public  avowal  of  his  conversion  would  now 
suffice  to  shut  the  mouths  of  his  enemies, 
who  imputed  his  advice  of  lenity  towards 
the  Bishops  to  a  desire  of  keeping  measures 
with  the  adherents  of  the  Prince  of  Orange. t 
It  was  accordingly  in  the  week  of  the  Bishops' 
trial  that  he  made  public  his  renunciation 
of  the  Protestant  religion,  but  without  any 
solemn  abjuration,  because  he  had  the  year 
before  secretly  performed  that  ceremony  to 
Father  Petre.J  By  this  measure  he  com 
pletely  succeeded  in  preserving  or  recovering 
the  favour  of  the  King,  wrho  announced  it 
with  the  warmest  commendations  to  his  Ca 
tholic  counsellors,  and  told  the  Nuncio  that 
a  resolution  so  generous  and  holy  would  very 
much  contribute  to  the  service  of  God.  "  I 
have,  indeed,  been  informed,"  says  that 
minister,  Ci  that  some  of  the  most  fanatical 
merchants  of  the  city  have  observed  that  the 
Royal  party  must  certainly  be  the  strongest, 
since,  in  the  midst  of  the  universal  exaspera 
tion  of  men's  minds,  it  is  thus  embraced  by 
a  man  so  wise,  prudent,  rich,  and  w^ell  in- 
formed."§  The  Catholic  courtiers  also  con 
sidered  the  conversion  as  an  indication  of  the 
superior  strength  and  approaching  triumph 
of  their  religion.  Perhaps,  indeed,  the  birth 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales  might  have  somewhat 
encouraged  him  to  the  step;  but  it  chiefly 
arose  from  the  prevalence  of  the  present  fear 
for  his  place  6ver  the  apprehension  of  remote 
consequences.  Ashamed  of  his  conduct,  he 
employed  a  friend  to  communicate  his  change 
to  his  excellent  wrife,  who  bitterly  deplored 
it. II  His  uncle,  Henry  Sidney,  the  most  con- 

*  "  On  ne  scait  pas  de  quelle  religion  il  est." — 
Lettre  d'un  Anonyme  (peut-etre  Bonrepos)  sur  la 
Conr  de  Londres,  1688,  MSS.  in  the  Depot  des 
Affaires  Etrangeres,  at  Paris. 

t  "  II  a  voulu  fermer  la  bouche  a  ses  ennemis, 
et  leur  oter  toute  pretexte  de  dire  qu'il  peut  entrer 
dans  sa  conduite  quelque  management  pour  la 
partie  de  M.  le  Prince  d' Orange." — Barillon.  8th 
July.— MS. 

$  Ibid,  supra.  "  Father  Petre,  though  it  was 
irregular,  was  forced  to  say  two  masses  in  one 
morning,  because  Lord  Sunderland  and  Lord 
Mulgrave  were  not  to  know  of  each  other's  con 
version." — Halifax  MSS.  The  French  ambas 
sador  at  Constantinople  informed  Sir  William 
Trumbull  of  the  secret  abjuration. — Ibid.  "  It  is 
now  necessary,"  says  Van  Citters  (6th  July),  "  to 
secure  the  King's  favour;  the  Queen's,  if  she  be 
regent ;  and  his  own  place  in  the  Council  of  Re 
gency,  if  there  be  one." 

§  D'Adda,  9th  July.— MS. 

II  Evelyn,  who  visited  Althorp  a  fortnight  after 
wards,  thus  alludes  to  it:  "I  wish  from  my  soul 
that  the  Lord  her  husband,  whose  parts  are  other- 


fideritial  agent  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  was 
incensed  at  his  apostasy,  and  only  expressed 
the  warmest  wishes  for  his  downfall.* 

Two  days  after  the  imprisonment  of  the 
Bishops, — as  if  all  the  events  which  were  to 
hasten  the  catastrophe  of  this  reign,  however 
various  in  their  causes  or  unlike  in  their  na 
ture,  were  to  be  crowded  into  the  same  scene, 
— the  Queen  had  been  delivered  in  the  palace 
of  St.  James',  of  a  son,  whose  birth  had  been 
the  object  of  more  hopes  and  fears,  and  was 
now  the  hinge  on  which  greater  events  turned, 
than  that  of  any  other  Royal  infant  since  hu 
man  affairs  have  been  recorded  in  authentic 
history.  Never  did  the  dependence  of  a 
monarchical  government  on  physical  acci 
dent  more  strikingly  appear.  On  Trinity 
Sunday,  the  10th  of  June,  between  nine  and 
ten  in  the  morning,  the  Prince  of  Wales  was 
born,  in  the  presence  of  the  Queen  Dowager, 
of  most  of  the  Privy  Council,  and  of  several 
ladies  of  quality, — of  all,  in  short,  who  were 
the  natural  witnesses  on  such  an  occasion, 
except  the  Princess  Anne,  who  was  at  Bath, 
and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  was 
a  prisoner  in  the  Tower.  The  cannons  of 
the  Tower  were  fired  ;  a  general  thanksgiving 
was  ordered:  and  the  Lord  May  or  was  en 
joined  to  give  directions  for  bonfires  and 
public  rejoicing.  Some  addresses  of  con 
gratulation  followed;  and  compliments  were 
received  on  so  happy  an  occasion  from  foreign 
powers.  The  British  ministers  abroad,  "in 
due  time,  celebrated  the  auspicious  birth, — 
with  undisturbed  magnificence,  at  Rome, — 
amidst  the  loudest  manifestations  of  dissatis 
faction  and  apprehension  at  Amsterdam. 
From  Jamaica  to  Madras,  the  distant  de 
pendencies,  with  which  an  unfrequent  inter 
course  was  then  maintained  by  tedious 
voyages,  continued  their  prescribed  rejoic 
ings  long  after  other  feelings  openly  prevailed 
in  the  mother  country.  The  genius  of  Dryden, 
which  often  struggled  with  the  difficulty  of 
a  task  imposed,  commemorated  the  birth  of 
the  "  son  of  prayer"  in  no  ignoble  verse, 
but  with  prophecies  of  glory  which  were 
speedily  clouded,  and  in  the  end  most  sig 
nally  disappointed.! 

The  universal  belief  that  the  child  was 
supposititious  is  a  fact  which  illustrates 


wise  conspicuous,  were  as  worthy  of  her,  as  by  a 
fatal  apostasy  and  court  ambition  he  has   made 
'himselfunworlhy." — Diarv,  18th  July. 
*  Johnstone,  2d  July.— MS. 
t  "  Born  in  broad  daylight,  that  the  ungrateful 

rout 

May  find  no  room  for  a  remaining  doubt : 
Truth,  which  itself  is  light,  does  darkness 

shun, 

And  the  true  eaglet  safely  dares  the  sun. 
Fain  would  the  fiends  have  made  a  dubious 
birth. 

*  *  *  * 

No  future  ills,  nor  accidents,  appear, 

To  sully  or  pollute  the  sacred  infant's  year. 

*  *  *  *     • 

But  kings  too  tame  are  despicably  good. 
Be  this  the  mixture  of  the  regal  child, 
By  nature  manly,  but  by  virtue  mild." 

Britannia  Kedimva-. 


376 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


several  principles  of  human  nature,  and  af 
fords  a  needful  and  wholesome  lesson  of 
scepticism,  even  in  cases  where  many  testi 
monies  seem  to  combine,  and  all  judgments 
for  a  time  agree.  The  historians  who  wrote 
while  the  dispute  was  still  pending  enlarge 
on  the  particulars :  in  our  age,  the  only  cir 
cumstances  deserving  preservation  are  those 
which  throw  light  on  the  origin  and  recep 
tion  of  a  false  opinion  which  must  be  owned 
lo  have  contributed  to  subsequent  events. 
Few  births  are  so  well  attested  as  that  of  the 
unfortunate  Prince  whom  almost  all  English 
Protestants  then  believed  to  be  spurious. 
The  Queen  had,  for  months  before,  alluded 
to  her  pregnancy,  in  the  most  unaffected 
manner,  to  the  Princess  of  Orange.*  The 
delivery  took  place  in  the  presence  of  many 
persons  of  unsuspected  veracity,  a  considera 
ble  number  of  whom  were  Protestants.  Mes 
sengers  were  eariy  sent  to  fetch  Dr.  Cham 
berlain,  an  eminent  obstetrical  practitioner, 
and  a  noted  Whig,  who  had  been  oppressed 
by  the  King,  and  who  would  have  been  the 
last  person  summoned  to  be  present  at  a 
pretended  delivery.'!'  But  as  not  one  in  a 
thousand  had  credited  the  pregnancy,  the 
public  now  looked  at  the  birth  with  a  strong 
predisposition  lo  unbelief,  which  a  very 
natural  neglect  suffered  for  some  time  to 
grow  stronger  from  being  uncontradicted. 
This  prejudice  was  provoked  to  greater  vio 
lence  by  the  triumph  of  the  Catholics;  as 
suspicion  had  before  been  awakened  by  their 
bold  predictions.  The  importance  of  the 
event  had,  at  the  earlier  period  of  the  preg 
nancy,  produced  mystery  and  reserve, — the 
frequent  attendants  of  fearful  anxiety. — 
which  were  eagerly  seized  on  as  presump 
tions  of  sinister  purpose.  When  a  passionate 
and  inexperienced  Queen  disdained  to  take 
any  measures  to  silence  malicious  rumours, 
her  inaction  was  imputed  to  inability;  and 
when  she  submitted  to  the  use  of  prudent 
precautions,  they  were  represented  as  be 
traying  the  fears  of  conscious  guilt.  Every 
act  of  the  Royal  Family  had  some  handle  by 
which  ingenious  hostility  could  turn  it  against 
them.  Reason  was  employed  only  to  dis 
cover  argument  in  support  of  the  judgment 
which  passion  had  pronounced.  In  spite  of 
the  strongest  evidence,  the  Princess  Anne 
honestly  persevered  in  her  incredulity.! 
Johnstone,  who  received  minute  information 
of  all  the  particulars  of  the  delivery  from  one 
of  the  Queen's  attendants,§  could  not  divest 
himself  of  suspicions,  the  good  faith  of  which 
seems  to  be  proved  by  his  not  hazarding  a 

*  Ellis,  Original  Letters,  1st  series,  vol.  iii.  p. 
348.  21st  Feb.  15th  May,  6th— 13th  July.  The 
last  is  decisive. 

t  Dr.  Chamberlain's  Letter  to  the  Princess 
Sophia.  Dalrymple,  app.  to  book  v. 

t  Princess  Anne  to  the  Princess  of  Orange. 
Ibid. 

$  Mrs.  Dawson,  one  of  the  gentlewomen  of  the 
Queen's  bedchamber,  a  Protestant,  afterwards 
examined  before  the  Privy  Council,  who  commu 
nicated  all  the  circumstances  to  her  friend,  Mrs. 
Baillie,  of  Jerviswood,  Johnstone's  sister. 


j  positive  judgment  on  the  subject.  By  these 
the  slightest  incidents  of  a  lying-in  room 
were  darkly  coloured.  No  incidents  in  hu 
man  life  could  have  stood  the  test  of  a  trial 
by  minds  so  prejudiced, — especially  as  long 
as  adverse  scrutiny  had  the  advantages  of 
the  partial  selection  and  skilful  insinuation 
of  facts,  undisturbed  by  that  full  discussion 
in  which  all  circumstances  are  equally  sifted. 
When  the  before-mentioned  attendant  of  the 
Queen  declared  to  a  large  company  of  gain- 


sayers 


that    "she 


lid 


(as   she 


afterwards  did  "  that  the  Queen  had  a  child," 
it  was  immediately  said,  "How  ambiguous 
is  her  expression  !  the  child  might  have  been 
born  dead."  At  one  moment  Johnstone  boasts 
of  the  universal  unbelief:  at  another  he  is 
content  with  saying  that  even  wise  men  see 
no  evidence  of  the  birth;  that,  at  all  events, 
there  is  doubt  enough  to  require  a  Parlia 
mentary  inquiry;  and  that  the  general  doubt 
may  be  lawfully  employed  as  an  argument 
by  those  who,  even  if  they  do  not  share  it, 
did  nothing  to  produce  it.  He  sometimes 
endeavours  to  stifle  his  own  scepticism  with 
the  public  opinion,  and  on  other  occasions 
has  recourse  to  these  very  ambiguous  maxims 
of  factious  casuistry ;  but  the  whole  tenour 
of  his  confidential  letters  shows  the  ground 
less  unbelief  in  the  Prince's  legitimacy  to 
have  been  as  spontaneous  as  it  was  general. 
Various,  and  even  contradictory,  accounts 
of  the  supposed  imposture  were  circulated : 
it  was  said  that  the  Queen  was  never  preg 
nant  :  that  she  had  miscarried  at  Easter  ;  that 
one  child,  and  by  some  accounts  two  children 
in  succession,  had  been  substituted  in  the 
room  of  the  abortion.  That  these  tales  con 
tradicted  each  other,  was  a  very  slight  ob 
jection  in  the  eye  of  a  national  prejudice : 
the  people  were  very  slow  in  seeing  the 
contradiction ;  some  had  heard  only  one  story, 
and  some  jumbled  parts  of  more  together. 
The  zealous,  when  beat  out  of  one  version, 
retired  upon  another :  the  skilful  chose  that 
which,  like  the  abortion  (of  which  there  had 
actually  been  a  danger),  had  some  apparent 
support  from  facts.  When  driven  succes 
sively  from  every  post,  they  took  refuge  in 
the  general  remark,  that  so  many  stories 
must  have  a  foundation  ;  that  they  all  coin 
cided  in  the  essential  circumstance  of  a  sup 
posititious  birth,  though  they  differed  in  facts 
of  inferior  moment;  that  the  King  deserved, 
by  his  other  breaches  of  faith,  the  humiliation 
which  he  now  underwent;  and  that  the  natu 
ral  punishment  of  those  who  have  often  de 
ceived  is  to  be  disbelieved  when  they  speak 
truth.  It  is  the  policy  of  most  parties  not  to 
discourage  zealous  partisans.  The  multitude 
considered  every  man  who  hesitated  in  think 
ing  the  worst  of  an  enemy,  as  his  abettor; 
and  the  loudness  of  the  popular  cry  subdued 
the  remains  of  candid  doubt  in  those  who 
had  at  first,  from  policy,  countenanced, 
though  they  did  not  contrive,  the  delusion. 
In  subsequent  times,  it  was  not  thought  the 
part  of  a  good  citizen  to  aid  in  detecting  a 
prevalent  error,  which  enabled  the  partisans 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


377 


of  inviolable  succession  to  adhere  to  the 
principles  of  the  Revolution  without  incon 
sistency  during  the  reign  of  Anne,*  and 
through  which  the  House  of  Hanover  itself 
were  brought  at  least  nearer  loan  hereditary 
right.  Johnstone  on  the  spot,  and  at  the 
moment,  almost  worked  himself  into  a  belief 
of  it ;  while  Lloyd,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  ho 
nestly  adhered  to  it  many  years  afterwards. t 
The  collection  of  inconsistent  rumours  on 
this  subject  by  Burnet  reflects  more  on  his 
judgment  than  any  other  passage  of  his  his 
tory;  yet,  zealous  as  he  was,  his  conscience 
would  not  allow  him  to  profess  his  own  be 
lief  in  what  was  still  a  fundamental  article 
of  the  creed  of  his  party.  Echard,  writing 
under  George  I.,  intimates  his  disbelief,  for 
which  he  is  almost  rebuked  by  Kennet.  The 
upright  and  judicious  Rapin,  though  a  French 
Protestant,  and  an  officer  in  the  army  led  by 
the  Prince  of  Orange  into  England,  yet,  in  the 
liberty  of  his  foreign  retirement,  gave  an 
honest  judgment  against  his  prejudices. 
Both  parties,  on  this  subject,  so  exactly 
believed  what  they  wished,  that  perhaps 
scarcely  any  individual  before  him  examined 
it  on  grounds  of  reason.  The  Catholics  were 
right  by  chance,  and  by  chance  the  Protest 
ants  were  wrong.  Had  it  been  a  case  of 
the  temporary  success  of  artful  impostures, 
so  common  an  occurrence  would  have  de 
served  no  notice  :  but  the  growth  of  a  general 
delusion  from  the  prejudice  and  passion  of  a 
nation,  and  the  deep  root  which  enabled  it 
to  keep  a  place  in  history  for  half -a  century, 
render  this  transaction  worthy  to  be  remem 
bered  by  posterity. 

The  triumph  of  the  Bishops  did  not  termi 
nate  all  proceedings  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Com 
missioners  against  the  disobedient  clergy. 
They  issued  an  order}  requiring  the  proper 
officers  in  each  diocese  to  make  a  return  of 
the  names  of  those  who  had  not  read  the 
Royal  Declaration.  On  the  day  before  that 
which  was  fixed  for  the  giving  in  the  return, 
a  meeting  of  chancellors  and  archdeacons 
was  held;  of  wrhom  eight  agreed  to  return 
that  they  had  no  means  of  procuring  the  in 
formation  but  at  their  regular  visitation, 
which  did  not  fall  within  the  appointed 
time  ;  six  declined  to  make  any  return  at  all, 
and  five  excused  themselves  on  the  plea  that 
the  order  had  not  been  legally  served  upon 
them.§  The  Commissioners,  now  content  to 
shut  their  eyes  on  lukewarmness.  resistance, 
or  evasion,  affected  a  belief  in  the  reasons 
assigned  for  non-compliance,  and  directed 

*  Caveat  Against  the  Whigs,  part  ii.  p.  50, — 
where  the  question  is  left  in  doubt  at  the  critical 
period  of  1712. 

t  See  his  account,  adverted  to  by  Burnet  and 
others,  published  by  Oldmixon,  vol.  i.  p.  734. 
"  The  Bishop  whom  your  friends  know,  bids  me 
tell  them  that  he  had  met  with  neither  man  nor 
woman  who  were  so  good  as  to  believe  the  Prince 
of  Wales  to  be  a  lawful  child." — Johnstone,  2d 
July.- -MS.  This  bold  bishop  was  probably 
Compton. 

t  London  Gazette,  12th  July. 

$  Sayers'  News-Letter,  18th  August. 
48 


another  return  to  be  made  on  the  6th  of  De 
cember,  appointing  a  previous  day  for  a  visi 
tation.*  On  the  day  when  the  Board  ex 
hibited  these  symptoms  of  debility  and  decay, 
it  received  a  letter  from  Sprat,  tendering  the 
resignation  of  his  seat,  which  was  universally 
regarded  as  foreboding  its  speedy  dissolu 
tion  ;t  and  the  last  dying  effort  of  its  usurped 
authority  was  to  adjourn  to  a  day  on  which 
it  was  destined  never  to  meet.  Such,  indeed, 
was  the  discredit  into  which  these  proceed 
ings  had  fallen,  that  the  Bishop  of  Chichester 
had  the  spirit  to  suspend  one  of  his  clergy 
for  obedience  to  the  King's  order  in  reading 
the  Declaration.! 

The  Court  and  the  Church  now  contended 
with  each  other  for  the  alliance  of  the  Dis 
senters,  but  with  very  unequal  success.  The 
last  attempt  of  the  King  to  gain  them,  was 
the  admission  into  the  Privy  Council  of  three 
gentlemen,  who  were  either  Nonconformists, 
or  well  disposed  towards  that  body. — Sir 
John  Trevor,  Colonel  Titus,  and  Mr.  Vane, 
the  posthumous  son  of  the  celebrated  Sir 
Henry  Vane.§  The  Church  took  better  means 
to  unite  all  Protestants  against  a  usurpation 
which  clothed  itself  in  the  garb  of  religious 
liberty;  and  several  consultations  were  held 
on  the  mode  of  coming  to  a  better  under 
standing  with  the  Dissenters.il  The  Arch 
bishop  and  clergy  of  London  had  several 
conferences  with  the  principal  Dissenting 
ministers  on  the  measures  fit  to  be  proposed 
about  religion  in  the  next  Parliament. TI  The 
Primate  himself  issued  admonitions  to  his 
clergy,  in  which  he  exhorted  them  to  have 
a  very  tender  regard  towards  their  Dissent 
ing  brethren,  and  to  entreat  them  to  join  in 
prayer  for  the  union  of  all  Reformed  churches 
"at  home  and  abroad,  against  the  common 
enemy,"**  conformably  to  the  late  Petition 
of  himself  and  his  brethren,  in  which  they 
had  declared  their  willingness  to  come  into 
such  a  temper  as  should  be  thought  fit  with 
the  Dissenters,  whenever  that  matter  should 
be  considered  in  Parliament  and  Convoca 
tion.  He  even  carried  this  new-born  tender 
ness  so  far  as  to  renew  those  projects  for 
uniting  the  more  moderate  to  the  Church  by 
some  concessions  in  the  terms  of  worship, 
and  for  exempting  those  whose  scruples  were 
insurmountable  from  the  severity  of  penal 
laws,  which  had  been  foiled  by  his  friends, 
when  they  were  negotiated  by  Hale  and 
Baxter  hi  the  preceding  reign,  and  which 


*  London  Gazette,  16th  August. 

t  Savers'  News-Letter,  22d  August.  "The 
secretary  gave  this  letter  to  the  Chancellor,  who 
s%vore  that  the  Bishop  was  mad.  He  gave  it  to 
the  Lord  President,  but  it  was  never  read  to  the 
Board."  Such  was  then  the  disorder  in  their 
minds  and  in  their  proceedings. 

t  Ibid.  19th  Sept.,  Kennet,  vol.  iii.  p.  515,  note ; 
in  both  which,  the  date  of  Sprat's  letter  is  15th 
August,  the  day  before  the  last  meeting  of  the 
Commissioners. 

§  London  Gazette,  6th  July. 

II  Savers'  News-Letter,  7th  July. 

IT  Ibid.  21st  July.     Ellis,  vol.  iv.  p.  117. 

**  D'Oyley,  vol.i.  p.  324. 


378 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


were  again  within  a  few  months  afterwards 
to  be  resisted,  by  the  same  party,  and  with 
too  much  success.  Among-  the  instances  of 
the  disaffection  of  the  Church  the  University 
of  Oxford  refused  so  small  a  compliance  as 
that  of  conferring  the  degree  of  doctor  of  di 
vinity  on  their  Bishop,  according  to  ihe  royal 
mandamus,*  and  hastened  to  elect  the  young- 
Duke  of  Ormonde  to  be  their  Chancellor  on 
the  death  of  his  grandfather,  in  order  to 
escape  the  imposition  of  Jeffreys,  in  whose 
favour  they  apprehended  a  recommendation 
from  the  Court. 

Several  symptoms  now  indicated  that  the 
national  discontent  had  infected  the  armed 
force.  The  seamen  of  the  squadron  at  the 
No  re  received  some  monks  who  were  sent 
to  officiate  among  them  with  boisterous 
marks  of  derision  and  aversion  j  and,  though 
the  tumult  was  composed  by  the  presence 
of  the  King,  it  left  behind  dispositions  favour 
able  to  the  purposes  of  disaffected  officers. 
James'  proceedings  respecting  the  army 
were  uniformly  impolitic.  He  had,  very 
early,  boasted  of  the  number  of  his  guards 
who  were  converted  to  his  religion  j  thus 
disclosing  to  them  the  dangerous  secret  of 
their  importance  to  his  designs.!  The  sensi 
bility  evinced  at  the  Tower  and  at  Lambeth, 
betokened  a  pronenessto  fellow-feeling  with 
the  people,  which  Sunderland  had  before 
intimated  to  the  Nuncio,  and  of  which  he 
had  probably  forewarned  his  master.  After 
the  triumph  of  the  predates,  on  which  occa 
sion  the  feelings  of  the  army  declared  them 
selves  still  more  loudly,  the  King  had  re 
course  to  the  very  doubtful  expedient  of 
paying  open  court  to  it.  He  dined  twice  a 
week  in  the  camp,J  and  showed  an  anxiety 
to  ingratiate  himself  by  a  display  of  affability, 
of  precautions  for  the  comfort,  and  pride  in 
the  discipline  and  appearance  of  the  troops. 
Without  the  boldness  which  quells  a  muti 
nous  spirit,  or  the  firmness  which,  where 
activity  would  be  injurious,  can  quietly  look 
at  a  danger  till  it  disappears  or  may  be  sur 
mounted,  he  yielded  to  the  restless  fearful- 
ness  which  seeks  a  momentary  relief  in  rash 
and  mischievous  efforts,  that  rouse  many  re 
bellious  tempers  and  subdue  none.  A  writ 
ten  test  was  prepared,  which  even  the  pri 
vates  were  required  to  subscribe,  by  which 
they  bound  themselves  to  contribute  to  the 
repeal  of  the  penal  laws.§  It  was  first  to  be 
tendered  to  the  regiments  who  were  most 
confidentially  expected  to  set  a  good  example 
to  the  others.  The  experiment  was  first 
tried  on  Lord  Lichfield's,  and  all  who  hesi 
tated  to  comply  with  the  King's  commands 
were  ordered  to  lay  down  their  arms  : — the 
whole  regiment,  except  two  captains  and  a 
few  catholic  privates,  actually  did  lay  down 
their  arms.  The  King  was  thunderstruck; 
and,  after  a  gloomy  moment  of  silence,  or- 

*  Savers'  News-Letter,  25th  July, 
t  D'Adda,  5th  Dec.  1687,  MS. 
t  Ellis,  vol.  iv.  p.  111. 

$  JohnBtone,  2d  July,  MS.  Oldmixon.  vol.  i. 
p.  739. 


dered  them  to  take  up  their  muskets,  say 
ing,  :i  that  he  should  not  again  do  them  the 
honour  to  consult' them.'-'*  When  the  troops 
returned  from  the  encampment  to  their 
quarters,  another  plan  was  attempted  for  se 
curing  their  fidelity,  by  the  introduction  of 
trustworthy  recruits.  With  this  view,  fifty 
Irish  Catholics  were  ordered  to  be  equally 
distributed  among  the  ten  companies  of  the 
Duke  of  Berwick's  regiment  at  Portsmouth; 
which,  having  already  a  colonel  incapacita 
ted  by  law,  was  expected  to  be  better  dis 
posed  to  the  reception  of  recruits  liable  to 
the  same  objection.  But  the  experiment 
was  too  late,  and  was  also  conducted  with  a 
slow  formality  alien  to  the  genius  of  soldiers. 
The  officers  were  now  actuated  by  the  same 
sentiments  with  their  own  class  in  society. 
Beaumont,  the  lieutenant-colonel,  and  the 
five  captains  who  were  present,  positively 
refused  to  comply.  They  were  brought  to 
Windsor  under  an  escort  of  cavalry,  tried  by 
a  council  of  \var;  and  sentenced  to  be  cashier 
ed.  The  King  now  relented,  or  rather  fal 
tered,  offering  pardon,  on  condition  of  obe 
dience. — a  fault  as  great  as  the  original  at 
tempt  :'  they  all  refused.  The  greater  part 
of  the  other  officers  of  the  regiment  threw 
up  their  commissions;  and.  instead  of  inti 
midation,  a  great  and  general  discontent  was 
spread  throughout  the  army.  Thus,  to  the 
odium  incurred  by  an  attempt  to  recruit  it 
from  those  who  were  deemed  the  most  hos 
tile  of  foreign  enemies,  was  superadded  the 
contempt  which  feebleness  in  the  execution 
of  obnoxious  designs  never  fails  to  inspire.! 
Thus,  in  the  short  space  of  three  years 
from  the  death  of  Monmouth  and  the  de 
struction  of  his  adherents,  when  all  who 
were  not  zealously  attached  to  the  Crown 
seemed  to  be  dependent  on  its  mercy,  were 
all  ranks  and  parties  of  the  English  nation, 
without  any  previous  show  of  turbulence, 
and  with  not  much  of  that  cruel  oppression 
of  individuals  which  is  usually  necessary  to 
awaken  the  passions  of  a  people,  slowly  and 
almost  imperceptibly  conducted  to  the  brink 
of  a  great  revolution.  The  appearance  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales  filled  the  minds  of  those 
who  believed  his  legitimacy  with  terror ; 
while  it  roused  the  warmest  indignation  of 
those  who  considered  his  supposed  birth  as 
a  flagitious  imposture.  Instead  of  the  go 
vernment  of  a  Protestant  successor,  it  pre 
sented,  after  the  death  of  James,  both  during 
the  regency  of  the  Queen,  and  the  reign  of  a 
prince  educated  under  her  superintendence, 
no  prospect  but  an  administration  certainly 
not  more  favourable  than  his  to  religion  and 
liberty.  These  apprehensions  had  been 

*  Kennet,  vol.  iii.  p.  516.  Ralph  speaks  doubt 
fully  of  this  scene,  of  which,  indeed,  no  writer  has 
mentioned  the  place  or  time.  The  written  test  is 
confirmed  by  Johnstone,  and  Kennet  could  hardly 
have  been  deceived  about  the  sequel.  The  place 
must  have  been  the  camp  at  Hounslow,  and  the 
time  was  probably  about,  the  middle  of  July. 

t  Reresby,  p.  270,  who  seems  to  have  been  a 
captain  in  this  regiment.  Burnet,  vol.  iii.  p.  272. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


379 


brought  home  to  the  feelings  of  the  people 
by  the  trial  of  the  Bishops,  and  had  at  last 
affected  even  the  army,  the  last  resource  of 
power, — a  tremendous  weapon,  which  cannot 
burst  without  threatening  destruction  to  all 
around,  and  which,  if  it  were  not  sometimes 
happily  so  overcharged  as  to  recoil  on  him 
who  wields  it,  would  rob  all  the  slaves  in  the 
world  of  hope,*  and  all  the  freemen  of  safety. 

The  state  of  the  other  British  kingdoms 
was  not  such  as  to  abate  the  alarms  of  Eng 
land.  In  Ireland  the  government  of  Tyrcon- 
nel  was  always  sufficiently  in  advance  of 
the  English  minister  to  keep  the  eyes  of  the 
nation  fixed  on  the  course  which  their  rulers 
were  steering.*  Its  influence  in  spreading 
alarm  and  disaffection  through  the  other  do 
minions  of  the  King,  was  confessed  by  the 
ablest  and  most  zealous  of  his  apologists. 

Scotland  was  also  a  mirror  in  which  the 
English  nation  might  behold  their  approach 
ing  doom.  The  natural  tendency  of  the 
Dispensing  and  Suspending  Powers  to  ter 
minate  in  the  assumption  of  the  whole  au 
thority  of  legislation,  wras  visible  in  the  De 
clarations  of  Indulgence  issued  in  that  king 
dom.  They  did  not,  as  in  England,  profess  to 
be  founded  on  limited  and  peculiar  preroga 
tives  of  the  King,  either  as  the  head  of  the 
Church  or  as  the  fountain  of  justice,  nor  on 
usages  and  determinations  which,  if  they 
sanctioned  such  acts  of  power,  at  least  con 
fined  them  within  fixed  boundaries,  but  upon 
what  the  King  himself  displayed,  in  all  its 
amplitude  and  with  all  its  terrors,  as  "our 
sovereign  authority,  prerogative  royal,  and 
absolute  power,  which  all  our  subjects  are 
bound  to  obey  without  reservation. "t  In 
the  exercise  of  this  alarming  power,  not  only 
\vere  all  the  old  oaths  taken  away,  but  a  new 
one,  professing  passive  obedience,  was  pro 
posed  as  the  condition  of  toleration.  A  like 
Declaration  in  1688,  besides  the  repetition 
of  so  high  an  act  of  legislative  power  as  that 
of  "annulling"  oaths  which  the  legislature 
had  prescribed,  proceeds  to  dissolve  all  the 
courts  of  justice  and  bodies  of  magistracy  in 
that  kingdom,  in  order  that  by  their  accept- 

*  "  I  do  not  vindicate  all  that  Lord  Tyrconnel, 
and  others,  did  in  Ireland  before  the  Revolution  ; 
which,  most  of  any  thing,  brought  it  on.  I  am 
sensible  that  their  carriage  gave  greater  occasion 
to  King  James'  enemies  than  all  the  other  mal 
administrations  charged  upon  his  government." — 
Leslie,  Answer  to  King's  State  of  the  Protestants, 
p.  73.  Leslie  is  the  ablest  of  James'  apologists. 
He  skilfully  avoids  all  the  particulars  of  Tyrcon- 
nel's  government  before  the  Revolution.  That 
silence,  and  this  general  admission,  may  be  con 
sidered  as  conclusive  evidence  against  it. 

t  Proclamation,  12th  Feb.  1687.  Wodrow,  vol. 
ii.  app.  no.  cxxix.  "  We  here  in  England  see 
what  we  must  look  to.  A  Parliament  in  Scotland 
proved  a  little  stubborn  ;  now  absolute  power  comes 
to  set  all  right:  so  when  the  closeting  has  gone 
round,  we  may  perhaps  see  a  Parliament  here  : 
but  if  it  chance  to  be  untoward,  then  our  reverend 
judges  will  copy  from  Scotland,  and  will  discover 
to  us  this  new  mystery  of  absolute  power,  which 
we  are  all  obliged  to  obey  without  reserve  " — Bur- 
net,  Reflections  on  Proclamation  for  Toleration. 


ance  of  new  commissions  conformably  to  the 
royal  pleasure,  they  might  renounce  all  for 
mer  oaths  ; — so  that  every  member  of  them 
would  hold  his  office  under  the  Suspending 
and  even  Annulling  Powers,  on  the  legiti 
macy  of  which  the  whole  judicature  and  ad 
ministration  of  the  realm  would  thus  exclu 
sively  rest.*  Blood  had  now  ceased  to  flow 
for  religion  :  and  the  execution  of  Renwick,f 
a  pious  and  intrepid  minister,  who,  according 
to  the  principles  of  the  Cameroriians,  openly 
denied  James  II.  to  be  his  rightful  sovereign, 
is  rather  an  apparent  than  a  real  exception : 
for  the  offence  imputed  to  him  was  not  of  a 
religious  nature,  and  must  have  been  punish 
ed  by  every  established  authority;  though 
an  impartial  observer  would  rather  regret  the 
imprudence  than  question  the  justice  of  such 
a  declaration  from  the  mouths  of  these  per 
secuted  men.  Books  against  the  King's  re 
ligion  were  reprehended  or  repressed  by  the 
Privy  Council.!  Barclay,  the  celebrated 
Quaker,  was  at  this  time  in  such  favour, 
that  he  not  only  received  a  liberal  pension, 
but  had  influence  enough  to  procure  an  in 
decent,  but  successful,  letter  from  the  King 
to  the  Court  of  Session,  in  effect  annulling  a 
judgment  for  a  large  sum  of  money  which 
had  been  obtained  against  Sir  Ewen  Came 
ron,  a  bold  and  fierce  chieftain,  the  brother- 
in-law  of  the  accomplished  and  pacific  apolo 
gist. §  Though  the  clergy  of  the  Established 
Church  had  two  years  before  resisted  an  un 
limited  toleration  by  prerogative,  yet  we  are 
assured  by  a  competent  witness,  that  their 
opposition  arose  chiefly  from  the  fear  that  it 
would  encourage  the  unhappy  Presbyterians, 
then  almost  entirely  ruined  and  scattered 
through  the  world. II  The  deprivation  of  two 
prelates,  Bruce,  Bishop  of  Dunkeld,  for  his 
conduct  in  Parliament,  and  Cairncross.  Arch 
bishop  of  Glasgow,  in  spite  of  subsequent 
submission,  for  not  censuring  a  preacher 
against  the  Church  of  Rome,T  showed  the 
English  clergy  that  suspensions  like  that  of 
Compton  might  be  followed  by  more  decisive 
measures;  but  seems  to  have  silenced  the 


*  Proclamation,  15th  May.  Wodrow,  vol.  ii. 
app.  no.  cxxxviii.  Fountainhall,  vol.  i.  p.  504. 
The  latter  writer  informs  us,  that  "  this  occasioned 
several  sheriffs  to  forbear  awhile."  Perth,  the 
Scotch  Chancellor,  who  carried  this  Declaration 
to  Scotland,  assured  the  Nuncio,  before  leaving 
London,  "that  the  royal  prerogative  was  then  so 
extensive  as  not  to  require  the  concurrence  of 
Parliament,  which  was  only  an  useful  corrobora- 
tion."— D'Adda,  21st  May,  MS. 

t  On  the  17th  Feb.  1688. 

t  A  bookseller  in  Edinburgh  was  "threatened 
for  publishing  an  account  of  the  persecution  in 
France."— Fountainhall,  8th  Feb.  1688.  Cock- 
burn,  a  minister,  was  forbidden  to  continue  a  Re 
view,  taken  chiefly  from  Le  Clerc's  Bibliotheque 
Universelle,  containing  some  extracts  from  Ma- 
billon's  Iter  Italicum,  which  were  supposed  tore- 
fleet  on  the  Church  of  Rome. 

^Fountainhall.  2d  June. 

II  Balcarras,  Affairs  of  Scotland,  (London,  1714), 
p.  8. 

IT  Skinner,  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Scotland 
vol.  ii.  pp.  500—504. 


380 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


complaints  of  the  Scottish  Church.  From 
that  time,  at  least,  their  resistance  to  the 
Court  entirely  ceased.  It  was  followed  by 
symptoms  of  an  opposite  disposition ;  among 
which  may  probably  be  reckoned  the  other 
wise  inexplicable  return,  to  the  office  of 
Lord  Advocate,  of  the  eloquent  Sir  George 
Mackenzie,  their  principal  instrument  in  the 
cruel  persecution  of  the  Presbyterians, — who 
now  accepted  that  station  at  the  moment  of 
the  triumph  of  those  principles  by  opposing 
which  he  had  forfeited  it  two  years  before.* 
The  Primate  prevailed  on  the  University  of 
St.  Andrews  to  declare,  by  an  address  to  the 
King,  their  opinion  that  he  might  take  away 
the  penal  laws  without  the  consent  of  Par 
liament,  t  No  manifestation  of  sympathy 
appears  to  have  been  made  towards  the  Eng 
lish  Bishops,  at  the  moment  of  their  danger, 
or  of  their  triumph,  by  their  brethren  in 
Scotland.  At  a  subsequent  period,  when  the 
prelates  of  England  offered  wholesome  and 
honest  counsel  to  their  Sovereign,  those  of 
Scotland  presented  an  address  to  him,  in 
which  they  prayed  that  "God  might  give 
him  the  hearts  of  his  subjects  and  the  necks 
of  his  enemies. "t  In  the  awful  struggle  in 
wrhich  the  English  nation  and  Church  were 
about  to  engage,  they  had  to  number  the 
Established  Church  of  Scotland  among  their 
enemies. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Doctrine  of  obedience. — Right  of  resistance. — 
Comparison  of  foreign  and  civil  war. — 
Right  of  calling  auxiliaries. — Relations  of 
the  people  of  England  and  of  Holland. 

THE  time  was  now  come  when  the  people 
of  England  were  called  upon  to  determine, 
whether  they  should  by  longer  submission 
sanction  the  usurpations  and  encourage  the 
further  encroachments  of  the  Crown,  or  take 
up  arms  against  the  established  authority  of 
their  Sovereign  for  the  defence  of  their  legal 
rights,  as  well  as  of  those  safeguards  which 
the  constitution  had  placed  around  them. 
Though  the  solution  of  this  tremendous  pro 
blem  requires  the  calmest  exercise  of  reason, 
the  circumstances  which  bring  it  forward  com 
monly  call  forth  mightier  agents,  wrhich  dis 
turb  and  overpower  the  action  of  the  under 
standing.  In  conjunctures  so  awful,  where 
men  feel  more  than  they  reason,  their  con 
duct  is  chiefly  governed  by  the  boldness  or 
wariness  of  their  nature,  by  their  love  of 
liberty  or  their  attachment  to  quiet,  by  their 
proneness  or  slowness  to  fellow-feeling  with 
their  countrymen.  The  generous  virtues  and 
turbulent  passions  rouse  the  brave  and  aspir 
ing  to  resistance;  some  gentle  virtues  and 
useful  principles  second  the  qualities  of  hu 
man  nature  in  disposing  many  to  submis- 

*  Fountainhall,  23d  February. 

t  Id.  29th  March. 

t  Skinner,  vol.  ii.  p.  513. 


sion.  The  duty  of  legal  obedience  seems  to 
forbid  that  appeal  to  arms  which  the  neces 
sity  of  preserving  law  and  liberty  allows,  or 
rather  demands.  In  such  a  conflict  there  is 
little  quiet  left  for  moral  deliberation.  Yet 
by  the  immutable  principles  of  morality,  and 
by  them  alone,  must  the  historian  try  the 
conduct  of  all  men,  before  he  allows  him 
self  to  consider  all  the  circumstances  of 
time,  place,  opinion,  example,  temptation, 
and  obstacle,  which,  though  they  never  au 
thorise  a  removal  of  the  everlasting  land 
marks  of  right  and  wrong,  ought  to  be  well 
weighed,  in  allotting  a  due  degree  of  com 
mendation  or  censure  to  human  actions. 

The  English  law,  like  that  of  most  other 
countries,  lays  down  no  limits  of  obedience. 
The  clergy  of  the  Established  Church,  the 
authorised  teachers  of  public  morality,  car 
ried  their  principles  much  farther  than  was 
required  by  a  mere  concurrence  with  this 
cautious  silence  of  the  law.  Not  content 
with  inculcating,  in  common  with  all  other 
moralists,  religious  or  philosophical  obedience 
to  civil  government  as  one  of  the  most  essen 
tial  duties  of  human  life,  the  English  Church 
perhaps  alone  had  solemnly  pronounced  that 
in  the  conflict  of  obligations  no  other  rule  of 
duty  could,  under  any  circumstances,  be 
come  more  binding  than  that  of  allegiance. 
Even  the  duty  which  seems  paramount  to 
every  other, — that  which  requires  every  citi 
zen  to  contribute  to  the  preservation  of  the 
community,  —  ceased,  according  to  their 
moral  system,  to  have  any  binding  force, 
whenever  it  could  not  be  performed  without 
resistance  to  established  government.  Re 
garding  the  power  of  a  monarch  as  more 
sacred  than  the  paternal  authority  from  which 
they  vainly  laboured  to  derive  it,  they  re 
fused  to  nations  oppressed  by  the  most  cruel 
tyrants*  those  rights  of  self-defence  which 
no  moralist  or  lawgiver  had  ever  denied  to 
children  against  unnatural  parents.  To  pal 
liate  the  extravagance  of  thus  representing 
obedience  as  the  only  duty  without  an  ex 
ception,  an  appeal  was  made  to  the  divine 
origin  of  government; — as  if  every  other 
moral  rule  were  not,  in  the  opinion  of  all 
theists,  equally  enjoined  and  sanctioned  by 
the  Deity.  To  denote  these  singular  doc 
trines,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  devise  the 
terms  of  "passive  obedience"  and  "non-re 
sistance," — uncouth  and  jarring  forms  of 
speech,  not  unfitly  representing  a  violent  de 
parture  from  the  general  judgment  of  man 
kind.  This  attempt  to  exalt  submission  so 
high  as  to  be  always  the  highest  duty,  con 
stituted  the  undistinguishing  loyalty  of  which 
the  Church  of  England  boasted  as  her  ex 
clusive  attribute,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
other  Reformed  communions,  as  well  as  to 
the  Church  of  Rome.  At  the  dawn  of  the 
Reformation  it  had  been  promulgated  in  the 
Homilies  or  discourses  appointed  by  the 
Church  to  be  read  from  the  pulpit  to  the 


*  Interpretation  of  Romans,  xiii.  1 — 7,  written 
under  Nero.  See,  among  many  others,  South, 
Sermon  on  the  5th  November,  1663. 


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381 


people  ;*  and  all  deviations  from  it  had  been 
recently  condemned  by  the  University  of 
Oxford  with  the  solemnity  of  a  decree  from 
Rome  or  from  Trent. t  The  Seven  Bishops 
themselves,  in  the  very  Petition  which 
brought  the  contest  with  the  Crown  to  a 
crisis,  boasted  of  the  inviolable  obedience  of 
their  Church,  and  of  the  honour  conferred  on 
them  by  the  King's  repeated  acknowledg 
ments  of  it.  Nay,  all  the  ecclesiastics  and 
the  principal  laymen  of  the  Church  had  re 
corded  their  adherence  to  the  same  princi 
ples,  in  a  still  more  solemn  arid  authoritative 
mode.  By  the  Act  of  Uniformity,!  which 
restored  the  legal  establishment  of  the  Epis 
copal  Church,  it  was  enacted  that  every 
clergyman,  schoolmaster,  and  private  tutor 
should  subscribe  a  declaration,  affirming  that 
"it  was  not  lawful  on  any  pretext  to  take  up 
arms  against  the  King,"  which  members  of 
corporations^  and  officers  of  militiall  were  by 
other  statutes  of  the  same  period  also  com 
pelled  to  swear ;— -to  say  nothing  of  the  still 
more  comprehensive  oath  which  the  High- 
Church  leaders,  thirteen  years  before  the 
trial  of  the  Bishops,  had  laboured  to  impose 
on  all  public  officers,  magistrates,  ecclesias 
tics,  arid  members  of  both  Houses  of  Parlia 
ment. 

That  no  man  can  lawfully  promise  what 
he  cannot  lawfully  do  is  a  self-evident  pro 
position.  That  there  are  some  duties  supe 
rior  to  others,  will  be  denied  by  no  one: 
and  that  when  a  contest  arises  the  superior 
ought  to  prevail,  is  implied  in  the  terms  by 
which  the  duties  are  described.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  the  highest  obliga 
tion  of  a  citizen  is  that  of  contributing  to 
preserve  the  community;  and  that  every 
other  political  duty,  even  that  of  obedience 
to  the  magistrates,  is  derived  from  and  must 
be  subordinate  to  it.  It  is  a  necessary  conse 
quence  of  these  simple  truths,  that  no  man 
who  deems  self-defence  lawful  in  his  own 
case,  can,  by  any  engagement,  bind  himself 
riot  to  defend  his  country  against  foreign  or 
domestic  enemies.  Though  the  opposite  pro 
positions  really  involve  a  contradiction  in 
terms,  yet  declarations  of  their  truth  were 
imposed  by  law,  and  oaths  to  renounce  the 
defence  of  our  country  were  considered  as 
binding,  till  the  violent  collision  of  such  pre 
tended  obligations  with  the  security  of  all 
rights  and  institutions  awakened  the  national 
mind  to  a  sense  of  their  repugnance  to  the 
first  principles  of  morality.  Maxims,  so  arti 
ficial  and  over-strained,  which  have  no  more 
root  in  nature  than  they  have  warrant  from 
reason,  must  always  fail  in  a  contest  against 
the  affections,  sentiments,  habits,  and  inte 
rests  which  are  the  mdtives  of  human  con 
duct, — leaving  little  more  than  compassion 
ate  indulgence  to  the  small  number  who 
conscientiously  cling  to  them,  and  fixing  the 
injurious  imputation  of  inconsistency  on  the 

*  Homilies  of  Edward  VI.  and -Elizabeth, 
t  Parliamentary  History,  20th  July,  1683. 
1  14  Ch.  II.  c.  4. 
§  13  Ch.  II.  stat.  ii.  c.  1.        II  14  Ch.  II.  c.  3. 


great  body  who  forsake  them  for  better 
guides. 

The  war  of  a  people  against  a  tyrannical 
government  may  be  tried  by  the  same  tests 
which  ascertain  the  morality  of  a  war  be 
tween  independent  nations.  The  employ 
ment  of  force  in  the  intercourse  of  reasonable 
beings  is  never  lawful,  but  for  the  purpose 
of  repelling  or  averting  wrongful  force.  Hu 
man  life  cannot  lawfully  be  destroyed,  or 
assailed,  or  endangered,  ior  any  other  object 
than  that  of  just  defence.  Such  is  the  nature 
and  such  the  boundary  of  legitimate  self-de 
fence  in  the  case  of  individuals.  Hence  the 
right  of  the  lawgiver  to  protect  unoffending 
citizens  by  the  adequate  punishment  of 
crimes :  hence,  also,  the  right  of  an  inde 
pendent  state  to  take  all  measures  necessary 
to  her  safety,  if  it  be  attacked  or  threatened 
from  without :  provided  always  that  repara 
tion  cannot  otherwise  be  obtained,  that  there 
is  a  reasonable  prospect  of  obtaining  it  by 
arms,  and  that  the  evils  of  the  contest  are 
not  probably  greater  than  the  mischiefs  of 
acquiescence  in  the  wrong  •  including,  on 
both  sides  of  the  deliberation,  the  ordinary 
consequences  of  the  example,  as  well  as  the 
immediate  effects  of  the  act.  If  reparation 
can  otherwise  be  obtained,  a  nation  has  no 
necessary,  and  therefore  no  just  cause  of 
war  •  if  there  be  no  probability  of  obtaining 
it  by  arms,  a  government  cannot,  with  justice 
to  their  own  nation,  embark  it  in  war;  and 
if  the  evils  of  resistance  should  appear,  on 
the  whole,  greater  than  those  of  submission, 
wise  rulers  will  consider  an  abstinence  from 
a  pernicious  exercise  of  right  as  a  sacred 
duty  to  their  own  subjects,  and  a  debt  which 
every  people  owes  to  the  great  common 
wealth  of  mankind,  of  which  they  and  their 
enemies  are  alike  members.  A  war  is  just 
against  the  wrongdoer  when  reparation  for 
wrong  cannot  otherwise  be  obtained  ;  but  it 
is  then  only  conformable  to  all  the  princi 
ples  of  morality,  when  it  is  not  likely  to  ex 
pose  the  nation  by  whom  it  is  levied  to 
greater  evils  than  it  professes  to  avert,  and 
when  it  does  riot  inflict  on  the  nation  which 
has  done  the  wrong  sufferings  altogether 
disproportioned  to  the  extent  of  the  injury. 
When  the  rulers  of  a  nation  are  required  to 
determine  a  question  of  peace  or  war,  the 
bare  justice  of  their  case  against  the  wrong 
doer  never  can  be  the  sole,  and  is  not  always 
the  chief  matter  on  which  they  are  morally 
bound  to  exercise  a  conscientious  delibera 
tion.  Prudence  in  conducting  the  affairs  of 
their  subjects  is,  in  them,  a  part  of  justice. 

On  the  same  principles  the  justice  of  a 
war  made  by  a  people  against  their  own 
government  must  be  examined.  A  govern 
ment  is  entitled  to  obedience  from  the  peo 
ple,  because  without  obedience  it  cannot 
perform  the  duty,  for  which  alone  it  exists, 
of  protecting  them  from  each  other's  injus 
tice.  But  when  a  government  is  engaged  in 
systematically  oppressing  a  people,  or  in 
destroying  their  securities  against  future  op 
pression,  it  commits  the  same  species  of 


382 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


wrong  towards  them  v\hich  warrants  an  ap 
peal  to  arms  against  a  foreign  enemy.  A 
magistrate  who  degenerates  into  a  sytematic 
oppressor  shuts  the  gates  of  justice,  and 
thereby  restores  them  to  the  original  right 
of  defending  them  by  force.  As  he  with 
holds  the  protection  of  law  from  them,  he 
forfeits  his  moral  claim  to  enforce  their  obe 
dience  by  the  authority  of  law.  Thus  far 
civil  and  foreign  war  stand  on  the  same 
moral  foundation  :  the  principles  which  de 
termine  the  justice  of  both  against  the  wrong 
doer  are,  indeed,  throughout  the  same. 

But  there  are  certain  peculiarities,  of  great 
importance  in  point  of  fact,  which 'in  other 
respects  permanently  distinguish  them  from 
each  other.  The  evils  of  failure  are  greater 
in  civil  than  in  foreign  war.  A  state  gene 
rally  incurs  no  more  than  loss  in  war :  a  body 
of  insurgents  is  exposed  to  ruin.  The  pro 
babilities  of  success  are  more  difficult  to  cal 
culate  in  cases  of  internal  contest  than  in  a 
war  between  states,  where  it  is  easy  to  com 
pare  those  merely  material  means  of  attack 
and  defence  which  may  be  measured  or 
numbered.  An  unsuccessful  revolt  strength 
ens  the  power  and  sharpens  the  cruelty  of 
the  tyrannical  ruler;  while  an  unfortunate 
war  may  produce  little  of  the  former  evil 
and  of  the  latter  nothing.  It  is  almost  pecu 
liar  to  intestine  war  that  success  may  be  as 
mischievous  as  defeat.  The  victorious  lead 
ers  may  be  borne  along  by  the  current  of 
events  far  beyond  their  destination ;  a  go 
vernment  may  be  overthrown  which  ought  to 
have  been  only  repaired  ;  and  a  new,  perhaps 
a  more  formidable,  tyranny  ma,y  spring  out 
of  victory.  A  regular  government  may  stop 
before  its  fall  becomes  precipitate,  or  check 
a  career  of  conquest  when  it  threatens  de 
struction  to  itself:  but  the  feeble  authority 
of  the  chiefs  of  insurgents  is  rarely  able,  in 
the  one  case,  to  maintain  the  courage,  in  the 
other  to  repress  the  impetuosity,  of  their 
voluntary  adherents.  Finally,  the  cruelty 
and  misery  incident  to  all  warfare  are  greater 
in  domestic  dissension  than  in  contests  with 
foreign  enemies.  Foreign  wars  have  little 
effect  on  the  feelings,  habits,  or  condition  of 
the  majority  of  a  great  nation,  to  most  of 
whom  the  worst  particulars  of  them  may  be 
unknown.  But  civil  war  brings  the  same  or 
worse  evils  into  the  heart  of  a  country  and 
into  the  bosom  of  many  families :  it  eradi 
cates  all  habits  of  recourse  to  justice  and 
reverence  for  law ;  its  hostilities  are  not 
mitigated  by  the  usages  which  soften  wars 
between  nations;  it  is  carried  on  with  the 
ferocity  of  parties  who  apprehend  destruc 
tion  from  each  other;  and  it  may  leave  be 
hind  it  feuds  still  more  deadly,  which  may 
render  a  country  depraved  and  wretched 
through  a  long  succession  of  ages.  As  it 
involves  a  wider  waste  of  virtue  and  happi 
ness  than  any  other  species  of  war,  it  can 
only  be  warranted  by  the  sternest  and  most 
dire  necessity.  The  chiefs  of  a  justly  dis 
affected  party  are  unjust  10  their  fellows  and 
their  followers,  as  well  as  to  all  the  rest  of 


their  countrymen,  if  they  take  up  arms  in  a 
case  where  the  evils  of  submission  are  not 
more  intolerable,  the  impossibility  of  repa 
ration  by  pacific  means  more  apparent,  and 
the  chances  of  obtaining  it  by  arms  greater 
than  are  necessary  to  justify  the  rulers  of  a 
nation  in  undertaking  a  foreign  war.  A 
wanton  rebellion,  when  considered  with  the 
aggravation  of  its  ordinary  consequences,  is 
one  of  the  greatest  of  crimes.  The  chiefs 
of  an  inconsiderable  and  ill-concerted  revolt, 
however  provoked,  incur  the  most  formida 
ble  responsibility  to  their  followers  and  their 
country.  An  insurrection  rendered  neces 
sary  by  oppression,  and  warranted  by  a 
reasonable  probability  of  a  happy  termina 
tion,  is  an  act  of  public  virtue,  always  en 
vironed  with  so  much  peril  as  to  merit  ad 
miration. 

In  proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  a 
revolt  spreads  over  a  large  body  till  it  ap 
proaches  unanimity,  the  fatal  peculiarities 
of  civil  war  are  lessened.  In  the  insurrec 
tion  of  provinces,  either  distant  or  separated 
by  natural  boundaries, — more  especially  if 
the  inhabitants,  differing  in  religion  and 
language,  are  rather  subjects  of  the  same 
government  than  portions  of  the  same  peo 
ple, — hostilities  which  are  waged  only  to 
sever  a  legal  tie  may  assume  the  regularity, 
and  in  some  measure  the  mildness,  of  foreign 
war.  Free  men,  carrying  into  insurrection 
those  habits  of  voluntary  obedience  to  which 
they  have  been  trained,  are  more  easily  re 
strained  from  excess  by  the  leaders  in  whom 
they  have  placed  their  confidence.  Thus 
far  it  may  be  affirmed,  happily  for  mankind, 
that  insurgents  are  most  humane  where  they 
are  likely  to  be  most  successful.  But  it  is 
one  of  the  most  deplorable  circumstances  in 
the  lot  of  man,  that  the  subjects  of  despotic 
governments,  and  still  more  those  who  are 
doomed  to  personal  slavery,  though  their 
condition  be  the  worst,  and  their  revolt  the 
most  just,  are  disabled  from  conducting  it  to 
a  beneficial  result  by  the  very  magnitude  of 
the  evils  under  which  they  groan  :  for  the 
most  fatal  effect  of  the  yoke  is,  that  it  dark 
ens  the  understanding  and  debases  the  soul : 
and  that  the  victims  of  long  oppression,  who 
have  never  imbibed  any  noble  principle  of 
obedience,  throw  off  every  curb  when  they 
are  released  from  the  chain  and  the  lash. 
In  such  wretched  conditions  of  society,  the 
rulers  may,  indeed,  retain  unlimited  power 
as  the  moral  guardians  of  the  community, 
while  they  are  conducting  the  arduous  pro 
cess  of  gradually  transforming  slaves  into 
men  ;  but  they  cannot  justly  retain  it  with 
out  that  purpose,  or  longer  than  its  accom 
plishment  requires :  and  the  extreme  diffi 
culty  of  such  a  reformation,  as  well  as  the 
dire  effects  of  any  other  emancipation,  ought 
to  be  deeply  considered,  as  proofs  of  the 
enormous  guilt  of  those  who  introduce  any 
kind  or  degree  of  unlimited  power,  as  well 
as  of  those  who  increase,  by  their  obstinate 
resistance,  the  natural  obstacles  to  the  paci 
fic  amendment  of  evils  so  tremendous. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1688. 


383 


The  frame  of  the  human  mind,  and  the 
structure  of  civilized  society,  have  adapted 
themselves  to  these  important  differences 
between  civil  and  foreign  war.  Such  is  the 
force  of  the  considerations  which  have  been 
above  enumerated ;  so  tender  is  the  regard 
of  good  men  for  the  peace  of  their  native 
country,— so  numerous  are  the  links  of  inter 
est  and  habit  which  bind  those  of  a  more 
common  sort  to  an  establishment, — so  diffi 
cult  and  dangerous  is  it  for  the  bad  and  bold 
to  conspire  against  a  tolerably  vigilant  ad 
ministration, — the  evils  which  exist  in  mode 
rate  governments  appear  so  tolerable,  and 
those  of  absolute  despotism  so  incorrigible, 
that  the  number  of  unjust  wars  between 
states  unspeakably  surpasses  those  of  wan 
ton  rebellions  against  the  just  exercise  of 
authority.  Though  the  maxim,  that  there 
are  no  unprovoked  revolts,  ascribed  to  the 
Due  de  Sully,  and  adopted  by  Mr.  Burke.* 
cannot  be  received  without  exceptions,  it 
must  be  owned  that  in  civilized  times  man 
kind  have  suffered  less  from  a  mutinous 
spirit  than  from  a  patient  endurance  of  bad 
government. 

Neither  can  it  be  denied  that  the  objects 
for  which  revolted  subjects  take  up  arms  do, 
in  most  cases,  concern  their  safety  and  well- 
being  more  deeply  than  the  interests  of  stales 
are  in  .general  affected  by  the  legitimate 
causes  of  regular  war.  A  nation  may  justly 
make  war  for  the  honour  of  her  flag,  'or  for 
dominion  over  a  rock,  if  the  one  be  insulted, 
and  the  other  be  unjustly  invaded;  because 
acquiescence  in  the  outrage  or  the  wrong 
may  lower  her  reputation,  and  thereby  lessen 
her  safety.  But  if  these  sometimes  faint 
and  remote  dangers  justify  an  appeal  to 
arms,  shall  it  be  blamed  in  a  people  who 
have  no  other  chance  of  vindicating  the  right 
to  worship  God  according  to  their  con 
sciences, — to  be  exempt  from  imprisonment 
and  exaction  at  the  mere  will  and  pleasure 
of  one  or  a  few,  and  to  enjoy  as  perfect  a 
security  for  their  persons,  for  the  free  exer 
cise  of  their  industry,  and  for  the  undis 
turbed  enjoyment  of  its  fruits,  as  can  be  de 
vised  by  human  wisdom  under  equal  laws 
and  a  pure  administration  of  justice  ?  What 
foreign  enemy  could  do  a  greater  wrong  to  a 
community  than  the  ruler  who  would  reduce 
them  to  hold  these  interests  by  no  higher 
tenure  than  the  duration  of  his  pleasure  1 
What  war  can  be  more  necessary  than  that 
which  is  waged  in  defence  of  ancient  laws 
and  venerable  institutions,  which,  as  far  as 
they  are  suffered  to  act,  have  for  ages  ap 
proved  themselves  to  be  the  guard  of  all 
these  sacred  privileges. — the  shield  which 
protects  Reason  in  her  fearless  search  of 
truth,  and  Conscience  in  the  performance  of 
her  humble  duty  towards  God, — the  nur 
sery  of  genius  and  valour, — the  spur  of  pro 
bity,  humanity,  and  generosity, — of  every 
faculty  of  man. 

As  James  was  unquestionably  an  aggres- 

*  Thoughts  on  the  Present  Discontents. 


sor,  and  the  people  of  England  drew  their 
swords  only  to  prevent  him  from  accom 
plishing  a  revolution  which  would  have 
changed  a  legal  and  limited  power  iiilo  a 
lawless  despotism,  it  is  needless,  on  this 
occasion,  to  moot  the  question,  whether 
arms  may  be  as  justly  wielded  to  obtain  as 
to  defend  liberty.  It  may,  however,  be  ob 
served,  that  the  rulers  who  obstinately  per 
sist  in  withholding  from  their  subjects  secu 
rities  for  good  government,  obviously  neces 
sary  for  the  permanence  of  that  blessing, 
generally  desired  by  competently  infoimed 
men,  and  capable  of  being  introduced  with 
out  danger  to  public  tranquillity,  appear 
thereby  to  place  themselves  in  a  state  of 
hostility  against  the  nation  whom  they  go 
vern.  Wantonly  to  prolong  a  state  of  inse 
curity  seems  to  be  as  much  an  act  of  nggres- 
sion  as  to  plunge  a  nation  into  it.  When  a 
people  discover  their  danger,  they  have  a 
moral  claim  on  their  governors  for  security 
against  it.  As  soon  as  a  distemper  is  dis 
covered  to  be  dangerous,  and  a  safe  and 
effectual  remedy  has  been  found,  those  who 
withhold  the  remedy  are  as  much  morally 
answerable  for  the  deaths  which  may  ensue 
as  if  they  had  administered  poison.  But 
though  a  reformatory  revolt  may  in  these 
circumstances  become  perfectly  just,  it  has 
not  the  same  likelihood  of  a  prosperous  issue 
with  those  insurrections  which  are  more 
strictly  and  directly  defensive.  A  defensive 
revolution,  the  sole  purpose  of  which  is  to 
preserve  and  secure  the  laws,  has  a  fixed 
boundary,  conspicuously  marked  out  by  the 
well-defined  object  which  it  pursue?,  and 
which  it  seldom  permanently  over-reaches, 
and  it  is  thus  exempt  from  that  succession  of 
changes  which  disturbs  all  habits  of  peace 
able  obedience,  and  weakens  every  autho 
rity  not  resting  on  mere  force. 

Whenever  war  is  justifiable,  it  is  lawful 
to  call  in  auxiliaries.  But  though  always 
legitimate  against  a  foreign  or  domestic 
enemy,  it  is  often  in  civil  contentions  pecu 
liarly  dangerous  to  the  wronged  people 
themselves.  It  must  always  hazard  national 
independence,  and  will  therefore  be  the  last 
resource  of  those  who  love  their  country. 
Good  men,  more  especially  if  they  are  happy 
enough  to  be  the  natives  of  a  civilized,  and 
still  more  of  a  free  country,  religiously  cul 
tivate  their  natural  repugnance  to  a  remedy 
of  which  despair  alone  can  warrant  the  em 
ployment.  Yet  the  dangers  of  seeking  fo 
reign  aid  vary  extremely  in  different  circum 
stances;  and  these  variations  are  chiefly 
regulated  by  the  power,  the  interest,  and  the 
probable  disposition  of  the  auxiliary  to  be 
come  an  oppressor.  The  perils  are  the  least 
where  the  inferiority  of  national  strength  in 
the  foreign  ally  is  such  as  to  forbid  all  pro 
jects  of  conquest,  and  where  the  indepen 
dence  and  greatness  of  the  nation  to  be  suc 
coured  are  the  main  or  sole  bulwarks  of  his 
own. 

These  fortunate  peculiarities  were  all  to 
be  found  in  the  relations  between  the  people 


384 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  England  and  the  republic  of  the  United 
Provinces  ;  and  the  two  nations  were  farther 
united  by  their  common  apprehensions  from 
France,  by  no  obscure  resemblance  of  national 
character,  by  the  strong  sympathies  of  reli 
gion  and  liberty;  by  the  remembrance  of  the 
renowned  reign  in  which  the  glory  of  Eng 
land  was  founded  on  her  aid  to  Holland, 
and,  perhaps,  also  by  the  esteem  for  each 
other  which  both  these  maritime  nations  had 
learnt  in  the  fiercest  and  most  memorable 
combats,  which  had  been  then  celebrated  in 
the  annals  of  naval  warfare.  The  British 
people  derived  a  new  security  from  the  dan- 


|  gers  of  foreign  interposition  from  the  situa 
tion  of  him  who  was  to  be  the  chief  of  the 
enterprise  to  be  attempted  for  their  deliver 
ance,  who  had  as  deep  an  interest  in  their 
safety  and  well-being  as  in  those  of  the  na 
tion  whose  forces  he  was  to  lead  to  their 
aid.  William  of  Nassau,  Prince  of  Orange, 
Stadtholder  of  the  republic  of  the  United  Pro 
vinces,  had  been,  before  the  birth  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  first  Prince  of  the  Blood 
Royal  of  England  ;  and  his  consort  the  Lady 
Mary,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  King,  was 
at  that  period  presumptive  heiress  to  the 
crown. 


MEMOIR 


OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND 


A.  D.  16S7— 1686. 


THE  Seven  United  Provinces  which  estab 
lished  their  independence  made  little  change 
in  their  internal  institutions.  The  revolt 
against  Philip's  personal  commands  was  long 
carried  on  under  colour  of  his  own  legal  au 
thority,  conjointly  exercised  by  his  lieutenant, 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  and  by  the  States, — 
composed  of  the  nobility  and  of  the  deputies 
of  towns, — who  had  before  shared  a  great 
portion  of  it.  But,  being  bound  to  each  other 
in  an  indissoluble  confederacy,  established 
at  Utrecht  in  1579,  the  care  of  their  foreign 
relations  and  of  all  their  common  affairs  was 
intrusted  to  delegates,  sent  from  each,  who 
gradually  assumed  that  name  of  "States- 
General,"  which  had  been  originally  be 
stowed  only  on  the  occasional  assemblies  of 
the  whole  States  of  all  the  Belgic  provinces. 
These  arrangements,  hastily  adopted  in  times 
of  confusion,  drew  no  distinct  lines  of  demar 
cation  between  the  provincial  and  federal 
authorities.  Hostilities  had  been  for  many 
years  carried  on  before  the  authority  of  Philip 
was  finally  abrogated  ;  and  after  that  decisive 
measure  the  States  showed  considerable 
disposition  to  the  revival  of  a  monarchical 
power  in  the  person  of  an  Austrian  or  French 
prince,  or  of  the  Queen  of  England.  William 
I.,  seems  about  to  have  been  invested  with  the 
ancient  legal  character  of  Earl  of  Holland  at 
the  moment  of  his  murder.*  He  and  his 
successors  were  Stadtholders  of  the  greater 
provinces,  and  sometimes  of  all :  they  exer 
cised  in  that  character  a  powerful  influence 
on  the  election  of1  the  magistrates  of  towns; 
they  commanded  the  forces  of  the  confede- 

*  Commentarii  de  Repuhlica  Bataviensi  (Ludg. 
Bat.  1795),  vol.  ii.  pp.  42,  43. 


racy  by  sea  and  land;  they  combined  the 
prerogatives  of  their  ancient  magistracy  with 
the  new  powers,  the  assumption  of  which 
the  necessities  of  war  seemed  to  justify ; 
and  they  became  engaged  in  constant  dis 
putes  with  the  great  political  bodies,  whose 
pretensions  to  an  undivided  sovereignty  were 
as  recent  and  as  little  defined  as  their  own 
rights.  While  Holland  formed  the  main 
strength  of  the  confederacy,  the  city  of  Am 
sterdam  predominated  in  the  councils  of  that 
province.  The  provincial  States  of  Holland, 
and  the  patricians  in  the  towns  from  whom 
their  magistrates  were  selected,  were  the 
aristocratical  antagonists  of  the  stadtholde- 
rian  power,  which  chiefly  rested  on  official 
patronage,  on  military  command,  on  the  fa 
vour  of  the  populace,  and  on  the  influence 
of  the  minor  provinces  in  the  States-General. 
The  House  of  Nassau  stood  conspicuous, 
at  the  dawn  of  modern  history,  among  the 
noblest  of  the  ruling  families  of  Germany. 
In  the  thirteenth  century,  Adolphus  of  Nas 
sau  succeeded  Rodolph  of  Hapsburg  in  the 
imperial  crown, — the  highest  dignity  of  the 
Christian  world.  A  branch  of  this  ancient 
house  had  acquired  ample  possessions  in  the 

|  Netherlands,  together  with  the  principality  of 
Orange  in  Provence ;  and  under  Charles  V., 

|  William  of  Nassau  was  the  most  potent  lord  of 
the  Burgundian  provinces.  Educated  in  the 
palace  and  almost  in  the  chamber  of  the  Em 
peror,  he  was  nominated  in  the  earliest  years 
of  manhood  to  the  government  of  Holland,* 
and  to  the  command  of  the  imperial  army,  by 
that  sagacious  monarch,  who,  in  the  memo- 

*  By  the  ancient  name  of  "  Stadthouder"  (lieu 
tenant).    Kluit,  Vetus  Jus  Pub.  Belg.  p.  364. 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


385 


rable  solemnity  of  abdication,  leant  upon  his 
shoulder  as  the  first  of  his  Belgic  subjects. 
The  same  eminent  qualities  which  recom 
mended  him  to  the  confidence  of  Charles 
awakened  the  jealousy  of  Philip,  whose 
anger,  breaking  through  all  the  restraints  of 
his  wonted  simulation,  burst  into  furious  re 
proaches  against  the  Prince  of  Orange  as  the 
fomenter  of  the  resistance  of  the  Flemings 
to  the  destruction  of  their  privileges.  Among 
the  three  rulers  who,  perhaps  unconsciously, 
were  stirred  up  at  the  same  moment  to  pre 
serve  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  man 
kind,  William  I.  must  be  owned  to  have 
wanted  the  brilliant  and  attractive  qualities 
of  Henry  IV.,  and  to  have  yielded  to  the  com 
manding  genius  of  Elizabeth  ;  but  his  princi 
ples  were  more  inflexible  than  those  of  the 
Amiable  hero,  and  his  mind  was  undisturbed 
by  the  infirmities  and  passions  which  lowered 
the  illustrious  queen.  Though  he  perform 
ed  great  actions  with  weaker  means  than 
theirs,  his  course  was  more  unspotted.  Faith 
ful  to  the  King  of  Spain  as  long  as  the  pre 
servation  of  the  commonwealth  allowed,  he 
counselled  the  Duchess  of  Parma  against  all 
the  iniquities  by  which  the  Netherlands  were 
lost;  but  faithful  also  to  his  county,  in  his 
dying  instructions  he  enjoined  his  son  to  be 
ware  of  insiduous  offers  of  compromise  from 
the  Spaniard,  to  adhere  to  his  alliance  with 
France  and  England,  to  observe  the  privi 
leges  of  the  provinces  and  towns,  and  to  con 
duct  himself  in  all  things  as  became  the 
chief  magistrate  of  the  republic.*  Advancing 
a  century  beyond  his  contemporaries  in  civil 
wisdom,  he  braved  the  prejudices  of  the 
Calvinistic  clergy,  by  contending  for  the 
toleration  of  Catholics,  the  chiefs  of  whom 
had  sworn  his  dest ruction. t  Thoughtful,  of 
unconquerable  spirit,  persuasive  though  taci 
turn,  of  simple  character,  yet  maintaining 
due  dignity  and  becoming  magnificence  in 
his  public  character,  an  able  commander  and 
a  wise  statesman,  he  is  perhaps  the  purest 
of  those  who  have  risen  by  arms  from  pri 
vate  station  to  supreme  authority,  and  the 
greatest  of  the  happy  few  who  have  enjoyed 
the  glorious  fortune  of  bestowing  liberty  upon 
a  people. t  The  whole  struggle  of  this  illus 
trious  prince  was  against  foreign  oppression. 
His  posterity,  less  happy,  were  engaged  in 
domestic  broils,  in  part  arising  from  their 
undefined  authority,  and  from  the  very  com 
plicated  constitution  of  the  commonwealth. 
Maurice,  the  eldest  Protestant  son  of  Wil 
liam,  surpassed  his  father  in  military  genius, 
but  fell  far  short  of  him  in  that  moderation 
of  temper  and  principle  which  is  the  most 


*  D'Estrades,  MSS.  in  the  hands  of  his  young 
est  son. 

t  Burnet,   History   of  his  own  time   (Oxford, 
1823),  vol.  i.  p.  547. 

t  Even  Strada  himself  bears  one  testimony  to 
this  great  man,  which  outweighs  all  his  vain  re 
proaches.  "Nee  postea  mutavere  (Hollandi)  qui 
videbant  et  gloriabantur  ab  unius  hominis  conatu, 
caeptisque  ill!  utcunque  infelicibus,  assurgere  in 
dies  Hollandicum  nomen  imperiumque." — Strada, 
De  Bello  Belgico,  dec.  ii.  lib.  v. 
49 


indispensable  virtue  of  the  leader  of  a  free 
state.  The  blood  of  Barneveldt  and  the 
dungeon  of  Grotius  have  left  an  indelible 
stain  on  his  memory ;  nor  is  it  without  appa 
rent  reason  that  the  aristocratical  party  have 
charged  him  with  projects  of  usurpation. — 
natural  to  a  family  of  republican  magistrates 
allied  by  blood  to  all  the  kings  of  Europe, 
and  distinguished  by  many  approaches  and 
pretensions  to  the  kingly  power.*  Henry 
Frederic,  his  successor,  was  the  son  of  Wil 
liam  I.  by  Louise  de  Coligny, — a  woman 
singular  in  her  character  as  well  as  in  her 
destiny,  who,  having  seen  her  father  and  the 
husband  of  her  youth  murdered  at  the  mas 
sacre  of  Saint  Bartholomew,  was  doomed  to 
witness  the  fall  of  a  more  illustrious  husband 
by  the  hand  of  an  assassin  of  the  same  fac 
tion,  and  who  in  her  last  widowhood  won  the 
affection  of  William's  children  by  former 
wives,  for  her  own  virtuous  son.  Having 
maintained  the  fame  of  his  family  in  war. 
he  was  happier  than  his  more  celebrated 
brother  in  a  domestic  administration,  which 
was  moderate,  tolerant,  and  unsuspected. t 
He  lived  to  see  the  final  recognition  of  Dutch 
independence  by  the  treaty  of  Munster,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son,  William  II..  who, 
after  a  short  and  turbulent  rule,  died  in  1650, 
leaving  his  widow,  the  Princess  Royal  of 
England,  pregnant. 

William  III.,  born  on  the  14th  of  Novem 
ber,  1650,  eight  days  after  the  death  of  his 
father,  an  orphan  of  feeble  frame,  with  early 
indications  of  disease,  seemed  to  be  involved 
in  the  cloud  of  misfortune  which  then  cover 
ed  the  deposed  and  exiled  family  of  his 
mother.  The  patricians  of  the  commercial 
cities,  who  had  gathered  strength  with  their 
rapidly  increasing  wealth,  were  incensed  at 
the  late  attack  of  William  II.  on  Amsterdam ; 
they  were  equally  emboldened  by  the  esta 
blishment  of  a  republic  in  England,  and  pre 
judiced,  not  without  reason,  against  the 
Stuart  family,  whose  absurd  principle  of  the 
divine  right  of  kings  had  always  disposed 
James  I.  to  regard  the  Dutch  as  no  better 
than  successful  rebels,!  and  had  led  his  son, 
in  1631,  a  period  of  profound  peace  and  pro 
fessed  friendship,  to  conclude  a'  secret  treaty 
with  Spain  for  the  partition  of  the  Republic, 
in  which  England  was  to  be  rewarded  for  her 
treachery  ami  rapine  by  the  sovereignty  of 
Zealand. §  They  found  no  difficulty  in  per 
suading  the  States  to  assume  all  the  autho 
rity  hitherto  exercised  by  the  Stadtholder, 
without  fixing  any  period  for  conferring  on 
the  infant  Prince  those  dignities  which  had 
been  enjoyed  by  three  generations  of  his 

*  Du  Maurier,  Memoires  de  la  Hollande,  p. 
293.  Vandervynkt,  Troubles  des  Pays  Bas,  vol. 
iii.  p.  27. 

t  D'Estrades,  Lettres  (Lond.  1743),  vol.  i. 
p.  55. 

t  "In  his  table  discourse  he  pronounced  the 
Dutch  to  be  rebels,  and  condemned  their  cause, 
and  said  that  Ostend  belonged  to  the  ArchduKe." 
— Carte,  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.  p.  714. 

§  Clarendon,  Slate  Papers,  vol.  i.  p.  49,  and 
vol.  ii.  app.  xxvii, 


386 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


family.  At  the  peace  of  1654.  the  States  of 
Holland  bound  themselves  by  a  secret  article, 
yielded  with  no  great  reluctance  to  the  de 
mands  of  Cromwell,  never  to  choose  the 
Prince  of  Orange  to  be  their  Stadtholder,  nor 
to  consent  to  his  being  appointed  Captain- 
General  of  the  forces  of  the  confederacy; — 
a  separate  stipulation,  at  variance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  union  of  Utrecht,  and  disrespect 
ful  to  the  judgment,  if  not  injurious  to  the 
rights,  of  the  weaker  confederates.^  After 
the  Restoration  this  engagement  lost  its 
power.  But  when  the  Prince  of  Orange  had 
nearly  reached  years  of  discretion,  and  the 
brilliant  operations  of  a  military  campaign 
against  England  had  given  new  vigour  to  the 
republican  administration,  John  De  Witt,  who, 
under  the  modest  title  of  "Pensionary"  of 
Holland,  had  long  directed  the  affairs  of  the 
confederacy  with  a  success  and  reputation 
due  to  his  matchless  honesty  and  prudence, 
prevailed  on  the  States  of  that  province  to 
pass  a  "  Perpetual  Edict  for  the  Maintenance 
of  Liberty.'7  By  this  law  they  abolished  the 
Stadtholdership  in  their  own  province,  and 
agreed  to  take  effectual  means  to  obtain  from 
their  confederates  edicts  excluding  all  those 
who  might  be  Captain-Generals  from  the 
Stadtholdership  of  any  of  the  provinces; — 
binding  themselves  and  their  successors  by 
oath  to  observe  these  provisions,  and  im 
posing  the  like  oath  on  all  who  might  be 
appointed  to  the  chief  command  by  land 
or  sea.t  Guelderland,  Utrecht,  and  Overys- 
sell  acceded.  Friesland  and  Groningen,  then 
governed  by  a  Stadtholder  of  another  branch 
of  the  family  of  Nassau,  were  considered  as 
not  immediately  interested  in  the  question. 
Zealand  alone,  devoted  to  the  House  of 
Orange,  resisted  the  separation  of  the  su 
preme  military  and  civil  officers.  On  this 
footing  De  Witt  professed  his  readiness  to 
confer  the  office  of  Captain-General  on  the 
Prince,  as  soon  as  he  should  be  of  fit  age. 
He  was  allowed  meanwhile  to  take  his  seat 
in  the  Council  of  State,  and  took  an  oath  to 
observe  the  Perpetual  Edict.  His  opponents 
struggled  to  retard  his  military  appointment, 
to  shorten  its  duration,  and  to  limit  its 
powers.  His  partisans,  on  the  other  hand, 
supported  by  England,  and  led  by  Amelia  of 
Solms,  the  widow  of  Prince  Henry,  —  a  wo 
man  of  extraordinary  ability,  who  had  trained 
the  young  Prince  with  parental  tenderness, 
— seized  every  opportunity  of  pressing  for 
ward  his  nomination,  and  of  preparing  the 
way  for  the  enlargement  of  his  authority. 

This  contest  might  have  been  longer  pro 
tracted,  if  the  Conspiracy  of  Louis  and 

*  Cromwell  was  prevailed  upon  to  content  him 
self  with  this  separate  stipulation,  very  imperfect 
in  form,  but  which  the  strength  of  the  ruling:  pro 
vince  rendered  in  substance  sufficient.  White- 
lock,  Memorials,  12th  May,  1684. 

t  3d  August  1667.  The  immediate  occasion  of 
this  edict  seems  to  have  be«n  a  conspiracy,  for 
which  one  Buat,  a  spy  employed  by  Lord  Arling 
ton,  was  executed.  Histoire  de  J.  D.  De  Witt 
'Utrecht,  1709),  liv.  ii.  chap.  2. 


Charles,  and  the  occupation  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  country  by  the  former,  had  not 
brought  undeserved  reproach  on  the  admi 
nistration  of  De  Witt.  Fear  and  distrust 
became  universal;  every  man  suspected  his 
neighbour;  accusations  were  heard  with 
greedy  credulity  ;  misfortunes  were  imputed 
to  treachery;  and  the  multitude  cried  aloud 
for  victims.  The  corporate  officers  of  the 
great  towns,  originally  chosen  by  the  bur 
ghers,  had,  on  the  usual  plea  of  avoiding 
tumult,  obtained  the  right  of  filling  up  all 
vacancies  in  their  own  number.  They  thus 
strengthened  their  power,  but  destroyed  their 
security.  No  longer  connected  with  the 
people  by  election,  the  aristocratical  families 
received  no  fresh  infusion  of  strength,  and 
had  no  hold  on  the  attachment  of  the  com 
munity  ;  though  they  still  formed,  indeed, 
the  better  part  of  the  people.  They  had 
raised  the  fishermen  of  a  few  marshy  dis 
tricts  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  nations  of 
Europe:  but  the  misfortunes  of  a  moment 
banished  the  remembrance  of  their  services. 
Their  grave  and  harsh  virtues  were  more 
unpopular  than  so  many  vices;  wrhile  the 
needs  and  disasters  of  war  served  to  heighten 
the  plebeian  clamour,  and  to  strengthen  the 
military  power,  which  together  formed  the 
combined  force  of  the  Stadtholderian  party. 
It  was  then  in  vain  that  the  Republicans  en 
deavoured  to  satisfy  that  party,  and  to  gain 
over  the  King  of  England  by  the  nomination 
of  the  Prince  of  Orange  to  be  Captain-Gene 
ral  :  Charles  was  engaged  in  deeper  designs. 
The  progress  of  the  French  arms  still  farther 
exasperated  the  populace,  arid  the  Republi 
cans  incurred  the  reproach  of  treachery  by  a 
disposition, — perhaps  carried  to  excess, — to 
negotiate  with  Louis  XIV.  at  a  moment  when, 
all  negotiation  wore  the  appearance  of  sub 
mission.  So  it  had  formerly  happened  : — 
Barneveldt  was  friendly  to  peace  with  Spain, 
when  Maurice  saw  no  safety  but  in  arms. 
Men  equally  wise  and  honest  may  differ  on 
the  difficult  and  constantly  varying  question, 
whether  uncompromising  resistance,  or  a 
reservation  of  active  effort  for  a  more  favour 
able  season,  be  the  best  mode  of  dealing 
with  a  formidable  conqueror.  Though  the 
war  policy  of  Demosthenes  terminated  in 
the  destruction  of  Athens,  we  dare  not  affirm 
that  the  pacific  system  of  Phocion  would 
have  saved  it.  In  the  contest  of  Maurice 
with  Barneveldt,  and  of  De  Wilt  with  the 
adherents  of  the  House  of  Orange,  both 
parties  had  an  interest  distinct  from  that  of 
the  commonwealth  ;  for  the  influence  of  the 
States  grew  in  peace,  and  the  authority  of 
the  Captain-General  was  strengthened  by 
war.  The  populace  now  revolted  against 
their  magistrates  in  all  the  towns,  and  the 
States  of  Holland  were  compelled  to  repeal 
the  Edict,  which  they — called  "  Perpetual/' 
to  release  themselves  and  all  the  officers 
from  the  oath  which  they  had  taken  to  ob 
serve  it,  and  to  confer,  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1672,  on  the  Prince  the  office  of  Stadtholder, 
— which,  then  only  elective  for  life,  was, 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


387 


after  two  years  more,  made  hereditary  to 
his  descendants. 

The  commotions  which  accompanied  this 
revolution  were  stained  by  the  murder  of 
John  and  Cornelius  De  Witt, — a  crime  per 
petrated  with  such  brutal  ferocity,  and  en 
countered  with  such  heroic  serenity,  that  it 
may  almost  seem  to  be  doubtful  whether 
the  glory  of  having  produced  such  pure  suf 
ferers  may  not  in  some  degree  console  a 
country  for  having  given  birth  to  assassins  so 
atrocious.  These  excesses  are  singularly 
at  variance  with  the  calm  and  orderly  cha 
racter  of  the  Dutch; — than  whom  perhaps  no 
free  state  has,  in  proportion  to  its  magnitude, 
contributed  more  amply  to  the  amendment 
of  mankind  by  examples  of  public  virtue. 
The  Prince  of  Orange,  thus  hurried  to  the 
supreme  authority  at  the  age  of  twenty-two, 
was  ignorant  of  these  crimes,  and  avowed 
his  abhorrence  of  them.  They  were  perpe 
trated  more  than  a  month  after  his  highest 
advancement,  when  they  could  produce  no 
effect  but  that  of  bringing  odium  upon  his 
party.  But  it  must  be  for  ever  deplored  that 
the  extreme  danger  of  his  position  should 
have  prevented  him  from  punishing  the  of 
fences  of  his  partisans,  till  it  seemed  too  late 
to  violate  that  species  of  tacit  amnesty  which 
time  insensibly  establishes.  It  would  be  im 
possible  ever  to  excuse  this  unhappy  impu 
nity,  if  we  did  not  call  to  mind  that  Louis 
XIV.  was  at  Utrecht ;  that  it  was  the  popu 
lace  of  the  Hague  that  had  imbrued  their 
hands  in  the  blood  of  the  De  Witts  :  and  that 
the  magistrates  of  Amsterdam  might  be  dis 
posed  to  avenge  on  their  country  the  cause 
of  their  virtuous  chiefs.  Henceforward  Wil 
liam  directed  the  counsels  and  arms  of  Hol 
land,  gradually  forming  and  leading  a  confe 
deracy  to  set  bounds  to  the  ambition  of  Louis 
XIV.,  and  became,  by  his  abilities  and  dis 
positions,  as  much  as  by  his  position,  the 
second  person  in  Europe. 

We  possess  unsuspected  descriptions  of 
his  character  from  observers  of  more  than 
ordinary  sagacity,  \vho  had  an  interest  in 
watching  its  development,  before  it  was  sur 
rounded  by  the  dazzling  illusions  of  power 
and  fame.  Among  the  most  valuable  of 
these  witnesses  were  some  of  the  subjects 
and  servants  of  Louis  XIV.  At  the  age  of 
eighteen  the  Prince's  good  sense,  knowledge 
of  affairs,  and  seasonable  concealment  of 
his  thoughts,  attracted  the  attention  of  Gour- 
ville,  a  man  of  experience  and  discernment. 
St.  Evremond.  though  himself  distinguished 
chiefly  by  vivacity  and  accomplishments,  saw 
ihe  superiority  of  William's  powers  through 
his  silence  and  coldness.  After  long  inti 
macy,  Sir  William  Temple  describes  his 
great  endowments  and  excellent  qualities, 
his — then  almost  singular — combination  of 
"chanty  and  religious  zeal,"  '-his  desire — 
rare  in  every  asje — to  grow  great  rather 
by  the  service  than  the  servitude  of  his 
country;" — language  so  manifestly  conside 
rate,  discriminating,  and  unexaggerated,  as 
to  bear  on  it  the  inimitable  stamp  of  truth, 


in  addition  to  the  weight  which  it  derives 
from  the  probity  of  the  writer.  But  there 
is  no  testimony  so  important  as  that  of 
Charles  II.,  who.  in  the  early  part  of  his 
reign,  had  been  desirous  of  gaining  an  as 
cendant  in  Holland  by  the  restoration  of  the 
House  of  Orange,  and  of  subverting  the  go 
vernment  of  De  Witt,  whom  he  never  for 
gave  for  his  share  in  the  treaty  with  the  Eng 
lish  Republic.  Some  retrospect  is  necessary, 
to  explain  the  experiment  by  which  that  mo 
narch  both  ascertained  and  made  known  the 
ruling  principles  of  his  nephew's  mind. 

The  mean  negotiations  about  the  sale  of 
Dunkirk  first  betrayed  to  Louis  XIV.  the 
passion  of  Charles  for  French  money.  The 
latter  had,  at  the  same  time,  offered  to  aid 
Louis  in  the  conquest  of  Flanders,  on  condi 
tion  of  receiving  French  succour  against  the 
revolt  of  his  own  subjects,*  and  had  strongly 
expressed  his  desire  of  an  offensive  and  de 
fensive  alliance  to  Ruvigni.  one  of  the  most 
estimable  of  that  monarch's  agents. t  But 
the  most  pernicious  of  Charles'  vices,  never 
bridled  by  any  virtue,  were  often  mitigated 
by  the  minor  vices  of  indolence  and  irreso 
lution.  Even  the  love  of  pleasure,  which 
made  him  needy  and  rapacious,  unfitted  him 
for  undertakings  full  of  toil  and  peril.  Pro 
jects  for  circumventing  each  other  in  Hol 
land,  which  Charles  aimed  at  influencing 
through  the  House  of  Orange,  and  Louis 
hoped  to  master  through  the  Republican 
party,  retarded  their  secret  advances  to  an 
entire  union.  De  Witt  was  compelled  to 
consent  to  some  aggrandisement  of  France, 
rather  than  expose  his  country  to  a  war 
without  the  co-operation  of  the  King  of  Eng 
land,  who  was  ready  to  betray  a  hated  ally. 
The  first  Dutch  war  appears  to  have  arisen 
from  the  passions  of  both  nations,  and  their 
pride  of  maritime  supremacy, — employed 
as  instruments  by  Charles  wherewith  to  ob 
tain  booty  at  sea,  and  supply  from  his  Parlia 
ment, — and  by  Louis  wherewith  to  seize  the 
Spanish  Netherlands.  At  the  peace  of  Breda 
July,  1667,)  the  Court  of  England  seemed 
or  a  moment  to  have  changed  its  policy,  by 
the  conclusion  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  which 
prescribed  some  limits  to  the  ambition  of 
France, — a  system  which  De  Witt,  as  soon 
as  he  met  so  honest  a  negotiator  as  Sir  Wil 
liam  Temple,  joyfully  hastened  to  embrace. 

Temple  was,  however,  duped  by  his  mas 
ter.  It  is  probable  that  the  Triple  Alliance 
was  the  result  of  a  fraudulent  project,  sug 
gested  originally  by  Gourville  to  ruin  De 
Witt,  by  embroiling  him  irreconcilably  with 
France. t  Charles  made  haste  to  disavow 
the  intentions  professed  in  it  :§  and  a  nego- 


*  D'Estrades.  vol.  y.  p.  450. 

t  Memoire  de  Ruvigni  au  Roi.  Dalrymple, 
Memoirs  of  Great  Britain,  &c.  vol.  ii.  p.  11. 
D'Estrades,  vol.  v.,  20th  Dec.  16G3.  18th  Dec. 
1664. 

t  Memoires  de  Gourville  (Paris,  1724).  vol.  ii. 
p.  14—18,  160. 

$  Charles  II.  to  the  Duchess  of  Orleans,  13th 
Jan.  1668.— Dalrymple,  vol.  ii.  p.  5.  [The  olii 
style  is  used  throughout  these  references. — ED-] 


388 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


tiation  with  France  was  immediately  opened, 
partly  by  the  personal  intercourse  of  Charles 
with  the  French  ministers  at  his  court,  but 
chiefly  through  his  sister,  the  Duchess  of 
Orleans, — an  amiable  princess,  probably  the 
only  person  whom  he  ever  loved.  This  cor 
respondence,  which  was  concealed  from 
those  of  his  ministers  who  were  not  either 
Catholics  or  well  affected  to  the  Catholic  re 
ligion,  lingered  on  till  May,  1670,  when  (on 
the  22d)  a  secret  treaty  was  concluded  under 
cover  of  a  visit  made  by  the  Duchess  to  her 
brother.* 

The  essential  stipulations  of  this  unparal 
leled  compact  were  three  :  that  Louis  should 
advance  money  to  Charles,  to  enable  him  the 
more  safely  to  execute  what  is  called  "  a  de 
claration  of  his  adherence  to  the  Catholic 
religion,"  and  should  support  him  with  men 
and  money,  if  that  measure  should  be  re 
sisted  by  his  subjects;  that  both  powers 
should  join  their  arms  against  Holland,  the 
islands  of  Walcheren  and  Cadsand  being 
alloted  to  England  as  her  share  of  the  prey 


*  It  was  signed  by  Lords  Arlington  and  Arun- 
del,  Sir  Thomas  Clifford,  and  Sir  Richard  Bea- 
ling,  on  the  part  of  England,  and  by  Colbert  de 
Croissy,  the  brother  ot  the  celebrated  financier, 
on  the  part  of  France.  Rose,  Observations  on 
Fox's  History,  p.  51.  Summary  collated  with 
the  original,  in  the  hands  of  the  present  Lord  Clif 
ford.  The  draft  of  the  same  treaty,  sent  to  Paris 
by  Arundel,  does  not  materially  differ.  Dalrym- 
ple,  vol.  i.  p.  44.  "  The  Life  of  James  II.  (vol. 
i.  pp.  440—450,)  agrees,  in  most  circumstances, 
with  these  copies  of  the  treaties,  and  wiih  the  cor 
respondence.  There  is  one  important  variation. 
In  the  treaty  it  is  stipulated  that  Charles'  measures 
in  favour  of  the  Catholic  religion  should  precede 
the  war  against  Holland,  according  to  the  plan 
which  he  had  always  supported.  'The  Life' 
says,  that  the  resolution  was  taken  at  Dover  to 
begin  with  the  war  against  Holland,  and  the  des 
patch  of  Colbert  from  Dover,  20th  May  (Dalrym- 
ple,  vol.  ii.  p.  57),  almost  justifies  the  statement, 
which  may  refer  to  a  verbal  acquiescence  of 
Charles,  probably  deemed  sufficient  in  these  clan 
destine  transactions,  where  that  prince  desired 
nothing  but  such  assurances  as  satisfy  gentlemen 
in  private  life.  It  is  true  that  the  narrative  of  the 
Life  is  not  here  supported  by  those  quoiations  from 
the  King's  original  Memoirs,  on  which  the  credit 
of  the  compilation  essentially  depends.  But  as  in 
the  eighteen  years,  1660 — 1678,  which  exhibit  no 
such  quotations,  there  are  internal  proofs  that  some 
passages,  at  least,  of  the  Life  are  taken  from  the 
Memoirs,  the  absence  of  quotation  does  not  dero 
gate  so  much  from  the  credit  of  this  part  of  the 
work  as  it  would  from  that  of  any  other."  See 
Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxvi.  pp.  402—430.  This 
treaty  has  been  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  Cabinet 
called  the  "  Cabal,"  unjustly  ;  for,  of  the  five 
members  of  that  administration,  two  only,  Clif 
ford  and  Arlington,  were  privy  to  the  designs  of 
the  Kins:  and  the  Duke  of  York.  Ashley  an  " 
Lauderdale  were  too  zealous  Protestants  to  be 
trusted  with  it.  Buckingham  (whatever  might  be 
his  indifference  in  religion)  had  too  much  levity  to 
be  trusted  with  such  secrets  ;  but  he  was  so  pene 
trating  that  it  was  thought  prudent  to  divert  his 
attention  from  the  real  negotiation,  by  engaging 
him  in  negotiating  a  simulated  treaty, in  which  the 
articles  favourable  to  the  Catholic  religion  were 
left  out.  On  the  other  hand,  Lord  Arundel  anc 
Sir  Richard  Bealing,  Catholics  not  of  the  "  Ca 
bal,"  were  negotiators. 


which  clearly  left  the  other  territories  of 
he   Republic    at    the    disposal   of  Louis) ; 
and  that  England  should  aid  Louis  in  any 
new  pretensions  to  thf  crown  of  Spain,  or, 
n  other  and  plainer  language,  enable  him, 
>n  the  very  probable  event  of  Charles  II. 
>f  Spain  dying  without  issue,*  to  incorpo- 
•ate  with  a  monarchy  already  the  greatest 
n  Europe  the  long-coveted  inheritance  of  the 
House  of  Burgundy,  and  the  two  vast  penin 
sulas  of  Italy  and  Spain.     The  strength  of 
l,ouis  would  thus  have  been  doubled  at  one 
)low.  and  all  limitations  to  his  farther  pro 
gress  on  the  Continent  must  have  been  left 
o  his  own  moderation.    It  is  hard  to  imagine 
what  should  have  hindered  him  from  render- 
ng  his  monarchy  universal  over  the  civilized 
world.     The  port   of  Ostend,  the  island  of 
Minorca,   and   the    permission    to   conquer 
Spanish  America,  with  a  very  vague  promise 
f  assistance  of  France,  were  assigned  to 
England  as  the  wages  of  her  share  of  this 
conspiracy  against  mankind.      The   fearful 
stipulations  for  rendering  the  King  of  Eng 
land  independent  of  Parliament,  by  a  secret 
supply  of  foreign  money,  and  for  putting  into 
his  hands  a  foreign  military  force,  to  be  em 
ployed  against  his  subjects,  were,  indeed,  to 
take  effect  only  in  case  of  the  avowal  of  his 
reconciliation   with   the    Church   of   Rome. 
But  as  he  himself  considered  a  re-establish 
ment  of  that  Church  as  essential  to  the  con 
solidation  of  his  authority, — which  the  mere 
avowal  of  his   religion    would  rather   have 
weakened,  and  the  bare  toleration  of  it  could 
little,  if  at  all,  have  promoted;  as  he  con 
fessedly  meditated  measures  for  quieting  the 
alarms  of  the  possessors  of  CHurch  lands, 
whom  the  simple  letter  of  the  treaty  could 
not  have  much  disturbed ;  as  he  proposed  a 
treaty  with  the  Pope  to  obtain  the  cup  for  the 
laity,  and  the  mass  in  English, — concessions 
which  are  scarcely  intelligible  without  the 
supposition  thart  the  Church  of  Rome  was  to 
be  established  ;  as  he  concealed  this  article 
from  Shaftesbury,  who  must  have  known  his 
religion;  and  was  then  friendly  to  a  toleration 
of  it ;  and  as  other  articles  were  framed  for 
the  destruction  of  the  only  powerful  Protest 
ant  state  on  the  Continent,  there  cannot  be 
the  slightest  doubt   that  the  real  object  of 
this  atrocious   compact,  however  disguised 
under  the  smooth  and   crafty   language  of 
diplomacy,  was  the  forcible  imposition  of  a 
hated  religion  upon  the  British  nation,  and 
that  the  conspirators  foresaw  a  national  re 
sistance,  which  must  be  stifled  or  quelled  by 
a  foreign  army.t     It  was  evident  that  the 
most  tyrannical  measures  would  have  been 
necessary  for  the   accomplishment  of  such 
purposes,  and  that  the  transfer  of  all  civil, 
military,   and    ecclesiastical    power   to    the 
members  of  a  communion,  who  had  no  bar 
rier   against  public   hatred    but  the  throne, 
must  have   tended  to  render  the  power  of 
Charles  absolute,  and  must   have  afforded 

*  Charles  II.,  King  of  Spain,  was  then  a  feeble 
and  diseased  child  of  nine  years  old. 
t  Dalrymple,  vol.  ii.  p.  84. 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


389 


him  the  most  probable  means  of  effectually 
promoting  the  plans  of  his  ally  for  the  sub 
jugation  of  Europe.*  If  the  foreign  and  do 
mestic  objects  of  this  treaty  be  considered, 
together  with  the  means  by  which  they  were 
to  have  been  accomplished,  and  the  dire  con 
sequences  which  must  have  flowed  from 
their  attainment,  it  seems  probable  that  so 
much  falsehood,  treachery,  and  mercenary 
meanness  were  never  before  combined,  in 
the  decent  formalities  of  a  solemn  compact 
between  sovereigns,  with  such  premeditated 
bloodshed  and  unbridled  cruelty.  The  only 
semblance  of  virtue  in  the  dark  plot  was  the 
anxiety  shown,  to  conceal  it ;  which,  how 
ever,  arose  more  from  the  fears  than  the 
shame  of  the  conspirators.  In  spite  of  all 
their  precautions  it  transpired  :  the  secret  was 
extorted  from  Turenne,  in  a  moment  of  weak 
ness,  by  a  young  mistress. t  He  also  dis 
closed  some  of  the  correspondence  to  Puf- 
fendorf,  the  Swedish  minister  at  Paris,  to  de 
tach  the  Swedes  from  the  Triple  Alliance  :t 
and  it  wras  made  known  by  that  minister,  as 
well  as  by  De  Groot.  the  Dutch  ambassador 
at  Paris,  to  De  Witt,  who  had  never  ceased 
to  distrust  the  sincerity  of  the  Stuarts  towards 
Holland-^  The  suspicions  of  Temple  him 
self  had  been  early  awakened  ;  and  he  seems 
to  have  in  some  measure  played  the  part  of 
a  willing  dupe,  in  the  hope  of  entangling  his 
master  in  honest  alliances.  The  substance 
of  the  secret  treaty  was  the  subject  of  gene 
ral  conversation  at  the  Court  of  England  at 
the  time  of  Puffendorf's  discovery.il  A 
pamphlet  published,  or  at  least  printed,  in 
1673,  intelligibly  hints  at  its  existence  "about 
four  years  before. "f  Not  long  after,  Louis 
XIV.,  in  a  moment  of  dissatisfaction  with 
Charles  II.,  permitted  or  commanded  the 
Abbate  Primi  to  print  a  History  of  the  Dutch 
War  at  Paris,  which  derived  credit  from 
being  soon  suppressed  at  the  instance  of  the 
English  minister,  and  which  gave  an  almost 
verbally  exact  summary  of  the  secret  treat}', 
with  respect  to  three  of  its  objects, — the  par 
tition  of  Holland,  the  re-establishment  of  the 
Catholic  religion  in  the  British  Islands,  and 
the  absolute  authority  of  the  King.**  The 

*  It  is  but  just  to  mention,  that  Burnet  calls  it 
only  the  "'toleration  of  popery," — vol.  i.  p.  522. 
He  had  seen  only  Primi's  history,  and  he  seems 
to  speak  of  the  negotiation  carried  on  through 
Buckingham,  from  whom  we  know  that  the  full 
extent  of  the  plan  was  concealed. 

t  Ramsay,  Histoire  de  Turenne  (Paris,  1735), 
vol.  i.  p.  429. 

t  Sir  W.  Temple  to  Sir  Orlando  Bridgman, 
24th  April,  1669. 

§  De  Witt  observed  to  Temple,  even  in  the 
days  of  the  Triple  Alliance: — "A  change  of 
councils  in  England  would  be  our  ruin.  Since 
the  rei^n  of  Elizabeth  there  has  been  such  a  fluc 
tuation  in  the  English  councils  that  it  has  been 
impossible  to  concert  measures  with  them  for  two 
years." 

I!  Pepys'  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  336. 

IF  England's  Appeal  from  the  Private  Cabal  at 
Whitehall. 

**  State  Trials  in  the  reign  of  Wm.  III.  (Lond. 
1705),  Introd.  p.  10. 


project  for  the  dismemberment  of  Holland, 
adopted  by  Charles  I.  in  1631  appears  to  have 
been  entertained  by  his  eldest  son  till  the 
last  years  of  his  reign.* 

As  one  of  the  articles  of  the  secret  treaty 
had  provided  a  petty  sovereignty  for  the 
Prince  of  Orange  out  of  the  ruins  of  his  coun 
try,  Charles  took  the  opportunity  of  his 
nephew's  visit  to  England,  in  October  1670, 
to  sound  him  on  a  project  which  was  thus 
baited  for  his  concurrence.  "All  the  Pro 
testants,"  said  the  King,  "are  a  factious 
body,  broken  among  themselves  since  they 
have  been  broken  from  the  main  stock.  Look 
into  these  things  better ;  do  not  be  misled  by 
your  Dutch  blockheads."!  The  King  im 
mediately  imparted  the  failure  of  this  at 
tempt  to  the  French  ambassador:  "I  am 
satisfied  with  the  Prince's  abilities,  but  I  find 
him  too  zealous  a  Dutchman  and  a  Protest 
ant  to  be  trusted  with  the  secret."!  But 
enough  had  escaped  to  disclose  to  the  saga 
cious  youth  the  purposes  of  his  uncle,  and  to 
throw  a  strong  light  on  the  motives  of  all  his 
subsequent  measures.  The  inclination  of 
Charles  towards  the  Church  of  Rome  could 
never  have  rendered  a  man  so  regardless  of 
religion  solicitous  for  a  conversion,  if  he  had 
not  considered  it  as  subservient  to  projects 
for  the  civil  establishment  of  that  Church, — 
which,  as  it  could  subsist  only  by  his  favour, 
must  have  been  the  instrument  of  his  abso 
lute  power.  Astonished  as  William  was  by 
the  discovery,  he  had  the  fortitude,  during 
the  life  of  Charles,  to  conceal  it  from  all  but 
one,  or,  at  most,  two  friends.  It  was  re 
served  for  later  times  to  discover  that  Charles 
had  the  inconceivable  baseness  to  propose 
the  detention  of  his  nephew  in  England, 
where  the  temptation  of  a  sovereignty  being 
aided  by  the  prospect  of  the  recovery  of  his 
freedom,  might  act  more  powerfully  on  his 
mind  ;  and  that  this  proposal  was  refused  by 
Louis,  either  from  magnanimity,  or  from  re 
gard  to  decency,  or,  perhaps,  from  reluctance 
to  trust  his  ally  with  the  sole  disposal  of  so 
important  a  prisoner. 

Though — to  return, — in  1672  the  French 
army  had  advanced  into  the  heart  of  Hol 
land,  the  fortitude  of  the  Prince  was  un 
shaken.  Louis  offered  to  make  him  sove 
reign  of  the  remains  of  the  country,  under 
the  protection  of  France  and  England  :§  but 
at  that  moment  of  extreme  peril,  he  answer 
ed  with  his  usual  calmness,  "  I  never  will 
betray  a  trust,  nor  sell  the  liberties  of  my 
country,  which  my  ancestors  have  so  long 
defended."  All  around  him  despaired. — 
One  of  his  very  few  confidential  friends, 
after  having  long  expostulated  with  him  on 
his  fruitless  obstinacy,  at  length  asked  him, 
if  he  had  considered  how  and  where  he 
should  live  after  Holland  was  lost.  "I  have 
thought  of  that;"  he  replied ;  "  I  am  resolved 


*  Preston  Papers  in  the  possession  of  Sir  James 
Graham,  of  Netherby. 
•  Burnet,  vol.  i.  p.  475. 
t  Dalrymple,  vol.  ii.  p.  70.          $  Ibid,  p.  79- 
2  H  2 


390 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


to  live  on  the  lands  I  have  left  in  Germany. 
I  had  rather  pass  my  life  in  hunting  there, 
than  sell  my  country  or  my  liberty  to  France 
at  any  price. ?;*  Buckingham  and  Arlington 
were  sent  from  England  to  try,  whether,  be 
set  by  peril,  the  lure  of  sovereignty  might 
not  seduce  him.  The  former  often  said, 
"  Do  you  not  see  that  the  country  is  lost  ?" 
The  answer  of  the  Prince  to  the  profligate 
buffoon  spoke  the  same  unmoved  resolution 
with  that  which  he  had  made  to  Zulestein 
or  Fagel;  but  it  naturally  rose  a  few  degrees 
towards  animation : — "  I  see  it  is  in  great 
danger,  but  there  is  a  sure  way  of  never 
seeing  it  lost ;  and  that  is,  to  die  in  the  last 
ditch."!  The  perfect  simplicity  of  these 
declarations  may  authorise  us  to  rank  them 
among  the  most  genuine  specimens  of  true 
magnanimity.  Perhaps  the  history  of  the 
world  does  not  hold  out  a  better  example, 
how  high  above  the  reach  of  fortune  the 
pure  principle  of  obedience  to  the  dictates 
of  conscience,  unalloyed  by  interest,  passion, 
or  ostentation,  can  raise  the  mind  of  a  virtu 
ous  man.  To  set  such  an  example  is  an  un 
speakably  more  signal  service  to  mankind, 
than  all  the  outward  benefits  which  flow  to 
them  from  the  most  successful  virtue.  It  is 
a  principle  independent  of  events,  and  one 
that  bums  most  brightly  in  adversity, — the 
only  agent,  perhaps,  of  sufficient  power  to 
call  forth  the  native  greatness  of  soul  which 
lay  hid  under  the  cold  and  unattractive  de 
portment  of  the  Prince  of  Orange. 

His  present  situation  was  calculated  to  as 
certain  whether  his  actions  would  correspond 
with  his  declarations.  Beyond  the  important 
country  extending  from  Amsterdam  to  Rot 
terdam, — a  district  of  about  forty  miles  in 
length,  the  narrow  seat  of  the  government, 
wealth,  and  force  of  the  commonwealth, 
which  had  been  preserved  from  invasion  by 
the  bold  expedient  of  inundation,  and  out  of 
which  the  cities  and  fortresses  arose  like 
islands, — little  remained  of  the  republican 
territory  except  the  fortress  of  Maestricht, 
the  marshy  islands  of  Zealand,  and  the  se 
cluded  province  of  Friesland.  A  French 
army  of  a  hundred  and  ten  thousand  men, 
encouraged  by  the  presence  of  Louis,  and 
commanded  by  Conde  and  Turenne,  had 
their  head-quarters  at  Utrecht,  within  twenty 
miles  of  Amsterdam,  and  impatiently  looked 
forward  to  the  moment  when  the  ice  should 
form  a  road  to  the  spoils  of  that  capital  of 
the  commercial  world.  On  the  other  side, 
the  hostile  flag  of  England  was  seen  from 
the  coast.  The  Prince  of  Orange,  a  sickly 
youth  of  twenty-two,  without  fame  or  expe 
rience,  had  tc  contend  against  such  enemies 
at  the  head  rf  a  new  government,  of  a  di 
vided  people,  and  of  a  little  army  of  twenty 
thousand  men, — either  raw  recruits  or  foreign 
mercenaries, — whom  the  exclusively  mari- 

*  Temple,  Works  vLund.  1721),  vol.  i.  p  381. 
This  friend  was  probably  his  uncle  Zulestein,  for 
the  conversation  passed  before  his  intimacy  with 
Bentinck. 

t  Burnet,  vol.  i.  p.  569. 


time  policy  of  the  late  administration  had 
left  without  officers  of  skill  or  name.  His 
immortal  ancestor,  when  he  founded  the  re 
public  about  a  century  before,  saw  at  the 
lowest  ebb  of  his  fortune  the  hope  of  aid 
from  England  and  France  :  far  darker  were 
the  prospects  of  William  III.  The  degene 
rate  successor  of  Elizabeth,  abusing  the  as 
cendant  of  a  parental  relation,  sought  to 
tempt  him  to  become  a  traitor  to  his  country 
for  a  share  in  her  spoils.  The  successor  of 
Henry  IV.  offered  him  only  the  choice  of  be 
ing  bribed  or  crushed.  Such  was  their  fear 
of  France,  that  the  Court  of  Spain  did  not 
dare  to  aid  him,  though  their  only  hope  was 
from  his  success.  The  German  branch  of 
the  House  of  Austria  was  then  entangled  in 
a  secret  treaty  with  Louis,  by  which  the 
Low  Countries  were  ceded  to  him.  on  con 
dition  of  his  guaranteeing  to  the  Emperor 
the  reversion  of  the  Spanish  monarchy  on 
the  death  of  Charles  II.  without  issue.  No 
great  statesman,  no  illustrious  commander 
but  Montecucculi,  no  able  prince  but  the 
great  Elector  of  Brandenburgh,  was  to  be 
found  among  the  avowed  friends  or  even 
secret  well-wishers  of  William.  The  terri 
tories  of  Cologne  and  Liege,  which  presented 
all  the  means  of  military  intercourse  between 
the  French  and  Dutch  frontiers,  were  ruled 
by  the  creatures  of  Louis.  The  final  destruc 
tion  of  a  rebellious  and  heretical  confederacy 
was  foretold  with  great,  but  not  apparently 
unreasonable  confidence,  by  the  zealots  of 
absolute  authority  in  Church  and  State  ;  and 
the  inhabitants  of  Holland  began  seriously  to 
entertain  the  heroic  project  of  abandoning  an 
enslaved  country,  and  transporting  the  com 
monwealth  to  their  dominions  in  the  Indian 
islands. 

At  this  awful  moment  Fortune  seemed  to 
pause.  The  unwieldly  magnificence  of  a 
royal  retinue  encumbered  the  advance  of  the 
French  army.  Though  masters  of  Naerden, 
which  was  esteemed  the  bulwark  of  Amster 
dam,  they  were  too  late  to  hinder  the  open 
ing  of  the  sluices  at  Murden,  which  drowned 
the  country  to  the  gates  of  that  city.  Louis, 
more  intoxicated  with  triumph  than  intent 
on  conquest,  lost  in  surveying  the  honours  of 
victory  the  time  which  should  have  been 
spent  in  seizing  its  fruits.  Impatient  of  so 
long  an  interruption  of  his  pleasures,  he 
hastened  to  display  at  Versailles. the  trophies 
of  a  campaign  of  two  months,  in  which 
the  conquest  of  three  provinces,  the  capture 
of  fifty  fortified  places,  and  of  twenty-four 
thousand  prisoners,  were  ascribed  to  him  by 
his  flatterers.  The  cumbrous  and  tedious 
formalities  of  the  Dutch  constitution  enabled 
the  Stadtholder  to  gain  some  time  without 
suspicion.  Even  the  perfidious  embassy  of 
Buckingham  and  Arlington  contributed  some 
what  to  prolong  negotiations.  He  amused 
them  for  a  moment  by  appearing  to  examine 
the  treaties  they  had  brought  from  London, 
by  which  France  was  to  gain  all  the  fortres 
ses  which  commanded  the  country,  leaving 
Zealand  to  England,  and  the  rest  of  the 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


391 


country  as  a  principality  to  himself.*  Sub 
mission  seemed  inevitable  and  speedy;  still 
the  inundation  rendered  military  movements 
inconvenient  and  perhaps  hazardous;  and 
the  Prince  thus  obtained  a  little  leisure  for 
the  execution  of  his  measures.  The  peo 
ple,  unable  to  believe  the  baseness  of  the 
Court  of  London,  were  animated  by  the  ap 
pearance  of  the  ministers  who  came  to  seal 
their  ruin :  the  Government,  surrounded  by 
the  waters,  had  time  to  negotiate  at  Madrid, 
Vienna,  and  Berlin.  The  Marquis  de  Mon 
terey.  governor  of  the  Catholic  Netherlands, 
without  instructions  from  the  Escurial,  had 
the  boldness  to  throw  troops  into  the  import 
ant  fortresses  of  Dutch  Brabant, — Breda, 
Bergen-op-Zoom,  and  Bois-le-Duc, — under 
pretence  of  a  virtual  guarantee  of  that  terri 
tory  by  Spain. 

In  England,  the  continuance  of  proroga 
tions — relieving  the  King  from  parliamentary 
opposition,  but  depriving  him  of  sufficient 
supply, — had  driven  him  to  resources  alike 
inadequate  and  infamous,!  and  had  fore 
boded  that  general  indignation  which,  after 
the  combined  fleets  of  England  and  France 
had  been  worsted  by  the  marine  of  Holland! 
alone,  at  the  very  moment  when  the  rem 
nant  of  the  Republic  seemed  about  to  be 
swallowed  up,  compelled  him  to  desist  from 
the  open  prosecution  of  the  odious  conspiracy 
against  her.§  The  Emperor  Leopold,  roused 
to  a  just  sense  of  the  imminent  danger  of 
Europe,  also  concluded  a  defensive  alliance 
with  the  States-General  ;||  as  did  the  Ger 
manic  body  generally,  including  Frederic 
William  of  Brandenburgh,  called  the  "Great 
Elector." 

Turenne  had  been  meanwhile  compelled 
to  march  from  the  Dutch  territory  to  ob 
serve,  and,  in  case  of  need,  to  oppose,  the 
Austrian  and  Brandenburgh  troops ;  and  the 
young  Prince  ceased  to  incur  the  risk  and  to 
enjoy  the  glory  of  being  opposed  to  that 
great  commander,  who  was  the  grandson  of 
William  I.,1~  and  had  been  trained  to  arms 
under  Maurice.  The  winter  of  1672  was 
unusually  late  and  short.  As  soon  as  the 
ice  seemed  sufficiently  solid,  Luxemburgh. 
who  was  left  in  command  at  Utrecht,  ad 
vanced,  in  the  hope  of  surprising  the  Hague  ; 
when  a  providential  thaw  obliged  him  to  re- 

*  The  official  despatches  of  these  ambassadors 
are  contained  in  a  MS.  volume,  probably  the  pro 
perty  of  Sir  W.  Trumbull,  now  in  the  hands  of 
his  descendant,  the  Marquis  of  Downshire.  These 
despatches  show  that  the  worst  surmises  circulated 
at  the  time  of  the  purposes  of  this  embassy  were 
scarcely  so  bad  as  the  truth. 

t  Shutting  up  of  the  Exchequer,  2d  January, 
1672. 

t  Battle  of  Southwold  Bay,  28th  and  29ih  May, 
1672.  In  these  memorable  actions  even  the  bio 
grapher  of  James  II.  in  effect  acknowledges  that 
De  Ruyter  had  the  advantage. — Life,  vol.  i.  pp. 
457—476. 

$  Peace  concluded  at  Westminster,  Feb.  19th, 
1674. 

II  25th  July,  1672. 

IT  By  Elizabeth  of  Nassau,  Duchess  of  Bouil 
lon. 


tire.  His  operations  were  limited  to  the  de 
struction  of  two  petty  towns;  and  it  seems 
doubtful  whether  he  did  not  owe  his  own 
escape  to  the  irresolution  or  treachery  of  a 
Dutch  officer  intrusted  with  a  post  which 
commanded  the  line  of  retreat.  At  the 
perilous  moment  of  Luxemburgh's  advance, 
look  place  William's  long  march  through 
Brabant  to  the  attack  of  Charleroi. — under 
taken  probably  more  with  a  view  of  raising 
the  drooping  spirits  of  his  troops  than  in  the 
hope  of  ultimate  success.  The  deliveiance 
of  Holland  in  1672  was  the  most  signal 
triumph  of  a  free  people  over  mighty  ai- 
vaders,  since  the  defeat  of  Xerxes. 

In  the  ensuing  year,  William's  offensive 
operations  had  more  outward  and  lasting 
consequences.  Having  deceived  Luxem 
burgh,  he  recovered  Naerden,  and  shortly 
hazarding  another  considerable  march  be 
yond  the  frontier,  he  captured  the  city  of 
Bonn,  and  thus  compelled  Turenne  to  pro 
vide  for  the  safety  of  his  army  by  recrossing 
the  Rhine.  The  Spanish  governor  of  the 
Low  Countries  then  declared  war  against 
France ;  and  Louis  was  compelled  to  recall 
his  troops  from  Holland.  Europe  now  rose 
on  all  sides  against  the  monarch  who  not 
many  months  before  appeared  to  be  her  un 
disputed  lord.  So  mighty  were  the  effects 
of  a  gallant  stand  by  a  small  people,  under 
an  inexperienced  chief,  without  a  council  or 
minister  but  the  Pensionary  Fag-el, — the  pupil 
and  adherent  of  De  Witt,  who,  actuated  by 
the  true  spirit  of  his  great  master,  continued 
faithfully  to  serve  his  country,  in  spite  of  the 
saddest  examples  of  the  ingratitude  of  his 
countrymen.  In  the  six  years  of  war  which 
followed,  the  Prince  commanded  in  three 
battles  against  the  greatest  generals  of 
France.  At  Senef,*  it  was  a  sufficient 
honour  that  he  was  not  defeated  by  Conde  ; 
and  that  the  veteran  declared,  on  reviewing 
the  events  of  the  day, — '•  The  young  Prince 
has  shown  all  the  qualities  of  the  most  ex 
perienced  commander,  except  that  he  ex 
posed  his  own  person  too  much."  He  was 
defeated  without  dishonour  at  Cassel.f  by 
Luxemburgh.  under  the  nominal  command 
of  ihe  Duke  of  Orleans.  He  gained  an  ad 
vantage  over  the  same  great  general,  after 
an  obstinate  and  bloody  action,  at  St.  Denis, 
near  Mons.  This  last  proceeding  was  of 
more  doubful  morality  than  any  other  of  his 
military  life,  the  battle  being  fought  four 
days  after  the  signature  of  a  separate  treaty 
of  peace  by  the  Dutch  plenipotentiaries  at 
Nirneguen.J  It  was  not,  indeed,  a  breach 
of  faith,  for  there  was  no  armistice,  and  the 
ratifications  were  not  executed.  It  is  un 
certain,  even,  whether  he  had  information 
of  what  had  passed  at  Nimeguen ;  the  official 
despatches  from  the  States-General  reaching 
him  only  the  next  morning.  The  treaty  had 
been  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  brought  to 
a  favourable  conclusion  by  the  French  minis 
ters;  and  the  Prince,  who  condemned  it  as 


*  llth  August,  1674. 
t  10th  August,  1678. 


t  11  April,  1677. 


392 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


alike  offensive  to  good  faith  and  sound 
policy,  had  reasonable  hopes  of  obtaining 
a  victory,  which,  if  gained  before  the  final 
signature,  might  have  determined  the  fluc 
tuating  counsels  of  the  States  to  the  side  of 
vigour.and  honour.  The  morality  of  soldiers, 
even  in  our  own  age,  is  not  severe  in  requir 
ing  proof  of  the  necessity  of  bloodshed,  if  the 
combat  be  fair,  the  event  brilliant,  and,  more 
particularly,  if  the  commander  freely  exposes 
his  own  life.  His  gallant  enemies  warmly 
applauded  this  attack,  distinguished,  as  it 
seems  eminently  to  have  been,  for  the  daring 
valour,  which  was  brightened  by  the  gravity 
and  modesty  of  his  character ;  and  they  de 
clared  it  to  be  ^the  only  heroic  action  of  a 
six  years'  war  between  all  the  great  nations 
of  Europe."  If  the  official  despatches  had 
not  hindered  him  from  prosecuting  the  attack 
on  the  next  day  with  the  English  auxiliaries, 
who  must  then  have  joined  him,  he  was 
likely  to  have  changed  the  fortune  of  the 
war. 

The  object  of  the  Prince  and  the  hope  of 
his  confederates  had  been  to  restore  Europe 
to  the  condition  in  which  it  had  been  placed 
by  the  treaty  of  the  Pyrenees.*  The  result 
of  the  negotiations  at  Nimeguen  was  to  add 
the  province  of  Tranche  Comte,  and  the  most 
important  fortresses  of  the  Flemish  frontier. 
to  the  cessions  which  Louis  at  Aix-la-Cha- 
pellef  had  extorted  from  Spain.  The  Spanish 
Netherlands  were  thus  farther  stripped  of 
their  defence,  the  barrier  of  Holland  weak 
ened,  and  the  way  opened  for  the  reduction 
of  all  the  posts  which  face  the  most  defence 
less  parts  of  the  English  coast.  The  acqui 
sition  of  Franche  Comte  broke  the  military 
connection  between  Lombardy  and  Flanders, 
secured  the  ascendant  of  France  in  Switzer 
land,  and,  together  with  the  usurpation  of 
Lorraine,  exposed  the  German  empire  to  new 
aggression.  The  ambition  of  the  French 
monarch  was  inflamed,  and  the  spirit  of 
neighbouring  nations  broken,  by  the  ineffec 
tual-resistance  as  much  as  by  the  long  sub 
mission  of  Europe. 

The  ten  years  which  followed  the  peace 
of  Nimeguen  were  the  period  of  his  highest 
elevation.  The  first  exercise  of  his  power 
was  the  erection  of  three  courts,  composed 
of  his  own  subjects,  and  sitting  by  his  autho 
rity,  at  Brissac,  Mentz,  and  Besanc,on,  to  de 
termine  whether  certain  territories  ought  not 
to  be  annexed  to  France,  which  he  claimed 
as  fiefs  of  the  provinces  ceded  to  him  by  the 
Empire  by  the  treaty  of  Westphalia.  These 
courts,  called  :- Chambers  of  Union,"  sum 
moned  the  possessors  of.  these  supposed  fiefs 
to  answer  the  King's  complaints.  The  justice 
of  the  claim  and  the  competence  of  the  tri 
bunals  were  disputed  with  equal  reason. 
The  Chamber  at  Metz  decreed  the  confisca 
tion  of  eighty  fiefs,  for  default  of  appearance 
by  the  feudatories,  among  whom  were  the 
Kings  of  Spain  and  Sweden,  and  the  Elector 
Palatine.  Some  petty  spiritless  princes  ac- 


7th  Nov.  1659. 


t  2d  May,  1668. 


tually  did  homage  to  Louis  for  territories, 
said  to  have  been  anciently  fiefs  of  the  see 
of  Verdun  •*  and,  under  colour  of  a  pretended 
judgment  of  the  Chamber  at  Brissac,t  the 
city  of  Strasburgh,  a  flourishing  Protestant 
republic,  which  commanded  an  important 
pass  on  the  Rhine,  was  surrounded  at  mid 
night,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  by  a  body 
of  French  soldiers,  who-  compelled  those 
magistrates  \vho  had  not  been  previously 
corrupted  to  surrender  the  city  to  the  crown 
of  France,}:  amidst  the  consternation  and 
affliction  of  the  people.  Almost  at  the  same 
hour,  a  body  of  troops  entered  Casal,  in  con 
sequence  of  a  secret  treaty  with  the  Duke 
of  Mantua,  a  dissolute  and  needy  }*rath.  who 
for  a  bribe  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds, 
betrayed  into  the  hands  of  Louis  that  fortress, 
then  esteemed  the  bulwark  of  Lombardy. § 
Both  these  usurpations  were  in  contempt  of 
a  notice  from  the  Imperial  minister  at  Paris, 
against  the  occupation  of  Strasburgh,  an  Im 
perial  city,  or  Casal,  the  capital  of  Mont- 
ferrat,  a  fief  of  the  Empire. I! 

On  the  Belgic  frontier,  means  were  em 
ployed  more  summary  and  open  than  pre 
tended  judgments  or  clandestine  treaties. 
Taking  it  upon  himself  to  determine  the  ex 
tent  of  territory  ceded  to  him  at  Nimeguen, 
Louis  required  from  the  Court  of  Madrid  the 
possession  of  such  districts  as  he  thought  fit. 
Much  was  immediately  yielded.  Some  hesi 
tation  was  shown  in  surrendering  the  town 
and  district  of  Alost.  Louis  sent  his  troops 
into  the  Netherlands,  there  to  stay  till  his 
demands  were  absolutely  complied  with ; 
and  he  notified  to  the  governor,  that  the 
slightest  resistance  would  be  the  signal  of 
war.  Hostilities  soon  broke  out,  which  after 
having  made  him  master  of  Luxemburg,  one 
of  the  strongest  fortresses  of  Europe,  were 
terminated  in  the  summer  of  1684,  by  a 
truce  for  twenty  years,  leaving  him  in  pos- 


*  Dumont,  Corps  Diplomatique,  vol.  vii.  part  ii. 
p.  13. 

t  Flassan,  Histoire  de  la  Diplomatic  Francaise, 
vol.  iv.  pp.  59,  63. 

t  CEuvres  de  Louis  XIV.,  vol.  iv.  p.  394,  where 
the  original  correspondence  is  published.  The 
pretended  capitulation  is  dated  on  the  30th  Sep 
tember,  1681.  The  design  against  Strasburg 
had  been  known  in  July.  —  MS.  letters  of  Sir 
Henry  Saville  (minister  at  Paris)  to  Sir  Leoline 
Jenkins.  Dovvnshire  Papers. 

§  CEuvres  de  Louis  XIV.,  vol.  iv.  pp.  216,  217. 
The  mutinous  conscience  of  Catinat  astonished 
and  displeased  the  haughty  Louvois.  Casal  had 
been  ceded  in  1678  by  Matthioli,  the  Duke's  mi 
nister,  who,  either  moved  by  remorse  or  by  higher 
bribes  from  the  House  of  Austria,  advised  his 
master  not  to  ratify  the  treaty  ;  for  which  he  was 
carried  prisoner  into  France,  and  detained  there 
in  close  and  harsh  custody.  He  was  the  famous 
man  with  the  Iron  Mask,  who  died  in  the  Bas- 
tile.  The  bargain  for  Casal  was  disguised  in  the 
diplomatic  forms  of  a  convention  between  the 
King  and  the  Duke. — Dumont,  vol.  vii.  part  ii. 
p.  14.  An  army  of  one  thousand  five  hundred 
men  was  collected  in  Dauphiny,  at  the  desire  of 
the  Duke,  to  give  his  sale  the  appearance  of  ne 
cessity. — Letter  of  Sir  Henry  Saville. 

II  Sir  Henry  Saville  to  Sir  Leoline  Jenkins. 
Fontainbleau,  12th  Sept.  1681. 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


393 


session  of,  and  giving  the  sanction  of  Europe 
to,  his  usurpations. 

To  a  reader  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
familiar  with  the  present  divisions  of  terri 
tory  in  Christendom,  and  accustomed  to  re 
gard  the  greatness  of  France  as  well  adapted 
to  the  whole  state  of  the  European  system, 
the  conquests  of  Louis  XIV.  may  seem  to 
have  inspired  an  alarm  disproportioned  to 
their  magnitude.  Their  real  danger,  how 
ever,  will  be  speedily  perceived  by  those 
who  more  accurately  consider  the  state  of 
surrounding  countries,  and  the  subdivision 
of  dominion  in  that  age.  Two  monarchies 
only  of  the  first  class  existed  on  the  conti 
nent,  as  the  appellation  of  "  the  two  Crowns," 
thon  commonly  used  in  speaking  of  France 
and  Spain,  sufficiently  indicate.  But  Spain, 
which,  under  the  last  Austrian  king,  had 
perhaps  reached  the  lowest  point  of  her  ex 
traordinary  fall,  was  in  truth  no  longer  able 
to  defend  herself.  The  revenue  of  some 
what  more  than  two  millions  sterling  was  in 
adequate  to  the  annual  expense.*  Ronquillo, 
the  minister  of  this  vast  empire  in  London, 
was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  dismissing 
his  servants  without  payment.!  An  invader 
who  had  the  boldness  to  encounter  the  sha 
dow  of  a  great  name  had  little  to  dread,  ex 
cept  from  the  poverty  of  the  country,  which 
rendered  it  incapable  of  feeding  an  army. 
Naples.  Lombardy,  and  the  Catholic  Nether 
lands,  though  the  finest  provinces  of  Europe, 
were  a  drain  and  a  burden  in  the  hands  of  a 
government  sunk  into  imbecile  dotage,  and 
alike  incapable  of  ruling  and  of  maintaining 
these  envied  possessions.  While  Spain,  a 
lifeless  and  gigantic  body,  covered  the  South 
of  Europe,  the  manly  spirit  and  military  skill 
of  Germany  were  rendered  of  almost  as  little 
avail  by  the  minute  subdivisions  of  its  terri 
tory.  From  the  Rhine  to  the  Vistula,  a  hun 
dred  princes,  jealous  of  each  other,  fearful 
of  offending  the  conqueror,  and  often  com 
petitors  for  his  disgraceful  bounty,  broke  into 
fragments  the  strength  of  the  Germanic  race. 
The  houses  of  Saxony  and  Bavaria,  Branden 
burg  and  Brunswick,  Wurtemburg,  Baden, 
and  Hesse,  though  among  the  most  ancient 
and  noble  of  the  ruling  families  of  Europe, 
were  but  secondary  states.  Even  the  genius 
of  the  late  Elector  of  Brandenburg  did  not 
exempt  him  from  the  necessity  or  the  temp 
tation  of  occasional  compliance  with  Louis. 
From  the  French  frontier  to  the  Baltic,  no 
one  firm  mass  stood  in  the  way  of  his  arms. 
Prussia  was  not  yet  a  monarchy,  nor  Russia 
an  European  state.  In  the  south-eastern 
provinces  of  Germany,  where  Rodolph  of 
Hapsburjj  had  laid  the  foundations  of  his 
family,  the  younger  branch  had,  from  the 
death  of  Charles  V.  formed  a  monarchy 
which,  aided  by  the  Spanish  alliance,  the 


*  Memoires  de  Gourville,  vol.  ii.  p.  82.  An  ac 
count  apparently  prepared  with  care.  I  adopt  the 
proportion  of  thirteen  Hvres  to  the  pound  sterling, 
which  is  the  rate  of  exchange  given  by  Barillon, 
in  1679. 

t  Ronquillo,  MS.  letter. 
50 


imperial  dignity,  and  a  military  position  on 
the  central  frontier  of  Christendom,  render 
ing  it  the  bulwark  of  the  Empire  against 
the  irruptions  of  the  Turkish  barbarians, 
rose  during  the  thirty  years'  war  to  such  a 
power,  that  it  was  prevented  only  by  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus  from  enslaving  the  whole  of 
Germany.  France,  which  under  Richelieu 
had  excited  and  aided  that  great  prince  and 
his  followers,  was  for  that  reason  regarded 
for  a  time  as  the  protector  of  the  German 
States  against  the  Emperor.  Bavaria,  the 
Palatinate,  and  the  three  ecclesiastical  Elec 
torates,  partly  from  remaining  jealousy  of 
Austria,  and  partly  from  growing  fear  of 
Louis,  were  disposed  to  seek  his  protection 
and  acquiesce  in  many  of  his  encroach 
ments.*  This  numerous,  weak,  timid,  and 
mercenary  body  of  German  princes,  supplied 
the  chief  materials  out  of  which  it  was  pos 
sible  that  an  alliance  against  the  conqueror 
might  one  day  be  formed.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  military  power  of  the  Austrian 
monarchy  was  crippled  by  the  bigotry  and 
tyranny  of  its  princes.  The  persecution  of 
the  Protestants,  and  the  attempt  to  establish 
an  absolute  government,  had  spread  disaf 
fection  through  Hungary  and  its  vast  depen 
dencies.  In"  a  contest  between  one  tyrant 
and  many,  where  the  people  in  a  state  of 
personal  slavery  are  equally  disregarded  by 
both,  reason  and  humanity  might  be  neutral, 
if  reflection  did  not  remind  us,  that  even 
the  contests  and  factions  of  a  turbulent  aris 
tocracy  call  forth  an  energy,  and  magna 
nimity,  and  ability,  which  are  extinguished 
under  the  quieter  and  more  fatally  lasting 
domination  of  a  single  master.  The  Emperor 
Leopold  I.,  instigated  by  the  Jesuits,  of  which 
order  he  was  a  lay  member,  rivalled  and  an 
ticipated  Louis  XlV.t  in  his  cruel  prosecu 
tion  of  the  Hungarian  Protestants,  and  there 
by  drove  the  nation  to  such  despair  that  they 
sought  refuge  in  the  aid  of  the  common 
enemy  of  the  Christian  name.  Encouraged 
by  their  revolt,  and  stimulated  by  the  con 
tinued  intrigues  of  the  Court  of  Versailles,!: 
the  Turks  at  length  invaded  Austria  with  a 


*  The  Palatine,  together  with  Bavaria,  Mentz 
and  Cologne,  promised  to  vote  for  Louis  XIV.  as 
emperor  in  1658. — Pfeflfel,  Abrege  Chronologi- 
que,  &c.  (Paris,  1776),  vol.  ii.  p.  360.  A  more 
authentic  and  very  curious  account  of  this  extra 
ordinary  negotiation,  extracted  from  the  French 
archives,  is  published  by  Lemontey,  (Monarchie 
de  Louis  XIV.  Pieces  Justificative*,  No.  2,)  by 
which  it  appears  that  the  Elector  of  Metz  betrayed 
Mazarin,  who  had  distributed  immense  bribes  to 
him  and  his  fellows. 

t  He  banished  the  Protestant  clergy,  of  whom 
two  hundred  and  fifty,  originally  condemned  to 
be  stoned  or  burnt  to  death,  but  having  under 
pretence,  probably,  of  humanity,  been  sold  to  the 
Spaniards,  were  redeemed  from  the  condition  of 
galley  slaves  by  the  illustrious  De  Ruyter  after 
his  victory  over  the  French,  on  the  coast  of 
Sicily. — Coxe,  House  of  Austria,  chap.  66. 

t  Sir  William  Trumbull,  ambassador  at  Con 
stantinople  from  August,  1687,  to  July,  1691, 
names  French  agents  employed  in  fomenting  the 
Hungarian  rebellion,  and  negotiating  with  the 
Vizier.— Downshire  MSS. 


394 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


mighty  army,  and  would  have  mastered  the 
capital  of  the  most  noble  of  Christian  sove 
reigns,  had  not  the  seige  of  Vienna  been 
raised,  after  a  duration  of  two  months,  by 
John  Sobieski,  King  of  Poland, — the  heroic 
chief  of  a  people,  whom  in  less  than  a  cen 
tury  the  House  of  Austria  contributed  to 
blot  out  of  the  map  of  nations.  While 
these  dangers  impended  over  the  Austrian 
monarchy,  Louis  had  been  preparing  to  de 
prive  it  of  the  Imperial  sceptre,  which  in  his 
own  hands  would  have  proved  no  bauble. 
By  secret  treaties,  to  which  the  Elector  of 
Bavaria  had  been  tempted  to  agree,  in  1670, 
by  the  prospect  of  matrimonial  alliance  with 
the  House  of  France,  and  which  were  im 
posed  on  the  Electors  of  Brandenburg  and 
Saxony  in  1679.  after  the  humiliation  of  Eu 
rope  at  Nimeguen,  these  princes  had  agreed 
to  vote  for  Louis  in  case  of  the  death  of 
the  Emperor  Leopold, — an  event  which  his 
infirm  health  had  given  frequent  occasion 
to  expect.  The  four  Rhenish  electors, 
especially  after  the  usurpation  of  Stras- 
burg  and  Luxemburg,  were  already  in  his 
net. 

At  home  the  vanquished  party,  whose  an 
tipathy  to  the  House  of  Orange  had  been 
exasperated  by  the  cruel  fate  of  De  Witt, 
sacrificed  the  care  of  the  national  inde 
pendence  to  jealousy  of  the  Stadtholderian 
princes,  and  carried  their  devotedness  to 
France  to  an  excess  which  there  was  no 
thing  in  the  example  of  their  justly  revered 
leader  to  warrant.*  They  had  obliged  the 
Prince  of  Orange  to  accede  to  the  unequal 
conditions  of  Nimeguen ;  they  had  prevented 
him  from  makkig  military  preparations  ab 
solutely  required  by  safety  j  and  they  had 
compelled  him  to  submit  to  that  truce  for 
twenty  years,  which  left  the  entrances  of 
Flanders,  Germany,  and  Italy,  in  the  hands 
of  France.  They  had  concerted  all  mea 
sures  of  domestic  opposition  with  the  French 
minister  at  the  Hague ;  and,  though  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  the  opulent  and 
creditable  chiefs  of  the  party,  if  they  had 
received  French  money  at  all,  would  have 
deigned  to  employ  it  for  any  other  than 
what  they  had  unhappily  been  misled  to 
regard  as  a  public  purpose,  there  is  the  ful 
lest  evidence  of  the  employment  of  bribes 
to  make  known  at  Versailles  the  most  secret 
counsels  of  the  commonwealth. t  Amster 
dam  had  raised  troops  for  her  own  defence, 
declaring  her  determination  not  to  contribute 
towards  the  hostilities  which  the  measures 


*  The  speed  and  joy  with  which  he  and  Temple 
concluded  the  Triple  Alliance  seem,  indeed,  to 
prove  the  contrary.  That  treaty,  so  quickly  con 
cluded  by  two  wise,  accomplished,  and,  above  all, 
honest  men,  is  perhaps  unparalleled  in  diplomatic 
transactions.  "  Nulla  dies  unquam  memori  vox 
eximel  CRVO." 

t  D'Avaux,  Negociations  en  Hollande  (Paris, 
1754),  vol.  i.  pp.  13,  23,  25,  &c.—  examples  of  trea 
chery,  in  some  of  which  the  secret  was  known 
only  to  three  persons.  Sometimes,  copies  of 
orders  were  obtained  from  the  Prince's  private 
repositories,  vol.  ii.  p.  53. 


of  the  general  government  might  occasion, 
and  had  entered  into  a  secret  correspondence 
with  France.  Friesland  and  Croningen  had 
recalled  their  troops  from  the  common  de 
fence,  and  bound  themselves,  by  a  secret 
convention  with  Amsterdam,  to  act  in  con 
cert  with  that  potent  and  mutinous  city. 
The  provinces  of  Guelderland,  Overyssell, 
Utrecht,  and  Zealand,  adhered,  indeed,  to 
the  Prince,  and  he  still  preserved  a  majority 
in  the  States  of  Holland  ;  but  this  majority 
consisted  only  of  the  order  of  nobles  and  of 
the  deputies  of  inconsiderable  towns.  Fagel7 
his  wise  and  faithful  minister,  appeared  to 
be  in  danger  of  destruction  at  the  hands  of 
the  Republicans,  who  abhorred  him  as  a  de 
serter.  But  Heinsius.  Pensionary  of  Delft, 
probably  the  ablest  man  of  that  party,  hav 
ing,  on  a  mission  to  Versailles,  seen  the 
effects  of  the  civil  and  religious  policy  of 
Louis  XIV.,  and  considering  consistency  as 
dependent,  not  on  names,  but  on  principles, 
thought  it  the  duty  of  a  friend  of  liberty 
also  to  join  the  party  most  opposed  to  that 
monarch's  designs.  So  trembling  was  the 
ascendant  of  the  Prince  in  Holland,  that  the 
accession  of  individuals  was,  from  their  sit 
uation  or  ability,  of  great  importance  to  him. 
His  cousin,  the  Stadtholder  of  Friesland,  was 
gradually  gained  over  •  and  Conrad  Van  Ben- 
ningen,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  Amsterdam,  an 
able,  accomplished,  and  disinterested  Repub 
lican,  fickle  from  over-refinement,  and  be 
trayed  into  French  councils  by  jealousy  of 
the  House  of  Orange,  as  soon  as  he  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  abyss  into  which  his  country 
was  about  to  fall,  recoiled  from  the  brink. 
Thus  did  the  very  Country  where  the  Prince 
of  Orange  held  sway,  fluctuate  between  him 
and  Louis;  insomuch,  indeed,  that  if  that 
monarch  had  observed  any  measure  in  his 
cruelty  towards  French  Protestants,  it  might 
have  been  impossible,  till  it  was  too  late,  to 
turn  the  force  of  Holland  against  him. 

But  the  weakest  point  in  the  defences  of 
European  independence  was  England.  It 
was  not,  indeed,  like  the  continental  states, 
either  attacked  by  other  enemies,  or  weak 
ened  by  foreign  influence,  or  dwindling  from 
inward  decay.  The  throne  was  filled  by  a 
traitor;  a  creature  of  the  common  enemy 
commanded  this  important  post :  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  Charles  had  connived  at  the 
conquests  or  Louis.  During  the  last  ten  years 
of  his  reign  he  received  a  secret  pension ; 
but  when  Louis  became  desirous  of  possess 
ing  Luxemburg,  Charles  extorted  an  addi 
tional  bribe  for  connivance  at  that  new  act 
of  rapine.*  After  he  had  sold  the  fortress, 
he  proposed  himself  to  Spain  as  arbitrator  in 
the  dispute  regarding  it  jt  and  so  notorious 
was  his  perfidy,  that  the  Spanish  ministers 
at  Paris  did  not  scruple  to  justify  their  re- 

*  "  My  Lord  Hyde  (Rochester)  ne  m'a  pas 
cache  que  si  son  avis  est  suivi  le  Roi  s'en  entrera 
dans  un  concert  secret  pour  avoir  a  V.  M.  la  ville 
de  Luxemburg." — Barillon  to  Louis,  7th  Nov. 
1681. 

t  The  same  to  the  same,  15th  Dec. 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


395 


fusal  to  his  ambassador,  by  telling  him,  "  that 
they  refused  because  they  had  no  mind  to 
part  with  Luxemburg,  which  they  knew 
was  to  be  sacrificed  if  they  accepted  the 
offer."* 

William's  connection  with  the  House  of 
Stuart  was  sometimes  employed  by  France 
to  strengthen  the  jealous  antipathy  of  the 
Republicans  against  him ;  while  on  other  oc 
casions  he  was  himself  obliged  to  profess  a 
reliance  on  that  connection  which  he  did 
not  feel,  in  order  to  gain  an  appearance  of 
strength.  As  the  Dutch  Republicans  wrere 
prompted  to  thwart  his  measures  by  a  mis 
applied  zeal  for  liberty,  so  the  English  Whigs 
were  for  a  moment  compelled  to  enter  into  a 
correspondence  with  the  common  enemy  by 
the  like  motives.  But  in  his  peculiar  rela 
tions  with  England  the  imprudent  violence 


*  Lord  Preston  to  Secretary  Jenkins,  Paris, 
16th  Dec.  1682.  Admitted  within  the  domestic 
differences  of  England,  Louis  had  not  scrupled  to 
make  advances  to  the  enemies  of  the  court ;  and 
they,  desirous  of  detaching  their  own  sovereign 
from  France,  and  of  thus  depriving  him  of  the 
most  effectual  ally  in  his  project  for  rendering 
himself  absolute,  had  reprehensibly  accepted  the 
aid  of  Louis  in  counteracting  a  policy  which  they 
had  good  reason  to  dread.  They  considered  this 
dangerous  understanding  as  allowable  for  the  pur 
pose  of  satisfying  their  party,  that  in  opposing 
Charles  they  would  not  have  to  apprehend  the 
power  of  Louis,  and  disposing  the  King  of  France 
to  spare  the  English  constitution,  as  some  curb  on 
the  irresolution  and  inconstancy  of  his  royal  de 
pendent.  To  destroy  confidence  between  the 
Courts  seemed  to  be  an  object  so  important,  as  to 
warrant  the  use  of  ambiguous  means ;  and  the 
usual  sophistry,  by  which  men  who  are  not  de 
praved  excuse  to  themselves  great  breaches  of 
morality,  could  not  be  wanting.  They  could  easily 
persuade  themselves  that  they  could  stop  when 
they  pleased,  and  that  the  example  could  not  be 
dangerous  in  a  case  where  the  danger  was  too 
great  not  to  be  of  very  rare  occurrence.  Some  of 
them  are  said  by  Barillon  to  have  so  far  copied 
their  prince  as  to  have  received  French  money, 
though  they  are  not  charged  with  being,  like  him, 
induced  by  it  to  adopt  any  measures  at  variance 
with  their  avowed  principles.  If  we  must  be 
lieve,  that  in  an  age  of  little  pecuniary  delicacy, 
when  large  presents  from  sovereigns  were  scarcely 
deemed  dishonourable,  and  when  many  princes, 
and  almost  all  ministers,  were  in  the  pay  of  Louis 
XIV.,  the  statement  may  be  true,  it  is  due  to  the 
haughty  temper,  not  to  say  to  the  high  principles 
of  Sidney, — it  is  due,  though  in  a  very  inferior  de 
gree,  to  the  ample  fortunes  of  others  of  the  per 
sons  named,  also  to  believe,  that  the  polluted  gifts 
were  applied  by  them  to  elections  and  other  public 
interests  of  the  popular  party,  which  there  might 
be  a  fantastic:  gratification  in  promoting  by  trea 
sures  diverted  from  the  use  of  the  Court.  These 
unhappy  transactions,  which  in  their  full  extent 
require  a  more  critical  scrutiny  of  the  original  do 
cuments  than  that  to  which  they  have  been  sub 
jected,  are  not  pretended  to  originate  till  ten  years 
after  the  concert  of  the  two  Courts,  and  were  re 
linquished  as  soon  as  that  concert  was  resumed. 
Yet  the  reproach  brought  upon  the  cause  of 
liberty  by  the  infirmity  of  some  men  of  great  soul, 
and  of  others  of  the  purest  virtue,  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  wholesome  admonition  pronounced  by  the 
warning  voice  of  history  against  the  employment 
of  sinister  and  equivocal  means  for  the  attainment 
of  the  best  ends. 


of  the  latter  party  was  as  much  an  obstacle 
in  his  way  as  their  alienation  or  opposition. 
The  interest  of  Europe  required  that  he 
should  never  relinquish  the  attempt  to  detach 
the  English  government  from  the  conqueror. 
The  same  principle,  together  with  legitimate 
ambition,  prescribed  that  he  should  do  no 
thing,  either  by  exciting  enemies,  or  estrang 
ing  friends,  which  could  endanger  his  own 
and  the  Princess'  right  of  succession  to  the 
crown.  It  was  his  obvious  policy,  therefore,  to 
keep  up  a  good  understanding  with  the  popu 
lar  party,  on  whom  alone  he  could  permanent 
ly  rely ;  to  give  a  cautious  countenance  to 
tneir  measures  of  constitutional  opposition, 
and  especially  to  the  Bill  of  Exclusion,* — a 
more  effectual  mode  of  cutting  asunder  the 
chains  which  bound  England  to  the  car  of 
Louis,  than  the  proposed  limitations  on  a  Ca 
tholic  successor,  which  might  permanently 
weaken  the  defensive  force  of  the  monarchy;! 
and  to  discourage  and  stand  aloof  from  all 
violent  counsels, — likely  either  to  embroil  the 
country  in  such  lasting  confusion  as  would 
altogether  disable  it  for  aiding  the  sinking 
fortunes  of  Europe,  or,  by  their  immediate 
suppression,  to  subject  all  national  interests 
and  feelings  to  Charles  and  his  brother.  As 
his  open  declaration  against  the  King  or  the 
popular  party  would  have  been  perhaps 
equally  dangerous  to  English  liberty  and 
European  independence,  he  was  averse  from 
those  projects  which  reduced  him  to  so  in 
jurious  an  alternative.  Hence  his  conduct 
in  the  case  of  what  is  called  the  ic  Rye  House 
Plot/'  in  which  his  confidential 'correspon 
dence!  manifests  indifference  and  even  dis 
like  to  those  who  were  charged  with  projects 
of  revolt ;  all  which  might  seem  unnatural 
if  we  did  not  bear  in  mind  that  at  the  mo 
ment  of  the  siege  of  Vienna,  he  must  have 
looked  at  England  almost  solely,  as  the 
only  counterpoise  of  France.  His  abstinence 
from  English  intrigues  was  at  this  juncture 
strengthened  by  lingering  hopes  that  it  was 
still  possible  to  lure  Charles  into  those  unions 
which  he  had  begun  to  form  against  farther 
encroachment,  under  the  modest  and  inoffen 
sive  name  of  "  Associations  to  maintain  the 
Treaty  of  Nimeguen,"  which  were  in  three 


*  Burnet,  vol.  ii.  p.  245.  Temple,  vol.  i. 
p.  355.  "  My  friendship  with  the  Prince  (says 
Temple)  I  could  think  no  crime,  considering  how 
little  he  had  ever  meddled,  to  my  knowledge,  in 
our  domestic  concerns  since  the  first  heats  in  Par 
liament,  though  sensible  of  their  influence  on  all 
his  nearest  concerns  at  home  ;  the  preservation 
of  Flanders  from  French  conquests,  and  thereby 
of  Holland  from  absolute  dependence  on  that 
Crown." 

t  Letters  of  the  Prince  to  Sir  Leoline  Jenkins, 
July,  1680.— February,  1681.  Dalrymple,  Ap 
pendix  to  Review. 

t  MS.  letters  from  the  Prince  to  Mr.  Bentinck, 
in  England,  July  and  August,  1683.  By  the 
favour  of  the  Duke  of  Portland,  I  possess  copies 
of  the  whole  of  the  Prince's  correspondence  with 
his  friend,  from  1677  to  1700 ;  written  with  the 
unreserved  frankness  of  warm  and  pure  friend 
ship,  in  which  it  is  quite  manifest  that  there  is 
nothing  concealed. 


396 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


years  afterwards  completed  by  the  League 
of  Augsburgh,  and  which,  in  1689,  brought 
all  Europe  into  the  field  to  check  the  careei 
of  Louis  XIV. 

The  death  of  Charles  II.  gave  William 
some  hope  of  an  advantageous  change  in 
English  policy.  Many  worse  men  and  more 
tyrannical  kings  than  that  prince,  few  per 
sons  of  more  agreeable  qualities  and  brilliant 
talents  have  been  seated  on  a  throne.  But 
his  transactions  with  France  probably  afford 
the  most  remarkable  instance  of  a  king  with 
no  sense  of  national  honour  or  of  regal  inde 
pendence, — the  last  vestiges  which  departing 
virtue  might  be  expected  to  leave  behind  in 
a  royal  bosom.  More  jealousy  of  dependence 
on  a  foreign  prince  was  hoped  from  the  ster 
ner  temper  of  his  successor.  William  accord 
ingly  made  great  efforts  and  sacrifices  to 
obtain  the  accession  of  England  to  the  Euro 
pean  cause.  He  declared  his  readiness  to 
sacrifice  his  resentments,  and  even  his  per 
sonal  interests,  and  to  conform  his  conduct 
to  the  pleasure  of  the  King  in  all  things  com 
patible  with  his  religion  and  with  His  duty 
to  the  republic;* — limitations  which  must 
have  been  considered  as  pledges  of  sincerity 
by  him  to  wrhom  they  were  otherwise  unac 
ceptable.  He  declared  his  regret  at  the  ap 
pearance  of  opposition  to  both  his  uncles, 
which  had  arisen  only  from  the  necessity  of 
resisting  Louis,  and  he  sent  M.  D'Auver- 
querque  to  England  to  lay  his  submission 
before  the  King.  James  desired  that  he 
should  relinquish  communication  with  the 
Duke  of  Monmouthjt  dismiss  the  malcontent 


*  Davaux,  13th— 26th  Feb.,  1685.  The  last 
contains  an  account  of  a  conversation  of  William 
with  Fagel,  overheard  by  a  person  who  reported 
ir  to  Davaux.  A  passage  in  which  Davaux  shows 
his  belief  that  the  policy  of  the  Prince  now  aimed 
at  gaining  James,  is  suppressed  in  the  printed 
collection. 

t  During  these  unexpected  advances  to  a  re 
newal  of  friendship,  an  incident  occurred,  which 
has  ever  since,  in  the  eyes  of  many,  thrown  some 
shade  over  the  sincerity  of  William.  This  was 
the  landing  in  England  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth, 
with  a  small  number  of  adherents  who  had  em 
barked  with  him  at  Amsterdam.  He  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  and  afterwards 
in  Holland,  during  the  preceding  year,  in  conse 
quence  of  a  misunderstanding  between  him  and 
the  ministers  of  Charles  respecting  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  confession  concerning  the  reality  of 
the  Rye  House  Plot, published  by  them  in  language 
which  he  resented  as  conveying  unauthorised  im 
putations  on  his  friends.  The  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Orange  received  him  with  kindness,  from  per 
sonal  friendship,  from  compassion  for  his  suffer 
ings,  and  from  his  connection  with  the  popular 
and  Protestant  party  in  England.  The  transient 
shadow  of  a  pretension  to  the  crown  did  not 
awaken  their  jealousy.  They  were  well  aware 
that  whatever  complaints  might  be  made  by  his 
ministers,  Charles  himself  would  not  be  displeased 
by  kindness  shown  towards  his  favourite  son. 
There  is,  indeed,  little  doubt,  that  in  the  last  year 
of  his  life,  Charles  had  been  prevailed  on  by  Hali 
fax  to  consult  his  ease,  as  well  as  his  inclination, 
by  the  recall  of  his  son,  as  a  counterpoise  to  the 
Duke  of  York,  and  thus  to  produce  the  balance 
of  parties  at  court,  which  was  one  of  the  darling 
refinements  of  that  too  ingenious  statesman. 


English  Officers  in   the   Dutch  army7   and 
adapt  his  policy  to   such   engagements  as 

Reports  were  prevalent  that  Monmouih  had  pri 
vately   visited   England,   and  that   he   was   well 
pleased    with  his  journey.     He  was   assured  by 
confidential    letters,    evidently  sanctioned   by  his 
father,  that  he  should  be  recalled   in    February. 
It  appears  also,  that  Charles  had  written  with  his 
own  hand  a  letter  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  be 
seeching  him  to  treat  Monmouth  kindly,  which 
D'Auverquerque  was  directed  to  lay  before  James 
as  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  whatever  might 
seem  suspicious  in  the  unusual  honours  paid  to 
him.     Before  he  left  the  Hague  the  Prince  and 
Princess  approved  the  draft  of  a  submissive  letter 
to  James,  which  he  had  laid  before  them  ;  and 
they  exacted  from  him  a  promise  that  he  would 
engage  in  no  violent  enterprises  inconsistent  with 
this  submission.     Despairing  of  clemency  from 
his  uncle,  he  then  appears  to  have  entertained 
designs  of  retiring  into  Sweden,  or  of  serving  in 
the   Imperial  army  against  the  Turks  ;    and  he 
listened  for  a  moment   to  the   projects  of  some 
French  Protestants,  who  proposed  that  he  should 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  their  unfortunate  bre 
thren.     He  himself  thought  the  difficulties  of  an 
enterprise  against  England  insuperable  ;  but  the 
importunity  of  the  English  and  Scotch  refugees 
in  Holland  induced  him  to  return  privately  there 
to   be  present  at  their  consultations.     He   found 
the  Scotch  exiles,  who  were  proportionately  more 
numerous  and  of  greater  distinction,  and  who  felt 
more  bitterly  from  the  bloody  tyranny  under  which 
their  countrymen  suffered,  impatiently  desirous  to 
make  an  immediate  attempt  for  the  delivery  of 
their    country.      Ferguson,    the    Nonconformist 
preacher,  either  from   treachery,   or  from   rash 
ness,  seconded  the  impetuosity  of  his  countrymen. 
Andrew   Fletcher  of  Saltoun,   a  man  of  heroic 
spirit,  and  a  lover  of  liberty  even  to  enthusiasm, 
who  had  just  returned  from  serving  in  Hungary, 
dissuaded  his  friends  from  an  enterprise  which  his 
political   sagacity  and  military  experience  taught 
tiim  to  consider  as  hopeless.     In  assemblies  of 
suffering  and  angry  exiles  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  rash  counsels  should  prevail ;  yet  Monmouth 
ippears  to  have  resisted  them  longer  than  could 
have  been  hoped  from  his  judgment  or  temper, 
[t  was  not  till   two  months  after   the  death    of 
harles  II.   (9th  April,  1685,)  that   the   vigilant 
Davaux   intimated   his  suspicion  of  a  design   to 
'and  in  England.     Nor  was  it   till  three  weeks 
hat  he  was  able  to  transmit  to  his  Court  the  par- 
iculars  of  the 'equipment.     It  was  only  then  that 
Skelton,   the  minister  of  James,  complained  of 
;hese  petty  armaments   to  the   President  of  the 
States-General  and  the  magistratesof  Amsterdam, 
leither  of  whom  had  any  authority  in  the  case. 
They  referred  him  to  the  Admiralty  of  Amster 
dam,  the  competent  authority  in  such  cases,  who, 
as  soon  as  they  were  authorised  by  an  order  from 
he  States-General,  proceeded  to  arrest  the  ves 
sels  freighted  by  Arsyle.     But  in  consequence  of 
i  mistake  in  Skelton's  description  of  their  station, 
heir  exertions  were  too  late  to  prevent  the  sailing 
)f  the  unfortunate  expedition  on  the  5th  of  May. 
The  natural  delays  of   a  slow   and  formal   go 
vernment,    the  jealousy  of  rival  authorities,  ex 
asperated  by  the  spirit  of  party,  and  the  license 
shown  in  such  a  country  to  navigation  and  traffic, 
ire  sufficient  to  account  for  this  short  delay.     If 
here  was  in  this  case  a  more  than  usual  indisposi- 
ion  to  overstep  the  formalities  of  the  constitution, 
)r  to  quicken  the  slow  pace  of  the  administration, 
t  may  be  well  imputed  to  natural  compassion  to 
wards  the  exiles,  and  to  the  strong  fellow-feeling 
which  arose  from  agreement  in  religious  opinion, 
especially  with  the  Scotch.     If  there  were  proof 
even  of  absolute  connivance,  it  must  be  ascribed 
olely  to  the  magistrates  and  inhabitants  of  Am- 


MEMOIR  OF  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  HOLLAND. 


397 


the  King  should  see  fit  to  contract  with  his 
neighbours.  To  the  former  conditions  the 
Prince  submitted  without  reserve  :  the  last, 
couched  in  strong  language  by  James  to 
Barillon,  hid  under  more  general  expressions 
by  the  English  minister  to  Davaux,  but  im 
plying  in  its  mildest  form  an  acquiescence  in 
trie  projects  of  the  conqueror,  was  probably 
conveyed  to  the  Prince  himself  in  terms 
capable  of  being  understood  as  amounting 
only  to  an  engagement  to  avoid  an  interrup 
tion  of  the  general  peace.  In  that  inoffensive 
sense  it  seems  to  have  been  accepted  by  the 
Prince  ;  since  the  King  declared  to  him  that 
his  concessions,  which  could  have  reached 
no  farther,  were  perfectly  satisfactory.* 

Sidney  was  sent  to  Holland — a  choice 
which  seemed  to  indicate  an  extraordinary 
deference  for  the  wishes  of  the  Prince,  and 
which  was  considered  in  Holland  as  a  deci 
sive  mark  of  good  understanding  between 
the  two  governments.  The  proud  and  hostile 
city  of  Amsterdam  presented  an  address  of 
congratulation  to  William  on  the  defeat  of 
Monmouth ;  and  the  Republican  party  be 
gan  to  despair  of  effectual  resistance  to  the 
power  of  the  Stadtholder,  now  about  to  be 
strengthened  by  the  alliance  with  England. 
The  Dutch  ambassadors  in  London,  in  spite 
of  the  remonstrances  of  Barillon,  succeeded 
in  concluding  a  treaty  for  the  renewal  of 
the  defensive  alliance  between  England  and 
Holland,  which,  though  represented  to  Louis 
as  a  mere  formality,  was  certainly  a  step 
which  required  little  more  than  that  liberal 
construction  to  which  a  defensive  treaty  is 
always  entitled,  to  convert  it  into  an  acces 
sion  by  England  to  the  concert  of  the  other 
states  of  Europe,  for  the  preservation  of  their 
rights  and  dominions.  The  connection  be 
tween  the  Dutch  and  English  governments 
answered  alike  the  immediate  purposes  of 
both  parties.  It  overawed  the  malcontents 
of  Holland,  as  well  as  those  of  England  ;  and 
James  commanded  his  ministers  to  signify 
to  the  magistrates  of  Amsterdam,  that  their 
support  of  the  Stadtholder  would  be  accept 
able  to  his  Majesty. 

William,  who,  from  the  peace  of  Nime- 
guen,  had  been  the  acknowledged  chief  of 

sferdam,— the  ancient  enemies  of  the  House  of 
Orange, — who  might  look  with  favour  on  an 
expedition  which  might  prevent  the  Stadtholder 
from  being  strengthened  by  his  connection  with 
the  King  of  England,  and  who,  as  we  are  told 
by  Davaux  himself,  were  afterwards  filled  with 
consternation  when  they  learned  the  defeat  of 
Monmouth.  We  know  little  with  certainty  of 
the  particulars  of  his  intercourse  with  his  inex 
orable  uncle,  from  his  capture  till  his  execution, 
except  the  compassionate  interference  of  the 
Queen  Dowager  in  his  behalf;  but  whatever  it 
was,  from  the  King's  conduct  immediately  after, 
it  tended  rather  to  strengthen  than  to  shake  his 
confidence  in  the  Prince. 

*  James  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  6th,  16th,  and 
I7tb  March. — Dalrymple,  app.  to  part  i. 


the  confederacy  gradually  forming  to  protect 
the  remains  of  Europe,  had  now  slowly  and 
silently  removed  all  the  obstacles  to  its  for 
mation,  except  those  which  arose  from  the 
unhappy  jealousies  of  the  friends  of  liberty 
at  home,  and  the  fatal  progress  towards  ab 
solute  monarchy  in  England.  Good  sense, 
which,  in  so  high  a  degree  as  his,  is  one  of 
the  rarest  of  human  endowments,  had  full 
scope  for  its  exercise  in  a  mind  seldom  in 
vaded  by  the  disturbing  passions  of  fear  and 
anger.  With  all  his  determined  firmness, 
no  man  was  ever  more  solicitous  not  to 
provoke  or  keep  up  needless  enmity.  It  is 
no  wonder  that  he  should  have  been  influ 
enced  by  this  principle  in  his  dealings  with 
Charles  and  James,  for  there  are  traces  of  it 
even  in  his  rare  and  transient  intercourse 
with  Louis  XIV.  He  caused  it  to  be  inti 
mated  to  him  ''that  he  was  ambitions  of 
being  restored  to  his  Majesty's  favour;7''*  to 
which  it  was  haughtily  answered,  i:  that 
when  such  a  disposition  was  shown  in  his 
conduct,  the  King  would  see  what  was  to  be 
done."  Yet  Davaux  believed  that  the  Prince 
really  desired  to  avoid  the  enmity  of  Louis, 
as  far  as  was  compatible  with  his  duties  to 
Holland,  and  his  interests  in  England.  In  a 
conversation  with  Gourville,t  which  affords 
one  of  the  most  characteristic  specimens  of 
intercourse  between  a  practised  courtier  and 
a  man  of  plain  inoffensive  temper,  when  the 
minister  had  spoken  to  him  in  more  soothing 
language,  he  professed  his  warm  wish  to 
please  the  King,  and  proved  his  sincerity  by 
adding  that  he  never  could  neglect  the  safety 
of  Holland,  and  that  the  decrees  of  re-union, 
together  with  other  marks  of  projects  of  uni 
versal  monarchy,  were  formidable  obstacles 
to  good  understanding.  It  was  probably 
after  one  of  these  attempts  that  he  made  the 
remarkable  declaration, — u  Since  I  cannot 
earn  his  Majesty's  favour,  I  must  endeavour 
to  earn  his  esteem."  Nothing  but  an  extra 
ordinary  union  of  wariness  with  persever 
ance — two  qualities  which  he  possessed  in  a 
higher  degree,  and  united  in  juster  propor 
tions,  perhaps,  than  any  other  man — could 
have  fitted  him  for  that  incessant,  unwearied, 
noiseless  exertion  which  alone  suited  his 
difficult  situation.  His  mind,  naturally  dis 
passionate,  became,  by  degrees,  steadfastly 
and  intensely  fixed  upon  the  single  object 
of  his  high  calling.  Brilliant  only  on  the  field 
of  battle ;  loved  by  none  but  a  few  intimate 
connections;  considerate  and  circumspect  in 
council ;  in  the  execution  of  his  designs  bold 
even  to  rashness,  and  inflexible  to  the  verge 
of  obstinacy,  he  held  his  onward  way  with 
a  quiet  and  even  course,  which  wore  down 
opposition,  outlasted  the  sallies  of  enthusi 
asm,  and  disappointed  the  subtle  contriv 
ances  of  a  refined  policy. 


*  Davaux,  vol.  i.  p.  5. 
t  Gourville,  vol.  ii.  p.  204. 
21 


398 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


DISCOURSE 


READ     AT     THE     OPENING    OF 


THE  LITERARY  SOCIETY  OF  BOMBAY 


[36th  Nov.  1804.] 


GENTLEMEN; — The  smallest  society,  brought 
together  by  the  love  of  knowledge,  is  respect 
able  in  the  eye  of  Reason ;  and  the  feeblest 
efforts  of  infant  Literature  in  barren  and  in 
hospitable  regions  are  in  some  respects  more 
interesting  than  the  most  elaborate  works 
and  the  most  successful  exertions  of  the  hu 
man  mind.  They  prove  the  diffusion,  at 
least,  if  riot  the  advancement  of  science ; 
and  they  afford  some  sanction  to  the  hope, 
that  Knowledge  is  destined  one  day  to  visit 
the  whole  earth,  and,  in  her  beneficial  pro 
gress,  to  illuminate  and  humanise  the  whole 
race  of  man.  It  is,  therefore,  with  singular 
pleasure  that  I  see  a  small  but  respectable 
body  of  men  assembled  here  by  such  a  prin 
ciple.  I  hope  that  we  agree  in  considering 
all  Europeans  who  visit  remote  countries, 
whatever  their  separate  pursuits  may  be,  as 
detachments  of  the  main  body  of  civilized 
men,  sent  out  to  levy  contributions  of  know 
ledge,  as  well  as  to  gain  victories  over  bar 
barism. 

When  a  large  portion  of  a  country  so  inte 
resting  as  India  fell  into  the  hands  of  one  of 
the  most  intelligent  and  inquisitive  nations 
of  the  world,  it  was  natural  to  expect  that  its 
ancient  and  present  state  should  at  last  be 
fully  disclosed.  These  expectations  were, 
indeed,  for  a  time  disappointed  :  during  the 
tumult  of  revolution  and  war  it  would  have 
been  unreasonable  to  have  entertained  them ; 
and  when  tranquillity  was  established  in 
that  country,  which  continues  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  British  power  in  Asia.*  it  ought 
not  to  have  been  forgotten  that  every  Eng 
lishman  was  fully  occupied  by  commerce, 
by  military  service,  or  by  administration  : 
that  we  had  among  us  no  idle  public  of 
readers,  and,  consequently,  no  separate  pro 
fession  of  writers;  and  that  every  hour  be 
stowed  on  study  was  to  be  stolen  from  the 
leisure  of  men  often  harassed  by  business, 
enervated  by  the  climate,  and  more  disposed 
to  seek  amusement  than  new  occupation,  in 
the  intervals  of  their  appointed  toils. 

It  is,  besides,  a  part  of  our  national  charac 
ter,  that  we  are  seldom  eager  to  display,  and 
not  always  ready  to  communicate,  what  we 
have  acquired.  In  this  respect  we  differ 
considerably  from  other  lettered  nations. 
Our  ingenious  and  polite  neighbours  on  the 


*  Bengal.— ED. 


continent  of  Europe, — to  whose  enjoyment 
the  applause  of  others  seems  more  indispen 
sable,  and  whose  faculties  are  more  nimble 
and  restless,  if  not  more  vigorous  than  ours, 
— are  neither  so  patient  of  repose,  nor  so 
likely  to  be  contented  with  a  secret  hoard  of 
knowledge.  They  carry  even  into  their  lite 
rature  a  spirit  of  bustle  and  parade  ; — a  bus 
tle,  indeed,  which  springs  from  activity,  and 
a  parade  which  animates  enterprise,  but 
which  are  incompatible  with  our  sluggish 
and  sullen  dignity.  Pride  disdains  ostenta 
tion,  scorns  false  pretensions,  despises  even 
petty  merit,  refuses  to  obtain  the  objects  of 
pursuit  by  flattery  or  importunity,  and  scarce 
ly  values  any  praise  but  that  which  she  has 
the  right  to  command.  Pride,  with  which 
foreigners  charge  us,  and  which  under  the 
name  of  a  "'sense  of  dignity'  wre  claim  for 
ourselves,  is  a  lazy  arid  unsocial  quality; 
and  is  in  these  respects,  as  in  most  others, 
the  very  reverse  of  the  sociable  and  good- 
humoured  vice  of  vanity.  It  is  not,  there 
fore,  to  be  wondered  at,  if  in  India  our  na 
tional  character,  co  operating  with  local  cir 
cumstances,  should  have  produced  some  real 
and  perhaps  more  apparent  inactivity  in 
working  the  mine  of  knowledge  of  which  we 
had  become  the  masters. 

Yet  some  of  the  earliest  exertions  of  pri 
vate  Englishmen  are  too  important  to  be 
passed  over  in  silence.  The  compilation  of 
laws  by  Mr.  Halhed,  and  the  Ayeen  Akba- 
ree,  translated  by  Mr.  Gladwin,  deserve 
honourable  mention.  Mr.  Wilkins  gained 
the  memorable  distinction  of  having  opened 
the  treasures  of  a  new  learned  language  to 
Europe. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  merit  of  these 
individual  exertions,  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  era  of  a  general  direction  of  the  mind  of 
Englishmen  in  this  country  towards  learned 
inquiries,  was  the  foundation  of  the  Asiatic 
Society  by  Sir  William  Jones.  To  give  such 
an  impulse  to  the  public  understanding  is 
one  of  the  greatest  benefits  that  a  man  can 
confer  on  his  fellow  men.  On  such  an  occa 
sion  as  the  present,  it  is  impossible  to  pro 
nounce  the  name  of  Sir  William  Jones  Math- 
out  feelings  of  gratitude  and  reverence.  He 
was  among  the  distinguished  persons  who 
adorned  one  of  the  brightest  periods  of  Eng 
lish  literature.  It  was  no  mean  distinction 
to  be  conspicuous  in  the  age  of  Burke  and 


OPENING  OF  THE  LITERARY  SOCIETY  OF  BOMBAY. 


399 


Johnson,  of  Hume  and  Smith,  of  Gray  and 
Goldsmith,  of  Gibbon  and  Robertson,  of 
Reynolds  and  Garrick.  It  was  the  fortune 
of  Sir  William  Jones  to  have  been  the  friend 
of  the  greater  part  of  these  illustrior.s  men. 
Without  him,  the  age  in  which  he  lived 
would  have  been  inferior  to  past  times  in 
one  kind  of  literary  glory  :  he  surpassed  all 
his  contemporaries,  and  perhaps  even  the 
most  laborious  scholars  of  the  two  former 
centuries,  in  extent  and  variety  of  attainment. 
His  facility  in  acquiring  was  almost  prodi 
gious:  and  he  possessed  that  faculty  of  ar 
ranging  and  communicating  his  knowledge 
which  these  laborious  scholars  very  generally 
wanted.  Erudition,  which  in  them  was 
often  disorderly  and  rugged,  and  had  some 
thing  of  an  illiberal  and  almost  barbarous 
air,  was  by  him  presented  to  the  world  with 
all  the  elegance  and  amenity  of  polite  litera 
ture.  Though  he  seldom  directed  his  mind 
to  those  subjects  the  successful  investigation 
of  which  confers  the  name  of  a  "  philosopher/' 
yet  he  possessed  in  a  very  eminent  degree 
that  habit  of  disposing  his  knowledge  in 
regular  and  analytical  order,  which  is  one 
of  the  properties  of  a  philosophical  under 
standing.  His  talents  as  an  elegant  writer 
in  verse  were  among  his  instruments  for  at 
taining  knowledge,  and  a  new  example  of 
the  variety  of  his  accomplishments.  In  his 
easy  and  flowing  prose  we  justly  admire  that 
order  of  exposition  and  transparency  of  lan 
guage,  which  are  the  most  indispensable 
qualities  of  style,  and  the  chief  excellencies 
of  which  it  is  capable,  when  it  is  employed 
solely  to  instruct.  His  writings  everywhere 
breathe  pure  taste  in  morals  as  well  as  in 
literature :  and  it  may  be  said  with  truth, 
that  not  a  single  sentiment  has  escaped  him 
which  does  not  indicate  the  real  elegance 
and  dignity  which  pervaded  the  most  secret 
recesses  of  his  mind.  He  had  lived,  per 
haps,  too  exclusively  in  the  world  of  learning 
for  the  cultivation  of  his  practical  under 
standing.  Olher  men  have  meditated  more 
deeply  on  the  constitution  of  society,  and 
have  taken  more  comprehensive  views  of  its 
complicated  relations  and  infinitely  varied  in 
terests.  Others  have,  therefore,  often  taught 
sounder  principles  of  political  science ;  but 
no  man  more  warmly  felt,  and  no  author  is 
better  calculated  to  inspire,  those  generous 
sentiments  of  liberty,  without  which  the 
most  just  principles  are  useless- and  lifeless, 
and  which  will,  I  trust,  continue  to  flow 
through  the  channels  of  eloquence  and  poe 
try  into  the  minds  of  British  youth.  It  has, 
indeed,  been  somewhat  lamented  that  he 
should  have  exclusively  directed  inquiry  to 
wards  antiquities.  But  every  man  must  be 
allowed  to  recommend  most  strongly  his 
own  favourite  pursuits;  and  the  chief  diffi 
culty  as  well  as  the  chief  merit  is  his.  who 
first  raises  the  minds  of  men  to  the  love  of 
any  part  of  knowledge.  When  mental  ac 
tivity  is  once  roused,  its  direction  is  easily 
changed ;  and  the  excesses  of  one  writer,  if 
they  are  not  checked  by  public  reason,  are 


compensated  by  the  opposite  ones  of  his 
successor.  "  Whatever  withdraws  us  from 
the  dominion  of  the  senses — whatever  makes 
the  past,  the  distant,  and  the  future,  pre 
dominate  over  the  present,  advances  us  in 
the  dignity  of  thinking  beings."* 

It  is  not  for  me  to  attempt  an  estimate  of 
those  exertions  for  the  advancement  of  know 
ledge  which  have  arisen  from  the  example 
and  exhortations  of  Sir  William  Jones.  In 
all  judgments  pronounced  on  our  contempo 
raries  it  is  so  certain  that  we  shall  be  ac 
cused,  and  so  probable  that  we  may  be 
justly  accused,  of  either  partially  bestowing, 
or  invidiously  withholding  praise,  that  it  is 
in  general  better  to  attempt  no  encroach 
ment  on  the  jurisdiction  of  Time,  which 
alone  impartially  and  justly  estimates  the 
works  of  men.  But  it  would  be  unpardon 
able  not  to  speak  of  the  College  at  Calcutta, 
the  original  plan  of  which  was  doubtless  the 
most  magnificent  attempt  ever  made  for  the 
promotion  of  learning  in  the  East.  I  am  not 
conscious  that  I  am  biassed  either  by  per 
sonal  feelings,  or  literary  prejudices  when  I 
say,  that  I  consider  that  original  plan  as  a 
wise  and  noble  proposition,  the  adoption  of 
which  in  its  full  extent  would  have  had  the 
happiest  tendency  in  securing  the  good  go 
vernment  of  India,  as  well  as  in  promoting 
the  interest  of  science.  Even  in  its  present 
mutilated  state  we  have  seen,  at  the  last 
public  exhibition,  Sanscrit  declamation  by 
English  youth;! — a  circumstance  so  extra 
ordinary,  that,  if  it  be  followed  by  suitable 
advances,  it  will  mark  an  epoch  in  the  his 
tory  of  learning. 

Among  the  humblest  fruits  of  this  spirit  I 
take  the  liberty  to  mention  the  project  of 
forming  this  Society,  which  occurred  to  me 
before  I  left  England,  but  which  never  could 
have  advanced  even  to  its  present  state  with 
out  your  hearty  concurrence,  and  which  must 
depend  on  your  active  co-operation  for  all 
hopes  of  future  success. 

You  will  not  suspect  me  of  presuming  to 
dictate  the  nature  and  object  of  our  common 
exertions.  To  be  valuable  they  must  be 
spontaneous;  and  no  literary  society  can 
subsist  on  any  other  principle  than  that  of 
equality.  In  the  observations  which  I  shall 
make  on  the  plan  and  subject  of  our  in 
quiries,  I  shall  offer  myself  to  you  only  as 
the  representative  of  the  curiosity  of  Europe. 
I  am  ambitious  of  no  higher  office  than  that 
of  faithfully  conveying  to  India  the  desires 
and  \vants  of  the  learned  at  home,  and  of 
stating  the  subjects  on  which  they  wish  and 
expect  satisfaction,  from  inquiries  which  can 
be  pursued  only  in  India. 

In  fulfilling  the  duties  of  this  mission,  I 
shall  not  be  expected  to  exhaust  so  vast  a 
subject ;  nor  is  it  necessary  that  I  should  at 
tempt  an  exact  distribution  of  science.  A 
very  general  sketch  is  all  that  I  can  pro- 


*  Dr.  Johnson  at  lona. — ED. 
t  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  written 
in  1804.— ED. 


400 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


mise;  in  which  I  shall  pass  over  many  sub 
jects  rapidly,  and  dwell  only  on  those  parts 
on  which  from  my  own  habits  of  study  I 
may  think  myself  least  disqualified  to  offer 
useful  suggestions. 

The  objects  of  these  inquiries,  as  of  all 
human  knowledge,  are  reducible  to  two 
classes,  which,  for  want  of  more  significant 
and  precise  terms,  we  must  be  content  to 
call  u  Physical"  and  "Moral." — aware  of 
the  laxity  and  ambiguity  of  these  words,  but 
not  affecting  a  greater  degree  of  exactness 
than  is  necessary  for  our  immediate  purpose. 

The  physical  sciences  afford  so  easy  and 
pleasing  an  amusement ;  they  are  so  directly 
subservient  to  the  useful  arts;  and  in  their 
higher  forms  they  so  much  delight  our  ima 
gination  and  flatter  our  pride,  by  the  display 
of  the  authority  of  man  over  nature,  that 
there  can  be  no  need  of  arguments  to  prove 
their  utility,  and  no  want  of  powerful  and 
obvious  motives  to  dispose  men  to  their  cul 
tivation.  The  wrhole  extensive  and  beautiful 
science  of  Natural  History,  which  is  the 
foundation  of  all  physical  knowledge,  has 
many  additional  charms  in  a  country  where 
so  many  treasures  must  still  be  unexplored. 

The  science  of  Mineralogy,  which  has 
been  of  late  years  cultivated  with  great  ac 
tivity  in  Europe,  has  such  a  palpable  con 
nection  with  the  useful  arts  of  life,  that  it 
cannot  be  necessary  to  recommend  it  to  the 
attention  of  the  intelligent  and  curious.  India 
is  a  country  which  I  believe  no  mineralogist 
has  yet  examined,  and  which  would  doubt 
less  amply  repay  the  labour  of  the  first 
scientific  adventurers  who  explore  it.  The 
discovery  of  new  sources  of  wealth  would 
probably  be  the  result  of  such  an  investiga 
tion  ;  and  something  might  perhaps  be  con 
tributed  towards  the  accomplishment  of  the 
ambitious  projects  of  those  philosophers,  who 
from  the  arrangement  of  earths  and  minerals 
have  been  bold  enough  to  form  conjectures 
respecting  the  general  laws  which  have  go 
verned  the  past  revolutions  of  our  planet, 
and  which  preserve  its  parts  in  their  present 
order. 

The  Botany  of  India  has  been  less  ne 
glected,  but  it  cannot  be  exhausted.  The 
higher  parts  of  the  science,  the  structure, 
the  functions,  the  habits  of  vegetables, — all 
subjects  intimately  connected  with  the  first 
of  physical  sciences,  though,  unfortunately, 
the  most  dark  and  difficult,  the  philosophy 
of  life, — have  in  general  been  too  much  sa 
crificed  to  objects  of  value,  indeed,  but  of  a 
value  far  inferior:  and  professed  botanists 
have  usually  contented  themselves  with  ob 
serving  enough  of  plants  to  give  them  a 
name  in  their  scientific  language,  and  a 
place  in  their  artificial  arrangement. 

Much  information  also  remains  to  be 
gleaned  on  that  part  of  natural  history  which 
regards  Animals.  The  manners  of  many 
tropical  races  must  have  been  imperfectly 
observed  in  a  few  individuals  separated 
from  their  fellows,  and  imprisoned  in  the 
unfriendly  climate  of  Europe. 


The  variations  of  temperature,  the  state 
of  the  atmosphere,  all  the  appearances  that 
are  comprehended  under  the  words  "  wea 
ther"  and  "climate,"  are  the  conceivable 
subject  of  a  science  of  which  no  rudiments 
yet  exist.  It  will  probably  require  the  ob 
servations  of  centuries  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  theory  on  this  subject.  There  can  scarce 
be  any  region  of  the  wrorld  more  favourably 
circumstanced  for  observation  than  India ; 
for  there  is  none  in  which  the  operation  of 
these  causes  is  more  regular,  more  power 
ful,  or  more  immediately  discoverable  in 
their  effect  on  vegetable  and  animal  nature. 
Those  philosophers  who  have  denied  the  in 
fluence  of  climate  on  the  human  character 
were  not  inhabitants  of  a  tropical  country. 

To  the  members  of  the  learned  profession 
of  medicine,  who  are  necessarily  spread 
over  every  part  of  India,  all  the  above  inqui 
ries  peculiarly,  though  not  exclusively,  be 
long.  Some  of  them  are  eminent  for  science; 
many  must  be  well-informed  ]  and  their  pro 
fessional  education  must  have  given  to  all 
some  tincture  of  physical  knowledge.  With 
even  moderate  preliminary  acquirements 
they  may  be  very  useful,  if  they  will  but 
consider  themselves  as  philosophical  col 
lectors,  whose  duty  it  is  never  to  neglect 
a  favourable  opportunity  for  observations  on 
weather  and  climate,  to  keep  exact  journals 
of  whatever  they  observe,  and  to  transmit, 
through  their  immediate  superiors,  to  ihe 
scientific  depositories  of  Great  Britain,  speci 
mens  of  every  mineral,  vegetable,  or  animal 
production  which  they  conceive  to  be  singu 
lar,  or  with  respect  to  which  they  suppose 
themselves  to  have  observed  any  new  and 
important  facts.  If  their  previous  studies 
have  been  imperfect,  they  will,  no  doubt,  be 
sometimes  mistaken:  but  these  mistakes 
are  perfectly  harmless.  It  is  better  that  ten 
useless  specimens  should  be  sent  to  Lon 
don,  than  that  one  curious  one  should  be 
neglected. 

But  it  is  on  another  and  still  more  im 
portant  subject  that  we  expect  the  most 
valuable  assistance  from  our  medical  asso 
ciates  : — this  is,  the  science  of  Medicine 
itself.  It  must  be  allowed  not  to  be  quite 
so  certain  as  it  is  important.  But  though 
every  man  ventures  to  ecoff  at  its  uncer 
tainty  as  long  as  he  is  in  vigorous  health,  yet 
the  hardiest  sceptic  becomes  credulous  as 
soon  as  his  head  is  fixed  to  the  pillow.  Those 
who  examine  the  history  of  medicine  with 
out  either  scepticism  or  blind  admiration, 
will  find  that  every  civilized  age,  after  all 
the  fluctuations  of  systems,  opinions,  and 
modes  of  practice,  has  at  length  left  some 
balance,  however  small,  of  new  truth  to  the 
succeeding  generation;  and  that  the  stock 
of  human  knowledge  in  this  as  well  as  in 
other  departments  is  constantly,  though,  it 
must  be  owned,  very  slowly,  increasing. 
Since  my  arrival  here.  I  have  had  sufficient 
reason  to  believe  that  the  practitioners  of 
medicine  in  India  ar-e  not  unworthy  of  their 
enlightened  and  benevolent  profession. — 


OPENING  OF  THE  LITERARY  SOCIETY  OF  BOMBAY. 


401 


From  them,  therefore,  I  hope  the  public  may 
derive,  through  the  medium  of  this  Society, 
information  of  the  highest  value.  Diseases 
and  modes  of  cure  unknown  to  European 
physicians  maybe  disclosed  to  them;  and 
if  the  causes  of  disease  are  more  active  in 
this  country  than  in  England,  remedies  are 
employed  and  diseases  subdued,  at  least  in 
some  cases,  with  a  certainty  which  might 
excite  the  wonder  of  the  most  successful 
practitioners  in  Europe.  By  full  and  faithful 
narratives  of  their  modes  of  treatment  they 
will  conquer  that  distrust  of  new  plans  of 
cure,  and  that  incredulity  respecting  what 
ever  is  uncommon,  which  sometimes  prevail 
among  our  English  physicians ;  which  are 
the  natural  result  of  much  experience  and 
many  disappointments;  and  which,  though 
individuals  have  often  just  reason  to  com 
plain  of  their  indiscriminate  application,  are 
not  ultimately  injurious  to  the  progress  of 
the  medical  art.  They  never  finally  pre 
vent  the  adoption  of  just  theory  or  of  use 
ful  practice :  they  retard  it  no  longer  than  is 
necessary  for  such  a  severe  trial  as  pre 
cludes  all  future  doubt.  Even  in  their  ex 
cess,  they  are  wholesome  correctives  of  the 
opposite  excesses  of  credulity  and  dogma 
tism  ;  they  are  safeguards  against  exaggera 
tion  and  quackery ;  they  are  tests  of  utility 
and  truth.  A  philosophical  physician,  who 
is  a  real  lover  of  his  art.  ought  not,  therefore, 
to  desire  the  extinction  of  these  dispositions, 
though  he  may  suffer  temporary  injustice 
from  their  influence. 

Those  objects  of  our  inquiries  which  I 
have  called  '-Moral"  (employing  that  term 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  contradistinguished 
from  "  Physical")  will  chiefly  comprehend 
the  past  and  present  condition  of  the  inhabi 
tants  of  the  vast  country  which  surrounds 
us. 

To  begin  with  their  present  condition  : — 
I  take  the  liberty  of  very  earnestly  recom 
mending  a  kind  of  research,  which  has 
hitherto  been  either  neglected  or  only  car 
ried  on  for  the  information  of  Government, 
— I  mean  the  investigation  of  those  facts 
which  are  the  subjects  of  political  arithmetic 
and  statistics,  and  which  are  a  part  of  the 
foundation  of  the  science  of  Political  Econo 
my.  The  numbers  of  the  people ;  the  num 
ber  of  births,  marriages,  and  deaths ;  the  pro 
portion  of  children  who  are  reared  to  matu 
rity  ;  the  distribution  of  the  people  according 
to  'their  occupations  and  castes,  and  especi 
ally  according  to  the  great  division  of  agri 
cultural  and  manufacturing;  and  the  re 
lative  state  of  these  circumstances  at  dif 
ferent  periods,  which  can  only  be  ascertained 
by  permanent  tables, — are  the  basis  of  this 
important  part  of  knowledge.  No  tables  of 
political  arithmetic  have  yet  been  made  pub 
lic  from  any  tropical  country.  I  need  not 
expatiate  on  the  importance  of  the  informa 
tion  which  such  tables  would  be  likely  to 
afford.  I  shall  mention  only  as  an  example 
of  their  value,  that  they  must  lead  to  a  de 
cisive  solution  of  the  problems  with  respect 
51 


to  the  influence  of  polygamy  on  population, 
and  the  supposed  origin  of  that  practice  in 
the  disproportioned  number  of  the  sexes. 
But  in  a  country  where  every  part  of  the 
system  of  manners  and  institutions  differs 
from  those  of  Europe,  it  is  impossible  to 
foresee  the  extent  and  variety  of  the  new 
results  which  an  accurate  survey  might  pre 
sent  to  us. 

These  inquiries  are  naturally  followed  by 
those  which  regard  the  subsistence  of  the 
people;  the  origin  and  distribution  of  public 
wealth;  the  wages  of  every  kind  of  labour, 
from  the  rudest  to  the  most  refined ;  the 
price  of  commodities,  and  especially  of  pro 
visions,  which  necessarily  regulates  that  of 
all  others;  the  modes  of  the  tenure  and 
occupation  of  land  ;  the  profits  of  trade ;  the 
usual  and  extraordinary  rates  of  interest, 
which  is  the  price  paid  for  the  hire  of 
money;  the  nature  and  extent  of  domestic 
commerce,  everywhere  the  greatest  and 
most  profitable,  though  the  most  difficult  to 
be  ascertained ;  those  of  foreign  traffic,  more 
easy  to  be  determined  by  the  accounts  of 
exports  and  imports;  the  contributions  by 
which  the  expenses  of  government,  of  chari 
table,  learned,  and  religious  foundations  are 
defrayed  ;  the  laws  and  customs  which  regu 
late  all  these  great  objects,  and  the  fluctua 
tion  which  has  been  'observed  in  all  or  any 
of  them  at  different  times  and  under  different 
circumstances.  These  are  some  of  the  points 
towards  which  I  should  very  earnestly  wish 
to  direct  the  curiosity  of  our  intelligent 
countrymen  in  India. 

These  inquiries  have  the  advantage  of 
being  easy  arid  open  to  all  men  of  good 
sense.  They  do  not,  like  antiquarian  and 
philological  researches,  require  great  previ 
ous  erudition  and  constant  reference  to  ex 
tensive  libraries.  They  require  nothing  but 
a  resolution  to  observe  facts  attentively,  and 
to  relate  them  accurately ;  and  whoever  feels 
a  disposition  to  ascend  from  facts  to  princi 
ples  will,  in  genera],  find  sufficient  aid  to 
his  understanding  in  the  great  work  of  Dr. 
Smith, — the  most  permanent  monument  of 
philosophical  genius  which  our  nation  has 
produced  in  the  present  age. 

They  have  the  further  advantage  of  being 
closely  and  intimately  connected  with  the 
professional  pursuits  and  public  duties  of 
every  Englishman  who  fills  a  civil  office  in 
this  country:  they  form  the  very  science  of 
administration.  One  of  the  first  requisites 
to  the  right  administration  of  a  district  is  the 
knowledge  of  its  population,  industry,  and 
wealth.  A  magistrate  ought  to  know  the 
condition  of  the  country  which  he  superin 
tends;  a  collector  ougnt  to  understand  its 
revenue;  a  commercial  resident  ousht  to  be 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  its  commerce. 
We  only  desire  that  part  of  the  knowledge 
which  they  ought  to  possess  should  be  com 


municated  to  the  world.* 


o  pi 
rorl 


[*  "  The  English  in  India  are  too  familiar  with 
that  country  to  feel  much  wonder  in  most  parts 
2i2 


402 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


I  will  not  pretend  to  affirm  that  no  part  of 
this  knowledge  ought  to  be  confined  to  Go 
of  it,  and  are  top  transiently  connected  with  it  to 
take  a  national  interest  in  its  minute  description. 
To  these  obstacles  must  be  opposed  both  a  sense 
of  duty  and  a  prospect  of  reputation.  The  ser 
vants  of  the  Company  would  qualify  themselves 
for  the  performance  of  their  public  duties,  by  col 
lecting  the  most  minute  accounts  of  the  districts 
which  they  administer.  The  publication  of  such 
accounts  must  often  distinguish  the  individuals, 
and  always  do  credit  to  the  meritorious  body  of 
which  they  are  a  part.  Even  the  most  diffident 
magistrate  or  collector  might  enlarge  or  correct 
the  articles  relating  to  his  district  and  neighbour 
hood,  in  the  lately  published  Gazetteer  of  India; 
and,  by  the  communication  of  such  materials,  the 
very  laudable  and  valuable  essay  of  Mr.  Ham 
ilton  might,  in  successive  editions,  grow  into  a 
complete  system  of  Indian  topography.  .  .  .  Meri 
torious  publications  by  servants  of  the  East  India 
Company,  have,  in  pur  opinion,  peculiar  claims 
to  liberal  commendation.  The  price  which  Great 
Britain  pays  to  the  inhabitants  of  India  for  her  do 
minion,  is  the  security  that  their  government  shall 
be  administered  by  a  class  of  respectable  men. 
In  fact,  they  are  governed  by  a  greater  proportion 
of  sensible  and  honest  men,  than  could  fall  to  their 
lot  under  the  government  of  their  own  or  of  any 
other  nation.  Without  this  superiority,  and  the 
securities  which  exist  for  its  continuance,  in  the 
condition  of  the  persons,  in  their  now  excellent 
education,  in  their  general  respect  for  the  public 
opinion  of  a  free  country,  in  the  protection  af 
forded,  and  the  restraint  imposed  by  the  press  and 
by  Parliament,  all  regulations  for  the  adminis 
tration  of  India  would  be  nugatory,  and  the 
wisest  system  of  laws  would  be  no  more  than 
waste  paper.  The  means  of  executing  the  laws, 
are  in  the  character  of  the  administrators.  To 
keep  that  character  pure,  they  must  be  taught  to 
respect  themselves  ;  and  they  ought  to  feel,  that 
distant  as  they  are,  they  will  be  applauded  and 
protected  by  their  country,  when  they  deserve 
commendation,  or  require  defence.  Their  public 
is  remote,  and  ought  to  make  some  compensation 
for  distance  by  promptitude  and  zeal.  The  prin 
cipal  object  for  which  the  East  India  Company 
exists  in  the  newly  modified  system  [of  1813,— ED.] 
is  to  provide  a  safe  body  of  electors  to  Indian  offi 
cers.  Both  in  the  original  appointments,  and  in 
subsequent  preferment,  it  was  thought  that  there 
was  no  medium  between  preserving  their  power, 
or  transferring  the  patronage  to  the  Crown.  Upon 
the  whole,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they  are  toler 
ably  well  adapted  to  perform  these  functions. 
They  are  sufficiently  numerous  and  connected 
with  the  more  respectable  classes  of  the  commu 
nity,  to  exempt  their  patronage  from  the  direct 
influence  of  the  Crown,  and  to  spread  their  choice 
so  widely,  as  to  afford  a  reasonable  probability  of 
sufficient  personal  merit.  Much — perhaps  enough 
— has  been  done  by  legal  regulations,  to  guard 
preferment  from  great  abuse.  Perhaps,  indeed, 
the  spirit  of  activity  and  emulation  may  have  been 
weakened  by  precautions  against  the  operation 
of  personal  favour.  But  this  is,  no  doubt,  the  safe 
error.  The  Company,  and  indeed  any  branch  of 
the  Indian  administration  in  Europe,  can  do  little 
directly  for  India :  they  are  far  too  distant  for 
much  direct  administration.  The  great  duty 
which  they  have  to  perform,  is  to  control  their 
servants  and  to  punish  delinquency  in  deeds  ;  but 

•as  the  chief  principle  of  their  administration — to 
guard  the  privileges  of  these  servants,  to  maintain 
their  dignity,  to  encourage  their  merits,  to  animate 
those  principles  of  self-respect  and  honourable  am 
bition,  which  are  the  true  securities  of  honest  and 
effectual  service  to  the  public.  In  every  govern 
ment,  the  character  of  the  subordinate  officers  is 


vernment.  I  am  not  so  intoxicated  by  phi 
losophical  prejudice  as  to  maintain  that  the 
safety  of  a  state  is  to  be  endangered  for  the 
gratification  of  scientific  curiosity.  Though 
I  am  far  from  thinking  that  this  is  the  de 
partment  in  which  secrecy  is  most  useful, 
yet  I  do  not  presume  to  exclude  it.  But  let  it 
be  remembered,  that  whatever  information 
is  thus  confined  to  a  Government  may,  for 
all  purposes  of  science,  be  supposed  not  to 
exist.  As  long  as  the  secrecy  is  thought 
important,  it  is  of  course  shut  up  from  most 
of  those  who  could  turn  it  to  best  account ; 
and  when  it  ceases  to  be  guarded  with  jea 
lousy,  it  is  as  effectually  secured  from  all 
useful  examination  by  the  mass  of  official 
lumber  under  which  it  is  usually  buried  :  for 
this  reason,  after  a  very  short  time,  it  is  as 
much  lost  to  the  Government  itself  as  it  is 
to  the  public.  A  transient  curiosity,  or  the 
necessity  of  illustrating  some  temporary  mat 
ter,  may  induce  a  public  officer  to  dig  for 
knowledge  under  the  heaps  of  rubbish  that 
encumber  his  office ;  but  I  have  myself 
known  intelligent  public  officers  content 
themselves  with  the  very  inferior  informa 
tion  contained  in  printed  books,  while  their 
shelves  groaned  under  the  weight  of  MSS.. 
which  would  be  more  instructive  if  they 
could  be  read.  Further,  it  must  be  observed, 
that  publication  is  always  the  best  security 
to  a  Government  that  they  are  not  deceived 
by  the  reports  of  their  servants  ;  and  where 
these  servants  act  at  a  distance  the  import 
ance  of  such  a  security  for  their  veracity  is 
very  great.  For  the  truth  of  a  manuscript 
report  they  never  can  have  a  better  warrant 
than  the  honesty  of  one  servant  who  pre 
pares  it,  and  of  another  who  examines  it; 
but  for  the  truth  of  all  long-uncontested  nar 
rations  of  important  facts  in  printed  accounts, 
published  in  countries  where  they  may  be 
contradicted,  we  have  the  silent  testimony 
of  every  man  who  might  be  prompted  by 
interest,  prejudice,  or  humour,  to  dispute 
them  if  they  were  not  true. 

I  have  already  said  that  all  communica 
tions  merely  made  to  Government  are  lost 
to  science;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  per 
haps,  the  knowledge  communicated  to  the 
public  is  that  of  which  a  Government  may 
most  easily  avail  itself,  and  on  which  it  may 
most  securely  rely.  This  loss  to  science  is 
very  great;  for  the  principles  of  political 
economy  have  been  investigated  in  Europe, 
and  the"  application  of  them  to  such  a  coun 
try  as  India  must  be  one  of  the  most  curious 
tests  which  could  be  contrived  of  their  truth 
and  universal  operation.  Every  thing  here  is 
new  ;  and  if  they  are  found  here  also  to  be 
the  true  principles  of  natural  suDsistence  and 
wealth,  it  will  be  no  longer  possible  to  dis 
pute  that  they  are  the  general  laws  which 


of  great  moment:  but  the  privileges,  the  charac 
ter  and  the  importance  of  the  civil  and  military 
establishments,  are,  in  the  last  result,  the  only  con 
ceivable  security  for  the  preservation  and  good 
government  of  India." — Edinburgh  Review,  vol. 
xxv.  p.  435.— ED.] 


OPENING  OF  THE  LITERARY  SOCIETY  OF  BOMBAY. 


403 


every  where  govern  this  important  part  of 
the  movements  of  the  social  machine. 

It  has  been  lately  observed,  that  "  if  the 
various  states  of  Europe  kept  and  published 
annually  an  exact  account  of  their  popula 
tion,  noting  carefully  in  a  second  column  the 
exact  age  at  which  the  children  die,  this 
second  column  would  show  the  relative 
merit  of  the  governments  and  the  compara 
tive  happiness  of  their  subjects.  A  simple 
arithmetical  statement  would  then,  perhaps, 
be  more  conclusive  than  all  the  arguments 
which  could  be  produced."  I  agree  with 
the  ingenious  writers  who  have  suggested 
this  idea,  and  I  think  it  must  appear  per 
fectly  evident  that  the  number  of  children 
reared  to  maturity  must  be  among  the  tests 
of  the  happiness  of  a  society,  though  the 
number  of  children  born  cannot  be  so  con 
sidered,  and  is  often  the  companion  and 
one  of  the  causes  of  public  misery.  It  may 
be  affirmed,  without  the  risk  of  exaggera 
tion,  that  every  accurate  comparison  of  the 
state  of  different  countries  at  the  same  time, 
or  of  the  same  country  at  different  times, 
is  an  approach  to  that  state  of  things  in  which 
the  manifest  palpable  interest  of  every  Go 
vernment  will  be  the  prosperity  of  its  sub 
jects,  which  never  has  been,  and  which 
never  will  be,  advanced  by  any  other  means 
than  those  of  humanity  and  justice.  The 
prevalence  of  justice  would  not  indeed  be 
universally  insured  by  such  a  conviction ; 
for  bad  governments,  as  well  as  bad  men,  as 
often  act  against  their  own  obvious  interest 
as  against  that  of  others :  but  the  chances 
of  tyranny  must  be  diminished  when  tyrants 
are  compelled  to  see  that  it  is  folly.  In  the 
mean  time,  the  ascertainment  of  every  new 
fact,  the  discovery  of  every  new  principle, 
and  even  the  diffusion  of  principles  known 
before,  add  to  that  great  body  of  slowly  and 
reasonably  formed  public  opinion,  which, 
however  weak  at  first,  must  at  last,  with  a 
gentle  and  scarcely  sensible  coercion,  compel 
every  Government  to  pursue  its  own  real 
interest.  This  knowledge  is  a  control  on 
subordinate  agents  for  Government,  as  well 
as  a  control  on  Government  for  their  subjects : 
and  it  is  one  of  those  which  has  not  the 
slightest  tendency  to  produce  tumult  or  con 
vulsion.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  more 
clearly  evinces  the  necessity  of  that  firm 
protecting  power  by  which  alone  order  can 
be  secured.  The  security  of  the  governed 
cannot  exist  without  the  security  of  the  go 
vernors. 

Lastly,  of  all  kinds  of  knowledge,  Political 
Economy  has  the  greatest  tendency  to  pro 


mote  quiet  and  safe  improvement  in  the 
general  condition  of  mankind ;  because  it 
shows  that  improvement  is  the  interest  of 
the  government,  and  that  stability  is  the  in 
terest  of  the  people.  The  extraordinary  and 
unfortunate  events  of  our  times  have  indeed 
damped  the  sanguine  hopes  of  good  men, 
and  filled  them  with  doubt  and  fear:  but  in 
all  possible  cases  the  counsels  of  this  science 
are  at  least  safe.  They  are  adapted  to  all 

|  forms  of  government :  they  require  only  a 
wise  and  just  administration.  They  require, 
as  the  first  principle  of  all  prosperity,  that 

1  perfect    security   of    persons  and    property 

I  which  can  only  exist  where  the  supreme 
authority  is  stable. 

On  these  principles,  nothing  can  be  a 
means  of  improvement  which  is  not  also  a 
means  of  preservation .  It  is  not  only  absurd, 
but  contradictory,  to  speak  of  sacrificing  the 
present  generation  for  the  sake  of  posterity. 
The  moral  order  of  the  world  is  not  so  dis 
posed.  It  is  impossible  to  promote  the  in 
terest  of  future  generations  by  any  measures 
injurious  to  the  present;  and  he  who  labours 
industriously  to  promote  the  honour,  the 
safety,  and  the  prosperity  of  his  own  coun 
try,  by  innocent  and  lawful  means,  may  be 
assured  that  he  is  contributing,  probably  as 
much  as  the  order  of  nature  will  permit  a 
private  individual,  towards  the  welfare  of  all 
mankind. 

These  hopes  of  improvement  have  sur 
vived  in  my  breast  all  the  calamities  of  our 
European  world,  and  are  not  extinguished 
by  that  general  condition  of  national  insecu 
rity  which  is  the  most  formidable  enemy  of 
improvement.  Founded  on  such  principles, 
they  are  at  least  perfectly  innocent :  they 
are  such  as,  even  if  they  were  visionary,  an 
admirer  or  cultivator  of  letters  ought  to  be 
pardoned  for  cherishing.  Without  them, 
literature  and  philosophy  can  claim  no  more 
than  the  highest  rank  among  the  amuse- 

:  ments  and  ornaments  of  human  life.  With 
these  hopes,  they  assume  the  dignity  of  being 

1  part  of  that  discipline  under  which  the  race 

I  of  man  is  destined  to  proceed  to  the  highest 
degree  of  civilization,  virtue,  and  happiness, 
of  which  our  nature  is  capable. 

On  a  future  occasion  I  may  have  the 
honour  to  lay  before  you  my  thoughts  on  the 

1  principal  objects  of  inquiry  in  the  geography, 
ancient  arid  modern,  the  languages,  the  lite 
rature,  the  necessary  and  elegant  arts,  the 

I  religion,  the  authentic  history  and  the  anti- 

!  quities  of  India  j  and  on  the  mode  in  which 
such  inquiries  appear  to  me  most  likely  to 

!  be  conducted  with  success. 


404 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


(fifralluae. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION 


AND    ITS 


ENGLISH  ADMIREKS, 

AGAINST  THE  ACCUSATIONS  OF  THE  RIGHT  HON.  EDMUND  BURKE,  INCLUDING  SOME 
STRICTURES  ON  THE  LATE  PRODUCTION  OF  MONS.  DE  CALONNE. 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  late  opinions  of  Mr.  Burke  furnished 
more  matter  of  astonishment  to  those  who 
had  distantly  observed,  than  to  those  who 
had  correctly  examined ;  the  system  of  his 
former  political  life.  An  abhorrence  for  ab 
stract  politics,  a  predilection  for  aristocracy, 
and  a  dread  of  innovation,  have  ever  been 
among  the  most  sacred  articles  of  his  public 
creed:  and  it  was  not  likely  that  at  his  age 
he  should  abandon,  to  the  invasion  of  auda 
cious  novelties,  opinions  which  he  had  re 
ceived  so  early,  and  maintained  so  long. — 
which  had  been  fortified  by  the  applause' of 
the  great,  and  the  assent  of  the  wise, — which 
he  had  dictated  to  so  many  illustrious  pupils, 
and  supported  against  so  many  distinguished 
opponents.  Men  who  early  attain  eminence, 
repose  in  their  first  creed,  to  the  neglect  of 
the  progress  of  the  human  mind  subsequent 
to  its  adoption ;  and  when,  as  in  the  present 
case,  it  has  burst  forth  into  action,  they  re 
gard  it  as  a  transient  madness,  worthy  only 
of  pity  or  derision.  They  mistake  it  for  a 
mountain  torrent  that  will  pass  away  with 
the  storm  that  gave  it  birth  :  they  know  not 
that  it  is  the  stream  of  human  opinion  in 
omne  volubilis  arum,  which  the  accession  of 
every  day  wall  swell,  and  which  is  destined 
to  sweep  into  the  same  oblivion  the  resist 
ance  of  learned  sophistry,  and  of  powerful 
oppression. 

But  there  still  remained  ample  matter  of 
astonishment  in  the  Philippic  of  Mr.  Burke.* 
He  might  deplore  the  sanguinary  excesses, — 
he  might  deride  the  visionary  policy,  that 
seemed  to  him  to  tarnish  the  lustre  of  the 
Revolution-  but  it  was  hard  to  suppose  that 
he  would  exhaust  against  it  every  epithet  of 
contumely  and  opprobrium  that  language 

*  The  speech  on  the  Army  Estimates,  9th  Feb. 
1 790.— ED. 


can  furnish  to  indignation  j  that  the  rage  of 
his  declamation  would  not  for  one  moment 
be  suspended,  and  that  his  heart  would  not 
betray  one  faint  glow  of  triumph,  at  the 
splendid  and  glorious  delivery  of  so  great  a 
people.  All  wras  invective  :  the  authors  and 
admirers  of  the  Revolution, — every  man  who 
did  not  execrate  it,  even  his  own  most  en 
lightened  arid  accomplished  friends, — were 
devoted  to  odium  and  ignominy.  The  speech 
did  not  stoop  to  argument ;  the  whole  was 
dogmatical  and  authoritative :  the  cause 
seemed  decided  without  discussion, — the 
anathema  fulminated  before  trial. 

But  the  ground  of  the  opinions  of  this 
famous  speech,  which,  if  we  may  believe  a 
foreign  journalist,  will  form  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  the  eccentricities  of  the  human 
mind,  was  impatiently  expected  in  a  work 
soon  after  announced.  The  name  of  the 
author,  the  importance  of  the  subject,  and 
the  singularity  of  his  opinions,  all  contributed 
to  inflame  the  public  curiosity,  which,  though 
it  languished  in  a  subsequent  delay,  has  been 
revived  by  the  appearance,  and  will  be  re 
warded  by  the  perusal  of  the  work.* 

It  is  certainly  in  every  respect  a  perform 
ance,  of  which  to  form  a  correct  estimate 
would  prove  one  of  the  most  arduous  efforts 
of  critical  skill 

' '  We  scarcely  can  praise  it,  or  blame  it  too  much."  f 
Argument,  every  where  dexterous  and  spe 
cious,  sometimes  grave  and  profound,  clothed 
in  the  most  rich  and  various  imagery,  and 
aided  by  the  most  pathetic  and  picturesque 
description,  speaks  the  opulence  and  the 
powers  of  that  mind,  of  which  age  has 
neither  dimmed  the  discernment,  nor  en- 

*  The  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France, 
published  in  1790.— ED. 
t  Retaliation. — ED. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


405 


feebled  the  fancy — neither  repressed  the 
ardour,  nor  narrowed  the  range.  Virulent 
encomiums  on  urbanity  and  inflammatory 
harangues  against  violence,  homilies  of  moral 
and  religious  mysticism,  better  adapted  to 
the  amusement  than  to  the  conviction  of  an 
incredulous  age,  though  they  may  rouse  the 
languor  of  attention,  can  never  be  dignified 
by  the  approbation  of  the  understanding. 

Of  the  senate  and  people  of  France,  Mr. 
Burke's  language  is  such  as  might  have  been 
expected  towards  a  country  which  his  fancy 
has  peopled  only  with  plots,  assassinations, 
and  massacres,  and  all  the  brood  of  dire 
chimeras  which  are  the  offspring  of  a  prolific 
imagination,  goaded  by  an  ardent  and  de 
luded  sensibility.  The  glimpses  of  benevo 
lence,  which  irradiate  this  gloom  of  invec 
tive,  arise  only  from  generous  illusion, — from 
misguided  and  misplaced  compassion.  His 
eloquence  is  not  at  leisure  to  deplore  the  fate 
of  beggared  artisans,  and  famished  peasants, 
— the  victims  of  suspended  industry,  and 
languishing  commerce.  The  sensibility  which 
seems  scared  by  the  homely  miseries  of  the 
vulgar,  is  attracted  only  by  the  splendid  sor 
rows  of  royalty,  and  agonises  at  the  slen 
derest  pang  that  assails  the  heart  of  sottish- 
ness  or  prostitution,  if  they  are  placed  by 
fortune  on  a  throne.*  To  the  English  friends 
of  French  freedom,  his  language  is  contempt 
uous,  illiberal,  and  scurrilous.  In  one  of  the 
ebbings  of  his  fervour,  he  is  disposed  not  to 
dispute  "  their  good  intentions :"  but  he 
abounds  in  intemperate  sallies  and  ungene 
rous  insinuations,  which  wisdom  ought  to 
have  checked,  as  ebullitions  of  passion, — 
which  genius  ought  to  have  disdained,  as 
weapons  of  controversy. 

The  arrangement  of  his  work  is  as  singular 
as  the  matter.  Availing  himself  of  all  the 
privileges  of  epistolary  effusion,  in  their 
utmost  latitude  and  laxity,  he  interrupts, 
dismisses,  and  resumes  argument  at  plea 
sure.  His  subject  is  as  extensive  as  political 
science :  his  allusions  and  excursions  reach 
almost  every  region  of  human  knowledge. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  in  this  miscellane 
ous  and  desultory  warfare,  the  superiority 
of  a  man  of  genius  over  common  men  is  in- 

*  "  The  vulgar  clamour  which  has  been  raised 
with  such  malignant  art  against  the  friends  of  free 
dom,  as  the  apostles  of  turbulence  and  sedition, 
has  not  even  spared  the  obscurity  of  rny  name. 
To  strangers  I  can  only  vindicate  myself  by  de 
fying  the  authors  of  such  clamours  to  discover  one 
passage  in  this  volume  not  in  the  highest  degree 
favourable  to  peace  and  stable  government  :  those 
to  whom  I  am  known  would,  I  believe,  be  slow 
to  impute  any  sentiments  of  violence  to  a  temper 
which  the  partiality  of  my  friends  must  confess  to 
be  indolent,  and  the  hostility  of  enemies  will  not 
deny  to  be  mild.  I  have  been  accused,  by  valuable 
friends,  of  treating  with  ungenerous  levity  the  mis 
fortunes  of  the  Royal  Family  of  France.  They 
will  not  however  suppose  me  capable  of  delibe 
rately  violating  the  sacredness  of  misery  in  a  pa 
lace  or  a  cottage  ;  and  I  sincerely  lament  that  I 
should  have  been  betrayed  into  expressions  which 
.admitted  that  construction." — (Advertisement  to 
4e  third  edition.} — ED. 


finite.  He  can  cover  the  most  ignominious 
retreat  by  a  brilliant  allusion  ;  he  can  parade 
his  arguments  with  masterly  generalship, 
where  they  are  strong;  he  can  escape  from 
an  untenable  position  into  a  splendid  decla 
mation  ]  he  can  sap  the  most  impregnable 
conviction  by  pathos,  and  put  to  flight  "a  host 
of  syllogisms  with  a  sneer;  absolved  from 
the  laws  of  vulgar  method,  he  can  advance 
a  group  of  magnificent  horrors  to  make  a 
breach  in  our  hearts,  through  which  the  most 
undisciplined  rabble  of  arguments  may  enter 
in  triumph. 

Analysis  and  method,  like  the  discipline 
and  armour  of  modern  nations,  correct  in 
some  measure  the  inequalities  of  controver 
sial  dexterity,  and  level  on  the  intellectual 
field  the  giant  and  the  dwarf.  Let  us  then 
analyse  the  production  of  Mr.  Burke,  and, 
dismissing  what  is  extraneous  and  ornament 
al,  we  shall  discover  certain  leading  ques 
tions,  of  which  the  decision  is  indispensable 
to  the  point  at  issue.  The  natural  order  of 
these  topics  will  dictate  the  method  of  reply. 
Mr.  Burke,  availing  himself  of  the  indefinite 
and  equivocal  term  'Revolution,'  has  alto 
gether  reprobated  that  transaction.  The  first 
question,  therefore,  that  arises,  regards  the 
general  expediency  and  necessity  of  a  Revo 
lution  in  France.  This  is  followed  by  the 
discussion  of  the  composition  and  conduct 
of  the  National  Assembly,  of  the  popular  ex 
cesses  which  attended  the  Revolution,  and 
of  the  new  Constitution  that  is  to  result  from 
it.  The  conduct  of  its  English  admirers 
forms  the  last  topic,  though  it  is  with  rhetori 
cal  inversion  first  treated  by  Mr.  Burke  ;  as 
if  the  propriety  of  approbation  should  be  de 
termined  before  the  discussion  of  the  merit 
or  demerit  of  what  was  approved.  In  pur 
suance  of  this  analysis,  the  following  sec 
tions  will  comprise  the  substance  of  our  refu 
tation. 

SECT.  I.     The  General  Expediency  and  Ne 
cessity  of  a  Revolution  in  France. 

SECT.  II.     The  Composition  and  Character  of 
the  National  Assembly  considered. 

SECT.  III.     The  Popular  Excesses  which  at 
tended,  or  followed  the  Revolution. 

SECT.  IV.     The  new  Constitution  of  France. 

SECT.  V.     The  Conduct  of  its  English  Admi 
rers  justijied. 

With  this  reply  to  Mr.  Burke  will  be 
mingled  some  strictures  on  the  late  publica 
tion  of  M.  de  Calonne.*  That  minister,  who 
has  for  some  time  exhibited  to  the  eyes  of 
indignant  Europe  the  spectacle  of  an  exiled 
robber  living  in  the  most  splendid  impunity, 
has,  with  an  effrontery  that  beggars  invec 
tive,  assumed  in  his  work  the  tone  of  afflicted 
patriotism,  and  delivers  his  polluted  Philip 
pics  as  the  oracles  of  persecuted  virtue.  His 
work  is  more  methodical  than  that  of  his 

*  De  1'Etat  de  la  France.     London,  1790.— ED. 


406 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


coadjutor.*  Of  his  financial  calculations  it 
may  be  remaiked,  that  in  a  work  professedly 
popular  they  afford  the  strongest  presump 
tion  of  fraud.  Their  extent  and  intricacy 
seem  contrived  to  extort  assent  from  public 
indolence;  for  men  will  rather  believe  than 
examine  them.  His  inferences  are  so  out 
rageously  incredible,  that  most  men  of  sense 
will  think  it  more  safe  to  trust  their  own 
plain  conclusions  than  to  enter  such  a  laby 
rinth  of  financial  sophistry.  The  only  part 
of  his  production  that  here  demands  reply, 
is  that  which  relates  to  general  political 
questions.  Remarks  on  what  he  has  offered 
concerning  them  will  naturally  find  a  place 
under  the  corresponding  sections  of  the  re 
ply  to  Mr.  Burke.  Its  most  important  view 
is  neither  literary  nor  argumentative :  it  ap 
peals  to  judgments  more  decisive  than  those 
of  criticism,  and  aims  at  wielding  weapons 
more  formidable  than  those  of  logic.  It  is 
the  manifesto  of  a  Counter-Revolution,  and 
its  obvious  object  is  to  inflame  every  passion 
and  interest,  real  or  supposed,  that  has  re 
ceived  any  shock  in  the  establishment  of 
freedom.  He  probes  the  bleeding  wounds 
of  the  ^v'r"ves,  the  nobility,  the  priesthood, 
and  the  great  judicial  aristocracy :  he  adjures 
one  body  by  its  dignity  degraded,  another 
by  its  inheritance  plundered,  and  a  third  by 
its  authority  destroyed,  to  repair  to  the  holy 
banner  of  his  philanthropic  crusade.  Con 
fident  in  the  protection  of  all  the  monarchs 
of  Europe,  whom  he  alarms  for  the  security 
of  their  thrones,  and,  having  insured  the 
moderation  of  a  fanatical  rabble,  by  giving 
out  among  them  the  savage  war-whoop  of 
atheism,  he  already  fancies  himself  in  full 
march  to  Paris,  not  to  re-instate  the  deposed 
despotism  (for  he  disclaims  the  purpose,  and 
who  would  not  trust  such  virtuous  disavow 
als  !)  but  at  the  head  of  this  army  of  priests, 
mercenaries,  and  fanatics,  to  dictate,  as  the 
tutelary  genius  of  France,  the  establishment 
of  a  just  and  temperate  freedom,  obtained 
without  commotion  and  without  carnage,  and 
equally  hostile  to  the  interested  ambition  of 
demagogues  arid  the  lawless  authority  of 
kings.  Crusades  were  an  effervescence  of 
chivalry,  and  the  modern  St.  Francis  has  a 
knight  for  the  conduct  of  these  crusaders, 
who  will  convince  Mr.  Burke,  that  the  age 
of  chivalry  is  not  past,  nor  the  glory  of  Europe 
gone  for  ever.  The  Compte  d'  Artois,t  that 
scion  worthy  of  Henry  the  Great,  the  rival 

*  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  production  of  M. 
de  Calonne  is  '  eloquent,  able,'  and  certainly  very 
'  instructive  '  in  what  regards  his  own  character 
and  designs.  But  it  contains  one  instance  of  his 
torical  ignorance  so  egregious,  that  I  cannot  resist 
quoting  it.  In  his  long  discussion  of  the  preten 
sions  of  the  Assembly  to  the  title  of  a  '  National 
Convention,'  he  deduces  the  origin  of  that  word 
from  Scotland,  where  he  informs  us  (p.  328),  "  On 
lui  donna  le  nom  de  Convention  Ecossoise ;  le 
resultat  de  ses  deliberations  fut  appelle  '  Covenant,' 
et  ceux  qui  1'avoient  souscrit  ou  qui  y  adheroient 
1  Covenanters  !  '  ' 

t  '  Ce  digne  rejeton  du  grand  Henri.' — Calonne. 
'  Unnouveau  modele  de  la  Chevalerie  Francoise.' 
•  Ibid.  pp.  413—114. 


of  the  Bayards  and  Sidneys,  the  new  model 
of  French  knighthood,  is  to  issue  from  Turin 
with  ten  thousand  cavaliers,  to  deliver  the 
peerless  and  immaculate  Antoinetta  of  Aus 
tria  from  the  durance  vile  in  which  she  has 
so  long  been  immured  in  the  Tuilleries,  from 
the  swords  of  the  discourteous  knights  of 
Paris,  and  the  spells  of  the  sable  wizards  of 
democracy. 


SECTION  I. 

The  General  Expediency  and  Necessity  of  a 
Revolution  in  France. 

IT  is  asserted  in  many  passages  of  Mr. 
Burke's  work,  though  no  where  with  that 
precision  which  the  importance  of  the  asser 
tion  demanded,  that  the  French  Revolution 
was  not  only  in  its  parts  reprehensible,  but 
in  the  whole  was  absurd,  inexpedient,  and 
unjust  j  yet  he  has  nowhere  exactly  informed 
us  what  he  understands  by  the  term.  The 
•  French  Revolution,'  in  its  most  popular 
sense,  perhaps,  would  be  understood  in  Eng 
land  to  consist  of  those  splendid  events  that 
formed  the  prominent  portion  of  its  exterior, 
— the  Parisian  revolt,  the  capture  of  the 
Bastile,  and  the  submission  of  the  King. 
But  these  memorable  events,  though  they 
strengthened  and  accelerated,  could  not  con 
stitute  a  political  revolution,  which  must  in 
clude  a  change  of  government.  But  the 
term,  even  when  limited  to  that  meaning,  is 
equivocal  and  wide.  It  is  capable  of  three 
senses.  The  King's  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  the  States-General  to  a  share  in  the  legis 
lation,  was  a  change  in  the  actual  govern 
ment  of  France,  where  the  whole  legisla 
tive  and  executive  power  had,  ^without  the 
shadow  of  an  interruption,  for  nearly  two 
centuries  been  enjoyed  by  the  crown  ]  in. 
that  sense  the  meeting  of  the  States-General 
was  the  Revolution,  and  the  5th  of  May  was 
its  sera.  The  union  of  the  three  Orders  in 
one  assembly  was  a  most  important  change 
in  the  forms  and  spirit  of  the  legislature ; 
this  too  may  be  called  the  Revolution,  and 
the  23d  of  June  will  be  its  sera.  This  body, 
thus  united,  are  forming  a  new  Constitution  ;* 
this  may  be  also  called  a  Revolution,  because 
it  is  of  all  the  political  changes  the  most  im 
portant,  and  its  epoch  will  be  determined  by 
the  conclusion  of  the  labours  of  the  National 
Assembly.  Thus  equivocal  is  the  import  of 
Mr.  Burke's  expressions.  To  extricate  them 
from  this  ambiguity,  a  rapid  survey  of  these 
events  will  be  necessary.  It  will  prove,  too, 
the  fairest  and  most  forcible  confutation  of 
his  arguments.  It  will  best  demonstrate  the 
necessity  and  justice  of  all  the  successive 
changes  in  the  state  of  France,  which  formed 
\vhat  is  called  the  i  Revolution.'  It  will  dis 
criminate  legislative  acts  from  popular  ex 
cesses,  and  distinguish  transient  confusion 

*  The  Vindicia3  GalicaB  was  published  in  April, 
1791.— ED. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


407 


from  permanent  establishment.  It  will  evince 
the  futility  and  fallacy  of  attributing  to  the 
conspiracy  of  individuals,  or  bodies,  a  Revo 
lution  which,  whether  it  be  beneficial  or  inju 
rious,  was  produced  only  by  general  causes, 
and  in  which  the  most  conspicuous  individual 
produced  little  real  effect. 

The  Constitution  of  France  resembled  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  its  progress  the  Gothic 
governments  of  Europe.  The  history  of  its 
decline  and  the  causes  of  its  extinction  are 
abundantly  known.  Its  infancy  and  youth 
were  like  these  of  the  English  government. 
The  Champ  de  Mars,  and  the  Wittenas;e- 
moti — the  tumultuous  assemblies  of  rude 
conquerors, — were  in  both  countries  melted 
down  into  representative  bodies.  But  the 
downfall  of  the  feudal  aristocracy  happening 
in  France  before  commerce  had  elevated 
any  other  class  of  citizens  into  importance, 
its  power  devolved  on  the  crown.  From  the 
conclusion  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  powers 
of  the  States-General  had  almost  dwindled 
into  formalities.  Their  momentary  re-ap 
pearance  under  Henry  III.  and  Louis  XIII. 
served  only  to  illustrate  their  insignificance  : 
their  total  disuse  speedily  succeeded. 

The  intrusion  of  any  popular  voice  was  not 
likely  to  be  tolerated  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIV. — a  reign  which  has  been  so  often  cele 
brated  as  the  zenith  of  warlike  and  literary 
splendour,  but  which  has  always  appeared 
to  me  to  be  the  consummation  of  whatever 
is  afflicting  and  degrading  in  the  history  of 
the  human  race.  Talent  seemed,  in  that 
reign,  robbed  of  the  conscious  elevation, — 
of  the  erect  and  manly  port,  which  is  its 
noblest  associate  and  its  surest  indication. 
The  mild  purity  of  Fenelon, — the  lofty  spirit 
of  Bossuet, — the  masculine  mind  of  Boileau, 
the  sublime  fervour  of  Corneille, — were  con 
founded  by  the  contagion  of  ignominious  and 
indiscriminate  servility.  It  seemed  as  if  the 
t  representative  majesty'  of  the  genius  and 
intellect  of  man  were  prostrated  before  the 
shrine  of  a  sanguinary  and  dissolute  tyrant, 
who  practised  the  corruption  of  courts  with 
out  their  mildness,  and  incurred  the  guilt  of 
wars  without  their  glory.  His  highest  praise 
is  to  have  supported  the  stage  trick  of  Royalty 
with  effect :  and  it  is  surely  difficult  to  con 
ceive  any  character  more  odious  and  despica 
ble,  than  that  of  a  puny  libertine,  who,  under 
the  frown  of  a  strumpet,  or  a  monk,  issues 
the  mandate  that  is  to  murder  virtuous  citi 
zens, — to  desolate  happy  and  peaceful  ham 
lets, — to  wring  agonising  tears  from  widows 
and  orphans.  Heroism  has  a  splendour  that 
almost  atones  for  its  excesses :  but  what  shall 
we  think  of  him.  who,  from  the  luxurious 
and  dastardly  security  in  which  he  wallows 
at  Versailles,  issues  with  calm  and  cruel 
apathy  his  orders  to  butcher  the  Protestants 
of  Languedoc,  or  to  lay  in  ashes  the  villages 
of  the  Palatinate  ?  On  the  recollection  of 
such  scenes,  as  a  scholar,  I  blush  for  the 
prostitution  of  letters,— as  a  man,  I  blush  for 
the  patience  of  humanity. 

But  the  despotism  of  this  reign  was  preg- 


\  nant  with  the  great  events  which  have  sig- 
:  nalised  our  age  :  it  fostered  that  literature 
|  which  was  one  day  destined  to  destroy  it. 
The  profligate  conquests  of  Louis  have  event 
ually  proved  the  acquisitions  of  humanity ; 
and  his  usurpations  have  served  only  to  add 
a  larger  portion  to  the  great  body  of  freemen. 
The  spirit  of  his  policy  was  inherited  by  his 
successor :  the  rage  of  conquest,  repressed 
for  a  while  by  the  torpid  despotism  of  Floury, 
burst  forth  with  renovated  violence  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  France, 
exhausted  alike  by  the  misfortunes  of  one 
war,  and  the  victories  of  another,  groaned 
under  a  weight  of  impost  and  debt,  which  it 
was  equally  difficult  to  remedy  or  to  endure. 
But  the  profligate  expedients  were  exhausted 
by  which  successive  ministers  had  attempted 
to  avert  the  great  crisis,  in  which  the  credit 
and  power  of  the  government  must  perish. 

The  wise  and  benevolent  administration 
of  M.  Turgot,*  though  long  enough  for  his 


*  "  Louis  XVI.  called  lo  his  councils  the  two 
most  virtuous  men  in  his  dominions,  M.  Turgot 
and  M.  de  Lamoignon  Malesherhes.  Few  things 
could  have  been  more  unexpected  than  that  such 
a  promotion  should  have  been  made;  and  still 
fewer  have  more  discredited  the  sagacity  and  hum 
bled  the  wisdom  of  man  than  that  so  little  good 
should  ultimately  have  sprung  from  so  glorious  an 
occurrence.  M.  Turgot  appears  beyond  most 
other  men  to  have  been  guided  in  the  exenion  of 
his  original  genius  and  comprehensive  intellect  by 
impartial  and  indefatigable  benevolence.  He  pre 
ferred  nothing  to  the  discovery  of  truth  but  the 
interest  of  mankind  ;  and  he  was  ignorant  of  no 
thing  of  which  he  did  not  forego  the  attninment, 
that  he  might  gain  time  for  the  practice  of  his  duty. 
Co-operating  with  the  illustrious  men  who  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  science  of  political  economy, 
his  writings  were  distinguished  from  theirs  by  the 
simplicity,  the  geometrical  order,  and  precision  of 
a  mind  without  passion,  intent  only  on  the  pro 
gress  of  reason  towards  truth.  The  character  of 
M.  Turgot  considered  as  a  private  philosopher,  or 
as  an  inferior  magistrate,  seems  to  have  approached 
more  near  the  ideal  model  of  a  perfect  sage,  than 
that  of  any  other  man  of  the  modern  world.  But 
he  was  destined  rather  to  instruct  than  to  reform 
mankind.  Like  Bacon  (whom  he  so  much  re 
sembled  in  the  vast  range  of  his  intellect)  he  came 
into  a  court,  and  like  Bacon, — though  from  far 
nobler  causes, — he  fell.  The  noble  error  of  sup 
posing  men  to  be  more  disinterested  and  enlight 
ened  than  they  are,  betrayed  him.  Though  he 
had  deeply  studied  human  nature,  he  disdained 
that  discretion  and  dexterity  without  which  wis 
dom  must  return  to  her  cell,  and  leave  the  do 
minion  of  the  world  to  cunning.  The  instruments 
of  his  benevolence  depended  on  others :  but  the 
sources  of  his  own  happiness  were  independent, 
and  he  left  behind  him  in  the  minds  of  his  friends 
that  enthusiastic  attachment  and  profound  rever 
ence  with  which,  when  superior  attainments  were 
more  rare,  the  sages  of  antiquity  inspired  their 
disciples.  The  virtue  of  M.  de  Lamoignon  was 
of  a  less  perfect  but  of  a  softer  and  more  natural 
kind.  Descended  from  one  of  the  most  illustrious 
families  of  the  French  magistracy,  he  was  early 
called  to  high  offices.  He  employed  his  influence 
chiefly  in  lightening  the  fetters  which  impeded  the 
free  exercise  of  reason  ;  and  he  exerted  his  courage 
and  his  eloquence  in  defending  the  people  against 
oppressive  taxation.  While  he  was  a  minister,  he 
had  prepared  the  means  of  abolishing  arbitrary 
imprisonment.  No  part  of  science  or  art  was 


408 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


own  glory,  was  too  short,  and  perhaps  too 
early,  for  those  salutary  and  grand  reforms 
which  his  genius  had  conceived,  and  his  vir 
tue  would  have  effected.  The  aspect  of 
purity  and  talent  spread  a  natural  alarm 
among  the  minions  of  a  court  ;  and  they  easily 
succeeded  in  the  expulsion  of  such  rare  and 
obnoxious  intruders.  The  magnificent  am 
bition  of  M.  de  Vergennes,  the  brilliant,  pro 
fuse,  and  rapacious  careerofM.de  Calonne, 
the  feeble  and  irresolute  violence  of  M.  de 
Brienne, — all  contributed  their  share  to  swell 
this  financial  embarrassment.  The  deficit, 
or  inferiority  of  the  revenue  to  the  expendi 
ture,  at  length  rose  to  the  enormous  sum  of 
115  millions  of  livres,  or  about  4.750,OOOL 
annually.*  This  was  a  disproportion  be 
tween  income  and  expense  with  which  no 
government,  and  no  individual,  could  long 
continue  to  exist. 

In  this  exigency  there  was  no  expedient 
left,  but  to  guarantee  the  ruined  credit  of 
bankrupt  despotism  by  the  sanction  of  the 
national  voice.  The  States-General  were  a 
dangerous  mode  of  collecting  it :  recourse 
was,  therefore,  had  to  the  Assembly  of  the 
Notables  :  a  mode  we]]  known  in  the  History 
of  France,  in  which  the  King  summoned  a 
number  of  individuals,  selected,  at  his  discre 
tion,  from  the  mass,  to  advise  him  in  great 
emergencies.  They  w^ere  little  better  than 
a  popular  Privy  Council.  They  were  neither 
recognised  nor  protected  by  law  :  their  pre 
carious  and  subordinate  existence  hung  on 
the  nod  of  despotism. 

The  Notables  were  accordingly  called  to 
gether  by  M.  de  Calonne.  who  has  now  the  in 
consistent  arrogance  to  boast  of  the  schemes 
which  he  laid  before  them,  as  the  model  of 
the  Assembly  whom  he  traduces.  He  pro 
posed,  it  is  true,  the  equalisation  of  imposts 
and  the  abolition  of  the  pecuniary  exemp 
tions  of  the  Nobility  and  Clergy;  and  the 
difference  between  his  system  and  that  of 
the  Assembly,  is  only  in  what  makes  the 
sole  distinction  in  human  actions — its  end. 
Tie  would  have  destroyed  the  privileged  Or 
ders,  as  obstacles  to  despotism  :  they  have 
destroyed  them,  as  derogations  from  free 
dom.  The  object  of  his  plans  was  to  facili 
tate  fiscal  oppression  :  the  motive  of  theirs  is 
to  fortify  general  liberty.  They  have  levelled 
all  Frenchmen  as  men  :  he  would  have  level 
led  them  as  slaves.  The  Assembly  of  the 


foreign  to  his  elegant  leisure.  His  virtue  was 
without  effort  or  system,  and  his  benevolence  was 
prone  to  diffuse  itsc-lf  in  a  sort  of  pleasantry  and 
even  drollery.  In  this  respect  he  resembled  Sir 
Thomas  More  ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  this  play 
fulness — the  natural  companion  of  a  simple  and 
innocent  mind — attended  both  these  illustrious 
men  to  the  scaffold  on  which  they  were  judicially 
murdered." — MS.  ED. 

*  For  this  we  have  the  authority  of  M.  de  Ca 
lonne  himself,  p.  56.  This  was  the  account  pre 
sented  to  the  Notables  in  April,  1787.  He,  in 
deed,  makes  some  deductions  on  account  of  part 
of  this  deficit  being  expirable  :  but  this  is  of  no 
consequence  to  our  purpose,  which  is  to  view  the 
influence  of  the  -present  urgency, — the  political, 
not  the  financial,  state  of  the  question. 


Notables,  however,  soon  gave  a  memorable 
proof,  how  dangerous  are  all  public  meetings 
of  men,  even  without  legal  powers  of  con 
trol,  to  the  permanence  of  despotism.  They 
had  been  assembled  by  M.  de  Calonne  to 
admire  the  plausibility  and  splendour  of  his 
speculations,  and  to  veil  the  extent  and  atro 
city  of  his  rapine  :  but  the  fallacy  of  the  one 
and  the  profligacy  of  the  other  were  detected 
with  equal  ease.  Illustrious  orators,  who 
have  since  found  a  nobler  sphere  for  their 
talents,  in  a  more  free  and  powerful  Assem 
bly,  exposed  the  plunderer.  Detested  by 
the  Nobles  and  Clergy,  of  whose  privileges 
he  had  suggested  the  abolition;  undermined 
in  the  favour  of  the  Queen,  by  his  attack  on 
one  of  her  favourites  (Breteuil) ;  exposed  to 
the  fury  of  the  people,  and  dreading  the 
terrors  of  judicial  prosecution,  he  speedily 
sought  refuge  in  England,  without  the  recol 
lection  of  one  virtue,  or  the  applause  of  one 
party,  to  console  his  retreat.  Thus  did  the 
Notables  destroy  their  creator.  Little  ap 
peared  to  be  done  to  a  superficial  observer : 
but  to  a  discerning  eye,  all  was  done ;  for 
the  dethroned  authority  of  Public  Opinion 
was  restored. 

The  succeeding  Ministers,  uninstructed  by 
the  example  of  their  predecessors,  by  the 
destruction  of  public  credit,  and  by  the  fer 
mentation  of  the  popular  mind,  hazarded 
measures  of  a  still  more  preposterous  and 
perilous  description.  The  usurpation  of  some 
share  in  the  sovereignty  by  the  Parliament 
of  Paris  had  become  popular  and  venerable, 
because  its  tendency  was  useful,  and  its 
exercise  virtuous.  That  body  had,  as  it  is 
well  known,  claimed  a  right,  which,  in  fact, 
amounted  to  a  negative  on  all  the  acts  of  the 
King  : — they  contended,  that  the  registration 
of  his  edicts  by  them  was  necessary  to  give 
them  force.  They  would,  in  that  case,  have 
possessed  the  same  share  of  legislation  as 
the  King  of  England.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
descant  on  the  historical  fallacy,  arid  political 
inexpediency,  of  doctrines,  which  would  vest 
in  a  narrow7  aristocracy  of  lawyers,  who  had 
bought  their  places,  such  extensive  powers. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  their  resistance  had 
often  proved  salutary,  and  was  some  feeble 
check  on  the  capricious  wantonness  of  des 
potic  exaction :  but  the  temerity  of  the 
Minister  now  assigned  them  a  more  important 
part.  They  refused  to  register  two  edicts 
for  the  creation  of  imposts,  averring  that  the 
power  of  imposing  taxes  was  vested  only  in 
the  national  representatives,  and  claiming 
the  immediate  convocation  of  the  States- 
General  of  the  kingdom:  the  Minister  ba 
nished  them  to  Troyes.  But  he  soon  found 
how  much  the  French  were  changed  from 
that  abject  and  frivolous  people,  which  had 
so  often  endured  the  exile  of  its  magistrates: 
Paris  exhibited  the  tumult  and  clamour  of  a 
London  mob.  The  Cabinet,  which  coukt 
neither  advance  nor  recede  with  safety,  had 
recourse  to  the  expedient  of  a  compulsory 
registration.  The  "Duke  of  Orleans,  and  the 
magistrates  who  protested  against  this  exe- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


409 


crable  mockery,  were  exiled  or  imprisoned. 
Bat  all  these  hacknied  expedients  of  despot 
ism  were  in  vain.  These  struggles,  which 
merit  notice  only  as  they  illustrate  the  pro 
gressive  energy  of  Public  Opinion,  were  fol 
lowed  by  events  still  less  equivocal.  Lettres 
de  Cachet  were  issued  against  MM.  d'Es- 
premenil  and  Goeslard.  They  took  refuge 
in  the  sanctuary  of  justice,  and  the  Parlia 
ment  pronounced  them  under  the  safeguard 
of  the  law  and  the  King.  A  deputation  was 
sent  to  Versailles,  to  entreat  his  Majesty  to 
listen  to  sage  counsels;  and  Paris  expected, 
with  impatient  solicitude,  the  result.  When 
towards  midnight,  a  body  of  two  thousand 
troops  marched  to  the  palace  where  the  Par 
liament  were  seated,  and  their  Commander, 
entering  into  the  Court  of  Peers,  demanded 
his  victims,  a  loud  and  unanimous  acclama 
tion  replied, — "We  are  all  d'Espremenil  and 
Goeslard  !"  These  magistrates  surrendered 
themselves ;  and  the  satellite  of  despotism 
led  them  off  in  triumph,  amid  the  execra 
tions  of  an  aroused  and  indignant  people. 
These  spectacles  were  not  without  their 
effect :  the  spirit  of  resistance  spread  daily 
over  France.  The  intermediate  commission 
of  the  States  of  Bretagne,  the  States  of  Dau 
phine,  and  many  other  public  bodies,  began 
to  assume  a  new  and  menacing  tone.  The 
Cabinet  was  dissolved  by  its  own  feebleness, 
and  M.  Neckar  was  recalled. 

That  Minister,  probably  upright,  and  not 
illiberal,  but  narrow,  pusillanimous,  and  en 
tangled  by  the  habits  of  detail*  in  which  he 
had  been  reared,  possessed  not  that  erect 
and  intrepid  spirit, — those  enlarged  and  ori 
ginal  views,  which  adapt  themselves  to  new 
combinations  of  circumstances,  and  sway 
in  the  great  convulsions  of  human  affairs. 
Accustomed  to  the  tranquil  accuracy  of  com 
merce,  or  the  elegant  amusements  of  litera 
ture,  he  was  called  on  to 

"  Ride  in  the  whirlwind,  and  direct  the  storm. "t 

He  seemed  superior  to  his  privacy  while  he 
was  limited  to  it,  and  would  have  been  ad 
judged  by  history  equal  to  his  elevation  had 
he  never  been  elevated. t  The  reputation  of 
few  men.  it  is  true,  has  been  exposed  to  so 
severe  a  test;  and  a  generous  observer  will 
be  disposed  to  scrutinize  less  rigidly  the 
claims  of  a  statesman,  who  has  retired  with 
the  applause  of  no  party, — who  is  detested 
by  the  aristocracy  as  the  instrument  of  their 
ruin,  and  despised  by  the  democratic  leaders 
for  pusillanimous  and  fluctuating  policy.  But 

*  The  late  celebrated  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  always 
held  this  opinion  of  Neckar,  whom  he  had  known 
intimately  when  a  banker  in  Paris.  He  predicted 
the  fall  of  his  fame  when  his  talents  should  be 
brought  to  the  test,  and  always  emphatically  said, 
"  He  is  but  a  man  of  detail."  At  a  time  when 
the  commercial  abilities  of  Mr.  Eden,  the  present 
Lord  Auckland,  were  the  theme  of  profuse  eulogy, 
Dr.  Smith  characterized  him  in  the  same  words. 

t  Addison,  The  Campaign. — ED. 

t  Major  privato  visus,  dum  privatus  fuit,  et  om 
nium  consensu  capax  imperil,  nisi  imperasset. — 
Tacitus,  Hist.  lib.  i.  cap.  49. 
52 


had  the  character  of  M.  Neckar  possessed 
more  originality  or  decision,  it  could  have 
had  little  influence  on  the  fate  of  France. 
The  minds  of  men  had  received  an  impulse  ; 
and  individual  aid  and  individual  opposition 
were  equally  vain.  His  views,  no  doubt, 
extended  only  to  palliation;  but  he  was  in 
volved  in  a  stream  of  opinions  and  events, 
of  which  no  force  could  resist  the  current,  and 
no  wisdom  adequately  predict  the  termina 
tion.  He  is  represented  by  M.  de  Calonne 
as  the  Lord  Sunderland  of  Louis  XVI.  seduc 
ing  the  King  to  destroy  his  own  power  :  but 
he  had  neither  genius  nor  boldness  for  such 
designs. 

To  return  to  our  rapid  survey : — The  au 
tumn  of  1788  was  peculiarly  distinguished  by 
the  enlightened  and  disinterested  patriotism 
of  the  States  of  Dauphine.  They  furnished, 
in  many  respects,  a  model  for  the  future 
senate  of  France.  Like  them  they  deliberated 
amidst  the  terrors  of  ministerial  vengeance 
and  military  execution.  They  annihilated 
the  absurd  and  destructive  distinction  of 
Orders ;  the  three  estates  were  melted  into 
a  Provincial  Assembly ;  they  declared,  that 
the  right  of  imposing  taxes  resided  ultimately 
in  the  States-General  of  France ;  and  they 
voted  a  deputation  to  the  King  to  solicit  the 
convocation  of  that  Assembly.  Dauphine 
was  emulously  imitated  by  all  the  provinces 
that  still  retained  the  shadow  of  Provincial 
States.  The  States  of  Languedoc,  of  Velay, 
and  Vivarois,  the  Tiers  Etat  of  Provence,  and 
all  the  Municipalities  of  Bretagne,  adopted 
similar  resolutions.  In  Provence  and  Bre 
tagne.  where  the  Nobles  and  Clergy,  trem 
bling  for  their  privileges,  and  the  Parliaments 
for  their  jurisdiction,  attempted  a  feeble  re 
sistance,  the  fermentation  was  peculiarly 
strong.  Some  estimate  of  the  fervour  of 
public  sentiment  may  be  formed  from  the 
reception  of  the  Count  de  Mirabeau  in  his 
native  province,  where  the  burgesses  of  Aix 
assigned  him  a  body-guard,  where  the  citizens 
of  Marseilles  crowned  him  in  the  theatre, 
and  where,  under  all  the  terrors  of  despot 
ism,  he  received  as  numerous  and  tumult 
uous  proofs  of  attachment  as  ever  were 
bestowed  on  a  favourite  by  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  most  free  people.  M.  Caraman,  the 
Governor  of  Provence,  was  even  reduced  to 
implore  his  interposition  with  the  populace, 
to  appease  and  prevent  their  excesses.  The 
contest  in  Bretagne  was  more  violent  and 
sanguinary.  She  had  preserved  her  inde 
pendence  more  than  any  of  those  provinces 
which  had  been  united  to  the  crown  of 
France.  The  Nobles  and  Clergy  possessed 
almost  the  whole  power  of  the  States,  and 
their  obstinacy  was  so  great,  that  their  depu 
ties  did  not  take  their  seats  in  the  National 
Assembly  till  an  advanced  period  of  its  pro 
ceedings. 

The  return  of  M.  Neckar,  and  the  recall 
of  the  exiled  magistrates,  restored  a  mo 
mentary  calm.  The  personal  reputation  of 
the  minister  for  probity,  reanimated  the 
credit  of  France.  But  the  finances  were  too 
2K 


410 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


irremediably  embarrassed  for  palliatives; 
and  the  fascinating  idea  of  the  States-Gene 
ral,  presented  to  the  public  imagination  by 
the  unwary  zeal  of  the  Parliament,  awaken 
ed  recollections  of  ancient  freedom,  arid 
prospects  of  future  splendour,  which  the 
virtue  or  popularity  of  no  minister  could 
banish.  The  convocation  of  that  body  was 
resolved  on:  but  many  difficulties  respecting 
the  mode  of  electing  and  constituting  it  re 
mained,  which  a  second  Assembly  of  Nota 
bles  was  summoned  to  decide. 

The  Third  Estate  demanded  representa 
tives  equal  to  those  of  the  other  two  Orders 
jointly.  They  required  that  the  number 
should  be  regulated  by  the  population  of  the 
districts,  and  that  the  three  Orders  should 
vote  in  one  Assembly.  All  the  committees 
into  which  the  Notables  were  divided,  ex 
cept  that  of  which  MONSIEUR  was  President, 
decided  against  the  Third  Estate  in  every 
one  of  these  particulars.  They  were  strenu 
ously  supported  by  the  Parliament  of  Paris, 
who,  too  late  sensible  of  the  suicide  into 
which  they  had  been  betrayed,  laboured  to 
render  the  Assembly  impotent,  after  they 
were  unable  to  prevent  its  meeting.  But 
their  efforts  were  in  vain :  M.  Neckar,  whe 
ther  actuated  by  respect  for  justice,  or  desire 
of  popularity,  or  yielding  to  the  irresistible 
torrent  of  public  sentiment,  advised  the  King 
to  adopt  the  propositions  of  the  Third  Estate 
in  the  two  first  particulars,  and  to  leave  the 
last  to  be  decided  by  the  States-General 
themselves. 

Letters-Patent  \vere  accordingly  issued  on 
the  24th  of  January,  1789,  for  assembling 
the  States-General,  to  which  were  annexed 
regulations  for  the  detail  of  their  elections. 
In  the  constituent  assemblies  of  the  several 
provinces,  bailliages,  and  constabularies  of 
the  kingdom,  the  progress  of  the  public  mind 
became  still  more  evident.  The  Clergy  and 
Nobility  ought  not  to  be  denied  the  praise 
of  having  emulously  sacrificed  their  pecu 
niary  privileges.  The  instructions  to  the  re 
presentatives  breathed  every  where  a  spirit 
of  freedom  as  ardent,  though  not  so  liberal 
and  enlightened,  as  that  which  has  since 
presided  in  the  deliberations  of  the  National 
Assembly.  Paris  was  eminently  conspi 
cuous.  The  union  of  talent,  the  rapid  com 
munication  of  thought,  and  the  frequency 
of  those  numerous  assemblies,  where  men 
learn  their  force,  and  compare  their  wrongs, 
ever  make  a  great  capital  the  heart  that  cir 
culates  emotion  and  opinion  to  the  extremi 
ties  of  an  empire.  No  sooner  had  the  convo 
cation  of  the  States-General  been  announced, 
than  the  batteries  of  the  press  were  opened. 
Pamphlet  succeeded  pamphlet,  surpassing 
each  other  in  boldness  and  elevation ;  and 
the  advance  of  Paris  to  light  and  freedom 
was  greater  in  three  months  than  it  had  been 
in  almost  as  many  centuries.  Doctrines 
were  universally  received  in  May,  which  in 
January  would  have  been  deemed  treason 
able,  and  which  in  March  had  been  de 


rided  as  the  visions  of  a  few  deluded  fa 
natics.* 

It  was  amid  this  rapid  diffusion  of  light, 
and  increasing  fervour  of  public  sentiment, 
that  the  States-General  assembled  at  Ver 
sailles  on  the  5th  of  May,  1789, — a  day  which 
will  probably  be  accounted  by  posterity  one 
of  the  most  memorable  in  the  annals  of  the 
human  race.  Any  detail  of  the  parade  and 
ceremonial  of  their  assembly  would  be 
totally  foreign  to  our  purpose,  which  is  not 
to  narrate  events,  but  to  seize  their  spirit, 
and  to  mark  their  influence  on  the  political 
progress  from  which  the  Revolution  was  to 
arise.  The  preliminary  operation  necessary 
to  constitute  the  Assembly  gave  rise  to  the 
first  great  question, — the  mode  of  authenti 
cating  the  corn-missions  of  the  deputies.  It 
was  contended  by  the  Clergy  and  Nobles, 
that  according  to  ancient  usage,  each  Order 
should  separately  scrutinize  and  authenti 
cate  the  commissions  of  its  owrn  deputies.  It 
was  argued  by  the  Commons,  that,  on  gene 
ral  principles,  all  Orders,  having  an  equal 
interest  in  the  purity  of  the  national  repre 
sentative,  had  an  equal  right  to  take  cogni 
zance  of  the  authenticity  of  the  commissions 
of  all  the  members  who  composed  the  body, 
and  therefore  to  scrutinize  them  in  common. 
To  the  authority  of  precedent  it  was  an 
swered,  that  it  would  establish  too  much; 
for  in  the  ancient  States,  their  examination 
of  powers  was  subordinate  to  the  revision 
of  Royal  Commissaries, — a  subjection  too 
degrading  and  injurious  for  the  free  and 
vigilant  spirit  of  an  enlightened  age. 

This  controversy  involved  another  of  more 
magnitude  and  importance.  If  the  Orders 
united  in  this  scrutiny,  they  were  likely  to 
continue  in  one  Assembly;  the  separate 
voices  of  the  two  first  Orders  would  be  anni 
hilated,  and  the  importance  of  the  Nobility 
and  Clergy  reduced  to  that  of  their  indivi 
dual  suffrages.  This  great  revolution  was 
obviously  meditated  by  the  leaders  of  the 
Commons.  They  were  seconded  in  the 
chamber  of  the  Noblesse  by  a  minority 
eminently  distinguished  for  rank,  character, 
and  talent.  The  obscure  and  useful  portion 
of  the  Clergy  were,  from  their  situation,  ac 
cessible  to  popular  sentiment,  and  naturally 
coalesced  with  the  Commons.  Many  who 
favoured  the  division  of  the  Legislature  in 
the  ordinary  arrangements  of  government, 
were  convinced  that  the  grand  and  radical 
reforms,  which  the  situation  of  France  de 
manded,  could  only  be  effected  by  its  union 
as  one  Assembly.!  So  many  prejudices  were 

*  The  principles  of  freedom  had  long  been  un 
derstood,  perhaps  better  than  in  any  country  of  the 
world,  by  the  philosophers  of  France.  It  was  as 
natural  that  they  should  have  been  more  diligently 
cultivated  in  that  kingdom  than  in  England,  as 
that  the  science  of  medicine  should  be  less  under 
stood  and  valued  among  simple  and  vigorous,  than 
among, luxurious  and  enfeebled  nations.  But  the 
progress  which  we  have  noticed  was  among  the 
less  instructed  part  of  society. 

t  "  II  n'est  pas  douteux  que  pour  aujourd'hui, 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


411 


to  be  vanquished, — so  many  difficulties  to 
be  surmounted,  such  obstinate  habits  to  be 
extirpated,  and  so  formidable  a  power  to  be 
resisted,  that  there  was  an  obvious  necessity 
to  concentrate  the  force  of  the  reforming 
body.  In  a  great  revolution,  every  expedient 
ought  to  facilitate  change :  in  an  established 
government,  every  thing  ought  to  render  it 
difficult.-  Hence  the  division  of  a  legislature, 
which  in  an  established  government,  may 
give  a  beneficial  stability  to  the  laws,  must, 
in  a  moment  of  revolution,  be  proportioriably 
injurious,  by  fortifying  abuse  and  unnerving 
reform.  In  a  revolution,  the  enemies  of 
freedom  are  external,  and  all  powers  are 
therefore  to  be  united  :  under  an  establish 
ment  her  enemies  are  internal,  and  power 
is  therefore  to  be  divided.  But  besides  this 
general  consideration,  the  state  of  France 
furnished  others  of  more  local  and  tempo 
rary  cogency.  The  States-General,  acting 
by  separate  Orders,  were  a  body  from  which 
no  substantial  reform  could  be  hoped.  The 
two  first  Orders  were  interested  in  the  per 
petuity  of  every  abuse  that  was  to  be  re 
formed  :  their  possession  of  two  equal  and 
independent  voices  must  have  rendered  the 
exertions  of  the  Commons  impotent  and  nu 
gatory.  And  a  collusion  between  the  As 
sembly  and  the  Crown  would  probably  have 
limited  its  illusive  reforms  to  some  sorry 
palliatives, — the  price  of  financial  disembar 
rassment.  The  state  of  a  nation  lulled  into 
complacent  servitude  by  such  petty  conces 
sions,  is  far  more  hopeless  than  that  of  those 
who  groan  under  the  most  galling  despotism  ; 
and  the  condition  of  France  would  have  been 
more  irremediable  than  ever. 

Such  reasonings  produced  an  universal 
conviction,  that  the  question,  whether  the 
States-General  were  to  vote  individually,  or 
in  Orders,  was  a  question,  whether  they  were 
or  were  not  to  produce  any  important  benefit. 
Guided  by  these  views,  and  animated  by 
public  support,  the  Commons  adhered  in- 
flexibily  to  their  principle  of  incorporation. 
They  adopted  a  provisory  organization,  but 
studiously  declined  whatever  might  seem  to 
suppose  legal  existence,  or  to  arrogate  con 
stitutional  powers.  The  Nobles,  less  politic 
or  timid,  declared  themselves  a  legally  con 
stituted  Order,  and  proceeded  to  discuss  the 

que  pour  cette  premiere  tenueune  Chambre  Unique 
n'ait  ete  preferable  et  peut-etre  necessaire;  il  y 
avoit  tant  de  difficultes  a  surmonter,  tant  de  pre- 
juges  a  vaincre,  tant  de  sacrifices  a  faire,  de  si 
vieilles  habitudes  a  deraciner,  une  puissance  si 
forte  a  contenir,  en  un  mot,  tant  a  detruire  et 
presque  tout  a  creer." — "  Ce  nouvel  ordre  de 
choses  que  vous  avez  fait  eclorre,  tout  cela  vous 
en  etes  bien  surs  n'a  jamais  pu  naitre  que  de  la 
reunion  de  toutes  les  personnes,  de  tous  les  senti 
ments,  et  de  tous  les  coeurs." — Discours  de  M. 
Lally-Tollendal  a  J'Assemblee  Nationale,  31 
Aout,  1789,  dans  ses  Pieces  Justificatifs,  pp.  105, 
106.  This  passage  is  in  more  than  one  respect 
remarkable.  It  fully  evinces  the  conviction  of 
the  author,  that  changes  were  necessary  great 
enough  to  deserve  the  name  of  a  Revolution,  and, 
considering  the  respect  of  Mr.  Burke  for  his  au 
thority,  ought  to  have  weight  with  him. 


great  objects  of  their  convocation.  The 
Clergy  affected  to  preserve  a  mediatorial  cha 
racter,  and  to  conciliate  the  discordant  claims 
of  the  two  hostile  Orders.  The  Commons, 
faithful  to  their  system,  remained  in  a  wise 
and  masterly  inactivity,  which  tacitly  re 
proached  the  arrogant  assumption  of  the 
Nobles,  while  it  left  no  pretext  to  calumniate 
their  own  conduct,  gave  time  for  the  increase 
of  the  popular  fervour,  and  distressed  the 
Court  by  the  delay  of  financial  aid.  Several 
conciliatory  plans  were  proposed  by  the  Mi 
nister,  and  rejected  by  the  haughtiness  of 
the  Nobility  and  the  policy  of  the  Commons. 

Thus  passed  the  period  between  the  5th 
of  May  and  the  12lh  of  June,  when  the  po 
pular  leaders,  animated  by  public  support,  and 
conscious  of  the  maturity  of  their  schemes, 
assumed  a  more  resolute  tone.  The  Third 
Estate  then  commenced  the  scrutiny  of  com 
missions,  summoned  the  Nobles  and  Clergy 
to  repair  to  the  Hall  of  the  States-General, 
and  resolved  that  the  absence  of  the  depu 
ties  of  some  districts  and  classes  of  citizens 
could  riot  preclude  them,  who  formed  the 
representatives  of  ninety-six  hundredths  of 
the  nation,  from  constituting  themselves  a 
National  Assembly. 

These  decisive  measures  betrayed  the  de 
signs  of  the  Court,  and  fully  illustrate  that 
bounty  and  liberality  for  which  Louis  XVI. 
has  been  so  idly  celebrated.  That  feeble 
Prince,  whose  public  character  varied  with 
every  fluctuation  in  his  Cabinet, — the  instru 
ment  alike  of  the  ambition  of  Vergennes, 
the  prodigality  of  Calonne,  and  the  ostenta 
tious  popularity  of  Neckar, — had  hitherto 
yielded  to  the  embarrassment  of  the  finances, 
and  the  clamour  of  the  people.  The  cabal 
that  retained  its  ascendant  over  his  mind, 
permitted  concessions  which  they  hoped  to 
make  vain,  and  flattered  themselves  with 
frustrating,  by  the  contest  of  struggling  Or 
ders,  all  idea* of  substantial  reform.  But  no 
sooner  did  the  Assembly  betray  any  symptom 
of  activity  and  vigour,  than  their  alarms  be 
came  conspicuous  in  the  Royal  conduct.  The 
Compte  d'Artois,  and  the  other  Princes  of  the 
Blood,  published  the  boldest  manifestoes 
against  the  Assembly;  the  credit  of  M. 
Neckar  at  Court  declined  every  day;  the 
Royalists  in  the  chamber  of  the  Noblesse 
spoke  of  nothing  less  than  an  impeachment 
of  the  Commons  for  high-treason,  and  an 
immediate  dissolution  of  the  States;  and  a 
vast  military  force  and  a  tremendous  park 
of  artillery  were  collected  from  all  parts  of 
the  kingdom  towards  Versailles  and  Paris. 
Under  these  menacing  and  inauspicious  cir 
cumstances,  the  meeting  of  the  States-Gene 
ral  was  prohibited  by  the  King's  order  till  a 
Royal  Session,  which  was  destined  for  the 
twenty-second  but  not  held  till  the  twenty- 
third  of  June,  had  taken  place.  On  repair 
ing  to  their  Hall  on  the  twentieth,  the  Com 
mons  found  it  invested  with  soldiers,  and 
themselves  excluded  by  the  point  of  the 
bayonet.  They  were  summoned  by  their 
President  to  a  tennis-Court,  where  they  were 


412 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


reduced  to  hold  their  assembly,  and  which 
they  rendered  famous  as  the  scene  of  their 
unanimous  and  memorable  oath, — never  to 
separate  till  they  had  achieved  the  regenera 
tion  of  France. 

The  Royal  Session  thus  announced,  cor 
responded  with  the  new  tone  of  the  Court. 
Its  exterior  was  marked  by  the  gloomy  and 
ferocious  haughtiness  of  despotism.  The 
Royal  Puppet  was  now  evidently  moved  by 
different  persons  from  those  who  had  prompt 
ed  its  Speech  at  the  opening  of  the  States. 
He  probably  now  spoke  both  with  the  same 
spirit  and  the  same  heart,  and  felt  as  little 
firmness  under  the  cloak  of  arrogance,  as  he 
had  been  conscious  of  sensibility  amidst  his 
professions  of  affection ;  he  was  probably  as 
feeble  in  the  one  as  he  had  been  cold  in  the 
other:  but  his  language  is  some  criterion  of 
the  system  of  his  prompters.  This  speech  was 
distinguished  by  insulting  condescension  and 
ostentatious  menace.  He  spoke  not  as  the 
Chief  of  a  free  nation  to  its  sovereign  Legisla 
ture,  but  as  a  Sultan  to  his  Divan .  He  annulled 
and  prescribed  deliberations  at  pleasure.  He 
affected  to  represent  his  will  as  the  rule  of 
their  conduct,  and  his  bounty  as  the  source 
of  their  freedom.  Nor  was  the  matter  of 
his  harangue  less  injurious  than  its  manner 
was  offensive.  Instead  of  containing  any 
concession  important  to  public  liberty,  it  in 
dicated  a  relapse  into  a  more  lofty  despotism 
than  had  before  marked  his  pretensions. 
Tithes,  feudal  and  seignorial  rights,  he  con 
secrated  as  the  most  inviolable  property;  and 
of  Lettres  de  Cachet  themselves,  by  recom 
mending  the  regulation,  he  obviously  con 
demned  the  abolition.  The  distinction  of 
Orders  he  considered  as  essential  to  the  Con- 
etitution  of  the  kingdom,  and  their  present 
union  as  only  legitimate  by  his  permission. 
He  concluded  with  commanding  them  to 
separate,  and  to  assemble  on  the  next  day 
in  the  Halls  of  their  respective  Orders. 

The  Commons,  however,  inflexibly  ad 
hering  to  their  principles,  and  conceiving 
themselves  constituted  as  a  National  Asserrf- 
bly.  treated  these  threats  and  injunctions  with 
equal  neglect.  They  remained  assembled 
in  the  Hall,  which  the  other  Orders  had 
quitted  in  obedience  to  the  Royal  command ; 
and  when  the  Marquis  de  Breze,  the  King's 
Master  of  the  Ceremonies,  reminded  them 
of  his  Majesty's  orders,  he  was  answered  by 
M.  Bailly,  with  Spartan  energy, — "  The  Na 
tion  assembled  has  no  orders  to  receive." 
They  proceeded  to  pass  resolutions  declara 
tory  of  adherence  to  their  former  decrees, 
and  of  the  personal  inviolability  of  the  mem 
bers.  The  Royal  Session,  which  the  Aristo 
cratic  party  had  expected  with  such  triumph 
and  confidence,  proved  the  severest  blow  to 
their  cause.  Forty-nine  members  of  the  No 
bility,  at  the  head  of  whom  was  M.  de  Cler- 
mont-Tonnerre,  repaired  on  the  26th  of  June 
to  the  Assembly.*  The  popular  enthusiasm 


*  It.  deserves  remark,  that  in  this  number  were 
Noblemen  who  have  ever  been  considered  as  of 


was  inflamed  to  such  a  degree,  that  alarms 
were  either  felt  or  affected,  for  the  safety  of 
the  King,  if  the  union  of  Orders  was  delayed 
The  union  was  accordingly  resolved  on;  and 
the  Duke  of  Luxembourg,  President  of  the 
Nobility,  was  authorised  by  his  Majesty  to 
announce  to  his  Order  the  request  and  even 
command  of  the  King,  to  unite  themselves 
with  the  others.  He  remonstrated  with  the 
King  on  the  fatal  consequences  of  this  step. 
"The  Nobility,"  he  remarked,  "were  not 
fighting  their  own  battles,  but  those  of  the 
Crown.  The  support  of  the  monarchy  wTas 
inseparably  connected  with  the  division  of 
the  Slates-General :  divided,  that  body  was 
subject  to  the  Crown;  united,  its  authority 
was  sovereign,  and  its  force  irresistible.'"*' 
The  King  was  not,  however,  shaken  by  these 
considerations,  and  on  the  following  day,  no 
tified  his  pleasure  in  an  official  letter  to  the 
Presidents  of  the  Nobility  and  the  Clergy.  A 
gloomy  and  reluctant  obedience  was  yielded 
to  this  mandate,  and  the  union  of  the  Na 
tional  Representatives  at  length  promised 
some  hope  to  France. 

But  the  general  system  of  the  Government 
formed  a  suspicious  and  tremendous  con 
trast  with  this  applauded  concession.  New 
hordes  of  foreign  mercenaries  were  sum 
moned  to  the  blockade  of  Paris  and  Versail 
les,  from  the  remotest  provinces ;  an  im 
mense  train  of  artillery  \vas  disposed  in  all 
the  avenues  of  these  cities ;  and  seventy 
thousand  men  already  invested  the  Capital, 
when  the  last  blow  was  hazarded  against 
the  public  hopes,  by  the  ignominious  banish 
ment  of  M.  Neckar.  Events  followed,  the 
most  unexampled  and  memorable  in  the 
annals  of  mankind,  which  history  will  record 
and  immortalize,  but,  on  which,  the  object 
of  the  political  reasoner  is  only  to  speculate. 
France  was  on  the  brink  of  civil  war.  The 
Provinces  were  ready  to  march  immense 
bodies  to  the  rescue  of  their  representatives. 
The  courtiers  and  their  minions,  princes 
and  princesses,  male  and  female  favourites, 
crowded  to  the  camps  with  which  they  had 
invested  Versailles,  and  stimulated  the  fe 
rocious  cruelty  of  their  mercenaries,  by  ca 
resses,  by  largesses,  and  by  promises.  Mean 
time  the  people  of  Paris  revolted ;  the  French 
soldiery  felt  that  they  were  citizens ;  and  the 
fabric  of  Despotism  fell  to  the  ground. 

These  soldiers,  whom  posterity  will  cele 
brate  for  patriotic  heroism,  are  stigmatized 
by  Mr.  Burke  as  "base  hireling  deserters," 
who  sold  their  King  for  an  increase  of  pay.t 


the  moderate  party.  Of  these  may  be  mentioned 
MM.  Lally,  Virieu,  and  Clermont-Tonnerre, 
none  of  whom  certainly  can  be  accused  of  demo 
cratic  enthusiasm. 

*  These  remarks  of  M.  de  Luxembourg  are 
equivalent  to  a  thousand  defences  of  the  Revolu 
tionists  against  Mr.  Burke.  They  unanswerably 
prove  that  the  division  of  Orders  was  supported 
only  as  necessary  to  palsy  the  efforts  of  the  Legis 
lature  against  the  Despotism. 

t  Mr.  Burke  is  sanctioned  in  this  opinion  by  an 
authority  not  the  most  respectable,  that  of  his  late 
countryman  Count  Dalton,  Commander  of  tha 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


413 


This  position  he  every  where  asserts  or  in 
sinuates  :  but  nothing  seems  more  false. 
Had  the  defection  been  confined  to  Paris, 
there  might  have  been  some  speciousness 
in  the  accusation.  The  exchequer  of  a  fac 
tion  might  have  been  equal  to  the  corrup 
tion  of  the  guards :  the  activity  of  intrigue 
might  have  seduced  the  troops  cantoned  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  capital.  But  what 
policy,  or  fortune,  could  pervade  by  their 
agents,  or  donatives,  an  army  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  men,  dispersed  over  so 
great  a  monarchy  as  France.  The  spirit  of 
resistance  to  uncivic  commands  broke  forth 
at  once  in  every  part  of  the  empire.  The 
garrisons  of  the  cities  of  Rennes,  Bourdeaux, 
Lyons,  and  Grenoble,  refused,  almost  at  the 
same  moment,  to  resist  the  virtuous  insur 
rection  of  their  fellow-citizens.  No  largesses 
could  have  seduced, — no  intrigues  could 
have  reached  so  vast  and  divided  a  body. 
Nothing  but  sympathy  with  the  national 
spirit  could  have  produced  their  noble  dis 
obedience.  The  remark  of  Mr.  Hume  is 
here  most  applicable,  "  that  what  depends 
on  a  few  may  be  often  attributed  to  chance 
(secret  circumstances)  j  but  that  the  actions 
of  great  bodies  must  be  ever  ascribed  to 
general  causes."  It  was  the  apprehension 
of  Montesquieu,  that  the  spirit  of  increasing 
armies  would  terminate  in  converting  Europe 
into  an  immense  camp,  in  changing  our  arti 
sans  and  cultivators  into  military  savages, 
and  reviving  the  ajje  of  Attila  and  Genghis. 
Events  are  our  preceptors,  and  France  has 
taught  us  that  this  evil  contains  in  itself  its 
own  remedy  and  limit.  A  domestic  army 
cannot  be  increased  without  increasing  the 
number  of  its  ties  with  the  people,  and  of 
the  channels  by  which  popular  sentiment 
may  enter.  Every  man  who  is  added  to  the 
army  is  a  new  link  that  unites  it  to  the  na 
tion.  If  all  citizens  were  compelled  to  be 
come  soldiers,  all  soldiers  must  of  necessity 
adopt  the  feelings  of  citizens ;  and  despots 
cannot  increase  their  army  without  admit 
ting  into  it  a  greater  number  of  men  inte 
rested  in  destroying  them.  A  small  army 
may  have  sentiments  different  from  the  great 
body  of  the  people,  and  no  interest  in  com 
mon  with  them,  but  a  numerous  soldiery 
cannot.  This  is  the  barrier  which  Nature 
lias  opposed  to  the  increase  of  armies.  They 
cannot  be  numerous  enough  to  enslave  the 
ueople,  without  becoming  the  people  itself. 
The  effects  of  this  truth  have  been  hitherto 
conspicuous  only  in  the  military  defection 
of  France,  because  the  enlightened  sense  of 
general  interest  has  been  so  much  more  dif 
fused  in  that  nation  than  in  any  other  des 
potic  monarchy  of  Europe :  but  they  must 
be  felt  by  all.  An  elaborate  discipline  may 
for  a  while  in  Germany  debase  and  brutalize 
soldiers  too  much  to  receive  any  impressions 


Austrian  troops  in  the  Netherlands.  In  Septem 
ber,  1789,  he  addressed  the  Regiment,  de  Ligne, 
at  Brussels,  in  these  terms  : — "  J'espere  que  vous 
n'imiterez  jamais  ces  laches  Fran§ois  qui  ont 
abandonne  leur  Souverain  !  " 


from  their  fellow  men :  artificial  and  local 
institutions  are,  however,  too  feeble  to  resist 
the  energy  of  natural  causes.  The  consti 
tution  of  man  survives  the  transient  fashions 
of  despotism ;  and  the  history  of  the  next 
century  will  probably  evince  on  how  frail  and 
tottering  a  basis  the  military  tyrannies  of 
Europe  stand. 

The  pretended  seduction  of  the  troops  by 
the  promise  of  increased  pay,  is  in  every 
view  contradicted  by  facts.  This  increase 
of  pay  did  not  originate  in  the  Assembly ;  it 
was  not  even  any  part  of  their  policy  :  it  was 
prescribed  to  them  by  the  instructions  of 
their  constituents,  before  the  meeting  of  the 
Slates.*  It  could  not  therefore  be  the  pro 
ject  of  any  cabal  of  demagogues  to  seduce 
the  army :  it  was  the  decisive  and  unani 
mous  voice  of  the  nation ;  and  if  there  was 
any  conspiracy,  it  must  have  been  that  of 
the  people.  What  had  demagogues  to  offer  1 
The  soldiery  knew  that  the  States  must,  in 
obedience  to  their  instructions,  increase  their 
pay.  This  increase  could,  therefore,  have 
been  no  temptation  to  them;  for  of  it  they 
felt  themselves  already  secure,  as  the  na 
tional  voice  had  prescribed  it.  It  was  in 
fact  a  necessary  part  of  the  system  which 
was  to  raise  the  army  to  a  body  of  respect 
able  citizens,  from  a  gang  of  mendicant  ruf 
fians.  An  increase  of  pay  must  infallibly 
operate  to  limit  the  increase  of  armies  in  the 
North.  This  influence  has  been  already  felt 
in  the  Netherlands,  which  fortune  seems  to 
have  restored  to  Leopold,  that  they  might 
furnish  a  school  of  revolt  to  German  soldiers. 
The  Austrian  troops  have  there  murmured 
at  their  comparative  indigence,  and  have 
supported  their  plea  for  increase  of  pay  by 
the  example  of  France.  The  same  example 
must  operate  on  the  other  armies  of  Europe  : 
and  the  solicitations  of  armed  petitioners 
must  be  heard.  The  indigent  despots  of 
Germany  and  the  North  will  feel  a  limit  to 
their  military  rage,  in  the  scantiness  of  their 
exchequer.  They  will  be  compelled  to  re 
duce  the  number,  and  increase  the  pay  of 
their  armies :  and  a  new  barrier  will  be  op 
posed  to  the  progress  of  that  depopulation 
and  barbarism,  which  philosophers  have 
dreaded  from  the  rapid  increase  of  military 
force.  These  remarks  on  the  spirit  which 
actuated  the  French  army  in  their  unexam 
pled,  misconceived,  and  calumniated  con 
duct,  are  peculiarly  important,  as  they  serve 
to  illustrate  a  principle,  which  cannot  too 
frequently  be  presented  to  view, —  that  in. 
the  French  Revolution  all  is  to  be  attributed 
to  general  causes  influencing  the  whole  body 
of  the  people,  and  almost  nothing  to  the 
schemes  and  the  ascendant  of  individuals. 

But  to  return  to  our  rapid  sketch  : — it  was 
at  the  moment  of  the  Parisian  revolt,  and  of 
the  defection  of  the  army,  that  the  whole 
power  of  France  devolved  on  the  National 
Assembly.  It  is  at  that  moment,  therefore, 
that  the  discussion  commences,  whether  that 


Calonne,  p.  3M) 
2K2 


414 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


body  ought  to  have  re-established  and  re 
formed  the  government  which  events  had 
subverted,  or  to  have  proceeded  to  the  esta 
blishment  of  a  new  constitution,  on  the  gene 
ral  principles  of  reason  and  freedom.  The 
arm  of  the  ancient  Government  had  been 
palsied,  and  its  powei  reduced  to  a  mere 
formality,  by  events  over  which  the  As 
sembly  possessed  no  control.  It  was  theirs 
to  decide,  not  whether  the  monarchy  was 
to  be  subverted,  for  that  had  been  already 
effected,  but  whether,  from  its  rains,  frag 
ments  \vere  to  be  collected  for  the  recon 
struction  of  the  political  edifice.  They  had 
been  assembled  as  an  ordinary  Legisla 
ture  under  existing  laws :  they  were  trans 
formed  by  these  events  into  a  National  Con 
vention,  and  vested  with  powers  to  organize 
a  government.  It  is  in  vain  that  their  adver 
saries  contest  this  assertion,  by  appealing  to 
the  deficiency  of  forms  j*  it  is  in  vain  to  de 
mand  the  legal  instrument  that  changed  their 
constitution,  and  extended  their  powers. 
Accurate  forms  in  the  conveyance  of  power 
are  prescribed  by  the  wisdom  of  law,  in  the 
regular  administration  of  states:  but  great 
revolutions  are  too  immense  for  technical 
formality.  All  the  sanction  that  can  be 
hoped  for  in  such  events,  is  the  voice  of  the 
people,  however  informally  and  irregularly 
expressed.  This  cannot  be  pretended  to 
have  been  wanting  in  France.  Every  other 
species  of  authority  was  annihilated  by  popu 
lar  acts,  but  that  of  the  States-General.  On 
them,  therefore,  devolved  the  duty  of  exer 
cising  their  unlimited  trust,t  according  to 
their  best  views  of  general  interest.  Their 
enemies  have,  even  in  their  invectives,  cori- 

*"This  circumstance  is  thus  shortly  stated  by 
Mr.  Burke,  (p.  242): — I  can  never  consider  this 
Assembly  as  anything  else  than  a  voluntary  asso 
ciation  of  men,  who  have  availed  themselves  of 
circumstances  to  seize  upon  the  power  of  the  State. 
They  do  not  hold  the  authority  they  exercise  under 
any  constitutional  law  of  the  State.  They  have 
departed  from  the  instructions  of  the  people  that 
sent  them."  The  same  argument  is  treated  by  M. 
de  Calonne,  in  an  expanded  memorial  of  forty- 
four  pages,  (314 — 358),  against  the  pretensions  of 
the  Assembly  to  be  a  Convention,  with  much 
unavailing  ingenuity  and  labour. 

t  A  distinction  made  by  Mr.  Burke  between  the 
abstract  and  moral  competency  of  a  Legislature 
(p.  27),  has  been  much  extolled  by  his  admirers. 
To  me  it  seems  only  a  novel  and  objectionable 
mode  of  distinguishing  between  a  right  and  the  ex 
pediency  of  using  it.  But  the  rnpde  of  illustrating 
the  distinction  is  far  more  pernicious  than  a  mere 
novelty  of  phrase.  This  moral  competence  is  sub 
ject,  says  our  author,  to  "  faith,  justice,  and  fixed 
fundamental  policy  :"  thus  illustrated,  the  distinc 
tion  appears  liable  to  a  double  objection.  Ir  is  false 
that  the  abstract  competence  of  a  Legislature  ex 
tends  to  the  violation  of  faith  and  justice  :  it  is  false 
that  its  moral  competence  does  not  extend  to  the 
most  fundamental  policy.  Thus  to  confound  fun 
damental  policy  with  faith  and  justice,  for  the  sake 
of  stigmatizing  innovators,  is  to  stab  the  vitals  of 
morality.  There  is  only  one  maxim  of  policy 
truly  fundamental — the  good  of  the  governed  ; 
and  the  stability  of  that  maxim,  rightly  understood, 
demonstrates  the  mutability  of  all  policy  that  is 
subordinate  to  it. 


fessed  the  subsequent  adherence  of  the  people, 
for  they  have  inveighed  against  it  as  the  in 
fatuation  of  a  dire  fanaticism.  The  authority 
of  the  Assembly  was  then  first  conferred  on 
it  by  public  confidence ;  and  its  acts  have 
been  since  ratified  by  public  approbation. 
Nothing  can  betray  a  disposition  to  indulge 
in  puny  and  technical  sophistry  more  strongly, 
than  to  observe  with  M.  de  Calonne,  "  that 
this  ratification,  to  be  valid,  ought  to  have 
been  made  by  France,  not  in  her  new  or 
ganization  of  municipalities,  but  in  her  ancient 
division  of  bailliages  and  provinces."  The 
same  individuals  act  in  both  forms;  the  ap 
probation  of  the  men  legitimatizes  the  govern 
ment  :  it  is  of  no  importance,  whether  they 
are  assembled  in  bailliages  or  in  municipali 
ties. 

If  this  latitude  of  informality,  this  subjec 
tion  of  laws  to  their  principle,  and  of  govern 
ment  to  its  source,  are  not  permitted  in 
revolutions,  how  are  we  to  justify  the  assumed 
authority  of  the  English  Convention  of  1688? 
"  They  did  not  hold  the  authority  they  exer 
cised  under  any  constitutional  law  of  the 
State."  They  were  not  even  legally  elected, 
as,  it  must  be  confessed,  was  the  case  with 
the  French  Assembly.  An  evident,  though 
irregular,  ratification  by  the  people,  alone 
legitimatized  their  acts.  Yet  they  possessed, 
by  the  confession  of  Mr.  Burke,  an  authority 
only  limited  by  prudence  and  virtue.  Had 
the  people  of  England  given  instructions  to 
the  members  of  that  Convention,  its  ultimate 
measures  would  probably  have  departed  as 
much  from  those  instructions  as  the  French 
Assembly  have  deviated  from  those  of  their 
constituents;  and  the  public  acquiescence  in 
the  deviation  would,  in  all  likelihood,  have 
been  the  same.  It  wTill  be  confessed  by  any 
man  who  has  considered  the  public  temper 
of  England  at  the  landing  of  William,  that 
the  majority  of  those  instructions  would  not 
have  proceeded  to  the  deposition  of  James. 
The  first  aspect  of  these  great  changes  per 
plexes  and  intimidates  men  too  much  for  just 
views  and  bold  resolutions:  it  is  by  the  pro 
gress  of  events  that  their  hopes  are  embold 
ened,  and  their  views  enlarged.  This  influ 
ence  was  felt  in  France.  The  people,  in  an 
advanced  period  of  the  Revolution,  virtually 
recalled  the  instructions  by  which  the  feeble 
ness  of  their  political  infancy  had  limited  the 
power  of  their  representatives :  for  they  sanc 
tioned  acts  by  wliich  those  instructions  were 
contradicted.  The  formality  of  instructions 
was  indeed  wanting  in  England  :  but  the 
change  of  public  sentiment,  from  the  opening 
of  the  Convention  to  its  ultimate  decision, 
was  as  remarkable  as  the  contrast  which  has 
been  so  ostentatiously  displayed  by  M.  de 
Calonne.  between  the  decrees  of  the  National 
Assembly  and  the  first  instructions  of  their 
constituents. 

We  now  resume  the  consideration  of  this 
exercise  of  authority  by  the  Assembly,  and 
proceed  to  inquire,  whether  they  ought  to 
have  reformed,  or  destroj-ed  their  govern 
ment  ?  The  general  question  of  innovation 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


415 


is  an  exhausted  common-place,  to  which  the 
genius  of  Mr.  Burke. has  been  able  to  add 
nothing  but  splendour  of  eloquence  and  feli 
city  of  illustration.  It  has  long  been  so 
notoriously  of  this  nature,  that  it  is  placed 
by  Lord  Bacon  among  the  sportive  contests 
which  are  to  exercise  rhetorical  skill.  No 
man  will  support  the  extreme  on  either  side : 
perpetual  change  and  immutable  establish 
ment  are  equally  indefensible.  To  descend 
therefore  from  these  barren  generalities  to  a 
nearer  view  of  the  question,  let  us  state  it 
more  precisely : — Was  the  civil  order  in 
France  corrigible,  or  was  it  necessary  to  de 
stroy  it  ?  Not  to  mention  the  extirpation  of 
the  feudal  system,  and  the  abrogation  of  the 
civil  and  criminal  code,  we  have  first  to  con 
sider  the  destruction  of  the  three  great  cor 
porations,  of  the  Nobility,  the  Church,  and 
the  Parliaments.  These  three  Aristocracies 
were  the  pillars  which  in  fact  formed  the 
government  of  France.  The  question  then 
of  forming  or  destroying  these  bodies  was 
fundamental. 

There  is  one  general  principle  applicable 
to  them  all  adopted  by  the  French  legislators, 
— that  the  existence  of  Orders  is  repugnant 
to  the  principles  of  the  social  union.  An 
Order  is  a  legal  rank,  a  body  of  men  com 
bined  and  endowed  with  privileges  by  lawr. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  inequality:  the  one 
personal,  that  of  talent  and  virtue,* the  source 
of  whatever  is  excellent  and  admirable  in 
society;  the  other,  that  of  fortune,  which 
must  exist,  because  property  alone  can 
stimulate  to  labour,  and  labour,  if  it  were 
not  necessary  to  the  existence,  would  be  in 
dispensable  to  the  happiness  of  man.  But 
though  it  be  necessary,  yet  in  its  excess  it  is 
the  great  malady  of  civil  society.  The  ac 
cumulation  of  that  power  which  is  conferred 
by  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  is  the 
perpetual  source  of  oppression  and  neglect  to 
the  mass  of  mankind.  The  power  of  the 
wealthy  is  farther  concentrated  by  their  ten 
dency  to  combination,  from  which,  number, 
dispersion,  indigence,  and  ignorance  equally 
preclude  the  poor.  The  wealthy  are  formed 
into  bodies  by  their  professions,  their  differ 
ent  degrees  of  opulence  (called ''ranks"),  their 
knowledge,  and  their  small  number.  They 
necessarily  in  all  countries  administer  govern 
ment,  for  they  alone  have  skill  and  leisure 
for  its  functions.  Thus  circumstanced,  no 
thing  can  be  more  evident  than  their  inevita 
ble  preponderance  in  the  political  scale.  The 
preference  of  partial  to  general  interests  is. 
however,  the  greatest  of  all  public  evils.  It 
should  therefore  have  been  the  object  of  all 
laws  to  repress  this  malady;  but  it  has  been 
their  perpetual  tendency  to  aggravate  it. 
Not  content  with  the  inevitable  inequality 
uf  fortune,  they  have  superadded  to  it  hono 
rary  and  political  distinctions.  Not  content 
with  the  inevitable  tendency  of  the  wealthy 
to  combine,  they  have  embodied  them  in 
classes.  They  have  fortified  those  conspira 
cies  against  the  general  interest,  which  they 
ought  to  have  resisted,  though  they  could 


riot  disarm.  Laws,  it  is  said,  cannot  equalize 
men ; — No  :  but  ought  they  for  that  reason 
to  aggravate  the  inequality  which  they  can 
not  cure'?  Laws  cannot  inspire  unmixed 
patriotism :  but  ought  they  for  that  reason  to 
foment  that  corporation  spirit  which  is  its 
most  fatal  enemy?  "All  professional  com 
binations,"  said  Mr.  Burke,  in  one  of  his  late 
speeches  in  Parliament,  "are  dangerous  in  a 
free  state."  Arguing  on  the  same  principle, 
the  National  Assembly  has  proceeded  fur 
ther.  They  have  conceived  that  the  laws 
ought  to  create  no  inequality  of  combination, 
to  recognise  all  only  in  their  capacity  of  citi 
zens,  and  to  offer  no  assistance  to  the  natural 
preponderance  of  partial  over  general  interest. 

But,  besides  the  general  source  of  hostility 
to  Orders,  the  particular  circumstances  of 
France  presented  other  objections,  which  it 
is  necessary  to  consider  more  in  detail. 

It  is  in  the  first  place  to  be  remarked,  that 
all  the  bodies  and  institutions  of  the  king 
dom  participated  in  the  spirit  of  the  ancient 
government,  and  in  that  view  were  incapable 
of  alliance  with  a  free  constitution.  They 
w^ere  tainted  by  the  despotism  of  which  they 
had  been  either  members  or  instruments. 
Absolute  monarchies,  like  every  other  con 
sistent  and  permanent  government,  assimi 
late  every  thing  with  which  they  are  con 
nected  to  their  own  genius.  The  Nobility, 
the  Priesthood,  the  Judicial  Aristocracy,  were 
unfit  to  be  members  of  a  free  government, 
because  their  corporate  character  had  been 
formed  under  arbitrary  establishments.  To 
have  preserved  these  great  corporations, 
would  be  to  have  retained  the  seeds  of  re 
viving  despotism  in  the  bosom  of  freedom. 
This  "remark  may  merit  the  attention  of  Mr. 
Burke,  as  illustrating  an  important  difference 
between  the  French  and  English  Revolu 
tions.  The  Clergy,  the  Peerage,  and  Judi 
cature  of  England  had  imbibed  in  some  de 
gree  the  sentiments  inspired  by  a  government 
in  which  freedom  had  been  eclipsed,  but  not 
extinguished.  They  were  therefore  qualified 
to  partake  of  a  more  stable  and  improved 
liberty.  But  the  case  of  France  was  differ 
ent.  These  bodies  had  there  imbibed  every 
sentiment,  and  adopted  every  habit  under 
arbitrary  power.  Their  preservation  in  Eng 
land,  and  their  destruction  in  France,  may 
in  this  view  be  justified  on  similar  grounds. 
It  is  absurd  to  regard  the  Orders  as  remnants 
of  that  free  constitution  which  France,  in 
common  with  the  other  Gothic  nations'  of 
Europe,  once  enjoyed.  Nothing  remained 
of  these  ancient  Orders  but  the  name.  The 
Nobility  were  no  longer  those  haughty  and 
powerful  Barons,  who  enslaved  the  people, 
and  dictated  to  the  King.  The  Ecclesias 
tics  were  no  longer  that  Priesthood  beforo 
whom,  in  a  benighted  and  superstitious  age, 
all  civil  power  was  impotent  and  mute. 
They  had  both  dwindled  into  dependents 
on  the  Crown.  Still  less  do  the  opulent  and 
enlightened  Commons  of  France  resemble 
its  servile  and  beggared  populace  in  the  six 
teenth  centmy.  Two  hundred  years  of  uu- 


416 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


interrupted  exercise  had  legitimatized  abso 
lute  authority  as  much  as  prescription  can 
consecrate  usurpation.  The  ancient  French 
Constitution  was  therefore  no  farther  a  mo 
del  than  that  of  any  foreign  nation  which 
was  to  be  judged  of  alone  by  its  utility,  and 
possessed  in  no  respect  the  authority  of  esta 
blishment.  It  had  been  succeeded  by  an 
other  government ;  and  if  France  was  to  re 
cur  to  a  period  antecedent  to  her  servitude 
for  legislative  models,  she  might  as  well 
ascend  to  the  aera  of  Clovis  or  Charlemagne, 
as  be  regulated  by  the  precedents  of  Henry 
III.  or  Mary  of  Medicis.  All  these  forms  of 
government  existed  only  historically. 

These  observations  include  all  the  Orders. 
Let  us  consider  each  of  them  successively. 
The  devotion  of  the  Nobility  of  France  to 
the  Monarch  was  inspired  equally  by  their 
sentiments,  their  interests,  and  their  habits. 
li  The  feudal  and  chivalrous  spirit  of  fealty," 
so  long  the  prevailing  passion  of  Europe,  was 
still  nourished  in  their  bosoms  by  the  mili 
tary  sentiments  from  which  it  first  arose. 
The  majority  of  them  had  still  no  profession 
but  war, — no  hope  but  in  Royal  favour.  The 
youthful  and  indigent  filled  the  camps  ;  the 
more  opulent  and  mature  partook  the  splen 
dour  and  bounty  of  the  Court :  but  they  were 
equally  dependents  on  the  Crown.  To  the 
plenitude  of  the  Royal  power  were  attached 
those  immense  and  magnificent  privileges, 
which  divided  France  into  distinct  nations; 
which  exhibited  a  Nobility  monopolizing  the 
rewards  and  offices  of  the  State,  arid  a  peo 
ple  degraded  to  political  helotism.*  Men 
do  not  cordially  resign  such  privileges,  nor 
quickly  dismiss  the  sentiments  which  they 
have  inspired.  The  ostentatious  sacrifice  of 
pecuniary  exemptions  in  a  moment  of  gene 
ral  fermentation  is  a  wretched  criterion  of 
their  genuine  feelings.  They  affected  to  be 
stow  as  a  gift,  what  they  would  have  been 
speedily  compelled  to  abandon  as  an  usurpa 
tion  ;  and  they  hoped  by  the  sacrifice  of  a 
part  to  purchase  security  for  the  rest.  They 
have  been  most  justly  stated  to  be  a  band  of 
political  Janissaries;t — far  more  valuable  to 
a  Sultan  than  mercenaries,  because  attached 
to  him  by  unchangeable  interest  and  indeli 
ble  sentiment.  Whether  any  reform  could 
have  extracted  from  this  bocly  an  element 
which  might  have  entered  into  the  new  Con 
stitution  is  a  question  which  we  shall  consi 
der  when  that  political  system  comes  under 
our  review.  Their  existence,  as  a  member 
of  the  Legislature,  is  a  question  distinct  from 
their  preservation  as  a  separate  Order,  or 
great  corporation,  in  the  State.  A  senate  of 
Nobles  might  have  been  established,  though 
the  Order  of  the  Nobility  had  been  destroyed ; 
and  England  would  then  have  been  exactly 
copied.  But  it  is  of  the  Order  that  we  now 
speak;  for  we  are  now  considering  the  de- 

*  I  say  political  in  contradistinction  to  civil,  for 
in  the  latter  sense  the  assertion  would  have  been 
untrue. 

r  See  Mr.  Rons'  excellent  Thoughts  on  Go 
vernment. 


struction  of  the  old,  not  the  formation  of  the 
new  government.  The  suppression  of  the 
Nobility  has  been  in  England  most  absurdly 
confounded  with  the  prohibition  of  titles. 
The  union  of  the  Orders  in  one  Assembly 
was  the  first  step  towards  the  destruction  of 
a  legislative  Nobility:  the  abolition  of  their 
feudal  rights,  in  the  memorable  session  of 
the  4th  of  August,  1789,  may  be  regarded  as 
the  second.  They  retained  after  these  mea 
sures  no  distinction  but  what  was  purely 
nominal ;  and  it  remained  to  be  determined 
what  place  they  were  to  occupy  in  the  new 
Constitution.  That  question  was  decided  by 
the  decree  of  the  22d  of  December,  in  the 
same  year,  which  enacted,  that  the  Electoral 
Assemblies  were  to  be  composed  without 
any  regard  to  rank  j  and  that  citizens  of  all 
Orders  were  to  vote  in  them  indiscriminately. 
The  distinction  of  Orders  was  thus  destroyed : 
the  Nobility  were  to  form  no  part  of  the  new 
Constitution,  and  were  stripped  of  all  that 
they  had  enjoyed  under  the  old  government, 
but  their  titles. 

Hitherto  all  had  passed  unnoticed,  but  no- 
sooner  did  the  Assembly,  faithful  to  their 
principles,  proceed  to  extirpate  the  external 
signs  of  the  ranks,  which  they  no  longer 
tolerated,  than  all  Europe  resounded  with 
clamours  against  their  Utopian  and  levelling 
madness.  The  "  incredible''*  decree  of  the 
19th  of  June,  1790,  for  the  suppression  of 
titles,  is  the  object  of  all  these  invectives ;  yet 
without  that  measure  the  Assembly  would 
certainly  have  been  guilty  of  the  grossest  in 
consistency  and  absurdity.  An  untitled  No 
bility  forming  a  member  of  the  State,  had 
been  exemplified  in  some  commonwealths 
of  antiquity; — such  were  the  Patricians  in 
Rome:  but  a  titled  Nobility,  without  legal 
privileges,  or  political  existence,  would  have 
been  a  monster  new  in  the  annals  of  legisla 
tive  absurdity.  The  power  was  possessed 
without  the  bauble  by  the  Roman  aristo 
cracy  :  the  bauble  would  have  been  reve 
renced,  while  the  power  was  trampled  onr 
if  titles  had  been  spared  in  France.  A  titled 
Nobility  is  the  most  undisputed  progeny  of 
feudal  barbarism.  Titles  had  in  all  nations 
denoted  offices:  it  was  reserved  for  Gothic 
Europe  to  attach  them  to  ranks.  Yet  this 
conduct  of  our  remote  ancestors  admits  ex 
planation  ;  for  with  them  offices  were  here 
ditary,  and  hence  the  titles  denoting  them 
became  hereditary  too.  But  we,  who  have 
rejected  hereditary  office,  retain  an  usage  to 
which  it  gave  rise,  and  which  it  alone  could 
justify.  So  egregiously  is  this  recent  origin 
of  a  titled  Nobility  misconceived,  that  it  has 
been  even  pretended  to  be  necessary  to  the 
order  and  existence  of  society ; — a  narrow 
and  arrogant  mistake,  which  would  limit  all 
political  remark  to  the  Gothic  states  of  Eu 
rope,  or  establish  general  principles  on  events 
that  occupy  so  short  a  period  of  history,  and 
manners  that  have  been  adopted  by  so  slen 
der  a  portion  of  the  human  race.  A  titled 


*  So  called  by  M.  de  Calonne. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


417 


Nobility  was  equally  unknown  to  the  splen 
did  monarchies  of  Asia,  and  to  the  manly 
simplicity  of  the  ancient  commonwealths.* 
It  arose  from  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
modern  Europe ;  and  yet  its  necessity  is  now 
erected  on  the  basis  of  universal  experience, 
as  if  these  other  renowned  arid  polished 
states  were  effaced  from  the  records  of  his 
tory,  and  banished  from  the  society  of  na 
tions.  "Nobility  is  the  Corinthian  capital 
of  polished  states:" — the  august  fabric  of 
society  is  deformed  and  encumbered  by 
such  Gothic  ornaments.  The  massy  Doric 
that  sustains  it  is  Labour;  and  the  splendid 
variety  of  arts  and  talents  that  solace  and 
embellish  life,  form  the  decorations  of  its 
Corinthian  and  Ionic  capitals. 

Other  motives  besides  the  extirpation  of 
feudality,  disposed  the  French  Legislature 
to  the  suppression  of  titles.  To  give  sta 
bility  to  a  popular  government,  a  democratic 
character  must  be  formed,  and  democratic 
sentiments  inspired.  The  sentiment  of 
equality  which  titular  distinctions  have, 
perhaps,  more  than  any  other  cause,  extin 
guished  in  Europe,  and  without  which 
democratic  forms  are  impotent  and  short 
lived,  was  to  be  revived ;  and  a  free  govern 
ment  was  to  be  established,  by  carrying  the 
spirit  of  equality  and  freedom  into  the  feel 
ings,  the  manners,  and  the  most  familiar 
intercourse  of  men.  The  badges  of  ine 
quality,  which  were  perpetually  inspiring 
sentiments  adverse  to  the  spirit  of  the  go 
vernment,  were  therefore  destroyed,  as  dis 
tinctions  which  only  served  to  unfit  the 
Nobility  for  obedience,  and  the  people  for 
freedom, — to  keep  alive  the  discontent  of 
the  one,  and  to  perpetuate  the  servility  of 
the  other, — to  deprive  the  one  of  the  mode 
ration  that  sinks  them  into  citizens,  and  to 
rob  the  other  of  the  spirit  that  exalts  them 
into  free  men.  A  single  example  can  alone 
dispel  inveterate  prejudices.  Thus  thought 
our  ancestors  at  the  Revolution,  when  they 
deviated  from  the  succession,  to  destroy  the 
prejudice  of  its  sanctity.  Thus  also  did  the 
legislators  of  France  feel,  when,  by  the  abo 
lition  of  titles,  they  gave  a  mortal  blow  to 
the  slavish  prejudices  which  unfitted  their 
country  for  freedom.  It  was  a  practical  as 
sertion  of  that  equality  which  had  been 
consecrated  in  the  Declaration  of  Rights, 
but  which  no  abstract  assertion  could  have 
conveyed  into  the  spirits  and  the  hearts  of 
men.  It  proceeded  on  the  principle  that 
the  security  of  a  revolution  of  government 
can  only  arise  from  a  revolution  of  character. 

*  Aristocratic  bodies  did  indeed  exist  in  the  an 
cient  world,  but  titles  were  unknown.  Though 
they  possessed  political  privileges,  yet  as  these 
did  not  affect  the  manners,  they  had  not  the  same 
inevitable  tendency  to  taint  the  public  character 
as  titular  distinctions.  These  bodies  too  being  in 
general  open  to  property,  or  office,  they  are  in  no 
respect  to  be  compared  to  the  Nobles  of  Europe. 
They  might  affect  the/bras  of  a  free  government 
as  much,  but  they  did  not  in  the  same  proportion 
injure  the  spirit  of  freedom. 
53 


To  these  reasonings  it  has  been  opposed, 
that  hereditary  distinctions  are  the  moral 
treasure  of  a  state,  by  which  ij;  excites  and 
rewards  public  virtue  and  public  service,  and 
which,  without  national  injury  or  burden, 
operates  with  resistless  force  on  generous 
minds.  To  this  I  answer,  that  of  personal 
distinctions  this  description  is  most  true; 
but  that  this  moral  treasury  of  honour  is  in 
fact  impoverished  by  the  improvident  profu 
sion  that  has  made  them  hereditary.  The 
possession  of  honours  by  that  multitude, 
who  have  inherited  but  not  acquired  them, 
engrosses  and  depreciates  these  incentives 
and  rewards  of  virtue.  Were  they  purely 
personal,  their  value  would  be  doubly  en 
hanced,  as  the  possessors  would  be  fewer 
while  the  distinction  was  more  honourable. 
Personal  distinctions  then  every  wise  state 
will  cherish  as  its  surest  and  noblest  re 
source  ;  but  of  hereditary  title, — at  least  in 
the  circumstances  of  France,* — the  abolition 
seems  to  have  been  just  and  politic. 

The  fate  of  the  Church,  the  second  great 
corporation  that  sustained  the  French  despo 
tism,  has  peculiarly  provoked  the  indigna 
tion  of  Mr.  Burke.  The  dissolution  of  the 
Church  as  a  body,  the  resumption  of  its 
territorial  revenues,  and  the  new  organiza 
tion  of  the  priesthood,  appear  to  him  to  be 
dictated  by  the  union  of  robbery  and  irre- 
ligion,  to  glut  the  rapacity  of  stockjobbers, 
and  to  gratify  the  hostility  of  atheists.  All 
the  outrages  and  proscriptions  of  ancient  or 
modern  tyrants  vanish,  in  his  opinion,  in 
comparison  with  this  confiscation  of  the  pro 
perty  of  the  Gallican  Church.  Principles 
had,  it  is  true,  been  on  this  subject  explored, 
and  reasons  had  been  urged  by  men  of  ge 
nius,  which  vulgar  men  deemed  irresistible. 
But  with  these  reasons  Mr.  Burke  will  not 
deign  to  combat.  "You  do  not  imagine, 
Sir,"  says  he  to  his  correspondent,  "  that  I 
am  going  to  compliment  this  miserable  de 
scription  of  persons  with  any  long  discus 
sion  ?"f  What  immediately  follows  this 
contemptuous  passage  is  so  outrageously  of 
fensive  to  candour  and  urbanity,  that  an 


*  I  have  been  grossly  misunderstood  by  those 
who  have  supposed  this  qualification  an  assumed 
or  affected  reserve.  I  believe  the  principle  only 
as  qualified  by  the  circumstances  of  different  na 
tions. 

t  The  Abbe  Maury,  who  is  not  less  remark 
able  for  the  fury  of  eloquent  declamation,  than 
for  the  inept  parade  of  historical  erudition,  at 
tempted  in  the  debate  on  this  subject  to  trace  the 
opinion  higher.  Base  lawyers,  according  to  him. 
had  insinuated  it  to  the  Roman  Emperors,  and 
against  it  was  pointed  the  maxim  of  the  civil 
law,  "  Omnia  tenes  Caesar  imperio,  sed  non 
dominio."  Louis  XIV.  and  Louis  XV.  had,  if 
we  may  believe  him,  both  been  assailed  by  this 
Machiavelian  doctrine,  and  both  had  repulsed  it 
with ^  magnanimous  indignation.  The  learned 
Abbe  committed  only  one  mistake.  The  despots 
of  Rome  and  France  had  indeed  been  poisoned 
with  the  idea  that  they  were  the  immediate  pro 
prietors  of  their  subjects'  estates.  That  opinion 
is  execrable  and  flagitious ;  but  it  is  not,  as  we 
shall  see,  the  doctrine  of  the  French  legislator, 


418 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


honourable  adversary  will  disdain  to  avail 
himself  of  it.  The  passage  itself,  however, 
demands  a  pause.  It  alludes  to  an  opinion, 
of  which  I  trust  Mr.  Burke  did  not  know  the 
origin.  That  the  Church  lands  were  national 
property  was  not  first  asserted  among  the 
Jacobins,  or  in  the  Palais  Royal.  The  au 
thor  of  that  opinion, — the  master  of  that 
wretched  description  of  persons,  whom  Mr. 
Burke  disdains  to  encounter,  was  one  whom 
he  might  have  combated  with  glory, — with 
confidence  of  triumph  in  victory,  and  with 
out  fear  or  shame  in  defeat  The  author  of 
that  opinion  was  Turgot !  a  name  now  too 
high  to  be  exalted  by  eulogy,  or  depressed 
by  invective.  That  benevolent  and  philo 
sophic  statesman  delivered  it,  in  the  article 
"Foundation"  of  the  Encyclopedic,  as  the 
calm  and  disinterested  opinion  of  a  scholar, 
at  a  moment  when  he  could  have  no  object 
in  palliating  rapacity,  or  prompting  irreligion. 
It  was  no  doctrine  contrived  for  the  occasion 
by  the  agents  of  tyranny  :  it  was  a  principle 
discovered  in  pure  and  harmless  specula 
tion,  by  one  of  the  best  arid  wisest  of  men. 
I  adduce  the  authority  of  Turgot,  not  to  op 
pose  the  arguments  (if  there  had  been  any), 
but  to  counteract  the  insinuations  of  Mr. 
Burke.  The  authority  of  his  assertions 
forms  a  prejudice,  which  is  thus  to  be  re 
moved  before  we  can  hope  for  a  fair  audi 
ence  at  the  bar  of  Reason.  If  he  insinuates 
the  flagitiousness  of  these  opinions  by  the 
supposed  vileness  of  their  origin,  it  cannot 
be  unfit  to  pave  the  way  for  their  reception, 
by  assigning  to  them  a  more  illustrious 
pedigree. 

But  dismissing  the  genealogy  of  doctrines, 
let  us.  examine  their  intrinsic  value,  and 
listen  to  no  voice  but  that  of  truth.  "  Are 
the  lands  occupied  by  the  Church  the  pro 
perty  of  its  members?"  Various  considera 
tions  present  themselves,  which  may  eluci 
date  the  subject. 

It  has  not  hitherto  been  supposed  that  any 
class  of  public  servants  are  proprietors. — 
They  are  salaried*  by  the  State  for  the  per 
formance  of  certain  duties.  Judges  are  paid 
for  the  distribution  of  justice ;  kings  for  the 
execution  of  the  laws;  soldiers,  where  there 
is  a  mercenary  army,  for  public  defence ; 
and  priests,  where  there  is  an  established 
religion,  for  public  instruction.  The  mode 
-of  their  payment  is  indifferent  to  the  ques 
tion.  It  is  generally  in  rude  ages  by  land, 
and  in  cultivated  periods  by  money.  But  a 
territorial  pension  is  no  more  property  than 
a  pecuniary  one.  The  right  of  the  State  to 
regulate  the  salaries  of  those  servants  whom 
it  pays  in  money  has  not  been  disputed  : 
and  if  it  has  chosen  to  provide  the  revenue 
of  a  certain  portion  of  land  for  the  salary  of 
another  class  of  servants,  wherefore  is  its 
right  more  disputable,  to  resume  that  land, 
and  to  establish  a  new  mode  of  payment  ? 


*  "Us  sont  ou  salaries,  ou  meridians,  ou  vo- 
leurs,"-— was  the  expression  of  M.  Mirabeau  re 
specting  the  priesthood. 


in  the  early  history. of  Europe,  before  fiefs 
became  hereditary,  great  landed  estates 
were  bestowed  by  the  sovereign,  on  condi 
tion  of  military  service.  By  a  similar  te 
nure  did  the  Church  hold  its  lands.  No 
man  can  prove,  that  because  the  State  has 
intrusted  its  ecclesiastical  servants  with  a 
portion  of  land,  as  the  source  and  security 
of  their  pensions,  they  are  in  any  respect 
more  the  proprietors  of  it,  than  the  other 
servants  of  the  State  are  of  that  portion  of 
the  revenue  from  which  they  are  paid. 

The  lands  of  the  Church  possess  not  the 
most  simple  and  indispensable  requisites  of 
property.  They  are  not  even  pretended  to 
be  held  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  enjoy 
them.  This  is  the  obvious  criterion  between 
private  property  and  a  pension  for  public 
service.  The  destination  of  the  first  is  avow 
edly  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  the  indi 
vidual  who  enjoys  it :  as  he  is  conceived  to 
be  the  sole  judge  of  this  happiness,  he  pos 
sesses  the  most  unlimited  rights  of  enjoy 
ment,  of  alienation,  and  even  of  abuse.  But 
the  lands  of  the  Church,  destined  for  the 
support  of  public  servants,  exhibited  none 
of  these  characters  of  property.  They  were 
inalienable,  because  it  would  have  been  not 
less  absurd  for  the  priesthood  to  have  ex 
ercised  such  authority  over  these  lands,  than 
it  would  be  for  seamen  to  claim  the  property 
of  a  fleet  which  they  manned,  or  soldiers  that 
of  a  fortress  they  garrisoned. 

It  is  confessed  that  no  individual  priest 
was  a  proprietor,  and  that  the  utmost  claim 
of  any  one  was  limited  to  a  possession  for 
life  of  his  stipend.  If  all  the  priests,  taken 
individually,  were  not  proprietors,  the  priest 
hood,  as  a  body,  cannot  claim  any  such  right. 
For  what  is  a  body,  but  an  aggregate  of  indi 
viduals?  and  what  new  right  can  be  con 
veyed  by  a  mere  change  of  name  ?  Nothing 
can  so  forcibly  illustrate  this  argument  as 
the  case  of  other  corporations.  They  are 
voluntary  associations  of  men  for  their  own 
benefit.  Every  member  of  them  is  an  abso 
lute  sharer  in  their  property :  it  is  therefore 
alienated  arid  inherited.  Corporate  property 
is  here  as  sacred  as  individual,  because  in 
the  ultimate  analysis  it  is  the  same.  But 
the  priesthood  is  a  corporation,  endowed  by 
the  country,  and  destined  for  the  benefit  of 
others:  hence  the  members  have  no  sepa 
rate,  nor  the  body  any  collective,  right  of 
property.  They  are  only  intrusted  with  the 
administration  of  the  lands  from  which  their 
salaries  are  paid.* 

It  is  from  this  last  circumstance  that  the 
legal  semblance  of  property  arises.  In  char 
ters,  bonds,  and  all  other  proceedings  of  law, 
these  salaries  are  treated  with  the  same  for 
malities  as  real  property.  "They  are  iden 
tified,"  says  Mr.  Burke.  "  with  the  mass  of 

*  This  admits  a  familiar  illustration.  If  a  land 
holder  chooses  to  pay  his  steward  for  the  collec 
tion  of  his  rents,  by  permitting  him  to  possess  a 
farm  gratis,  is  he  conceived  to  have  resigned  his 
property  in  the  farm?  The  case  is  precisely 
similar. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


419 


private  property;"  and  it  must  be  confessed, 
that  if  we  are  to  limit  our  view  to  form,  this 
language  is  correct.  But  the  repugnance  of 
these  formalities  to  legal  truth  proceeds  from 
a  very  obvious  cause.  If  estates  are  vested 
in  the  clergy,  to  them  most  unquestionably 
ought  to  be  intrusted  the  protection  of  these 
estates  in  all  contests  at  law ;  and  actions 
for  that  purpose  can  only  be  maintained 
with  facility,  simplicity,  and  effect,  by  the 
fiction  of  their  being  proprietors.  Nor  is  this 
the  only  case  in  which  the  spirit  and  the 
fovms  of  law  are  at  variance  respecting  pro 
perty.  Scotland,  where  lands  still  are  held 
by  feudal  tenures,  will  afford  us  a  remarka 
ble  example.  There,  if  we  extend  our  views 
no  further  than  legal  forms,  the  "superior"  is 
to  be  regarded  as  the  proprietor,  while  the 
real  proprietor  appears  to  be  only  a  tenant  for 
life.  In  this  case,  the  vassal  is  formally 
stript  of  the  property  which  he  in  fact  en 
joys  :  in  the  other,  the  Church  is  formally 
invested  with  a  property,  to  which  in  reality 
it  had  no  claim.  The  argument  of  Prescrip 
tion  will  appear  to  be  altogether  untenable: 
for  prescription  implies  a  certain  period 
during  which  the  rights  of  property  have 
been  exercised ;  but  in  the  case  before  us 
they  never  were  exercised,  because  they 
never  could  be  supposed  to  exist.  It  must 
be  proved  that  these  possessions  were  of  the 
nature  of  property,  before  it  can  follow  that 
they  are  protected  by  prescription ;  and  to 
plead  the  latter  is  to  take  for  granted  the 
question  in  dispute.* 

When  the  British  Islands,  the  Dutch  Re 
public,  and  the  German  and  Scandinavian 
States,  reformed  their  ecclesiastical  esta 
blishments,  the  howl  of  sacrilege  was  the 
only  armour  by  which  the  Church  attempted 
to  protect  its  pretended  property:  the  age 

*  There  are  persons  who  may  not  relish  the 
mode  of  reasoning  here  adopted.  They  contend 
that  property,  being  the  creature  of  civil  society, 
may  be  resumed  by  that  public  will  which  created 
it ;  and  on  this  principle  they  justify  the  National 
Assembly  of  France.  But  such  a  justification  is 
adverse  to  the  principles  of  that  Assembly,  for  they 
have  consecrated  it  as  one  of  the  first  maxims  of 
their  Declaration  of  Rights,  "  that  the  State  can 
not  violate  property,  except  in  cases  of  urgent 
necessity,  and  on  condition  of  previous  indemnifi 
cation."  This  defence  too  will  not  justify  their 
selection  of  Church  property,  in  preference  of  all 
others,  for  resumption.  It  certainly  ought  in  this 
view  to  have  fallen  equally  on  all  citizens.  The 
principle  is  besides  false  in  the  extreme  to  which 
it  is  assumed.  Property  is  indeed  in  some  sense 
created  by  an  act  of  the  public  will:  but  it  is  by 
one  of  those  fundamental  acts  which  constitute 
society.  Theory  proves  it  to  be  essential  to  the 
social  state.  Experience  proves  that  it  has,  in 
some  degree,  existed  in  every  age  and  nation  of 
the  world.  But  those  public  acts  which  form  and 
endow  corporations  are  subsequent  and  subordi 
nate  ;  they  are  only  ordinary  expedients  oflegisla- 
tion.  The  property  of  individuals  is  established 
on  a  general  principle,  which  seems  coeval  with 
civil  society  itself:  but  corporate  bodies  are  instru 
ments  fabricated  by  the  legislator  for  a  specijic 
purpose,  which  ought  to  be  preserved  while  they 
are  beneficial,  amended  when  they  are  impaired, 
and  rejected  when  they  become  useless  or  injurious. 


was  too  tumultuous  and  unlettered  for  dis 
cussions  of  abstract  jurisprudence.  This 
howl  seems,  however,  to  have  fallen  into 
early  contempt.  The  Treaty  of  Westphalia 
secularised  many  of  the  most  opulent  bene 
fices  of  Germany,  under  the  mediation  and 
guarantee  of  the  first  Catholic  powers  of 
Europe.  In  our  own  island,  on  the  abolition 
of  episcopacy  in  Scotland  at  the  Revolution, 
the  revenues  of  the  Church  peaceably  de 
volved  on  the  sovereign,  and  he  devoted  a 
portion  of  them  to  the  support  of  the  new 
establishment.  When,  at  a  still  later  period, 
the  Jesuits  were  suppressed  in  most  Catholic 
monarchies,  the  wealth  of  that  formidable 
and  opulent  body  was  everywhere  seized  by 
the  sovereign.  In  all  these  memorable  ex 
amples,  no  traces  are  to  be  discovered  of 
the  pretended  property  of  the  Church.  The 
salaries  of  a  class  of  public  servants  were 
resumed  by  the  State,  when  it  ceased  to 
deem  their  service,  or  the  mode  of  it,  useful. 
That  claim,  now  so  forcibly  urged  by  M.  de 
Calonne,  was  probably  little  respected  by 
him,  when  he  lent  his  agency  to  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  Jesuits  with  such  peculiar  activity 
and  rancour.  The  sacredness  ^f  their  pro 
perty  could  not  have  strongly  impressed  one 
who  was  instrumental  in  degrading  the  mem 
bers  of  that  renowned  and  accomplished 
society,  the  glory  of  Catholic  Europe,  from 
their  superb  endowments  to  the  rank  of 
scanty  and  beggarly  pensioners.  The  reli 
gious  horror  which  the  priesthood  had  at 
tached  to  spoliation  of  Church  property  has 
long  been  dispelled;  and  it  was  reserved  for 
Mr.  Burke  to  renew  that  cry  of  sacrilege, 
which,  in  the  darkness  of  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury,  had  resounded  in  vain.  No  man  can 
be  expected  to  oppose  arguments  to  epithets. 
When  a  definition  of  sacrilege  is  given,  con 
sistent  with  good  logic  and  plain  English,  it 
will  be  time  enough  to  discuss  it.  Till  that 
definition  (with  the  Greek  Calends)  comes, 
I  should  as  soon  dispute  about  the  meaning 
of  sacrilege  as  about  that  of  heresy  or  witch 
craft. 

The  whole  subject  is  indeed  so  clear  that 
little  diversity  of  opinion  could  have  arisen, 
if  the  question  of  the  inviolability  of  Church 
property  had  not  been  confounded  with  the 
claims  of  the  present  incumbents.  The  dis 
tinction,  though  neither  stated  by  Mr.  Burke 
nor  M.  de  Calonne,  is  extremely  simple. 
The  State  is  the  proprietor  of  the  Church 
revenues;  but  its  faith,  it  may  be  said,  is 
pledged  to  those  who  have  entered  into  the 
Church,  for  the  continuance  of  the  incomes, 
for  which  they  have  abandoned  all  other 
pursuits.  The  right  of  the  State  to  arrange 
at  its  pleasure  the  revenues  of  any  futuro 
priests  may  be  confessed;  while  a  doubt 
may  be  entertained,  whether  it  is  competent 
to  change  the  fortune  of  those  to  whom  it 
has  solemnly  promised  a  certain  income  for 
life.  But  these  distinct  subjects  have  been, 
confounded,  that  sympathy  with  suffering; 
individuals  might  influence  opinion  on  a 
general  question,— that  feeling  for  the  de- 


420 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


gradation  of  its  hierarchy  might  supply  the 
place  of  argument  to  establish  the  property 
of  the  Church.  In  considering  this  subject 
distinctly,  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  the  mild 
est,  the  most  equitable,  and  the  most  usual 
expedient  of  civilized  states  in  periods  of 
emergency,  is  the  reduction  of  the  salaries 
of  their  servants,  and  the  superfluous  places. 
This  and  no  more  has  been  done  regarding 
the  Church  of  France.  Civil,  naval,  and 
military  servants  of  the  State  are  subject  to 
such  retrenchments  in  a  moment  of  diffi 
culty.  Neither  the  reform  of  a  civil  office, 
nor  the  reduction  of  a  regiment,  can  be 
effected  without  wounding  individuals.*  But 
all  men  who  enter  into  the  public  service 
must  do  so  with  the  implied  condition  of  sub 
jecting  their  emoluments,  and  even  their 
official  existence,  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
State.  The  great  grievance  of  such  de 
rangements  is  the  shock  they  give  to  family 
sentiments.  This  was  precluded  in  the  in 
stance  under  discussion  by  the  compulsory 
celibacy  of  the  Romish  Church  ;  and  when 
the  debts  of  the  clergy  are  incorporated  with 
those  of  the  State,  and  their  subsistence 
insured  by  moderate  incomes,  though  Sensi 
bility  may,  in  the  least  retrenchment,  find 
somewhat  to  lament,  Justice  will,  in  the 
whole  of  these  arrangements,  discover  little 
to  condemn.  To  the  individual  members  of 
the  Church  of  France,  whose  hopes  and  en 
joyments  have  been  abridged  by  this  resump 
tion,  no  virtuous  mind  will  refuse  the  tribute 
of  its  sympathy  and  its  regrets.  Every  man 
of  humanity  must  wish,  that  public  exigen 
cies  had  permitted  the  French  Legislature  to 
spare  the  income  of  the  present  incumbents, 
and  more  especially  of  those  w^hom  they  still 
continue  in  the  discharge  of  active  functions. 
But  these  sentiments  imply  no  sorrow  at  the 
downfall  of  a  great  corporation,  —  the  impla 
cable  enemy  of  freedom,  —  at  the  conversion 
of  an  immense  public  property  to  national 
use,  —  or  at  the  reduction  of  a  servile  and 
imperious  priesthood  to  humble  utility.  The 
attainment  of  these  great  objects  console  us 
for  the  portion  of  evil  that  was,  perhaps, 
inseparable  from  it,  and  will  be  justly  ap 
plauded  by  a  posterity  too  remote  to  be 
moved  by  comparatively  minute  afflictions. 

The  enlightened  observer  of  an  age  thus 
distant  will  contemplate  with  peculiar  asto 
nishment  the  rise,  progress,  decay  and  down 
fall  of  spiritual  power  in  Christian  Europe.  f 
It  will  attract  his  attention  as  an  appearance 
which  stands  alone  in  history.  Its  connection 
in  all  stages  of  its  progress  with  the  civil 
powder  will  peculiarly  occupy  his  mind.  He 
will  remark  the  unpresuming  humility  by 
which  it  gradually  gained  the  favour,  and 
divided  the  power,  of  the  magistrate,  —  the 


jf  precisely  the  case  of  "  damnum  ab- 
sque  njuria." 

t  Did  we  not  dread  the  ridicule  of  political  pre 
diction,  it  would  not  seem  difficult  to  assign  its 
period.  Church  power  (unless  some  Revolution, 
auspicious  to  priestcraft,  should  replunge  Europe 
into  ignorance)  will  certainly  not  survive  the  nine 
teenth  century. 


haughty  and  despotic  tone  in  which  it  after 
wards  gave  law  to  sovereigns  and  their  sub 
jects,  —  the  zeal  with  which,  in  the  first 
desperate  moments  of  decline,  it  armed  the 
people  against  the  magistrate,  and  aimed  at 
re-establishing  spiritual  despotism  on  the 
ruins  of  civil  order;  and  he  will  point  out 
the  asylum  which  it  at  last  found  from  the 
hostilities  of  Reason  in  the  prerogatives  of 
that  temporal  despotism,  of  which  it  had  so 
long  been  the  implacable  foe.  The  first  and 
last  of  these  periods  will  prove,  that  the 
priesthood  are  servilely  devoted  when  they 
are  weak :  the  second  and  third,  that  they 
are  dangerously  ambitious  when  strong.  In 
a  state  of  feebleness,  they  are  dangerous  to 
liberty :  possessed  of  power,  they  are  dan 
gerous  to  civil  government  itself.  But  the 
last  period  of  their  progress  will  be  that 
which  will  appear  to  have  been  peculiarly 
connected  with  the  state  of  France. 

There  can  be  no  protection  for  the  opulence 
and  even  existence*  of  an  European  priest 
hood  in  an  enlightened  period,  but  the  throne. 
It  forms  the  only  bulwark  against  the  inroads 
of  reason  :  for  the  superstition  which  once 
formed  its  power  is  gone.  Around  the  throne 
therefore  they  rally ;  and  to  the  monarch 
they  transfer  the  devotion  which  formerly 
attached  them  to  the  Church;  while  the 
fierceness  of  priestlyf  zeal  has  been  suc 
ceeded  by  the  more  peaceful  sentiments  of 
a  courtly  and  polished  servility.  Such  is,  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree,  the  present  condi 
tion  of  the  Church  in  every  nation  of  Europe. 
Yet  it  is  for  the  dissolution  of  such  a  body 
that  France  has  been  reproached.  It  might 
as  well  be  maintained,  that  in  her  conquests 
over  despotism,  she  ought  to  have  spared  the 
strongest  fortresses  and  most  faithful  troops 
of  her  adversary :  —  for  such  in  truth  were 
the  corporations  of  the  Nobility  and  the 
Church.  The  National  Assembly  have  only 
insured  permanence  to  their  establishments, 
by  dismantling  the  fortresses,  and  disbanding 
the  troops  of  their  vanquished  foe. 

In  the  few  remarks  that  are  here  made  on 
the  Nobility  and  Clergy  of  France,  we  con 
fine  ourselves  strictly  to  their  political  and 
collective  character :  Mr.  Burke,  on  the  con 
trary,  has  grounded  his  eloquent  apology 
purely  on  their  individual  and  moral  charac 
ter.  The  latter,  however,  is  totally  irrele 
vant;  for  we  are  not  discussing  what  place 
they  ought  to  occupy  in  society  as  indivi 
duals,  but  as  a  body.  We  are  not  consider 
ing  the  demerit  of  citizens  whom  it  is  fit  to 
punish,  but  the  spirit  of  a  body  which  it  is 
politic  to  dissolve. 

The  Judicial  Aristocracy  formed  by  the 
Parliaments,  seems  still  less  susceptible  of 
union  with  a  free  government.  Their  spirit 
and  claims  were  equally  incompatible  with 
liberty.  They  had  imbibed  a  spirit  con< 
genial  to  the  authority  under  which  they  had 
acted,  and  suitable  to  the  arbitrary  genius 
of  the  laws  which  they  had  dispensed ;  while 

*  I  always  understand  their  corporate  existence, 
t  Odium  Theologicum, 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


421 


they  retained  those  ambiguous  and  indefinite 
claims  to  a  share  in  the  legislation,  which  the 
fluctuations  of  power  in  the  kingdom  had  in 
some  degree  countenanced.  The  spirit  of  a 
corporation  was  from  the  smallness  of  their 
numbers  more  concentrated  and  vigorous  in 
them  than  in  the  Nobles  and  Clergy  ;  and 
whatever  aristocratic  zeal  is  laid  to  the 
charge  of*  the  Nobility,  was  imputable  with 
tenfold  force  to  the  ennobled  magistrates, 
\vho  regarded  their  recent  honours'with  an 
enthusiasm  of  vanity,  inspired  by  that  bigoted 
veneration  for  rank  which  is  the  perpetual 
character  of  upstarts.  A  free  people  could 
not  form  its  tribunals  of  men  who  pretended 
to  any  control  on  the  legislature.  Courts  of 
justice,  in  which  seats  were  legally  purchas 
ed,  had  too  long  been  endured  :  judges  who 
regarded  the  right  of  dispensing  justice  as  a 
marketable  commodity,  could  neither  be  fit 
organs  of  equitable  laws,  nor  suitable  magis 
trates  for  a  free  state.  It  is  vain  to  urge  with 
Mr.  Burke  the  past  services  of  these  judicial 
bodies.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  Montes 
quieu  is  correct,  when  he  states,  that  under 
bad  governments  one  abuse  often  limits  an 
other.  Th.9  usurped  authority  of  the  Parlia 
ments  formed,  it  is  true,  some  bulwark 
against  the  caprice  of  the  Court.  But  when 
the  abuse  is  destroyed,  why  preserve  the 
remedial  evil  ?  Superstition  certainly  alle 
viates  the  despotism  of  Turkey :  but  if  a 
rational  government  could  be  erected  in  that 
empire,  it  might  with  confidence  disclaim 
the  aid  of  the  Koran,  and  despise  the  remon 
strances  of  the  Mufti.  To  such  establish 
ments,  let  us  pay  the  tribute  of  gratitude  for 
past  benefit  ;  but  when  their  utility  no  longer 
exists,  let  them  be  canonized  by  death,  that 
their  admirers  may  be  indulged  in  all  the 
plenitude  of  posthumous  veneration. 

The  three  Aristocracies — Military,  Sacer 
dotal,  and  Judicial — may  be  considered  as 
having  formed  the  French  Government. — 
They  have  appeared,  so  far  as  we  have  con 
sidered  them,  incorrigible.  All  attempts  to 
improve  them  would  have  been  little  better 
than  (to  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Burke)  "mean 
reparations  on  mighty  ruins."  They  were 
not  perverted  by  the  accidental  depravity  of 
their  members ;  they  were  not  infected  by 
any  transient  passion,  which  new  circum 
stances  would  extirpate  :  the  fault  was  in 
the  essence  of  the  institutions  themselves, 
which  were  irreconcilable  with  a  free  gov 
ernment. 

But,  it  is  objected,  these  institutions  might 
have  been  gradually  reformed  :*  the  spirit 
of  freedom  would  have  silently  entered ; 
the  progressive  wisdom  of  an  enlightened 
nation  would  have  remedied,  in  process  of 
time,  their  defects,  without  convulsion.  To 
this  argument  I  confidently  answer,  that  these 
institutions  would  have  destroyed  Liberty, 
before  Liberty  had  corrected  their  spirit. 
Power  vegetates  with  more  vigour  after 
these  gentle  prunings.  A  slender  reform 

*  Burke,  pp.  248—252. 


amuses  and  lulls  the  people :  the  popular 
enthusiasm  subsides;  and  the  moment  of 
effectual  reform  is  irretrievably  lost.  No 
important  political  improvement  was  ever 
obtained  in  a  period  of  tranquillity.  The 
corrupt  interest  of  the  governors  is  so  strong, 
and  the  cry  of  the  people  so  feeble,  that  it 
were  vain  to  expect  it.  If  the  effervescence 
of  the  popular  mind  is  suffered  to  pass  away 
without  effect,  it  would  be  absurd  to  expect 
from  languor  what  enthusiasm  has  not  ob 
tained.  If  radical  reform  is  not,  at  such  a 
moment,  procured,  all  partial  changes  are 
evaded  and  defeated  in  the  tranquillity 
which  succeeds.*  The  gradual  reform  that 
arises  from  the  presiding  principle  exhibited 
in  the  specious  theory  of  Mr.  Burke,  is  be 
lied  by  the  experience  of  all  ages.  What 
ever  excellence,  whatever  freedom  is  dis 
coverable  in  governments,  has  been  infused 
into  them  by  the  shock  of  a  revolution  ;  and 
their  subsequent  progress  has  been  only  the 
accumulation  of  abuse.  It  is  hence  that  the 
most  enlightened  politicians  have  recognised 
the  necessity  of  frequently  recalling  their 
first  principles; — a  truth  equally  suggested 
to  the  penetrating  intellect  of  Machiavel,  by 
his  experience  of  the  Florentine  democracy, 
and  by  his  research  into  the  history  of  an 
cient  commonwealths.  Whatever  is  good 
ought  to  be  pursued  at  the  moment  it  is  at 
tainable.  The  public  voice,  irresistible  in  a 
period  of  convulsion,  is  contemned  with  im 
punity,  when  spoken  during  the  lethargy 
into  which  nations  are  lulled  by  the  tranquil 
course  of  their  ordinary  affairs.  The  ardour 
of  reform  languishes  in  unsupported  tedious- 
ness  :  it  perishes  in  an  impotent  struggle 
with  adversaries,  who  receive  new  strength 
with  the  progress  of  the  day.  No  hope  of 
great  political  improvement — let  us  repeat  it 
— is  to  be  entertained  from  tranquillity;! 
for  its  natural  operation  is  to  strengthen  all 
those  who  are  interested  in  perpetuating 
abuse.  The  National  Assembly  seized  the 
moment  of  eradicating  the  corruptions  and 
abuses  which  afflicted  their  country.  Their 
reform  was  total,  that  it  might  be  commen 
surate  w'ith  the  evil :  and  no  part  of  it  was 
delayed,  because  to  spare  an  abuse  at  such 
a  period  was  to  consecrate  it ;  and  as  the 
enthusiasm  which  carries  nations  to  such 
enterprises  is  short-lived,  so  the  opportunity 
of  reform,  if  once  neglected,  might  be  irre 
vocably  fled. 


"  Ignore-t-on  que  c'est  en  attaquant,  en  ren- 
versant  tons  les  abus  a  la  fois,  qu'on  peut  esperer 
de  s'en  voir  deiivre  sans  retour  ;  que  les  rcformes 
[entes  et  partielles  ont  toujours  fini  par  ne  rieri  re 
former  ;  enfin,  que  1'abus  que  1'on  conserve  de- 
vient  1'appui  et  bieniot  le  restaurateur  de  tous 
ceux  qu'on  croioit  avoir  detruits?" —  Adresse 
aux  Frangois,  par  1'Eveque  d'Autun,  11  Fevrier, 
1790. 

t  The  only  apparent  exception  to  this  principle 
is  the  case  where  sovereigns  make  important  con 
cessions  to  appease  discontent,  and  avert  convul 
sion.  This,  however,  rightly  understood,  is  no 
xception  ;  for  it  arises  evidently  from  the  same 
causes,  acting  at  a  period  less  advanced  in  the 
progress  of  popular  interposition. 
2  L 


422 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Bat  let  us  ascend  to  more  general  princi 
ples,  and  hazard  bolder  opinions.  Let  us 
grant  that  the  state  of  France  was  not  so 
desperately  incorrigible.  Let  us  suppose 
that  changes  far  more  gentle, — innovations 
far  less  extensive, — would  have  remedied 
the  grosser  evils  of  her  government,  and 
placed  it  almost  on  a  level  with  free  and 
celebrated  constitutions.  These  concessions, 
though  too  large  for  truth,  will  not  convict 
the  Assembly.  By  what  principle  of  reason, 
or  of  justice/  were  they  precluded  from  as 
piring  to  give  France  a  government  less  im 
perfect  than  accident  had  formed  in  other 
states'?  Who  will  be  hardy  enough  to  as 
sert,  that  a  better  constitution  is  not  attain 
able  than  any  which  has  hitherto  appeared  ? 
Is  the  limit  of  human  wisdom  to  be  estimat 
ed  in  the  science  of  politics  alone,  by  the 
extent  of  its  present  attainments  ?  Is  the 
most  sublime  and  difficult  of  all  arts, — the 
improvement  of  the  social  order, — the  allevia 
tion  of  the  miseries  of  the  civil  condition  of 
man, — to  be  alone  stationary,  amid  the  rapid 
progress  of  every  other — liberal  and  vulgar 
— to  perfection  1  Where  would  be  the  atro 
cious  guilt  of  a  grand  experiment,  to  ascer 
tain  the  portion  of  freedom  and  happiness, 
that  can  be  created  by  political  institutions'? 

That  guilt  (if  it  be  guilt)  is  imputable  to 
the  National  Assembly.  They  are  accused 
of  having  rejected  the  guidance  of  experi 
ence, — of  having  abandoned  themselves  to 
the  illusion  of  theory, — and  of  having  sacri 
ficed  great  arid  attainable  good  to  the  magni 
ficent  chimeras  of  ideal  excellence.  If  this 
accusation  be  just, — if  they  have  indeed 
abandoned  experience,  the  basis  of  human 
knowledge,  as  well  as  the  guide  of  human 
action, — their  conduct  deserves  no  longer 
any  serious  argument:  but  if  (as  Mr.  Burke 
more  than  once  insinuates)  their  contempt 
of  it  is  avowed  and  ostentatious,  it  was 
surely  unworthy  of  him  to  have  expended 
so  much  genius  against  so  preposterous  an 
insanity.  But  the  explanation  of  terms  will 
diminish  our  wonder.  Experience  may, 
both  in  the  arts  and  in  the  conduct  of  human 
life,  be  regarded  in  a  double  view,  either  as 
finishing  models,  or  principles.  An  artist 
who  frames  his  machine  in  exact  imitation 
of  his  predecessor,  is  in  the  first  sense  said 
to  be  guided  by  experience.  In  this  sense 
all  improvements  of  human  life,  have  been 
deviations  from  experience.  The  first  vision 
ary  innovator  was  the  savage  who  built  a 
cabin,  or  covered  himself  with  a  rug.  If 
this  be  experience,  man  is  degraded  to  the 
unimprovable  level  of  the  instinctive  anir 
mals.  But  in  the  second  acceptation,  an 
artist  is  said  to  be  guided  by  experience, 
when  the  inspection  of  a  machine  discovers 
to  him  principles,  which  teach  him  to  im 
prove  it  j  or  when  the  comparison  of  many, 
both  with  respect  to  their  excellences  and 
defects,  enables  him  to  frame  one  different 
from  any  he  had  examined,  and  still  more 
perfect.  In  this  latter  sense,  the  National 
Assembly  have  perpetually  availed  them 


selves  of  experience.  History  is  an  im 
mense  collection  of  experiments  on  the  na 
ture  and  effect  of  the  various  parts  of  va 
rious  governments.  Some  institutions  are 
experimentally  ascertained  to  be  beneficial; 
some  to  be  most  indubitably  destructive ;  a 
third  class,  which  produces  partial  good,  ob 
viously  possesses  the  capacity  of  improve 
ment.  What,  on  such  a  survey,  was  the 
dictate  of  enlightened  experience  1  Not 
surely  to  follow  any  model  in  which  these 
institutions  lay  indiscriminately  mingled;  but, 
like  the  mechanic,  to  compare  and  generalize, 
and.  guided  equally  by  experience,  to  imi 
tate  and  reject.  The  process  is  in  both  cases 
the  same :  the  rights  and  the  nature  of  man. 
are  to  the  legislator  what  the  general  pro 
perties  of  matter  are  to  the  mechanic. — the 
first  guide, — because  they  are  founded  on  the 
widest  experience.  In  the  second  class  are 
to  be  ranked  observations  on  the  excellences 
and  defects  of  all  governments  which  have 
already  existed,  that  the  construction  of  a 
more  perfect  machine  may  result.  But  ex 
perience  is  the  basis  of  all : — not  the  puny 
and  trammelled  experience  of  a  statesman  by 
trade,  who  trembles  at  any  change  in  the 
tricks  which  he  has  been  taught,  or  the  routine 
in  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  move; 
but  an  experience  liberal  and  enlightened, 
which  hears  the  testimony  of  ages  and  na 
tions,  and  collects  from  it  the  general  princi 
ples  which  regulate  the  mechanism  of  so 
ciety. 

Legislators  are  under  no  obligation  to  re 
tain  a  constitution,  because  it  has  been  found 
"  tolerably  to  answer  the  common  purposes 
of  government."  It  is  absurd  to  expect,  but 
it  is  not  absurd  to  pursue  perfection.  It  is 
absurd  to  acquiesce  in  evils,  of  which  the 
remedy  is  obvious,  because  they  are  less 
grievous  than  those  which  are  endured  by 
others.  To  suppose  that  social  order  is  not 
capable  of  improvement  from  the  progress 
of  the  human  understanding,  is  to  betray  the 
inconsistent  absurdity  of  an  arrogant  confi 
dence  in  our  attainments,  and  an  abject  dis 
trust  of  our  powers.  If,  indeed,  the  sum  of 
evil  produced  by  political  institutions,  even 
in  the  least  imperfect  governments,  were 
small,  there  might  be  some  pretence  for  this 
dread  of  innovation — this  horror  at  any  re 
medy. — which  has  raised  such  a  clamour 
over  Europe.  But,  on  the  contrary,  in  an 
estimate  of  the  sources  of  human  misery, 
after  granting  that  one  portion  is  to  be  attri 
buted  to  disease,  and  another  to  private  vices, 
it  might  perhaps  be  found  that  a  third  equal 
part  arose  from  the  oppressions  and  corrup 
tions  of  government,  disguised  under  various 
forms.  All  the  governments  that  now  exist 
in  the  world  (except  that  of  the  United  States 
of  America)  have  been  fortuitously  formed : 
they  are  not  the  work  of  art.  They  have 
been  altered,  impaired,  improved  and  de 
stroyed  by  accidental  circumstances,  beyond 
the  foresight  or  control  of  wisdom.  Their 
parts  thrown  up  against  present  emergencies 
formed  no  systematic  whole.  It  was  cer- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


423 


tainly  not  to  have  been  presumed,  that  these 
fortuitous  products  should  have  surpassed 
the  works  of  intellect,  and  precluded  all 
nearer  approaches  to  perfection.  Their  origin 
without  doubt  furnishes  a  strong  presump 
tion  of  an  opposite  nature.  It  might  teach 
us  to  expect  in  them  many  discordant  prin 
ciples,  many  jarring  forms,  much  unmixed 
evil,  and  much  imperfect  good. — many  in 
stitutions  which  had  long  survived  their  mo 
tive,  and  many  of  wrhich  reason  had  never 
been  the  author,  nor  utility  the  object.  Ex 
perience,  even  in  the  best  of  them,  accords 
with  such  expectations. 

A  government  of  art.  the  work  of  legisla 
tive  intellect,  reared  on  the  immutable  basis 
of  natural  right  and  general  happiness,  which 
should  combine  the  excellences,  and  exclude 
the  defects  of  the  various  constitutions  which 
chance  has  scattered  over  the  wrorld,  instead 
of  being  precluded  by  the  perfection  of  any 
of  those  forms,  was  loudly  demanded  by  the 
injustice  and  absurdity  of  them  all.  It  was 
time  that  men  should  learn  to  tolerate  nothing 
ancient  that  reason  does  not  respect,  and  to 
shrink  from  no  novelty  to  which  reason  may 
conduct.  It  was  time  that  the  human  powers, 
so  long  occupied  by  subordinate  objects,  and 
inferior  arts,  should  mark  the  commence 
ment  of  a  new  sera  in  history,  by  giving  birth 
to  the  art  of  improving  government,  and  in 
creasing  the  civil  happiness  of  man.  It  was 
time,  as  it  has  been  wisely  and  eloquently 
said,  that  legislators,  instead  of  that  riarrowr 
and  dastardly  coasting  which  never  ventures 
to  lose  sight  of  usage  and  precedent,  should, 
guided  by  the  polarity  of  reason,  hazard  a 
bolder  navigation,  and  discover,  in  unex 
plored  regions,  the  treasure  of  public  felicity. 

The  task  of  the  French  legislators  was, 
however,  less  hazardous.  The  philosophers 
of  Europe  had  for  a  century  cliscussed  all 
objects  of  public  (Economy.  'The  conviction 
of  a  great'majority  of  enlightened  men  had, 
after  many  controversies,  become  on  most 
questions  of  general  politics,  uniform.  A 
degree  of  certainty,  perhaps  nearly  equal  to 
that  which  such  topics  will  admit,  had  been 
attained.  The  National  Assembly  were  there 
fore  not  called  on  to  make  discoveries  :  it  was 
sufficient  if  they  were  not  uninfluenced  by 
the  opinions,  nor  exempt  from  the  spirit  of 
their  age.  They  were  fortunate  enough  to 
live  in  a  period  when  it  \vas  only  necessary 
to  affix  the  stamp  of  laws  to  \vhat  had  been 
prepared  by  the  research  of  philosophy.  They 
will  here,  however,  be  attacked  by  a  futile 
common-place.  The  most  specious  theory, 
it  will  be  said,  is  often  impracticable;  and 
any  attempt  to  transfer  speculative  doctrines 
into  the  practice  of  states  is  chimerical  and 
frantic.  If  by  "  theory"  be  understood  vague 
conjecture,  the  objection  is  not  worth  discus 
sion  :  but  if  by  theory  be  meant  inference 
from  the  moral  nature  and  political  state  of 
man,  then  I  assert,  that  whatever  such  theory 
pronounces  to  be  true,  must  be  practicable ; 
and  that  whatever  on  the  subject  is  imprac 
ticable,  must  be  false.  To  resume  the  illus 


tration  from  the  mechanical  arts : — geometry, 
it  may  be  justly  said,  bears  nearly  the  same 
relation  to  mechanics  that  abstract  reasoning 
does  to  politics.*  The  moral  forces  which 
are  employed  in  politics  are  the  passions  and 
interests  of  men,  of  which  it  is  the  province 
of  metaphysics  to  teach  the  nature  and 
calculate  the  strength,  as  mathematics  do 
those  of  the  mechanical  powers.  Now  sup 
pose  it  had  been  mathematically  proved,  that 
by  a  certain  alteration  in  the  structure  of  a 
machine,  its  effect  would  be  increased  four 
fold,  would  an  instructed  mechanic  hesitate 
about  the  change  ?  Would  he  be  deterred, 
because  he  was  the  first  to  discover  it? 
Would  he  thus  sacrifice  his  own  advantage 
to  the  blindness  of  his  predecessors,  and  the 
obstinacy  of  his  contemporaries'?  Let  us 
suppose  a  whole  nation,  of  which  the  arti 
sans  thus  rejected  theoretical  improvement : 
mechanics  might  there,  as  a  science,  be  most 
profoundly  understood,  while  as  an  arf,  it  ex 
hibited  nothing  but  rudeness  and  barbarism. 
The  principles  of  Newton  and  Archimedes 
might  be  taught  in  the  schools,  while  the 
architecture  of  the  people  might  not  have 
reached  beyond  the  cabins  of  New  Holland, 
or  the  ship-building  of  the  Esquimaux.  In 
a  state  of  political  science  somewhat  similar 
has  Europe  continued  for  a  great  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century. t 

All  the  great  questions  of  general  politics 
had,  as  we  have  remarked,  been  nearly  de 
cided,  and  almost  all  the  decisions  had  been 
hostile  to  established  institutions  ;  yet  these 
institutions  still  flourished  in  all  their  vigour. 
The  same  man  who  cultivated  liberal  science 
in  his  cabinet  \vas  compelled  to  administer  a 
barbarous  jurisprudence  on  the  bench.  The 
same  Montesquieu,  who  at  Paris  reasoned  as 
a  philosopher  of  the  eighteenth,  was  com 
pelled  to  decide  at  Bourdeaux  as  a  magistrate 
of  the  fourteenth  century.  The  apostles  of 
toleration  and  the  ministers  of  the  Inquisi 
tion  were  cotemporaries.  The  torture  con 
tinued  to  be  practised  in  the  age  of  Becca- 
ria :  the  Bastile  devoured  its  victims  in  the 
country  of  Turgot.  The  criminal  code,  even 
where  it  was  the  mildest,  was  oppressive  and 
savage.  The  laws  respecting  religious  opinion, 
even  where  there  was  a  pretended  toleration, 


*  I  confess  my  obligation  for  this  parallel  to  a 
learned  friend,  who  though  so  justly  admired  in 
the  republic  of  letters  for  his  excellent  writings, 
is  still  more  so  by  his  friends  for  the  rich,  original, 
and  masculine  turn  of  thought  that  animates  his 
conversation.  But  the  Continuator  of  the  History 
of  Philip  III.  little  needs  my  praise. 

t  Mechanics,  because  no  passion  or  interest  is 
concerned  in  the  perpetuity  of  abuse,  always  yield 
to  scientific  improvement :  politics,  for  the  con 
trary  reason,  always  resist  it.  It  was  the  remark 
of  Hobbes,  "  that  if  any  interest  or  passion  were 
concerned  in  disputing  the  theorems  of  geometry, 
different  opinions  would  be  maintained  regarding 
them."  It  has  actually  happened  (as  if  to  justify 
the  remark  of  that  great  man)  that  under  the  ad 
ministration  of  Turgot  a  financial  reform,  ground 
ed  on  a  mathematical  demonstration,  has  been 
derided  as  visionary  nonsense  !  So  much  for  the 
sage  preference  of  practice  to  theory. 


424 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


outraged  the  most  evident  deductions  of 
reason.  The  true  principles  of  commercial 
policy,  though  they  had  been  reduced  to  de 
monstration,  influenced  the  councils  of  no 
states.  Such  was  the  fantastic  spectacle  pre 
sented  by  tho  European  nations,  who,  philo 
sophers  in  theory,  and  barbarians  in  practice, 
exhibited  to  the  observing  eye  two  opposite 
and  inconsistent  aspects  of  manners  and  opi 
nions.  But  such  a  state  of  things  carried  in 
itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  destruction.  Men 
will  not  long  dwell  in  hovels,  with  the  model 
of  a  palace  before  their  eyes. 

Such  was  indeed  in  some  measure  the 
position  of  th3  ancient  world.  But  the  art 
of  printing  had  not  then  provided  a  channel 
by  which  the  opinions  of  the  learned  pass 
insensibly  into  live  popular  mind.  A  bulwark 
then  existed  bat  ween  the  body  of  mankind 
and  the  reflecting  few.  Th?y  were  distinct 
nations,  inhabiting  the  same  country;  and 
the  opinions  of  the  one  (I  speak  comparatively 
with  modern  times)  had  little  influence  on 
those  of  the  other.  But  that  bulwark  is  now 
levelled  with  the  ground.  The  convictions 
of  philosophy  insinuate  themselves  by  a 
slow,  but  certain  progress,  into  popular  sen 
timent.  It  is  vain  for  the  arrogance  of  learn 
ing  to  condemn  the  people  to  ignorance 
by  reprobating  superficial  knowledge.  The 
people  cannot  be  profound;  but  the  truths 
which  regulate  the  moral  and  political  rela 
tions  of  man,  are  at  no  great  distance  from 
the  surface.  The  great  works  in  which  dis 
coveries  are  contained  cannot  be  read  by  the 
people ;  but  their  substance  passes  through 
a  variety  of  minute  and  circuitous  channels 
to  the  shop  and  the  hamlet.  The  conversion 
of  these  works  of  unproductive  splendour 
into  latent  use  and  unobserved  activity,  re 
sembles  the  process  of  nature  in  the  external 
world.  The  expanse  of  a  noble  lake, — the 
course  of  a  majestic  river,  imposes  on  the 
imagination  by  every  impression  of  dignity 
and  sublimity:  but  it  is  the  moisture  that 
insensibly  arises  from  them  which,  gradu 
ally  mingling  with  the  soil,  nourishes  all  the 
luxuriancy  of  vegetation,  and  adorns  the 
surface  of  the  earth. 

It  may  then  be  remarked,  that  though  li 
beral  opinions  so  long  existed  with  defective 
establishments,  it  was  not  natural  that  this 
state  of  things  should  be  permanent.  The 
philosophers  of  antiquity  did  not.  like  Archi- 
meaes,  want  a  spot  on  which  to  fix  their 
engines ;  but  they  wanted  an  engine  where 
with  to  move  the  moral  world.  The  press 
is  that  engine,  and  has  subjected  the  power 
ful  to  the  wise.  The  discussion  of  great 
truths  has  prepared  a  body  of  laws  for  the 
National  Assembly:  the  diffusion  of  political 
knowledge  has  almost  prepared  a  people  to 
receive  them ;  and  good  men  are  at  length 
permitted  to  indulge  the  hope,  that  the  mise 
ries  of  the  human  race  are  about  to  be  alle 
viated.  That  hope  may  be  illusive,  for  the 
grounds  of  its  enemies  are  strong, — the  folly 
and  villany  of  men :  yet  they  who  entertain 
it  will  feel  no  shame  in  defeat;  and  no  envy 


of  the  triumphant  prediction  of  their  adver 
saries  : — "  Mehercule  malim  cum  Platone 
errare."  Whatever  be  the  ultimate  fate  of 
the  French  Revolutionists,  the  friends  of 
freedom  must  ever  consider  them  as  tho 
authors  of  the  greatest  attempt  thai  has  hi 
therto  been  made  in  the  cause  of  man.  They 
never  can  cease  to  rejoice,  that  in  the  long 
catalogue  of  calamities  and  crimes  which 
blacken  human  annals,  the  year  1789  pre 
sents  one  spot  on  which  the  eye  of  humanity 
may  with  complacence  dwell. 


SECTION  II. 

Of  the  composition  and  character  of  the  Na 
tional  Assembly. 

EVENTS  are  rarely  separated  by  the  histo 
rian  from  the  character  of  those  who  are 
conspicuous  in  conducting  them.  From  this 
alone  they  often  receive  the  tinge  which  de 
termines  their  moral  colour.  What  is  admired 
as  noble  pride  in  Sully,  would  be  execrated 
as  intolerable  arrogance  in  Richelieu.  But 
the  degree  of  this  influence  varies  with  the 
importance  of  the  events.  In  the  ordinary 
affairs  of  state  it  is  great,  because  in  fact 
they  are  only  of  importance  to  posterity,  as 
they  illustrate  the  characters  of  those  who 
have  acted  distinguished  parts  on  the  theatre 
of  the  world.  But  in  events  which  them 
selves  are  of  immense  magnitude,  the  cha 
racter  of  those  who  conduct  them  becomes 
of  far  less  relative  importance.  No  igno 
miny  is  at  the  present  day  reflected  on  the 
Revolution  of  1688  from  the  ingratitude  of 
Churchill,  or  the  treachery  of  Sunderland. 
The  purity  of  Somers,  and  the  profligacy  of 
Spencer,  are  equally  lost  in  the  splendour  of 
that  great  transaction, — in  the  sense  of  its 
benefits,  and  the  admiration  of  its  justice. 
No  moral  impression  remains  on  our  mind, 
but  that  whatever  voice  speaks  truth,  what 
ever  hand  establishes  freedom,  delivers  the 
oracles  and  dispenses  the  gifts  of  God. 

If  this  be  true  of  the  deposition  of  James 
II.  it  is  far  more  so  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Among  many  circumstances  which  distin 
guished  that  event,  as  unexampled  in  history, 
it  was  none  of  the  least  extraordinary,  that 
it  might  truly  be  said  to  have  been  a  Revo 
lution  without  leaders.  It  was  the  effect  of 
general  causes  operating  on  the  people.  It 
was  the  revolt  of  a  nation  enlightened  from 
a  common  source.  Hence  it  has  derived  its 
peculiar  character;  and  hence  the  merits  of 
the  most  conspicuous  individuals  have  had 
little  influence  on  its  progress.  The  charac 
ter  of  the  National  Assembly  is  of  secondary 
importance  indeed  :  but  as  Mr.  Burke  has 
expended  so  much  invective  against  that 
body,  a  few  strictures  on  his  account  of  it 
will  not  be  improper. 

The  representation  of  the  Third  Estate 
was,  as  he  justly  states,  composed  of  law 
yers,  physicians,  merchants,  men  of  letters^ 
tradesmen  and  farmers.  The  choice  was, 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


425 


indeed,  limited  by  necessity ;  for  except  men 
of  these  ranks  and  professions,  the  people 
had  no  objects  of  election,  the  army  and 
the  Church  being  engrossed  by  the  Nobility. 
"No  vestige  of  the  landed  interest  of  the 
country  appeared  in  this  representation,"  for 
an  obvious  reason  ; — because  the  Nobility  of 
France,  like  the  Gentry  of  England,  formed 
almost  exclusively  the  landed  interest  of  the 
kingdom.  These  professions  then  could  only 
furnish  representatives  for  the  Tiers  Etat. 
They  form  the  majority  of  that  middle  rank 
among  whom  almost  all  the  sense  and  virtue 
of  society  reside.  Their  pretended  incapa 
city  for  political  affairs  is  an  arrogant  fiction 
of  statesmen  which  the  history  of  revolutions 
has  ever  belied.  These  emergencies  have 
never  failed  to  create  politicians.  The  subtle 
counsellors  of  Philip  II.  were  baffled  by  the 
Burgomasters  of  Amsterdam  and  Leyden. 
The  oppression  of  England  summoned  into 
existence  a  race  of  statesmen  in  her  colonies. 
The  lawyers  of  Boston,  and  the  planters  of 
Virginia,  were  transformed  into  ministers 
and  negotiators,  who  proved  themselves  in 
ferior  neither  in  wisdom  as  legislators,  nor  in 
dexterity  as  politicians.  These  facts  evince 
that,  the  powers  of  mankind  have  been  un 
justly  depreciated, — the  difficulty  of  political 
affairs  artfully  magnified;  arid  that  there 
exists  a  quantity  of  talent  latent  among  men, 
which  ever  rises  to  the  level  of  the  great  oc 
casions  that  call  it  forth. 

But  the  predominance  of  the  profession  of 
the  law. — that  professsion  which  teaches 
men  ••'  to  augur  misgovernment  at  a  distance, 
and  snuff  the  approach  of  tyranny  in  every 
tainted  breeze,"* — was  the  fatal  source  from 
which,  if  w^e  may  believe  Mr.  Burke,  have 
arisen  the  calamities  of  France.  The  ma 
jority  of  the  Third  Estate  was  indeed  coin- 
posed  of  lawyers.  Their  talents  of  public 
speaking,  and  their  professional  habits  of 
examining  questions  analogous  to  those  of 
politics,  rendered  them  the  most  probable 
objects  of  popular  choice,  especially  in  a 
despotic  country,  where  political  speculation 
was  no  natural  amusement  for  the  leisure  of 
opulence.  But  it  does  not  appear  that  the 
majority  of  them  consisted  of  the  unlearned, 
mechanical,  members  of  the  profession. t 
From  the  list  of  the  States-General,  it  would 
seem  that  the  majority  were  provincial  advo 
cates. — a  name  of  very  different  import  from 
"  country  attorneys.'''*  arid  wrhose  importance  is 
not  to  be  estimated  by  purely  English  ideas. 

All  forensic  talent  and  eminence  is  here 
concentrated  in  the  capital :  but  in  France,  the 
institution  of  circuits  did  not  exist;  the  pro 
vinces  were  imperfectly  united  ;  their  laws 
various;  their  judicatures  distinct,  and  almost 
independent.  Twelve  or  thirteen  Parliaments 
formed  as  many  circles  of  advocates,  who 
nearly  emulated  in  learning  and  eloquence 
the  Parisian  Bar.  This  dispersion  of  talent 

*  Mr.  Burke's  Speech  on  American  Affairs, 
1775. 

t  See  an  accurate  list  of  them  in  the  Supple 
ment  to  the  Journal  de  Paris,  31st  of  May.  1789. 
54 


was  in  some  respect  also  the  necessary  effect 
of  the  immensity  of  the  kingdom.  No  liberal 
man  will  in  England  bestow  on  the  Irish  and 
Scottish  Bar  the  epithet  "provincial  "  with  a 
view  of  disparagement.  The  Parliaments 
of  many  provinces  in  France,  presented  as 
wide  a  field  for  talent  as  the  Supreme  Courts 
of  Ireland  and  Scotland.  The  Parliament  of 
Rennes,  for  example,  dispensed  justice  to  a 
province  which  contained  two  million  three 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants* — a  popula 
tion  equal  to  that  of  some  respectable  king 
doms  of  Europe.  The  cities  of  Bordeaux, 
Lyons,  and  Marseilles,  surpass  in  wealth  and 
population  Copenhagen,  Stockholm,  Peters 
burg,  arid  Berlin.  Such  were"  the  theatres 
on  which  the  provincial  advocates  of  France 
pursued  professional  fame.  A  general  Con 
vention  of  the  British  empire  would  yield, 
perhaps,  as  distinguished  a  place  to  Curran 
and  Erskine,  and  the  other  eminent  and  ac 
complished  barristers  of  Dublin  and  Edin- 
burg,  as  to  those  of  the  capital :  and  on  the 
same  principles  have  the  Thourets  and  Cha- 
peliers  of  Rouen,  and  Rennes.  acquired  as 
great  an  ascendant  in  the  National  Assem 
bly  as  the  Targets  and  Camus's  of  the  Pari 
sian  Bar. 

The  proof  that  this  '•'  faculty  influence,"  as 
Mr.  Burke  chooses  to  phrase  it,  was  not  in 
juriously  predominant,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
decrees  of  the  Assembly  respecting  the  judi 
cial  order.  It  must  on  his  system  have  been 
their  object  to  have  established  what  he  calls 
"a  litigious  constitution."  The  contrary  has 
so  notoriously  been  the  case, — all  their  de 
crees  have  so  obviously  tended  to  lessen  the 
importance  of  lawyers,  by  facilitating  arbi 
trations,  by  the  adoption  of  juries,  by  dimin 
ishing  the  expense  and  tediousness  of  suits, 
by  the  destruction  of  an  intricate  and  barba 
rous  jurisprudence,  and  by  the  simplicity  in 
troduced  into  all  judicial  proceedings,  that 
their  system  has  been  accused  of  a  direct 
tendency  to  extinguish  the  profession  of  the 
law.  It  is  a  system  which  may  be  con 
demned  as'1  leading  to  visionary  excess,  but 
which  cannot  be  pretended  to  bear  very 
strong  marks  of  the  supposed  ascendant  of 
"chicane." 

To  the  lawyers,  besides  the  parochial 
clergy,  whom  Mr.  Burke  contemptuously 
styles  "  Country  Curates,';f  were  added,  those 
Noblemen  whom  he  so  severely  stigmatizes 
as  deserters  from  their  Order.  Yet  the  depu 
tation  of  the  Nobility  who  first  joined  the 
Commons,  and  to  whom  therefore  that  title 
best  belongs,  was  not  composed  of  men 
whom  desperate  fortunes  and  profligate  am 
bition  prepared  for  civil  confusion.  In  that 
number  were  found  the  heads  of  the  most 
ancient  and  opulent  families  in  France, — 
the  Rochefoucaults,  the  Richelieus.  the  Mont- 
morencies,  the  Noailles.  Among  them  was 

*  See  a  Report  of  the  Population  of  France  to 
the  National  Assembly,  by  M.  Biron  de  la  Tour, 
Engineer  and  Geographer  to  the  King,  1790. 

t  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  cure 
means  rector. 


426 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


M.  Lally,  who  has  received  such  liberal 
praise  from  Mr.  Burke.  It  will  be  difficult 
to  discover  in  one  individual  of  that  body  any 
interest  adverse  to  the  preservation  of  order, 
and  the  security  of  rank  and  wealth. 

Having  thus  followed  Mr.  Burke  in  a  very 
short  sketch  of  the  classes  of  men  who  com 
pose  the  Assembly,  let  us  proceed  to  con 
sider  his  representation  of  the  spirit  and 
general  rules  which  have  guided  it,  and 
which,  according  to  him,  have  presided  over 
all  the  events  of  the  Revolution.  "  A  cabal 
of  philosophic  atheists  had  conspired  the  abo 
lition  of  Christianity.  A  monied  interest, 
who  had  grown  into  opulence  from  the  ca 
lamities  of  F/ance,  contemned  by  the  No 
bility  for  their  origin,  and  obnoxious  to  the 
people  by  their  exactions,  sought  the  alliance 
of  these  philosophers;  by  whose  influence 
on  public  opinion  they  were  to  avenge  them 
selves  on  the  Nobility,  and  conciliate  the 
people.  The  atheists  were  to  be  gratified 
with  the  extirpation  of  religion,  and  the 
stock-jobbers  with  the  spoils  of  the  Nobles 
and  the  Church.  The  prominent  features  of 
the  Revolution  bear  evidence  of  this  league 
of  impiety  fend  rapine.  The  degraded  es 
tablishment  of  the  Church  is  preparatory  to 
the  abolition  of  Christianity;  and  all  the 
financial  operations  are  designed  to  fill  the 
coffers  of  the  monied  capitalists  of  Paris." 
Such  is  the  theory  of  Mr.  Burke  respecting 
the  spirit  and  character  of  the  French  Revo 
lution.  To  separate  the  portion  of  truth  that 
gives  plausibility  to  his  statement  from  the 
falsehood  that  invests  it  with  all  its  horrors, 
will  however  neither  be  a  tedious  nor  a  diffi 
cult  task. 

The  commercial  or  monied  interest  has 
in  all  nations  of  Europe  (taken  as  a  body) 
been  less  prejudiced,  more  liberal,  and  more 
intelligent  than  the  landed  gentry.  Their 
riews  are  enlarged  by  a  wider  intercourse 
with  mankind  ;  and  hence  the  important  in 
fluence  of  commerce  in  liberalizing  the  mo 
dern  world.  We  cannot  wonder  then  that 
this  enlightened  class  ever  prove  the  most 
ardent  in  the  cause  of  freedom,  and  the  most 
zealous  for  political  reform.  It  is  not  won 
derful  that  philosophy  should  find  in  them 
more  docile  pupils,  and  liberty  more  active 
friends,  than  in  a  haughty  and  prejudiced 
aristocracy.  The  Revolution  in  1638  pro 
duced  the  same  division  in  England.  The 
monied  interest  long  formed  the  strength  of 
Whig2,'ism,  while  a  majority  of  the  landed 
gentlemen  Ions'  continued  zealous  Tories.  It 
is  not  unworthy  of  remark,  that  the  pam 
phleteers  of  Toryism  accused  the  Whigs  of 
the  same  hostility  to  religion  of  which  Mr. 
Burke  now  supposes  the  existence  in  France. 
They  predicted  the  destruction  of  the  Church, 
and  even  the  downfall  of  Christianity  itself 
from  the  influx  of  heretics,  infidels,  and  athe 
ists,  which  the  new  Government  of  England 
protected.  Their  pamphlets  have  perished 
with  the  topic  which  gave  them  birth ;  but 
the  talents  and  fame  of  Swift  have  preserved 
his;  which  furnish  abundant  proof  of  this  co 


incidence  in  clamour  between  the  enemies  of 
the  English,  and  the  detractors  of  the  French 
Revolution. 

That  the  philosophers,  the  other  party  in 
this  unwonted  alliance  between  affluence 
and  literature,  in  this  new  union  of  authors 
and  bankers,  did  prepare  the  Revolution  by 
their  writings,  it  is  the  glory  of  its  admirers 
to  avow.*  What  the  speculative  opinions 
of  these  philosophers  were  on  remote  and 
mysterious  questions  is  here  of  no  import 
ance.  It  is  not  as  atheists,  or  theists.  but  as 
political  reasoners,  that  they  are  to  be  con 
sidered  in  a  political  revolution.  All  their 
writings,  on  the  subjects  of  metaphysics  and 
theology,  are  foreign  to  the  question.  If 
Rousseau  has  had  any  influence  in  promoting 
the  Revolution,  it  is  not  by  his  Letters  from 
the  Mountains,  but  by  his  Social  Contract. 
If  Voltaire  contributed  to  spread  liberality 
in  France,  it  was  not  by  his  Philosophical 
Dictionary,  but  by  his  Defences  of  Toleration. 
The  obloquy  of  their  atheism  (if  it  existed) 
is  personal :  it  does  not  belong  to  the  Revolu 
tion  ;  for  that  event  could  neither  have  been 
promoted  nor  retarded  by  abstract  discus 
sions  of  theology.  The  supposition  of  their 
conspiracy  for  the  abolition  of  Christianity,  is 
one  of  the  most  extravagant  chimeras  that 
ever  entered  the  human  imagination.  Let 
us  grant  their  infidelity  in  the  fullest  extent : 
still  their  philosophy  must  have  taught  them 
that  the  passions,  whether  rational  or  irra 
tional,  from  which  religion  arises,  could  be 
eradicated  by  no  human  power  from  the 
heart  of  man  ;  while  their  incredulity  must 
have  made  them  indifferent  as  to  what  par 
ticular  mode  of  religion  might  prevail.  These 
philosophers  were  not  the  apostles  of  any 
new  revelation  that  was  to  supplant  the  faith 
of  Christ :  they  knew  that  the  heart  can  on 
this  subject  bear  no  void,  and  they  had  no 
interest  in  substituting  the  Vedam.  or  the 
Koran  for  the  Gospel.  They  could  have  no 
reasonable  motives  to  promote  any  revolu 
tion  in  the  popular  faith  :  their  purpose  was 
accomplished  when  the  priesthood  was  dis 
armed.  Whatever  might  be  the  freedom  of 
their  private  speculations,  it  was  not  against 
religion,  but  against  the  Church,  that  their 
political  hostility  was  directed. 

But,  says  Mr.  Burke,  the  degraded  pen 
sionary  establishment,  and  the  elective  con- 


*  Mr.  Burke's  remark  on  the  English  Free- 
thinkers  is  unworthy  of  him.  It  more  resembles 
the  rant  by  which  priests  inflame  the  languid  bi 
gotry  of  iheir  fanatical  adherents,  than  the  calm, 
ingenuous,  and  manly  criticism  of  a  philosopher 
and  a  scholar.  Had  he  made  extensive  inquiries 
among  his  learned  friends,  he  must  have  found 
many  who  have  read  and  admired  Collins'  incom 
parable  tract  on  Liberty  and  Necessity.  Had  he 
looked  abroad  into  the  world,  he  would  have  found 
many  who  still  read  the  philosophical  works  of 
Bolingbroke,  not  as  philosophy,  but  as  eloquent 
and  splendid  declamation.  What  he  means  by 
"  their  successors,"  I  will  not  conjecture:  I  will 
not  suppose  that,  with  Dr.  Hurd,  he  regards  David 
Hume  as  "  a  puny  dialectician  from  the  north  !" — 
yet  it  is  hard  to  understand  him  in  any  other 
sense. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


427 


stitution  of  the  new  clergy  of  France  is  suf 
ficient  evidence  of  the  design.  The  clergy 
are  to  be  made  contemptible,  that  the  popu 
lar  reverence  for  religion  may  be  destroyed, 
and  the  way  thus  paved  for  its  abolition.  It 
is  amusing  to  examine  the  different  aspects 
which  the  same  object  presents  to  various 
minds.  Mr.  Hume  vindicates  the  policy  of 
an  opulent  establishment,  as  a  bube  which 
purchases  the  useful  inactivity  of  the  priest 
hood.  They  have  no  longer,  he  supposes, 
any  temptation  to  court  a  dangerous  domi 
nion  over  the  minds  of  the  people,  because 
they  are  independent  of  it.  Had  that  philo 
sopher  been  now  alive,  he  must  on  the  same 
principle  have  remarked,  that  an  elective 
clergy  and  a  scantily  endowed  Church,  had 
a  far  greater  tendency  to  produce  fanaticism 
than  irreligion.  If  the  priests  depend  on  the 
people,  they  can  only  maintain  their  influ 
ence  by  cultivating  those  passions  in  the 
popular  mind,  which  gave  them  an  ascend 
ant  over  it :  to  inflame  these  passions  is  their 
obvious  ambition.  Priests  would  be  in  a 
nation  of  sceptics  contemptible, — in  a  nation 
of  fanatics  omnipotent.  It  has  not  therefore 
been  more  uniformly  the  habit  of  a  clergy 
that  depends  on  a  court,  to  practise  servility, 
than  it  would  evidently  be  the  interest  of  a 
clergy  that  depends  on  the  people  to  culti 
vate  religious  enthusiasm.  Scanty  endow 
ments  too  would  still  more  dispose  them  to 
seek  a  consolation  for  the  absence  of  worldly 
enjoyments,  in  the  exercise  of  a  flattering 
authority  over  the  minds  of  men.  Such 
would  have  been  the  view  of  a  philosopher 
who  was  indifferent  to  Christianity,  on  the 
new  constitution  of  the  Gallican  Church. 
He  never  would  have  dreamt  of  rendering 
Religion  unpopular  by  devoting  her  ministers 
to  activity,  —  contemptible  by  compelling 
ihem  to  purity, — or  unamiable  by  divesting 
her  of  invidious  splendour.  He  would  have 
seen  in  these  changes  the  seeds,  of  enthu 
siasm  and  not  of  laxity.  But  he  would  have 
been  consoled  by  the  reflection,  that  the  dis 
solution  of  the  Church  as  a  corporation  had 
broken  the  strength  of  the  priesthood  ;  that 
religious  liberty  without  limit  would  disarm 
the  animosity  of  sects;  and  that  the  diffu 
sion  of  knowledge  would  restrain  the  extra 
vagances  of  fanaticism. 

I  am  here  only  considering  the  establish 
ment  of  the  Gallican  Church  as  an  evidence 
of  the  supposed  plan  for  abolishing  Christi 
anity  :  I  am  not  discussing  its  intrinsic  merits. 
I  therefore  personate  a  philosophic  infidel, 
who,  it  would  appear,  must  have  discerned 
the  tendency  of  this  plan  to  be  directly  the 
reverse  of  that  conceived  by  Mr.  Burke.* 


*  The  theory  of  Mr.  Burke  on  the  subject  of  re 
ligious  establishments,  I  am  utterly  at  a  loss  to 
comprehend.  He  will  not  adopt  the  impious  rea 
soning  of  Mr.  Hume,  nor  does  he  suppose  with 
Warburton  any  "alliance  between  Church  and 
State  ;"  for  he  seems  to  conceive  them  to  be  origi 
nally  the  same.  When  he  or  his  admirers  trans 
late  his  statements  (pp.  145,  146,)  into  a  series  of 
propositions  expressed  in  precise  and  unadorned 
English,  they  may  become  the  proper  objects  of 


It  is  in  truth  rather  a  fanatical  than  an  irre 
ligious  spirit  which  dictates  the  organization 
of  the  Church  of  France.  A  Jansenist  party 
had  been  formed  in  the  old  Parliaments 
through  their  long  hostilities  to  the  Jesuits 
and  the  See  of  Rome ;  members  of  which 
party  have  in  the  National  Assembly,  by  the 
support  of  the  inferior  Clergy,  acquired  the 
ascendant  in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  Of  this 
number  is  M.  Camus.  The  new  constitu 
tion  of  the  Church  accords  exactly  with  their 
dogmas.*  The  clergy  are,  according  to  their 
principles,  to  notify  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
their  union  in  doctrine,  but  to  recognise  no 
subordination  in  discipline.  The  spirit  of  a 
dormant  sect  thus  revived  in  a  new  shape  at 
so  critical  a  period, — the  unintelligible  sub 
tleties  of  the  Bishop  of  Ypres  thus  influ 
encing  the  institutions  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  might  present  an  ample  field  of  reflec 
tion  to  an  enlightened  observer  of  human 
affairs :  but  it  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to 
observe  the  fact,  and  to  remark  the  error  of 
attributing  to  the  hostile  designs  of  atheism 
what  in  so  great  a  degree  has  arisen  from, 
the  ardour  of  religious  zeal. 

The  establishment  of  the  Church  has  not 
furnished  any  evidence  of  that  to  which  Mr. 
Burke  has  attributed  so  much  of  the  system, 
of  the  National  Assembly.  Let  us  examine 
whether  a  short  review  of  their  financial 
operations  will  supply  the  defect. f 

To  the  gloomy  statement  of  French  finance 
offered  by  M.  de  Calonne,  let  us  oppose  the 
report  of  M.  de  la  Rochefoucault,  from  the 
Committee  of  Finance,  on  the  9th  of  Decem 
ber,  1790,  which  from  premises  that  appear 
indisputable,  infers  a  considerable  surplus 
revenue  in  the  present  year.  The  purity  of 
that  distinguished  person  has  hitherto  been 
arraigned  by  no  party.  That  understanding 
must  be  of  a  singular  construction  which 
could  hesitate  between  the  statements  of  the 
Due  de  la  Rochefoucault  and  M.  de  Calonne. 
But  without  using  this  argumentum  ad  vere- 
cundiam,)  we  remark,  that  there  are  radical 
faults,  which  vitiate  the  whole  calculations 
of  the  latter,  and  the  consequent  reasonings 
of  Mr.  Burke.  They  are  taken  from  a  year 
of  languishing  and  disturbed  industry,  and 
absurdly  applied  to  the  future  revenue  of 


argument  and  discussion.  In  their  present  state 
they  irresistibly  remind  one  of  the  observations 
of  Lord  Bacon  : — "  Pugnax  enim  philosophic 
genus  et  sophisticum  illaqueat  intellectuam  ;  at 
illud  alterum  phantasticum,  et  tumidum,  et  quasi 
poeticum,  magis  blanditur  intellectui.  Inest  enim 
homini  quoedam  intellects  ambitio  non  minor 
quam  voluntatis,  praesertim  in  ingeniis  altis  et  ele- 
vaiis." — Novum  Organum,  sect.  xlv. 

*  See  the  Speech  of  M.  Sieyes  on  Religious 
Liberty,  where  he  reproaches  the  Ecclesiastical 
Committee  with  abusing  the  Revolution  for  the 
purpose  of  reviving  the  seminary  of  Port  Royal. 
See  also  M.  Condorcet,  Sur  1'Instruction  Publique. 

t  It  may  be  remarked,  that  on  the  subject  of 
finance  I  have  declined  all  details.  They  were  not 
necessary  to  my  purpose,  which  was  to  consider 
the  Assembly's  arrangements  of  revenue,  more 
with  a  view  to  their  supposed  political  profligacy, 
than  to  their  financial  talents. 


428 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


peaceful  and  flourishing  periods; — from  a 
year  in  which  much  of  the  old  revenue  of 
the  state  had  been  destroyed,  and  during 
which  the  Assembly  had  scarcely  com 
menced  its  new  scheme  of  taxation.  It  is 
an  error  to  assert  that  it  was  the  Assembly 
that  destroyed  the  former  oppressive  taxes, 
which  formed  so  important  a  source  of  reve 
nue  :  these  taxes  perished  in  the  expiring 
struggle  of  the  ancient  government.  No 
authority  remaining  in  France  could  have 
maintained  them.  Calculations  cannot  fail 
of  being  most  grossly  illusive,  which  are 
formed  from  a  period  when  many  taxes  had 
failed  before  they  could  be  replaced  by  new 
impost,  and  when  productive  industry  itself, 
the  source  of  all  revenue,  was  struck  with  a 
momentary  palsy.*  Mr.  Burke  discussed 
the  financial  merit  of  the  Assembly  before 
it  had  begun  its  system  of  taxation.  It  is 
still  premature  to  examine  its  general  scheme 
of  revenue,  or  to  establish  general  maxims 
on  the  survey  of  a  period  which  may  be 
considered  as  an  interregnum  of  finance. 

The  only  financial  operation  which  may  be 
regarded  as  complete  is  their  emission  of 
assignats — the  paper  representative  of  the 
national  property  ;  which,  while  it  facilitated 
the  sale  of  that  property,  should  supply  the 
absence  of  specie  in  ordinary  circulation.  On 
this,  as  well  as  most  other  topics,  the  predic 
tions  of  their  enemies  have  been  completely 
falsified.  They  predicted  that  no  purchasers 
would  be  found  hardy  enough  to  trust  their 
property  on  the  tenure  of  a  new  and  insecure 
establishment :  but  the  national  property  has 
in  all  parts  been  bought  with  the  greatest 
avidity.  They  predicted  that  the  estimate 
of  its  value  would  prove  exaggerated  :  but  it 
has  sold  uniformly  for  double  and  treble  that 
estimate.  They  predicted  that  the  deprecia 
tion  of  the  assignats  would  in  effect  heighten 
the  price  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  fall  with 
the  most  cruel  severity  on  the  most  indigent 
class  of  mankind :  the  event  has  however 
been,  that  the  assignats,  supported  in  their 
credit  by  the  rapid  sale  of  the  property  which 
they  represented,  have  kept  almost  at  par; 
that  the  price  of  the  necessaries  of  life  has 
lowered ;  and  that  the  sufferings  of  the  indi 
gent  have  been  considerably  alleviated. 
Many  millions  of  assignats.  already  com 
mitted  to  the  flames,  form  the  most  unan 
swerable  reply  to  the  objections  urged  against 
them.f  Many  purchasers,  not  availing  them 
selves  of  that  indulgence  for  gradual  payment, 
which  in  so  immense  a  sale  was  unavoidable, 
have  paid  the  whole  price  in  advance.  This 
has  been  peculiarly  the  case  in  the  northern 

*  Mr.  Burke  exults  in  the  deficiency  confessed 
by  M.  Vernet  to  amount  in  August,  1790,  to  eight 
millions  sterling.  He  follows  it  with  an  invective 
against  the  National  Assembly,  which  one  simple 
reflection  would  have  repressed.  The  suppression 
of  the  gabelle  alone  accounted  for  almost  half  of 
that  deficiency!  Its  produce  was  estimated  at 
sixty  millions  of  livres,  or  about  two  millions  and 
a  half  sterling. 

t  At  this  moment  nearly  one-third. 


provinces,  where  opulent  farmers  have  been 
the  chief  purchasers ; — a  happy  circumstance, 
if  it  only  tended  to  multiply  that  most  useful 
and  respectable  class  of  men,  who  are  at 
once  proprietors  and  cultivators  of  the  ground. 
The  evils  of  this  emission  in  the  circum 
stances  of  France  were  transient;  —  the 
beneficial  effects  permanent.  Two  great 
objects  \vfere  to  be  obtained  by  it; — one  of 
policy,  and  another  of  finance.  The  first 
was  to  attach  a  great  body  of  proprietors  to 
the  Revolution,  on  the  stability  of  which 
must  depend  the  security  of  their  fortunes. 
This  is  what  Mr.  Burke  terms,  making  them 
accomplices  in  confiscation ;  though  it  was 
precisely  the  policy  adopted  by  the  English 
Revolutionists,  when  they  favoured  the 
growth  of  a  national  debt,  to  interest  a  body 
of  creditors  in  the  permanence  of  their  new 
establishment.  To  render  the  attainment 
of  the  other  great  object, — the  liquidation  of 
the  public  debt, — improbable,  M.  de  Calonne 
has  been  reduced  to  so  gross  a  misrepresenta 
tion,  as  to  slate  the  probable  value  of  the 
national  property  at  only  two  milliards, 
(about  eighty-three  millions  sterling.)  though 
the  best  calculations  have  rated  it  at  more 
than  double  that  sum.  There  is  every  proba 
bility  that  this  immense  national  estate  will 
spedily  disburden  France  of  the  greatest  part 
of  her  national  debt,  remove  the  load  of  im 
post  under  which  her  industry  has  groaned, 
and  open  to  her  that  career  of  prosperity  for 
which  she  was  so  evidently  destined  by  the 
bounty  of  Nature.  With  these  great  benefits, 
with  the  acquittal  of  the  public  debt,  and  the 
stability  of  freedom,  this  operation  has,  it 
must  be  confessed,  produced  some  evils.  It 
cannot  be  denied  to  have  promoted,  in  some 
degree,  a  spirit  of  gambling ;  and  it  may  give 
an  undue  ascendant  in  the  municipal  bodies 
to  the  agents  of  the  paper  circulation.  But 
these  evils  are  fugitive:  the  moment  that 
witnesses  the  extinction  of  the  assignats,  by 
the  complete  sale  of  the  national  lands,  must 
terminate  them ;  and  that  period,  our  past 
experience  renders  probable  is  not  very  re 
mote.  There  was  one  general  view,  which 
to  persons  conversant  with  political  economy, 
would,  from  the  commencement  of  the  ope 
ration  have  appeared  decisive.  Either  the 
assignats  were  to  retain  their  value,  or  they 
were  not :  if  they  retained  their  value,  none 
of  the  apprehended  evils  could  arise :  if 
they  were  discredited,  every  fall  in  their 
value  was  a  new  motive  to  their  holders  to 
exchange  them  for  national  lands.  No  man 
would  retain  depreciated  paper  who  could 
acquire  solid  property.  If  a  great  portion  of 
them  should  be  thus  employed,  the  value  of 
those  left  in  circulation  must  immediately 
rise,  both  because  their  number  was  dimin 
ished,  and  their  security  become  more  obvi 
ous.  The  failure,  as  a  medium  of  circulation, 
must  have  improved  them  as  an  instrument 
of  sale ;  and  their  success  as  an  instrument 
of  sale  must  in  return  have  restored  their 
utility  as  a  medium  of  circulation.  This 
action  and  re-action  was  inevitable,  though 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


429 


the  slight  depreciation  of  the  assignats  had 
not  made  its  effects  very  conspicuous  in 
France. 

So  determined  is  the  opposition  of  Mr. 
Burke  to  those  measures  of  the  Assembly 
which  regard  the  finances  of  the  Church, 
that  even  monastic  institutions  have  in  him 
found  an  advocate.  Let  us  discuss  the  argu 
ments  which  he  urges  for  the  preservation 
of  these  monuments  of  human, madness.  In 
support  of  an  opinion  so  singular,  he  produces 
one  moral  and  one  commercial  reason  :* — '•  In 
monastic  institutions  was  found  a  great 
power  for  the  mechanism  of  politic  benevo 
lence  ;  to  destroy  any  power  growing  wild 
from  the  rank  productive  force  of  the  human 
mind,  is  almost  tantamount,  in  the  moral 
worm,  to  the  destruction  of  the  apparently 
active  properties  of  bodies  in  the  material." 
In  one  word,  the  spirit  and  the  institutions 
of  monachism  were  an  instrument  in  the 
hand  of  the  legislator,  which  he  ought  to 
have  converted  to  some  public  use.  I  con 
fess  myself  so  far  to  share  the  blindness  of 
the  National  Assembly,  that  I  cannot  form 
the  most  remote  conjecture  concerning  the 
various  uses  which  "  have  suggested  them 
selves  to  a  contriving  mind."  But  without 
expatiating  on  them,  let  us  attempt  to  con 
struct  an  answer  to  his  argument  on  a  broader 
basis.  The  moral  powers  by  which  a  legis 
lator  moves  the  mind  of  man  are  his  pas 
sions;  and  if  the  insane  fanaticism  which 
first  peopled  the  deserts  of  Upper  Egypt 
with  anchorites,  still  existed  in  Europe,  he 
must  attempt  the  direction  of  a  spirit  which 
humanity  forbids  him  to  persecute,  and  wis 
dom  to  neglect.  But  monastic  institutions 
have  for  ages  survived  the  spirit  which  gave 
them  birth ;  and  it  is  not  necessary  for  any 
legislature  to  destroy  "  that  power  growing- 
wild  out  of  the  rank  productive  force  of  the 
human  mind,"  from  which  monachism  arose. 
Being,  like  all  other  furious  and  unnatural 
passions,  in  its  nature  transient,  it  languished 
in  the  discredit  of  miracles  and  the  absence 
of  persecution,  and  was  gradually  melted  in 
the  sunshine  of  tranquillity  and  opulence  so 
long  enjoyed  by  the  Church.  The  soul  which 
actuated  monachism  had  fled :  the  skeleton 
only  remained  to  deform  society.  The  dens 
of  fanaticism,  where  they  did  not  become 
the  recesses  of  sensuality,  were  converted 
into  the  styes  of  indolence  and  apathy.  The 
moral  power,  therefore,  no  longer  existed  ; 
for  the  spirit  by  which  the  legislator  could 
alone  have  moved  these  bodies  was  no  more. 
Nor  had  any  new  spirit  succeeded  which 
might  be  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  legis 
lative  skill.  These  short-lived  phrenzies 
leave  behind  them  an  inert  product,  in  the 
same  manner  as,  when  the  fury  and  splen 
dour  of  volcanic  eruption  is  past  for  ages, 
there  still  remains  a  mass  of  lava  to  encumber 
the  soil,  and  deform  the  aspect  of  the  earth. t 


*  Burke,  pp.  232— 241. 

t  It  is  urged  by  Mr.  Burke,  as  a  species  of  inci 
dental  defence  of  monachism,  that  there  are  many 
modes  of  industry,  from  which  benevolence  would 


The  sale  of  the  monastic  estates  is  also 
questioned  by  Mr.  Burke  on  commercial 
principles.  The  sum  of  his  reasoning  may 
be  thus  expressed : — The  surplus  product  of 
the  earth  forms  the  income  of  the  landed 
proprietor;  that  surplus  the  expenditure  of 
some  one  must  disperse;  arid  of  what  import 
is  it  to  society,  whether  it  be  circulated  by 
the  expense  of  one  landholder,  or  of  a  society 
of  monks?  A  very  simple  statement  fur- 
lishes  an  unanswerable  reply  to  this  defence. 
The  wealth  of  society  is  its  stock  of  pro 
ductive  labour.  There  must,  it  is  true,  be 
unproductive  consumers,  but,  the  fewer  their 
number,  the  greater  (all  things  else  being  ' 
the  same)  must  be  the  opulence  of  a  state. 
The  possession  of  an  estate  by  a  society  of 
monks  establishes,  let  us  suppose  forty,  un 
productive  consumers :  the  possession  of  the 
same  estate  by  a  single  landholder  only  ne 
cessarily  produces  one.  It  is  therefore  evi 
dent  that  there  is  forty  times  the  quantity  of 
labour  subtracted  from  the  public  stock,  in 
the  first  case,  than  there  is  in  the  second. 
If  it  be  objected  that  the  domestics  of  a  land 
holder  are  unproductive,  let  it  be  remarked 
that  a  monastery  has  its  servants ;  and  that 
those  of  a  lay  proprietor  are  not  profession 
ally  and  perpetually  unproductive,  as  many 
of  them  become  farmers  and  artisans,  and 
that,  above  all,  many  of  them  are  married. 
Nothing  then  can  appear,  on  plain  commer 
cial  views,  more  evident  than  the  distinction 
between  lay  and  monkish  landholders.  It  is 
surely  unnecessary  to  appeal  to  the  motives 
which  have  every  where  produced  statutes 
of  mortmain,  the  neglect  in  which  the  land 
of  ecclesiastical  corporations  is  suffered  to 
remain,  and  the  infinite  utility  which  arises 
from  changes  of  property  in  land.  The  face 
of  those  countries  where  the  transfers  have 
been  most  rapid,  will  sufficiently  prove  their 
benefit.  Purchasers  seldom  adventure  with 
out  fortune ;  and  the  novelty  of  their  acqui 
sition  inspires  them  with  the  ardour  of  im 
provement. 

No  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  the 
estates  possessed  by  the  Church  will  in 
crease  immensely  in  their  value.  It  is  vain 

rather  rescue  men  than  from  monastic  quiet.  This 
must  be  allowed,  in  one  view,  to  be  true.  But, 
though  the  laws  must  permit  the  natural  progress 
which  produces  this  species  of  labour,  does  it  fol 
low,  that  they  ought  to  create  monastic  seclusion  ? 
Is  the  existence  of  one  source  of  misery  a  reason 
for  opening  another?  Because  noxious  drudgery 
must  be  tolerated,  are  we  to  sanction  compulsory 
inutility  ?  Instances  of  similar  bad  reasoning  from 
what  society  must  suffer  to  what  she  ought  to  enact, 
occur  in  other  parts  of  Mr.  Burke's  "production. 
We  in  England,  he  says,  do  not  think  ten  thou 
sand  pounds  a  year  worse  in  the  hands  of  a  bishop 
than  in  those  of  a  baronet  or  a  'squire.  Excessive 
inequality  is  in  both  cases  an  enormous  evil.  The 
laws  must  permit  property  to  grow  as  the  course 
of  things  effect  it :  but  ought  they  to  add  a  new 
factitious  evil  to  this  natural  and  irremediable  one  ? 
They  cannot  avoid  inequality  in  the  income  of  pro 
perty,  because  they  must  permit  property  to  dis 
tribute  itself:  but  they  can  remedy  excessive  ine 
qualities  in  the  income  of  office,  because  the  income 
and  the  office  are  their  creatures. 


430 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


to  say  that  they  will  be  transferred  to  Stock 
jobbers.  Situations,  not  names,  are  to  b 
considered  in  human  affairs.  He  that  ha 
once  tasted  the  indolence  and  authority  of  ; 
landholder,  will  with  difficulty  return  to  th 
comparative  servility  and  drudgery  of  ; 
monied  capitalist.  But  should  the  usuriou 
habits  of  the  immediate  purchaser  be  in 


veterate,  his   son 


imbibe   other  senti 


ments  from  his  birth.  The  heir  of  the  stock 
jobbing  Alpheus  may  acquire  as  perfectl} 
the  habits  of  an  active  improver  of  his  patri 
monial  estate,  as  the  children  of  Cincirmatu 
or  Cato. 

To  aid  the  feebleness  of  these  arguments 
Mr.  Burke  has  brought  forward  a  panegyri 
cal  enumeration  of  the  objects  on  which 
monastic  revenue  is  expended.  On  this 
masterpiece  of  fascinating  and  magnificen 
eloquence  it  is  impossible  to  be  too  lavish 
of  praise.  It  would  have  been  quoted  by 
Quintilian  as  a  splended  model  of  rhetorica1 
common-place.  But  criticism  is  not  our 
object ;  and  all  that  the  display  of  such 
powers  of  oratory  can  on  such  a  subjec 
suggest,  is  embodied  in  a  sentiment  which 
might  perhaps  have  served  as  a  character 
istic  motto  to  Mr.  Burke's  production  : 
Addidit  invalidce  robur  Facundia  causce, 


SECTION  III. 

Popular  excesses  which  attended  the  Revolu 
tion. 

THAT  no  great  revolutions  can  be  accom 
plished  without  excesses  and  miseries  at 
which  humanity  revolts,  is  a  truth  which 
cannot  be  denied.  This  unfortunately  is 
true  in  a  peculiar  manner  of  those  Revolu 
tions,  which,  like  that  of  France,  are  strictly 
popular.  Where  the  people  are  led  by  a 
faction,  its  leaders  find  no  difficulty  in  the 
re-establishment  of  that  order,  which  must 
be  the  object  of  their  wishes,  because  it  is 
the  sole  security  of  their  power.  But  when 
a  general  movement  of  the  popular  mind 
levels  a  despotism  with  the  ground,  it  is  far 
less  easy  to  restrain  excess.  There  is  more 
resentment  to  satiate  and  less  authority  to 
control.  The  passion  which  produced  an 
effect  so  tremendous,  is  too  violent  to  sub 
side  in  a  moment  into  serenity  and  submis 
sion. 

The  attempt  to  punish  the  spirit  that  ac 
tuates  a  people,  if  it  were  just,  would  be 
vain,  and  if  it  were  possible,  would  be  cruel. 
No  remedies  are  therefore  left  but  the  pro 
gress  of  instruction, — the  force  of  persuasion, 
— the  mild  authority  of  opinion  :  and  these 
though  infallible  are  of  slow  operation.  In 
the  interval  which  elapses  before  a  calm 
succeeds  the  boisterous  moments  of  a  revo 
lution,  it  is  vain  to  expect  that  a  people 
inured  to  barbarism  by  their  oppressors,  and 
which  has  ages  of  oppression  to  avenge,  will 
be  punctiliously  generous  in  their  triumph, 


nicely  discriminative  in  their  vengeance,  or 
cautiously  mild  in  their  mode  of  retaliation. 

"  They  will  break  their  chains  on  the  heads 
of  their  oppressors."* 

Such  was  the  state  of  France  •  and  such 
were  the  obvious  causes  of  scenes  which 
the  friends  of  freedom  deplore  as  tarnishing 
her  triumphs.    They  feel  these  evils  as  men 
of  humanity  :  but  they  will  not  bestow  this 
name  on  that  womanish  sensibility,  towards 
which,  even  in  the  still  intercourse  of  pri 
vate  life,  love  is  not  unmingled  with  indul 
gence.     The  only  humanity  which,  in  the 
great  affairs  of  men,  claims  their  respect,  is 
that  manly  and  expanded  sentiment,  which 
fixes  its  steady  eye  on  the  means  of  general 
happiness.      The  sensibility  which  shrinks 
at  present  evil,  without  extending  its  view 
to  future  good,  is  not  a  virtue ;  for  it  is  not  a 
quality  beneficial  to  mankind.     It  would  ar 
rest  the  arm  of  a  surgeon  in  amputating  a 
gangrened  limb,  or  the  hand  of  a  judge  in 
signing  the  sentence  of  a  parricide.    I  do  not 
say  (God  forbid  !)  that  a  crime  may  be  com 
mitted  for  the  attainment  even  of  a  good  end  : 
such  a  doctrine  would  shake  morals  to  thoir 
centre.     The  man  who  would  erect  freedom 
on  the  ruins  of  morals  neither  understands 
nor  loves  either.   But  the  case  of  the  French 
Revolutionists  is  totally  different.     Has  any 
moralist  ever  pretended,  that  we  are  to  de 
cline  the  pursuit  of  a  good  which  our  duty 
prescribes  to  us,  because  we  foresee  that 
Jome  partial  and  incidental  evil  would  arise 
rom  it?     But  the  number  of  the  French 
eaders   against  whom   such   charges  have 
>een  insinuated  is  so  small,  that  supposing 
what  I  do   not   believe)   its  truth,  it  only 
iroves  that  some  corrupt  and  ambitious  men 
vill  mix  with  all  great  bodies.     The  ques- 
ion  with  respect  to  the  rest,  is  reducible  to 
his : — Whether  they  were  to  abstain  from 
stablishing  a  free  government,  because  they 
oresaw  that  it  could  not  be  effected  without 
onfusion  and  temporary  distress,  or  to  be 
on  soled  for  such  calamities  by  the  view  of 
hat  happiness  to  which  their  labours  were 
o  give  ultimate  permanence  and  diffusion  ? 

Minister  is  not  conceived  to  be  guilty  of 
ystematic  immorality,  because  he  balances 
tie  evils  of  the  most  'just  war  with  the  ad- 
antages  of  that  national  security  which  is 
roduced  by  the  reputation  of  spirit  and 
ower : — neither  ought  the  patriot,  who  ba- 
ancing  the  evils  of  transient  anarchy  against 
le  inestimable  good  of  established  liberty, 
'nds  the  last  preponderate  in  the  scale. 

Such,  in  fact,  has  ever  been  the  reasoning 
f  the  leaders  in  those  insurrections  which 
ave  preserved  the  remnant  of  freedom  that 
till  exists  among  mankind.  Holland,  Eng- 
1.  and  America,  must  have  reasoned  thus; 
nd  'the  different  portions  of  liberty  which 
ley  enjoy,  have  been  purchased  by  the  en- 
urance  of  far  greater  calamities  than  have 

en  suffered  by  France.     It  is  unnecessary 


The  eloquent  expression  of  Mr.  Curran  in  the 
•ish  House  of  Commons. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


431 


to  appeal  to  the  wars  which  for  almost  a 
century  afflicted  the  Low  Countries:  but  it 
may  not  be  so  to  remind  England  of  the  price 
she  paid  for  the  establishment  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  Revolution.  The  disputed  suc 
cession  which  arose  from  that  event,  pro 
duced  a  destructive  civil  war  in  Ireland,  two 
rebellions  in  Scotland,  and  the  consequent 
slaughter  arid  banishment  of  thousands  of 
citizens,  with  the  widest  confiscation  of  their 
properties; — not  to  mention  the  continental 
connections  and  the  foreign  wars  into  which 
it  plunged  us,  and  the  necessity  thus  imposed 
upon  us  of  maintaining  a  standing  army,  and 
accumulating  an  enormous  public  debt.* 

The  freedom  of  America  was  purchased 
by  calamities  still  more  inevitable.  The 
authors  of  it  must  have  foreseen  them ;  for 
they  were  not  contingent  or  remote,  but 
ready  in  a  moment  to  burst  on  their  heads. 
Their  case  is  most  similar  to  that  of  France, 
and  best  answers  one  of  Mr.  Burke's  most 
triumphant  arguments.  They  enjoyed  some 
liberty,  which  their  oppressors  did  not  attack ; 
and  the  object  for  which  they  resisted,  was 
conceded  in  the  progress  of  the  war:  but 
like  France,  after  the  concessions  of  her 
King,  they  refused  to  acquiesce  in  an  imper 
fect  liberty,  when  a  more  perfect  one  was 
within  their  reach.  They  pursued  what  Mr. 
Burke, — whatever  were  then  his  sentiments, 
— on  his  present  system,  must  reprobate  as 
a  speculative  and  ideal  good.  They  sought 
their  beloved  independence  through  new 
calamities,  and  the  prolonged  horrors  of  civil 
war.  Their  resistance,  from  that  moment, 
li  was  against  concession;  and  their  blows 
were  aimed  at  a  hand  holding  forth  immu 
nity  and  favours."  Events  have  indeed  jus 
tified  that  noble  resistance :  America  has 
emerged  from  her  struggle  into  tranquillity 
and  freedom, — into  affluence  and  credit ;  and 
the  authors  of  her  Constitution  have  con 
structed  a  great  permanent  experimental 
answer  to  the  sophisms  and  declamations  of 
the  detractors  of  liberty. 

But  what  proportion  did  the  price  she  paid 
for  so  great  blessing  bear  to  the  transient 
misfortunes  which  have  afflicted  France  ? 
The  extravagance  of  the  comparison  shocks 
every  unprejudiced  mind.  No  series  of 
events  in  history  have  probably  been  more 
widely,  malignantly,  and  systematically  ex 
aggerated  than  the  French  commotions.  An 
enraged,  numerous,  and  opulent  body  of  ex 
iles,  dispersed  over  Europe,  have  possessed 
themselves  of  every  venal  press,  and  filled 
the  public  ear  with  a  perpetual  buz  of  the 
crimes  and  horrors  that  were  acting  in  France. 
Instead  of  entering  on  a  minute  scrutiny, 
of  which  the  importance  would  neither  ex 
piate  the  tediousness,  nor  reward  the  toil,  let 
us  content  ourselves  with  opposing  one  gene- 


*  Yet  this  was  only  the  combat  of  reason  and 
freedom  against  one  prejudice, — that  of  heredi 
tary  right ;  whereas  the  French  Revolution  is, 
as  has  been  sublimely  said  by  the  Bishop  of  Au- 
tun,  "  Le  premier  combat  qui  se  soit  jamais  livre 
entre  tous  les  Principes  et  toutes  les  Erreurs  !  " 


ral  fact  to  this  host  of  falsehoods : — no  com 
mercial  house  of  importance  has  failed  in 
France  since  the  Revolution!  How  is  this  to 
be  reconciled  with  the  tales  that  have  been 
irculated  ?  As  well  might  the  transfers  of 
the  Royal  Exchange  be  quietly  executed  in 
the  ferocious  anarchy  of  Gondar,  and  the 
peaceful  opulence  of  Lombard-street  flourish 
amidst  hordes  of  Galla  and  Agows.*  Com 
merce,  which  shrinks  from  the  breath  of  civil 
confusion,  has  resisted  this  tempest;  and  a 
mighty  Revolution  has  been  accomplished 
with  less  commercial  derangement  than 
could  arise  from  the  bankruptcy  of  a  second- 
rate  house  in  London  or  Amsterdam.  The 
manufacturers  of  Lyons,  the  merchants  of 
Bourdeaux  and  Marseilles,  are  silent  amidst 
the  lamentations  of  the  Abbe  Maury,  M. 
de  Calonne,  and  Mr.  Burke.  Happy  is  that 
people  whose  commerce  flourishes  in  ledg 
ers,  while  it  is  bewailed  in  orations ;  and 
remains  untouched  in  calculation,  while  it 
expires  in  the  pictures  of  eloquence.  This 
unquestionable  fact  is.  on  such  a  subject, 
worth  a  thousand  arguments,  and  to  any 
mind  qualified  to  judge,  must  expose  in  their 
true  light  those  execrable  fabrications,  which 
have  sounded  such  a  " senseless  yell" 
through  Europe. 

But  let  us  admit  for  a  moment  their  truth, 
and  take  as  a  specimen  of  the  evils  of  the 
Revolution,  the  number  of  lives  which  have 
been  lost  in  its  progress.  That  no  possibility 
of  cavil  may  remain,  let  us  surpass  in  an  ex 
aggerated  estimate  the  utmost  audacity  of 
falsehood :  let  us  make  a  statement,  from 
which  the  most  frontless  hireling  of  M.  de 
Calonne  would  shrink.  Let  us  for  a  moment 
suppose,  that  in  the  course  of  the  Revolution 
twenty  thousand  lives  have  been  lost.  On 
the  comparison  of  even  this  loss  with  parallel 
events  in  history,  is  there  anything  in  it  from 
which  a  manly  and  enlightened  humanity 
will  recoil  ?  Compare  it  with  the  expendi 
ture  of  blood  by  which  in  ordinary  wars  so 
many  pernicious  and  ignoble  objects  are 
fought.  Compare  it  with  the  blood  spilt  by 
England  in  the  attempt  to  subjugate  Ameri 
ca  :  and  if  such  be  the  guilt  of  the  Revolu 
tionists  of  France,  for  having,  at  the  hazard 
of  this  evil,  sought  the  establishment  of  free 
dom,  what  new  name  of  obloquy  shall  be 
applied  to  the  Minister  of  England,  who 
with  the  certainty  of  a  destruction  so  much 
greater,  attempted  the  establishment  of  ty 
ranny  ? 

The  illusion  w'hich  prevents  the  effects  of 
these  comparisons,  is  not  peculiar  to  Mr. 
Burke.  The  massacres  of  war,  and  the  mur 
ders  committed  by  the  sword  of  justice,  are 
disguised  by  the  solemnities  which  invest 
them  :  but  the  wild  justice  of  the  people  has 
a  naked  and  undisguised  horror.  Its  slight 
est  motion  awakens  all  our  indignation ; 
while  murder  and  rapine,  if  arrayed  in  the 
gorgeous  disguise  of  acts  of  state;  may  with 
impunity  stalk  abroad.  We  forget  that  the 

*  Abyssinian  tribes.— ED. 


432 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


evils  of  anarchy  must  be  short-lived,  while 
those  of  despotism  are  fatally  permanent. 

Another  illusion  has,  particularly  in  Eng 
land,  favoured  the  exaggeration  of  the  exiles  ] 
— we  judge  of  France  by  our  own  situation, 
instead  of  comparing  her  conduct  with  that 
of  other  nations  in  similar  circumstances. 
With  us  "  the  times  may  be  moderate,  and 
therefore  ought  to  be  peaceable  :"*  but  in 
France  the  times  were  not  moderate,  and 
could  not  be  peaceable.  Let  us  correct  these 
illusions  of  moral  optics  which  make  near 
objects  so  disproportionately  large.  Let  us 
place  the  scene  of  the  French  Revolution  in 
a  remote  age,  or  in  a  distant  nation,  and  then 
let  us  calmly  ask  our  own  minds,  whether 
the  most  reasonable  subject  of  wonder  be 
not  its  unexampled  mildness,  and  the  small 
number  of  individuals  crushed  in  the  fall  of 
so  vast  a  pile. 

Such  are  the  general  reflections  suggested 
by  the  disorders  of  the  French  Revolution. 
Of  these,  the  first  in  point  of  time,  as  well 
as  of  importance,  was  the  Parisian  insurrec 
tion  and  the  capture  of  the  Bastile.  The 
mode  in  which  that  memorable  event  is 
treated  by  Mr.  Burke,  is  worthy  of  notice. 
It  occupies  no  conspicuous  place  in  his  work ; 
it  is  only  obscurely  and  contemptuously 
hinted  at  as  one  of  those  examples  of  suc 
cessful  revolt,  which  have  fostered  a  muti 
nous  spirit  in  the  soldiery.  •'•  They  have  not 
forgot  the  taking  of  the  King's  castles  in 
Paris  and  Marseilles.  That  they  murdered 
with  impunity  in  both  places  the  governors, 
has  not  escaped  their  minds. "t  Such  is  the 
courtly  circumlocution  by  which  Mr.  Burke 
designates  the  Bastile — "  the  King's  castle  at 
Paris  /"  such  is  the  ignominious  language  in 
which  he  speaks  of  the  summary  justice 
executed  on  the  titled  ruffian  who  was  its 
governor;  and  such  is  the  apparent  art  with 
which  he  has  thrown  into  the  back-ground 
invective  and  asperity,  that,  had  they  been 
prominent,  would  have  provoked  the  indig 
nation  of  mankind  !  "  Je  sais,"  says  Mou- 
nier,  in  the  language  of  that  frigid  and  scanty 
approbation  that  is  extorted  from  an  enemy, 
"qu'il  est  des  circonstances  qui  legitiment 
1'insurrection,  et  je  mets  dans  ce  nombre 
celles  qui  ont  cause  le  siege  de  la  Bastile. "J 

But  the  admiration  of  Europe  and  of 
posterity,  is  not  to  be  estimated  by  the 
penurious  applause  of  M.  Mounier,  nor  re- 

gressed  by  the  insidious  hostility  of  Mr. 
urke.  It  will  correspond  to  the  splendour 
of  an  insurrection,  as  much  ennobled  by  hero 
ism  as  it  was  justified  by  necessity,  in 
which  the  citizens  of  Paris, — the  unwarlike 
inhabitants  of  a  voluptuous  capital, — listen 
ing  to  no  voice  but  that  of  the  danger  which 
menaced  their  representatives,  their  fami 
lies,  and  their  country,  and  animated,  instead 
of  awed,  by  the  host  of  disciplined  merce 
naries  which  invested  them  on  every  side, 
attacked  with  a  gallantry  and  success  equally 


*  Junius. 

t  Expose,  &c.  p.  24. 


t  Burke,  p.  307. 


incredible,  a  fortress  formidable  from  its 
strength,  and  tremendous  from  its  destina 
tion,  and  changed  the  destiny  of  France. 
To  palliate  or  excuse  such  a  revolt,  would 
be  abject  treachery  to  its  principles.  It  was 
a  case  in  which  revolt  was  the  dictate  of 
virtue,  and  the  path  of  duty;  and  in  which 
submission  would  have  been  the  most  das 
tardly  baseness,  and  the  foulest  crime.  It 
was  an  action  not  to  be  excused,  but  ap 
plauded, — not  to  be  pardoned,  but  admired. 
I  shall  not  therefore  descend  to  vindicate 
acts  of  heroism,  which  history  will  teach  the 
remotest  posterity  to  revere,  and  of  which 
the  recital  is  destined  to  kindle  in  unborn 
millions  the  holy  enthusiasm  of  freedom. 

Commotions  of  another  description  follow 
ed,  partly  arising  from  the  general  causes 
before  stated,  and  partly  from  others  of  more 
limited  and  local  operation.  The  peasantry 
of  the  provinces,  buried  for  so  many  ages  in 
the  darkness  of  servitude,  saw  but  indis 
tinctly  and  confusedly,  in  the  first  dawn  of 
liberty,  the  boundaries  of  their  duties  and 
their  rights.  It  was  no  wonder  that  they 
should  little  understand  that  freedom  which 
so  long  had  been  remote  from  their  views. 
The  name  conveyed  to  their  ear  a  right  to 
reject  all  restraint,  to  gratify  every  resent 
ment,  and  to  attack  all  property.  Ruffians, 
mingling  with  the  deluded  peasants,  in  hopes 
of  booty,  inflamed  their  ignorance  and  pre 
judices,  by  forged  authorities  from  the  King 
and  the  Assembly  for  their  licentiousness. 
Many  country  houses  were  burnt;  and  some 
obnoxious  persons  were  assassinated  :  but 
one  may  without  excessive  scepticism  doubt, 
whether  they  had  been  the  mildest  masters 
whose  chateaux  had  undergone  that  fate ; 
and  the  peasants  had  to  avenge  those  silent 
grinding  oppressions  which  formed  almost 
the  only  intercourse  of  the  rich  with  the  in 
digent,  and  which,  though  less  flagrant  than 
those  of  Government,  were  perhaps  produc 
tive  of  more  intolerable  and  diffused  misery. 

But  whatever  was  the  demerit  of  these 
excesses,  they  can  by  no  process  of  reason 
ing  be  made  imputable  to  the  National  As 
sembly,  or  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution.  In 
what  manner  were  they  to  repress  them? 
If  they  exerted  against  them  their  own  au 
thority  writh  rigour,  they  must  have  provoked 
a  civil  war :  if  they  invigorated  the  police  and 
tribunals  of  the  deposed  government, — be 
sides  incurring  the  hazard  of  the  same  ca 
lamity, — they  put  arms  into  the  hands  of 
their  enemies.  Placed  in  this  dilemma, 
they  were  compelled  to  expect  a  slow  reme 
dy  from  the  returning  serenity  of  the  public 
mind,  and  from  the  progress  of  the  new  go 
vernment  towards  consistence  and  vigour.* 


*  If  this  statement  be  candid  and  exact,  what 
shall  we  think  of  the  language  of  Mr.  Burke,  when 
he  speaks  of  the  Assembly  as  "  authorising  trea 
sons,  robberies,  rapes,  assassinations,  slaughters, 
and  burnings,  throughout  all  their  harassed  land." 
(p.  58.)  In  another  place  (p.  200,)  he  connects  the 
legislative  extinction  of  the  Order  of  Nobles  with 
the  popular  excesses  committed  against  individual 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUT 


That  the  conduct  of  the  populace  of  Paris 
towards  them  should  not  have  been  the  most 
decorous  and  circumspect. — that  it  should 
have  been  frequently  irregular  and  tumultu 
ous,  was,  in  the  nature  of  things  inevitable. 
But  the  horrible  picture  which  Mr.  Burke  has 
drawn  of  that  "  stern  necessity"  under  which 
this  "captive"  Assembly  votes,  is  neither 
justified  by  this  concession,  nor  by  the  state 
of  facts.  It  is  the  overcharged  colouring  of 
a  fervid  imagination.  Those  to  whom  he 
alludes  as  driven  away  by  assassins, — M.  M. 
Lally  and  Mouriier, — might,  surely,  have 
remained  with  perfect  safety  in  an  Assembly 
in  which  such  furious  invectives  are  daily 
bellowed  forth  with  impunity  against  the 
popular  leaders.  No  man  will  deny,  that 
that  member  of  the  minority  enjoyed  liberty 
of  speech  in  its  utmost  plenitude,  who  called 
M.  Mirabeau  "  le  phis  vil  de  tons  les  assassins." 
i:The  terrors  of  the  lamp-post  and  bayonet" 
have  hitherto  been  visionary.  Popular  fury 
has  hitherto  spared  the  most  furious  declaim- 
ers  of  Aristocracy ;  and  the  only  '•  decree,"  so 
far  as  I  can  discern,  which  has  even  been 
pretended  to  have  been  materially  influenced 
by  the  populace,  is  that  respecting  the  pre 
rogatives  of  war  and  peace.  That  tumult 
has  frequently  derogated  from  the  dignity 
which  ought  to  distinguish  the  deliberations 
of  a  legislative  assembly,  is  not  to  be  denied. 
But  that  their  debates  have  been  tumultu 
ous,  is  of  little  importance,  if  their  decisions 
have  been  independent.  Even  in  this  ques 
tion  of  war  and  peace,  "  the  highest  bidder 
at  the  auction  of  popularity"*  did  not  suc 
ceed.  The  scheme  of  M.  Mirabeau,  with 
few  amendments,  prevailed,  while  the  more 
'•  splendidly  popular"  propositions,  which 
vested  in  the  legislature  alone  the  preroga 
tive  of  war  and  peace,  were  rejected. 

We  are  now  conducted  by  the  course  of 
these  strictures  to  the  excesses  committed  at 
Versailles  on  the  5th  and  6th  of  October, 
1789.  After  the  most  careful  perusal  of  the 
voluminous  evidence  before  the  Chatelet,  of 
the  controversial  pamphlets  of  M.  M.  (1; Or 
leans  and  Mounier,  and  of  the  official  report 
of  M.  Chabroud  to  the  Assembly,  the  details 
of  the  affair  seem  to  me  so  much  involved 
in  obscurity  and  contradiction,  that  they 
afford  little  on  which  a  candid  mind  can  with 
confidence  pronounce.  They  afford,  indeed, 
to  frivolous  and  puerile  adversaries  the  means 
of  convicting  Mr.  Burke  of  some  minute 
errors.  M.  Miomandre,  the  sentinel  at  the 
Queen's  gate,  it  is  true,  survives;  but  it  is 
no  less  true,  that  he  was  left  for  dead  by  his 
assassins.  On  the  comparison  of  evidence 
it  seems  probable,  that  the  Queen's  chamber 
was  not  broken  into, — "  that  the  asylum  of 
beauty  and  Majesty  was  not  profaned."! 

Noblemen,  to  load  the  Assembly  with  the  accu 
mulated  obloquy  ; — a  mode  of  proceeding  more 
remarkable  for  controversial  dexterity  than  for 
candour. 

*  Burke,  p.  353. 

t  The  expression  of  M.  Chabroud.  Five  wit 
nesses  assert  that  the  ruffians  did  not  break  into 
55 


433 


But  these  slight  corrections  palliate  little  the 

atrocity,  and  alter  not  in  the  least  t 

ral  complexion,  of  these  flagitious  scenes^ 

The  most  important  question  which 
subject  presents  is,  whether  the  Parisian 
populace  were  the  instruments  of  conspira 
tors,  or  whether  their  fatal  march  to  Ver 
sailles  was  a  spontaneous  movement,  pro 
duced  by  real  or  chimerical  apprehensions 
of  plots  against  their  freedom.  I  confess 
that  I  incline  to  the  latter  opinion.  Natural 
causes  seem  to  me  adequate  to  account  for 
the  movement.  A  scarcity  of  provision  is 
not  denied  to  have  existed  in  Paris.  The 
dinner  of  the  body-guards  might  surely  have 
provoked  the  people  of  a  more  tranquil  city. 
The  maledictions  poured  forth  against  the 
National  Assembly,  the  insults  offered  to 
the  patriotic  cockade,  the  obnoxious  ardour 
of  loyalty  displayed  on  that  occasion,  might 
have  awakened  even  the  jealousy  of  a  people 
whose  ardour  had  been  sated  by  the  long 
enjoyment,  and  whose  alarms  had  been 
quieted  by  the  secure  possession,  of  liberty. 
The  escape  of  the  King  would  be  the  in 
fallible  signal  of  civil  war:  the  exposed 
situation  of  the  Royal  residence  was  there 
fore  a  source  of  perpetual  alarm.  These 
causes,  operating  on  that  credulous  jealousy 
which  is  the  malady  of  the  public  mind  in 
times  of  civil  confusion,  seeing  hostility  and 
conspiracy  on  every  side,  would  seem  suffi 
cient  ones.  The  apprehensions  of  the  people 
in  such  a  period  torture  the  most  innocent 
and  frivolous  accidents  into  proofs  of  sangui 
nary  plots : — witness  the  war  of  conspiracies 
carried  on  by  the  contending  factions  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  the  Second.  The  partici 
pation  of  Queen  Mary  in  Babington's  plot 
against  Elizabeth,  is  still  the  subject  of  con 
troversy.  We,  at  the  present  day,  dispute 
about  the  nature  of  the  connection  which 
subsisted  between  Charles  the  First  and  the 
Catholic  insurgents  of  Ireland.  It  has  occu 
pied  the  labour  of  a  century  to  separate 
truth  from  falsehood  in  the  Rye-house  Plot, 
— the  views  of  the  leaders  from  the  schemes 
of  the  inferior  conspirators. — and  to  discover 
that  Russell  and  Sydney  had,  indeed,  con 
spired  a  revolt,  but  that  the  underlings 
alone  had  plotted  the  assassination  of  the 
King. 

It  may  indeed  be  sa  d,  that  ambitious 
leaders  availed  themselves  of  the  inflamed 
state  of  public  feeling, — that  by  false  ru 
mours,  and  exaggerated  truths,  they  stimu 
lated  the  revenge,  and  increased  the  fears 
of  the  populace, — that  their  emissaries,  mix 
ing  with  the  mob,  and  concealed  by  its  con 
fusion,  were  to  execute  their  flagitious  pur 
poses,  and  fanatics,  as  usual,  were  the  dupes 
of  hypocrites.  Such  are  the  accusations 
which  have  been  made  against  M.  M.  d'Or- 

the  Queen's  chamber.  Two  give  the  account  fol 
lowed  by  Mr.  Burke,  and  to  give  this  preponde 
rance  its  due  force,  let  it  be  recollected,  that  the 
whole  proceedings  before  the  Chatelet  were  ex 
parte.  See  Procedure  Criminellefaitau  Chatelet 
de  Paris,  &c.,  1790. 

2M 


434 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


leans  and  Mirabeau.  The  defence  of  profli 
gate  ambition  is  not  imposed  on  the  admirers 
of  the  French  Revolution;  and  to  become 
the  advocate  of  individuals  were  to  forget 
the  dignity  of  a  discussion  that  regards  the 
rights  and  interests  of  an  emancipated  na 
tion.  Of  their  guilt,  however.  I  will  be  bold 
to  say  no  evidence  was  collected,  by  the 
malignant  activity  of  an  avowedly  hostile 
tribunal,  which,  for  a  moment,  would  have 
suspended  their  acquittal  by  an  English 
jury.  It  will  be  no  mean  testimony  to  the 
innocence  of  M.  Mirabeau,  that  an  oppo 
nent,  not  the  mildest  in  his  enmity,  nor  the 
most  candid  in  his  judgment,  confessed,  that 
he  saw  no  serious  ground  of  accusation 
against  him.* 

The  project  is  attributed  to  them,  of  in 
timidating  the  King  into  a  flight,  that  there 
might  be  a  pretext  for  elevating  the  Duke 
of  Orleans  to  the  office  of  Regent.  But  the 
King  could  have  had  no  rational  hopes  of 
escaping  ;t  for  he  must  have  traversed  two 
hundred  miles  of  a  country  guarded  by  a 
people  in  arms,  before  he  could  reach  the 
nearest  frontier  of  the  kingdom.  The  object 
was  too  absurd  to  be  pursued  by  conspira 
tors,  to  whom  talent  and  sagacity  have  not 
been  denied  by  their  enemies.  That  the 
popular  leaders  in  France  did,  indeed,  desire 
to  fix  the  Royal  residence  at  Paris,  it  is  im 
possible  to  doubt :  the  name,  the  person,  and 
the  authority  of  the  King,  wrould  have  been 
most  formidable  weapons  in  the  hands  of 
their  adversaries.  The  peace  of  their  coun 
try, — the  stability  of  their  freedom,  called 
on  them  to  use  every  measure  that  could 
prevent  their  enemies  from  getting  posses 
sion  of  that  "Royal  Figure."  The  name  of 
the  King  would  have  sanctioned  foreign 
powers  in  supporting  the  aristocracy.  Their 
interposition,  which  now  would  be  hostility 
against  the  King  and  kingdom,  would  then 
have  been  only  regarded  as  aid  against  re 
bellion.  Against  all  these  dreadful  conse 
quences  there  seemed  only  one  remedy, — 
the  residence  of  the  King  at  Paris.  Whether 
that  residence  is  to  be  called  a  "captivity." 
or  any  other  harsh  name,  I  will  not  hesitate 
to  affirm,  that  the  Parliament  of  England 
would  have  merited  the  gratitude  of  their 
country,  and  of  posterity,  by  a  similar  pre 
vention  of  the  escape  of  Charles  I.  from 
London.  Fortunate  would  it  have  been  for 
England  if  the  person  of  James  II.  had  been 
retained  while  his  authority  was  limited. 
She  would  then  have  been  circumstanced  as 
France  is  now.  The  march  to  Versailles 
seems  to  have  been  the  spontaneous  move 
ment  of  an  alarmed  populace.  Their  views, 
and  the  suggestions  of  their  leaders,  were 
probably  bounded  by  procuring  the  King  to 
change  his  residence  to  Paris ;  but  the  colli 
sion  of  armed  multitudes  terminated  in  un 
foreseen  excesses  and  execrable  crimes. 


*  Discours  de  M.  1'Abbe  Maury  dans  1'As- 
semblee  Nationale,  1  Octobre,  1790. 

t  The  circumstances  of  his  late  attempt  [the 
flight  to  Varennes— ED.]  sanction  this  reasoning. 


In  the  eye  of  Mr.  Burke,  however,  these 
crimes  and  excesses  assume  an  aspect  far 
more  important  than  can  be  communicated 
to  them  by  their  own  insulated  guilt.  They 
form,  in  his  opinion,  the  crisis  of  a  revolu 
tion, — a  far  more  important  one  than  any 
mere  change  of  government. — in  which  the 
sentiments  and  opinions  that  have  formed 
the  manners  of  the  European  nations  are  to 
perish.  "The  age  of  chivalry  is  gone,  and 
the  .glory  of  Europe  extinguished  ibr  ever." 
He  follows  this  exclamation  by  an  eloquent 
eulogium  on  chivalry,  and  by  gloomy  pre 
dictions  of  the  future  state  of  Europe,  when 
the  nation  that  has  been  so  long  accustomed 
to  give  her  the  tone  in  arts  and  manners  is 
thus  debased  and  corrupted.  A  caviller 
might  remark  that  ages,  much  more  near 
the  meridian  fervour  of  chivalry  than  ours, 
have  witnessed  a  treatment  of  queens  as 
little  gallant  and  generous  as  that  of  the 
Parisian  mob.  He  might  remind  Mr.  Burke, 
that  in  the  age  and  country  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  a  Queen  of  France,  whom  no  blind 
ness  to  accomplishment. — no  malignity  of 
detraction,  can  reduce  to' the  level  of  Marie 
Antoinette,  was,  by  "a  nation  of  men  of 
honour  and  cavaliers,"  permitted  to  languish 
in  captivity  and  expire  on  a  scaffold  ;  and  he 
might  add,  that  the  manners  of  a  country 
are  more  surely  indicated  by  the  systematic 
cruelty  of  a  sovereign  than  by  the  licentious 
frenzy  of  a  mob.  He  might  remark,  that 
the  mild  system  of  modern  manners  which 
survived  the  massacres  with  which  fanati 
cism  had  for  a  century  desolated,  and  almost 
barbarised  Europe,  might,  perhaps,  resist  the 
shock  of  one  day's  excesses  committed  by  a 
delirious  populace.  He  might  thus,  perhaps, 
oppose  specious  and  popular  topics  to  the 
declamation  of  Mr.  Burke. 

But  the  subject  itself  is,  to  an  enlarged 
thinker,  fertile  in  reflections  of  a  different 
nature.  That  system  of  manners  which 
arose  among  the  Gothic  nations  of  Europe, 
and  of  which  chivalry  was  more  properly 
the  effusion  than  the  source,  is  without  doubt 
one  of  the  most  peculiar  and  interesting  ap 
pearances  in  human  affairs.  The  moral 
causes  which  formed  its  character  have  not, 
perhaps,  been  hitherto  investigated  with  the 
happiest  success:  but, — to  confine  ourselves 
to  the  subject  before  us, — chivalry  was  cer 
tainly  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  its  fea 
tures  and  most  remarkable  of  its  effects. 
Candour  must  confess,  that  this  singular  in 
stitution  was  not  admirable  only  as  the  cor 
rector  of  the  ferocious  ages  in  which  it  flour 
ished;  but  that  in  contributing  to  polish  and 
soften  manners  it  paved  the  way  for  the  dif 
fusion  of  knowledge  and  the  extension  of 
commerce,  which  afterwards,  in  some  mea 
sure,  supplanted  it.  Society  is  inevitably 
progressive.  Commerce  has  overthrown  the 
"  feudal  and  chivalrous  system"  under  whose 
shade  it  first  grew ;  while  learning  has  sub 
verted  the  superstition  whose  opulent  en 
dowments  had  first  fostered  it.  Peculiar 
circumstances  connected  with  the  manners 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


435 


of  chivalry  favoured  this  admission  of  com 
merce  and  this  growth  of  knowledge  ;  while 
the  sentiments  peculiar  to  it,  already  enfee 
bled  in  the  progress  from  ferocity  and  turbu 
lence,  were  almost  obliterated  by  tranquillity 
and  refinement.  Commerce  and  diffused 
knowledge  have,  in  fact,  so  completely  as 
sumed  the  ascendant  in  polished  nations,  that 
it  will  be  difficult  to  discover  any  relics  of 
Gothic  manners,  but  in  a  fantastic  exterior, 
which  has  survived  the  generous  illusions 
through  which  these  manners  once  seemed 
splendid  and  seductive.  Their  direct  influ 
ence  has  long  ceased  in  Europe  ;  but  their 
indirect  influence,  through  the  medium  of 
those  causes  which  would  not  perhaps  have 
existed  but  for  the  mildness  which  chivalry 
created  in  the  midst  of  a  barbarous  age,  still 
operates  with  increasing  vigour.  The  man 
ners  of  the  middle  age  were,  in  the  most 
singular  sense,  compulsory:  enterprising  be 
nevolence  was  produced  by  general  fierce 
ness, — gallant  courtesy  by  ferocious  rude 
ness;  and  artificial  gentleness  resisted  the 
torrent  of  natural  barbarism.  But  a  less  in 
congruous  system  has  succeeded,  in  wrhich 
commerce,  which  unites  men's  interests,  and 
knowledge,  which  excludes  those  prejudices 
that  tend  to  embroil  them,  present  a  broader 
basis  for  the  stability  of  civilized  and  benefi 
cent  manners. 

Mr.  Burke,  indeed,  forbodes  the  most  fatal 
consequences  to  literature  from  events,  which 
he  supposes  to  have  given  a  mortal  blow  to 
the  spirit  of  chivalry.  I  have  ever  been  pro 
tected  from  such  apprehensions  by  my  belief 
in  a  very  simple  truth, — "  that  diffused  know 
ledge  immortalizes  itself."  A  literature 
which  is  confined  to  a  few,  may  be  destroyed 
by  the  massacre  of  scholars  and  the  confla 
gration  of  libraries :  but  the  diffused  know 
ledge  of  the  present  day  could  only  be  anni 
hilated  by  the  extirpation  of  the  civilized 
part  of  mankind. 

Far  from  being  hostile  to  letters,  the  French 
Revolution  has  contributed  to  serve  their 
cause  in  a  manner  hitherto  unexampled. 
The  political  and  literary  progress  of  nations 
has  hitherto  been  simultaneous;  the  period 
of  their  eminence  in  arts  has  also  been  the 
era  of  their  historical  fame  ;  and  no  example 
occurs  in  which  their  great  political  splendour 
has  been  subsequent  to  the  Augustan  age  of 
a  people.  But  in  France,  which  is  destined 
to  refute  every  abject  and  arrogant  doctrine 
that  would  limit  the  human  powers,  the 
ardour  of  a  youthful  literature  has  been  in 
fused  into  a  nation  tending  to  decline;  and 
new  arts  are  called  forth  when  all  seemed  to 
have  passed  their  zenith.  She  enjoyed  one 
Augustan  age,  fostered  by  the  favour  of  des 
potism  :  she  seems  about  to  witness  another, 
created  by  the  energy  of  freedom. 

In  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Burke,  however,  she 
is  advancing  by  rapid  strides  to  ignorance 
and  barbarism.*  "  Already,"  he  informs  us, 
"there  appears  a  poverty  of  conception,  a 

*  Burke,  p.  118. 


coarseness  and  vulgarity  in  all  the  proceed 
ings  of  the  Assembly,  and  of  all  their  in 
structors.  Their  liberty  is  not  liberal.  Their 
science  is  presumptuous  ignorance.  Their 
humanity  is  savage  and  brutal."  To  ani 
madvert  on  this  modest  and  courteous  pic 
ture  belongs  not  to  the  present  subject :  and 
impressions  cannot  be  disputed,  more  espe 
cially  when  their  grounds  are  not  assigned. 
All  that  is  left  to  us  to  do,  is  to  declare  op 
posite  impressions  with  a  confidence  autho 
rised  by  his  example.  The  proceedings  of 
the  National  Assembly  of  Fiance  appear  to 
me  to  contain  models  of  more  splendid  elo 
quence,  and  examples  of  more  profound  po 
litical  research,  than  have  been  exhibited  by 
any  public  body  in  modern  times.  I  cannot 
therefore  augur,  from  these  proceedings,  the 
downfall  of  philosophy,  or  the  extinction  of 
eloquence. 

Thus  various  are  the  aspects  which  the 
French  Revolution,  not  only  in  its  influence 
on  literature,  but  in  its  general  tenor  and 
spirit,  presents  to  minds  occupied  by  various 
opinions.  To  the  eye  of  !Mr.  Burke,  it  ex 
hibits  nothing  but  a  scene  of  horror :  in  his 
mind  it  inspires  no  emotion  but  abhorrence 
of  its  leaders,  commiseration  for  their  victims, 
and  alarms  at  the  influence  of  an  event  which 
menaces  the  subversion  of  the  policy,  the 
arts,  and  the  manners  of  the  civilized  world. 
Minds  who  view  it  through  another  medium 
are  filled  by  it  with  every  sentiment  of  admi 
ration  and  triumph, — of  admiration  due  to 
splendid  exertions  of  virtue,  and  of  triumph 
inspired  by  widening  prospects  of  happiness. 

Nor  ought  it  to  be  denied  by  the  candour 
of  philosophy,  that  events  so  great  are  never 
so  unmixed  as  not  to  present  a  double  aspect 
to  the  acuteness  and  exaggeration  of  con 
tending  parties.  The  same  ardour  of  pas 
sion  which  produces  patriotic  and  legislative 
heroism  becomes  the  source  of  ferocious  re 
taliation,  of  visionary  novelties,  and  of  pre 
cipitate  change.  The  attempt  were  hopeless 
to  increase  the  fertility,  without  favouring  the 
rank  luxuriance  of  the  soil.  He  that  on  such 
occasions  expects  unmixed  good,  ought  to 
recollect,  that  the  economy  of  nature  has  in- 
variabl}'  determined  the  equal  influence  of 
high  passions  in  giving  birth  to  virtues  and 
to  crimes.  The  soil  of  Attica  was  observed 
to  produce  at  once  the  most  delicious  fruits 
and  the  most  virulent  poisons.  It  was  thus 
with  the  human  mind  :  and  to  the  frequency 
of  convulsions  in  the  ancient  commonwealths, 
they  owe  those  examples  of  sanguinary  tu 
mult  and  virtuous  heroism,  which  distinguish 
their  history  from  the  monotonous  tranquillity 
of  modern  states.  The  passions  of  a  nation 
cannot  be  kindled  to  the  degree  which  renders 
it  capable  of  great  achievements,  without  in 
volving  the  commission  of  violence  and  crime. 
The  reforming  ardour  of  a  senate  cannot  be 
inflamed  sufficiently  to  combat  and  overcome 
abuses,  without  hazarding  the  evils  which 
arise  from  legislative  temerity.  Such  are  the 
immutable  laws,  which  are  more  properly  to 
be  regarded  as  libels  on  our  nature  than  as 


436 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


charges  against  the  French  Revolution.  The 
impartial  voice  of  History  ought,  doubtless,  to 
record  the  blemishes  as  well  as  the  glories  of 
that  great  event :  and  to  contrast  the  delinea 
tion  of  it  which  might  have  been  given  by  the 
specious  and  temperate  Toryism  of  Mr.  Hume, 
with  that  which  we  have  received  from  the 
repulsive  and  fanatical  invectives  of  Mr. 
Burke,  might  still  be  amusing  and  instructive. 
Both  these  great  men  would  be  averse  to  the 
Revolution  j  but  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  dis 
tinguish  between  the  undisguised  fury  of  an 
eloquent  advocate,  and  the  well-dissembled 
partiality  of  a  philosophical  judge.  The  pas 
sion  of  the  latter  would  only  feel  the  ex 
cesses  which  have  dishonoured  the  Revolu 
tion  :  but  the  philosophy  of  the  former  would 
instruct  him,  that  our  sentiments,  raised  by 
such  events  so  much  above  their  ordinary 
level,  become  the  source  of  guilt  and  heroism 
unknown  before, — of  sublime  virtues  and 
splendid  crimes. 


SECTION  IV. 

Neiu  Constitution  of  France .* 

A  DISSERTATION  approaching  to  complete 
ness  on  the  new  Constitution  of  France, 
would,  in  fact,  be  a  vast  system  of  political 
science.  It  would  include  a  development 
of  the  principles  that  regulate  every  portion 
of  government.  So  immense  an  attempt  is 
little  suited  to  our  present  limits.  But  some 
remarks  on  the  prominent  features  of  the 
French  system  are  exacted  by  the  nature  of 
our  vindication.  They  will  consist  chiefly 
of  a  defence  of  their  grand  theoretic  princi 
ple,  and  their  most  important  practical  insti 
tution. 

The  principle  which  has  actuated  the  le 
gislators  of  France  has  been,  "  that  the  ob 
ject  of  all  legitimate  government  is  the  as 
sertion  and  protection  of  the  natural  rights 
of  man."  They  cannot  indeed  be  absolved 
from  some  deviationst  from  it ; — few,  indeed, 
compared  with  those  of  any  other  body  of 
whom  history  has  preserved  any  record  ;  but 
too  many  for  their  own  glory,  and  for  the 
happiness  of  the  human  race.  This  princi 
ple,  however,  is  the  basis  of  their  edifice, 
and  if  it  be  false,  the  structure  must  fall  to 
the  ground.  Against  this  principle,  there 
fore,  Mr.  Burke  has,  with  great  judgment, 
directed  his  attack.  Appeals  to  natural  right 
are,  according  to  him,  inconsistent  and  pre 
posterous.  A  complete  abdication  and  sur 
render  of  all  natural  right  is  made  by  man 


*  I  cannot  help  exhorting  those  who  desire  to 
have  accurate  notions  on  the  subject  of  this  sec 
tion,  to  peruse  and  study  the  delineation  of  the 
French  constitution  which  with  a  correctness  so 
admirable  has  been  given  by  Mr.  Christie. — (Let 
ters  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  London,  1791. 
ED.) 

t  I  particularly  allude  to  their  colonial  policy  ; 
but  I  think  it  candid  to  say,  that  I  see  in  their  full 
force  the  difficulties  of  that  embarrassing  business. 


n  entering  into  society;  and  the  only  rights 
tvhich  he  retains  are  created  by  the  compact 
which  holds  together  the  society  of  which 
he  is  member.  This  doctrine  he  thus  ex 
plicitly  asserts : — "The  moment,"  says  he, 
"  you  abate  any  thing  from  the  full  rights  of 
men  each  to  govern  himself,  and  suffer  any 
artificial  positive  limitation  on  those  rights, 
from  that  moment  the  whole  organization  of 
society  becomes  a  consideration  of  conve 
nience."  "How  can  any  man  claim  under 
the  conventions  of  civil  society  rights  which 
Jo  not  so  much  as  suppose  its  existence, — 
which  are  absolutely  repugnant  to  it'?"*  To 
examine  this  doctrine,  therefore,  is  of  funda 
mental  importance.  To  this  effect  it  is  not 
necessary  to  enter  into  any  elaborate  re 
search  into  the  metaphysical  principles  of 
politics  and  ethics.  A  full  discussion  of  the 
subject  would  indeed  demand  such  an  in 
vestigation  :t — the  origin  of  natural  rights 
must  have  been  illustrated,  and  even  their 
existence  proved  against  some  theorists. 
But  such  an  inquiry  would  have  been  incon 
sistent  with  the  nature  of  a  publication,  the 
object  of  which  is  to  enforce  conviction  on 
the  people.  We  are  besides  absolved  from 
the  necessity  of  it  in  a  controversy  with  Mr. 
Burke,  who  himself  recognises,  in  the  most 
ample  form,  the  existence  of  those  natural 
rights. 

'Gf acting  their  existence,  the  discussion  is 
short.  The  only  criterion  by  which  we  can 
estimate  the  portion  of  natural  right  surren 
dered  by  man  on  entering  into  society  is  the 
object  of  the  surrender.  If  more  is  claimed 
than  that  object  exacts,  what  was  an  object 
becomes  a  pretext.  Now  the  object  for  which 
a  man  resigns  any  portion  of  his  natural  sove 
reignty  over  his  own  actions  is,  that  he  may 
be  '"protected  from  the  abuse  of  the  same  do 
minion  in  other  men.  Nothing,  therefore, 
can  be  more  fallacious  than  to  pretend,  that 
we  are  precluded  in  the  social  state  from 
any  appeal  to  natural  right. t  It  remains  in 


*  Burke,  pp.  88 — 89.  To  the  same  purpose  is 
his  whole  reasoning  from  p.  86,  to  p.  92. 

t  It  might,  perhaps,  not  be  difficult  to  prove, 
that  far  from  a  surrender,  there  is  not  even  a 
diminution  of  the  natural  rights  of  men  by  their 
entrance  into  society.  The  existence  of  some 
union,  with  greater  or  less  permanence  and  per 
fection  of  public  force  for  public  protection  (the 
essence  of  government),  might  be  demonstrated 
to  be  coeval  and  co-extensive  with  man.  All 
theories,  therefore,  which  suppose  the  actual  ex 
istence  of  any  state  antecedent  to  the  social,  might 
be  convicted  of  futility  and  falsehood. 

t  "  Trouver  une  forme  d'association  qui  defende 
et  protege  de  toute  la  force  commune  la  personne 
et  les  biens  de  chaque  associe,  et  par  laqueHe 
chacun,  s'unissant  a  tous,  n'obcisse  pourtant  qu'a 
lui-meme  et  reste  aussi  libre  qu'auparavant  ?" 
—Rousseau,  Contrat  Social,  livre  i.  chap.  vi.  I 
am  not  intimidated  from  quoting  Rousseau  by  the 
derision  of  Mr.  Burke.  Mr.  Hume's  report  of 
his  literary  secrets  seems  most  unfaithful.  The 
sensibility,  the  pride,  the  fervour  of  his  character, 
are  pledges  of  his  sincerity;  and  had  he  even 
commenced  with  the  fabrication  of  paradoxes,  for 
attracting  attention,  it  would  betray  great  igno 
rance  of  human  nature  to  suppose,  that  in  the  ar- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


437 


its  full  integrity  and  vigour,  if  we  except 
that  portion  of  it  which  men  have  thus  mu 
tually  agreed  to  sacrifice.  Whatever,  under 
pretence  of  that  surrender,  is  assumed  be 
yond  what  that  object  rigorously  prescribes, 
is  an  usurpation  supported  by  sophistry, — a 
despotism  varnished  by  illusion.  It  follows 
that  the  surrender  of  right  must  be  equal  in 
all  the  members  of  society,  as  the  object  is  to 
all  precisely  the  same.  In  effect,  society,  in 
stead  of  destroying,  realizes  and  substantiates 
equality.  In  a  state  of  nature,  the  equality 
of  right  is  an  impotarit  theory,  which  inequa 
lities  of  strength  and  skill  every  moment 
violate.  As  neither  natural  equality  nor  the 
equality  of  the  sum  of  right  surrendered  by 
every  individual  is  contested,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  the  remnant  spared  by  the  so 
cial  compact  must  be  equal  also.  Civil  in 
equalities,  or,  more  correctly,  civil  distinc 
tion,  must  exist  in  the  social  body,  because 
it  must  possess  organs  destined  for  different 
functions:  but  political  inequality  is  equally 
inconsistent  with  the  principles  of  natural 
right  and  the  object  of  civil  institution.* 

Men,  therefore,  only  retain  a  right  to  a 
share  in  their  own  government,  because  the 
exercise  of  the  right  by  one  man  is  not  in 
consistent  with  its  possession  by  another. 
This  doctrine  is  not  more  abstractedly  evi 
dent  than  it  is  practically  important.  The 
slightest  deviation  from  it  legitimatizes  every 
tyranny.  If  the  only  criterion  of  govern 
ments  be  the  supposed  convention  which 
forms  them,  all  are  equally  legitimate:  for 
the  onjy  interpreter  of  the  convention  is  the 
usage  of  the  government,  which  is  thus  pre 
posterously  made  its  own  standard.  Gover 
nors  must,  indeed,  abide  by  the  maxims  of 
the  constitution  they  administer ;  but  what 
that  constitution  is  must  be  on  this  system 
immaterial.  The  King  of  France  is  riot  per 
mitted  to  put  out  the  eyes  of  the  Princes  of 
the  Blood;  nor  the  Sophi  of  Persia  to  have 
recourse  to  lettres  de  cachet.  They  must  ty 
rannize  by  precedent,  and  oppress  in  reve 
rent  imitation  of  the  models  consecrated  by 

dour  of  contest,  and  the  glory  of  success,  he  must 
not  have  become  the  dupe  of  his  own  illusions, 
and  a  convert  to  his  own  imposture.  It  is,  indeed, 
not  improbable,  that  when  rallied  on  the  eccen 
tricity  of  his  paradoxes,  he  might,  in  a  moment  of 
gay  effusion,  have  spoken  of  them  as  a  sport  of 
fancy,  and  an  experiment  on  the  credulity  of  man 
kind.  The  Scottish  philosopher,  inaccessible  to 
enthusiasm,  and  little  susceptible  of  those  depres 
sions  and  elevations — those  agonies  and  raptures. 
so  familiar  to  the  warm  and  wayward  heart  of 
Rousseau,  neither  knew  the  sport  into  which  he 
could  be  relaxed  by  gaiety,  nor  the  ardour  into 
which  he  could  be  exalted  by  passion.  Mr.  Burke, 
whose  temperament  is  so  different,  might  have 
experimentally  known  such  variation,  and  learnt 
better  to  discriminate  between  effusion  and  deli 
berate  opinion. 

*  "  But  as  to  the  share  of  power,  authority,  and 
direction  which  each  individual  ought  to  have  in 
ihe  management  of  a  state,  that  I  must  deny  to  be 
among  the  direct  original  rights  of  man  in  civil  so 
ciety."  This  is  evidently  denying  the  existence 
of  what  has  been  called  political,  in  contradistinc 
tion  to  civil  liberty. 


the  usage  of  despotic  predecessors.  But  if 
they  adhere  to  these,  there  is  no  remedy  for 
the  oppressed,  since  an  appeal  to  the  rights 
of  nature  were  treason  against  the  principles 
of  the  social  union.  If,  indeed,  any  offence 
against  precedent,  in  the  kind  or  degree  of 
oppression,  be  committed,  this  theory  may 
(though  most  inconsistently)  permit  resist 
ance.  But  as  long  as  the  forms  of  any  go 
vernment  are  preserved,  it  possesses,  in  the 
view  of  justice  (whatever  be  its  nature) 
equal  claims  to  obedience.  This  inference 
is  irresistible ;  and  it  is  thus  evident,  that 
the  doctrines  of  Mr.  Burke  are  doubly  re 
futed  by  the  fallacy  of  the  logic  which  sup 
ports  them,  and  the  absurdity  of  the  conclu 
sions  to  which  they  lead. 

They  are  also  virtually  contradicted  by 
the  laws  of  all  nations.  Were  his  opinions 
true,  the  language  of  laws  should  be  permis 
sive,  not  restrictive.  Had  men  surrendered 
all  their  rights  into  the  hands  of  the  magis 
trate,  the  object  of  laws  should  have  to  an 
nounce  the  portion  he  was  pleased  to  return 
them,  not  the  part  of  which  he  is  compelled 
to  deprive  them.  The  criminal  code  of  all 
nations  consists  of  prohibitions:  and  what 
ever  is  not  prohibited  by  the  law,  men  every 
where  conceive  themselves  entitled  to  do 
with  impunity.  They  act  on  the  principle 
which  this  language  of  law  teaches  them, 
that  they  retain  rights  which  no  power  can 
impair  or  infringe, — which  are  not  the  boon 
of  society,  but  the  attribute  of  their  nature. 
The  rights  of  magistrates  and  public  officers 
are  truly  the  creatures  of  society  :  they, 
therefore,  are  guided  not  by  what  the  law 
does  not  prohibit,  but  by  what  it  authori 
ses  or  enjoins.  Were  the  rights  of  citizens 
equally  created  by  social  institution,  the  lan 
guage  of  the  civil  code  would  be  similar,  and 
the  obedience  of  subjects  would  have  the 
same  limits. 

This  doctrine,  thus  false  in  its  principles, 
absurd  in  its  conclusions,  and  contradicted 
by  the  avowed  sense  of  mankind,  is,  lastly, 
even  abandoned  by  Mr.  Burke  himself.  He 
is  betrayed  into  a  confession  directly  repug 
nant  to  his  general  principle: — "Whatever 
each  man.  can  do  without  trespassing  on 
others,  he  has  a  right  to  do  for  himself;  and 
he  has  a  right  to  a  fair  portion  of  all  that  so 
ciety,  with  all  its  combinations  of  skill  and 
force,  can  do  for  him."  Either  this  right  is 
universal,  or  it  is  not: — if  it  be  universal,  it 
cannot  be  the  offspring  of  a  convention;  for 
conventions  must  be  as  various  as  forms  of 
government,  and  there  are  many  of  them 
which  do  not  recognise  this  right,  nor  place 
man  in  this  condition  of  just  equality.  All 
governments,  for  example,  which  tolerate 
slavery  neglect  this  right;  for  a  slave  is  nei 
ther  entitled  to  the  fruits  of  his  own  indus 
try,  nor  to  any  portion  of  what  the  combined 
force  and  skill  of  society  produce.  If  it  be 
not  universal  it  is  no  right  at  all ;  and  can 
only  be  called  a  privilege  accorded  by  some 
governments,  and  withheld  by  others.  I  can 
discern  no  mode  of  escaping  from  this  di- 
2M2 


438 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


lemma,  but  the  avowal  that  these  civil  claims 
are  the  remnant  of  those  {Cmetaphy  sic  rights" 
which  Mr.  Burke  holds  in  such  abhorrence; 
but  which  it  seems  the  more  natural  object 
of  society  to  protect  than  destroy. 

But  it  may  be  urged,  that  though  all  ap 
peals  to  natural  rights  be  not  precluded  by 
the  social  compact,  and  though  their  integrity 
and  perfection  in  the  civil  state  may  theoreti 
cally  be  admitted,  yet  as  men  unquestionably 
may  refrain  from  the  exercise  of  their  rights, 
if  they  think  their  exertion  unwise,  and  as 
government  is  not  a  scientific  subtlety,  but  a 
practical  expedient  for  general  good,  all  re 
course  to  these  elaborate  abstractions  is  frivo 
lous  and  futile;  and  that  the  grand  question 
is  not  the  source,  but  the  tendency  of  go 
vernment, — not  a  question  of  right,  but  a  con 
sideration  of  expediency.  Political  forms, 
it  may  be  added,  are  only  the  means  of  in 
suring  a  certain  portion  of  public  felicity  :  if 
the  end  be  confessedly  obtained,  all  discus 
sion  of  the  theoretical  aptitude  of  the  means 
to  produce  it  is  nugatory  and  redundant. 

To  this  I  answer,  first,  that  such  reasoning 
proves  too  much,  and  that,  taken  in  its  proper 
extent,  it  impeaches  the  great  system  of 
morals,  of  which  political  principles  form 
only  a  part.  All  morality  is,  no  doubt,  found 
ed  on  a  broad  and  general  expediency;  and 
the  sentiment — 

"  Ipsa  utilitas  justi  prope  mater  et  aequi,"* 
may  be  safely  adopted,  without  the  reserve 
dictated  by  the  timid  and  inconstant  philoso 
phy  of  the  poet.  Justice  is  expediency,  but 
it  is  expediency  speaking  by  general  max 
ims,  into  which  reason  has  consecrated  the 
experience  of  mankind.  Every  general  prin 
ciple  of  justice  is  demonstrably  expedient ; 
and  it  is  this  utility  alone  that  confers  on  it  a 
moral  obligation.  But  it  would  be  fatal  to 
the  existence  of  morality,  if  the  utility  of 
every  particular  act  were  to  be  the  subject 
of  deliberation  in  the  mind  of  every  moral 
agent.  Political  principles  are  only  moral 
ones  adapted  to  the  civil  union  of  men. 
When  I  assert  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  life, 
liberty,  &c.  I  only  mean  to  enunciate  a  mo 
ral  maxim  founded  on  the  general  interest, 
which  prohibits  any  attack  on  these  posses 
sions.  In  this  primary  and  radical  sense, 
all  rights,  natural  as  well  as  civil,  arise  from 
expediency.  But  the  moment  the  moral 
ediiice  is  reared,  its  basis  is  hid  from  the  eye 
for  ever.  The  moment  these  maxims,  which 
are  founded  on  an  utility  that  is  paramount 
and  perpetual,  are  embodied  and  consecra 
ted,  they  cease  to  yield  to  partial  and  subor 
dinate  expediency.  It  then  becomes  the 
perfection  of  virtue  to  consider,  not  whether 
abaction  be  useful,  but  whether  it  be  right. 

The  same  necessity  for  the  substitution  of 
general  maxims  exists  in  politics  as  in  mo 
rals.  Those  precise  and  inflexibile  princi 
ples,  which  yield  neither  to  the  seductions 
of  passion,  nor  to  the  suggestions  of  interest, 
ought  to  be  the  guide  of  public  as  well  as 


*  Horace,  lib.  ii.  Sat,  3.— ED. 


private  morals.  "  Acting  according  to  the 
natural  rights  of  men,"  is  only  another  ex 
pression  for  acting  according  to  those  general 
maxims  of  social  morals  which  prescribe 
what  is  right  and  fit  in  human  intercourse. 
We  have  proved  that  the  social  compact  does 
not  alter  these  maxims,  or  destroy  these 
rights;  and  it  incontestably  follows,  from 
the  same  principles  which  guide  all  mo 
rality,  that  no  expediency  can  justify  their 
infraction. 

The  inflexibility  of  general  principles  is. 
indeed,  perhaps  more  necessary  in  political 
morals  than  in  any  other  class  of  actions.  If 
the  consideration  of  expediency  be  admitted, 
the  question  recurs, — Who  are  to  judge  of 
it  ?  The  appeal  is  never  made  to  the  many 
whose  interest  is  at  stake,  but  to  the  few, 
whose  interest  is  linked  to  the  perpetuity  of 
oppression  and  abuse.  Surely  that  judge 
ought  to  be  bound  down  by  the  strictest 
rules,  who  is  undeniably  interested  in  the 
decision  :  and  he  would  scarcely  be  esteemed 
a  wise  legislator^  who  should  vest  in  the  next 
heir  to  a  lunatic  a  discretionary  power  to 
judge  of  his  sanity.  Far  more  necessary, 
then,  is  obedience  to  general  principles,  and 
maintenance  of  natural  rights,  in  politics  than 
in  the  morality  of  common  life.  The  mo 
ment  that  the  slightest  infraction  of  these 
rights  is  permitted  through  motives  of  con 
venience,  the  bulwark  of  all  upright  politics 
is  lost.  If  a  small  convenience  will  justify 
a  little  infraction,  a  greater  will  expiate  a 
bolder  violation  :  the  Rubicon  is  past.  Ty 
rants  never  seek  in  vain  for  sophists :  pre 
tences  are  multiplied  without  difficulty  and 
without  end.  Nothing,  therefore,  but  an  in 
flexible  adherence  to  the  principles  of  gene 
ral  right  can  preserve  the  purity,  consistency, 
and  stability  of  a  free  state. 

If  we  have  thus  successfully  vindicated 
the  first  theoretical  principle  of  French  legis 
lation,  the  doctrine  of  an  absolute  surrender 
of  natural  rights  by  civil  and  social  man,  has 
been  shown  to  be  deduced  from  inadequate 
premises. — to  conduct  to  absurd  conclusions, 
to  sanctify  the  most  atrocious  despotism,  to 
outrage  the  avowed  convictions  of  men,  and, 
finally,  to  be  abandoned,  as  hopelessly  un 
tenable  by  its  own  author.  The  existence 
and  perfection  of  these  rights  being  proved, 
the  first  duty  of  lawgivers  and  magistrates  is 
to  assert  and  protect  them.  Most  wisely  and 
auspiciously  then  did  France  commence  her 
regenerating  labours  with  a  solemn  declara 
tion  of  these  sacred,  inalienable,  and  impre 
scriptible  rights, — a  declaration  which  must 
be  to  the  citizen  the  monitor  of  his  duties,  as 
well  as  the  oracle  of  his  rights,  and  by  a  per 
petual  recurrence  towrhich  the  deviations  of 
the  magistrate  will  be  checked,  the  tendency 
of  power  to  abuse  corrected,  arid  every  po 
litical  proposition  (being  compared  with  the 
end  of  society)  correctly  and  dispassionately 
estimated.  To  the  juvenile  vigour  of  rea 
son  and  freedom  in  the  New  World, — where 
the  human  mind  was  unencumbered  with 
that  vast  mass  of  usage  and  prejudice;  which 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


439 


so  many  ages  of  ignorance  had  accumulated, 
to  load  and  deform  society  in  Europe, — 
France  owed  this,  among  other  lessons. 
Perhaps  the  only  expedient  that  can  be  de 
vised  by  human  wisdom  to  keep  alive  public 
vigilance  against  the  usurpation  of  partial  in 
terests,  is  that  of  perpetually  presenting  the 
general  right  and  the  general  interest  to  the 
public  eye.  Such  a  principle  has  been  the 
Polar  Star,  by  which  the  National  Assembly 
has  hitherto  navigated  the  vessel  of  the  state, 
amid  so  many  tempests  howling  destruction 
around  it. 

There  remains  a  much  more  extensive  and 
complicated  inquiry,  in  the  consideration  of 
their  political  institutions.  As  it  is  impossi 
ble  to  examine  all.  we  must  limit  our  remarks 
to  the  most  important.  To  speak  then  gene 
rally  of  their  Constitution,  it  is  a  preliminary 
remark,  that  the  application  of  the  word  a  de 
mocracy"  to  it  is  fallacious  and  illusive.  If 
that  word,  indeed,  be  taken  in  its  etymologi 
cal  sense, as  the  "power of  the  people,"  it  is 
a  democracy ;  and  so  are  all  legitimate  go 
vernments.  But  if  it  be  taken  in  its  historical 
sense,  it  is  not  so  ;  for  it  does  not  resemble 
those  governments  which  have  been  called 
democracies  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  In 
the  ancient  democracies  there  was  neither 
representation  nor  division  of  powers :  the 
rabble  legislated,  judged  and  exercised  every 
political  authority.  I  do  not  mean  to  deny 
that  in  Athens,  of  which  history  has  trans 
mitted  to  us  the  most  authentic  monuments, 
there  did  exist  some  feeble  control.  But  it 
has  been  well  remarked,  that  a  multitude,  if 
it  was  composed  of  Newtons,  must  be  a 
mob :  their  will  must  be  equally  unwise,  un 
just,  and  irresistible.  The  authority  of  a 
corrupt  and  tumultuous  populace  has  indeed 
by  the  best  writers  of  antiquity  been  regarded 
rather  as  an  ochlocracy  than  a  democracy, — 
as  the  despotism  of  the  rabble,  not  the  do 
minion  of  the  people.  It  is  a  degenerate 
democracy :  it  is  a  febrile  paroxysm  of  the 
social  body  which  must  speedily  terminate 
in  convalescence  or  dissolution.  The  new 
Constitution  of  France  is  almost  directly  the 
reverse  of  these  forms.  Jt  vests  the  legisla 
tive  authority  in  the  representatives  of  the 
people,  the  executive  in  an  hereditary  First 
Magistrate,  and  the  judicial  in  judges,  pe 
riodically  elected,  and  unconnected  either 
with  the  legislature  or  with  the  Executive 
Magistrate.  To  confound  such  a  constitution 
with  the  democracies  of  antiquity,  for  the 
purpose  of  quoting  historical  and  experimental 
evidence  against  it,  is  to  recur  to  the  most 
paltry  and  shallow  arts  of  sophistry. 

In  discussing  it,  the  first  question  that 
arises  regards  the  mode  of  constituting  the 
legislature;  the  first  division  of  which,  re 
lating  to  the  ris'ht  of  suffrage,  is  of  primary 
importance.  Here  I  most  cordially  agree 
with  Mr.  Burke*  in  reprobating  the  impotent 
and  preposterous  qualification  by  which  the 
Assembly  has  disfranchised  every  citizen 

*  Burke,  p.  257. 


who  does  not  pay  a  direct  contribution 
equivalent  to  the  price  of  three  days'  labour. 
Nothing  can  be  more  evident  than  its  ineffi- 
cacy  for  any  purpose  but  the  display  of  in 
consistency,  and  the  violation  of  justice. 
These  remarks  were  made  at  the  moment 
of  the  discussion  ;  and  the  plan*  was  com 
bated  in  the  Assembly  with  all  the  force  of 
reason  and  eloquence  by  the  most  conspicu 
ous  leaders  of  the  popular  party,— MM.  Mi- 
rabeau,  Target,  and  Petion.  more  particularly 
distinguishing  themselves  by  their  opposition. 
But  the  more  timid  and  prejudiced  members 
of  it  shrunk  from  so  bold  an  innovation  in 
political  systems  as  justice.  They  fluctuated 
between  their  principles  and  their  prejudices : 
and  the  struggle  terminated  in  an  illusive 
;ompromise, — the  constant  resource  of  feeble 
and  temporizing  characters.  They  were  con 
tent  that  little  practical  evil  should  in  fact  be 
produced  ;  while  their  views  were  not  suffi 
ciently  enlarged  to  perceive,  that  the  inviola 
bility  of  principles  is  the  palladium  of  virtue 
and  of  freedom.  Such  members  do  not,  in 
deed,  form  the  majority  of  their  own  party; 
but  the  aristocratic  minority,  anxious  for 
whatever  might  dishonour  or  embarrass  the 
Assembly,  eagerly  coalesced  with  them,  and 
stained  the  infant  Constitution  with  this  ab 
surd  usurpation. 

An  enlightened  and  respectable  antagonist 
of  Mr.  Burke  has  attempted  the  defence  of 
this  measure.  In  a  Letter  to  Earl  Stanhope, 
it  is  contended,  that  the  spirit  of  this  regula 
tion  accords  exactly  with  the  principles  of 
natural  justice,  because,  even  in  an  unsocial 
state,  the  pauper  has  a  claim  only  on  charity, 
and  he  who  produces  nothing  has  no  right  to 
share  in  the  regulation  of  what  is  produced 
by  the  industry  of  others.  But  whatever  be 
the  justice  of  disfranchising  the  unproductive 
poor,  the  argument  is,  in  point  of  fact,  totally 
misapplied.  Domestic  servants  are  excluded 
by  the  decree  though  they  subsist  as  evi 
dently  on  the  produce  of  their  own  labour  as 
any  other  class :  and  to  them  therefore  the 
argument  of  our  acute  and  ingenious  writer 
is  totally  inapplicable. t  But  it  is  the  conso 
lation  of  the  consistent  friends  of  freedom, 
that  this  abuse  must  be  short-lived :  the 
spirit  of  reason  and  liberty,  which  has 
achieved  such  mighty  victories,  cannot  long 
be  resisted  by  this  puny  foe.  The  number 
of  primary  electors  is  at  present  so  great,  and 
the  importance  of  their  single  votes  so  pro 
portionally  little,  that  their  interest  in  resist 
ing  the  extension  of  the  right  of  suffrage  is 
insignificantly  small.  Thus  much  have  I 
spoken  of  the  usurpation  of  the  rights  of  suf- 

*  See  the  Proces  Verbaux  of  the  27th  and  29th 
of  October,  1789,  and  the  Journal  de  Paris,  No. 
301,  and  Les  Revolutions  de  Paris,  No.  17,  p.  73. 

t  It  has  been  very  justly  remarked,  that  even 
with  reference  to  taxation,  all  men  have  equal 
rights  of  election.  For  the  man  who  is  too  poor 
to  pay  a  direct  contribution,  still  pays  a  tax  in  the 
increased  price  of  his  food  and  clothes.  It  is  be 
sides  to  be  observed,  that  life  and  liberty  are  more 
sacred  than  property,  and  that  the  right  of  suffrage 
is  the  only  shield  that  can  guard  them. 


440 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


frage,  with  the  ardour  of  anxious  affection, 
and  with  the  freedom  of  liberal  admiration. 
The  moment  is  too  serious  for  compliment; 
ami  I  leave  untouched  to  the  partisans  of 
despotism,  their  monopoly  of  blind  and  ser 
vile  applause.* 

I  must  avow,  with  the  same  frankness, 
equal  disapprobation  of  the  admission  of  ter 
ritory  and  contribution  as  elements  entering 
into  the  proportion  of  representation. t  The 
representation  of  land  or  money  is  a  mon 
strous  relic  of  ancient  prejudice :  men  only 
can  be  represented ;  and  population  alone 
ought  to  regulate  the  number  of  representa 
tives  which  any  district  delegates, 

The  next  consideration  that  presents  itself 
is.  the  nature  of  those  bodies  into  which  the 
citizens  of  France  are  to  be  organized  for  the 
performance  of  their  political  functions.  In 
this  important  part  of  the  subject,  Mr.  Burke 
has  committed  some  fundamental  errors:  it 
is  more  amply,  more  dexterously,  and  more 
correctly  treated  by  M.  de  Calonne  :  of  whose 
work  this  discussion  forms  the  most  interest 
ing  part.  These  assemblies  are  of  four  kinds: 
— Municipal,  Primary.  Electoral,  and  Ad 
ministrative. 

To  the  Municipalities  belong  the  care  of 
preserving  ths  police,  and  collecting  the 
revenue  within  their  jurisdiction.  An  accu 
rate  idea  of  their  nature  and  object  may  be 
formed  by  supposing  the  country  of  England 
uniformly  divided,  and  governed,  like  its 
cities  and  towns,  by  magistracies  of  popular 
election. 

The  Primary  Assemblies,  the  first  elements 
of  the  commonwealth,  are  formed  by  all  citi 
zens,  who  pay  a  direct  contribution,  equal  to 
the  price  of  three  days'  labour,  which  may 
be  averaged  at  half-a-crown  sterling.  Their 
functions  are  purely  electoral.  They  send 
representatives,  in  the  proportion  of  one  to 
every  hundred  adult  citizens,  to  the  Assem 
bly  of  the  Department  directly,  and  not 
through  the  medium  of  the  District,  as  was 
originally  proposed  by  the  Constitutional 
Committee,  and  has  been  erroneously  stated 
by  Mr.  Burke.  They  send,  indeed,  repre 
sentatives  to  the  Assembly  of  the  District; 
but  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  choosing  the  Ad 
ministrators  of  such  District,  not  the  Electors 
of  the  Department.  The  Electoral  Assem 
blies  of  the  Departments  elect  the  members 

"  He  who  freely  magnifies  what  has  been 
nobly  done,  and  fears  not  to  declare  as  freely  what 
might  have  been  done  better,  gives  you  the  best 
covenant  of  his  fidelity.  His  highest  praise  is  not 
flattery,  and  his  plainest  advice  is  praise." — Areo- 
pnrjitica. 

t  Montesquieu,  I  think,  mentions  a  federative 
republic  in  Lycia,  where  the  proportion  of  repre 
sentatives  deputed  by  each  state  was  in  a  ratio 
compounded  of  its  population  and  its  contribution. 
There  might  be  some  plausibility  in  this  institution 
among  confederated  independent  states;  but  it  is 
grossly  absurd  in  a  commonwealth,  which  is  vitally 
one.  In  such  a  state,  the  contribution  of  all  being 
proportioned  to  their  capacity,  it  is  relatively  equal ; 
and  if  it  can  confer  any  political  claims,  they  must 
he  derived  from  equal  rights. 


of  the  legislature,  the  judges,  the  administra 
tors,  and  the  bishop  of  the  Department.  The 
Administrators  are  every  where  the  organs 
and  instruments  of  the  executive  power. 

Against  the  arrangement  of  these  Assem 
blies,  many  subtle  and  specious  objections 
are  urged,  both  by  Mr.  Burke  and  the  exiled 
Minister  of  France.  The  first  and  most  for 
midable  is.  '-the  supposed  tendency  of  it  to 
dismember  France  into  a  body  of  confede 
rated  republics."  To  this  there  are  several 
unanswerable  replies.  But  before  I  state 
them,  it  is  necessary  to  make  one  distinc 
tion  : — these  several  bodies  are,  in  a  certain 
sense,  independent,  in  what  regards  subordi 
nate  and  interior  regulation  ;  but  they  are  not 
independent  in  the  sense  which  the  objec 
tion  supposes, — that  of  possessing  a  separate 
will  from  that  of  the  nation,  or  influencing, 
but  by  their  representatives,  the  general 
system  of  the  state.  Nay.  it  may  be  dc  n.on- 
strated,  that  the  legislators  of  France  have 
solicitously  provided  more  elaborate  precau 
tions  against  this  dismemberment  than  have 
been  adopted  by  any  recorded  government. 

The  first  circumstance  which  is  adverse  to 
it  is  the  minuteness  of  the  divided  parts.  They 
are  too  small  to  possess  a  separate  force.  As 
elements  of  the  social  order,  as  particles  of  a 
great  political  body,  they  are  something;  but, 
as  insulated  states,  they  would  be  impotent. 
Had  France  been  separated  into  great  masses, 
each  might  have  been  strong  enough  to  claim 
a  separate  will ;  but,  divided  as  she  is,  no 
body  of  citizens  is  conscious  of  sufficient 
strength  to  feel  their  sentiments  of  any  im 
portance,  but  as  conslituent  parts  of  the 
general  will.  Survey  the  Primary,  the  Elec 
toral,  and  the  Administrative  Assemblies, 
and  nothing  will  be  more  evident  than  their 
impotence  in  individuality.  The  Munici 
palities,  surely,  are  not  likely  to  arrogate 
independence.  A  forty-eight  thousandth 
part  of  the  kingdom  has  not  energy  sufficient 
for  separate  existence;  nor  can  a  hope  arise 
in  it  of  influencing,  in  a  direct  and  dictatorial 
manner,  the  councils  of  a  great  state.  Even 
the  Electoral  Assemblies  of  the  Departments 
do  not,  as  we  shall  afterwards  show,  possess 
force  enough  to  become  independent  con 
federated  republics. 

Another  circumstance,  powerfully  hostile 
to  this  dismemberment,  is  the  destruction  of 
the  ancient  Provincial  division  of  the  king 
dom.  In  no  part  of  Mr.  Burke's  work  have 
his  arguments  been  chosen  with  such  infeli 
city  of  selection  as  in  what  regards  this 
subject.  He  has  not  only  erred  :  but  his 
error  is  the  precise  reverse  of  truth.  He 
represents  as  the  harbinger  of  discord,  what 
is,  in  fact,  the  instrument  of  union.  He  mis 
takes  the  cement  of  the  edifice  for  a  source 
of  instability  and  a  principle  of  repulsion. 
France  was,  under  the  ancient  government, 
an  union  of  provinces,  acquired  at  various 
times  and  on  different  conditions,  and  differ 
ing  in  constitution,  laws,  language,  manners, 
privileges,  jurisdiction,  and  revenue.  It  had 
the  exterior  of  a  simple  monarchy;  but  it 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


44. 


was  in  reality  an  aggregate  of  independent 
states.  The  monarch  was  in  one  place  King 
of  Navarre,  in  another  Duke  of  Brittany,  in 
a  third  Count  of  Provence,  in  a  fourth  Dau 
phin  of  Vienne.  Under  these  various  deno 
minations  he  possessed,  at  least  nominally, 
different  degrees  of  power,  and  he  certainly 
exercised  it  under  different  forms.  The  mass 
composed  of  these  heterogeneous  and  dis 
cordant  elements,  was  held  together  by  the 
compressing  force  of  despotism.  When  that 
compression  was  withdrawn,  the  provinces 
must  have  resumed  their  ancient  independ 
ence, — perhaps  in  a  form  more  absolute  than 
as  members  of  a  federative  republic.  Every 
thing  tended  to  inspire  provincial  and  to  ex 
tinguish  national  patriotism.  The  inhabitants 
of  Brittany,  or  Guienne.  felt  themselves 
linked  together  by  ancient  habitudes,  by 
congenial  prejudices,  by  similar  manners, 
by  the  relics  of  their  constitution,  and  the 
common  name  of  their  country:  but  their 
character  as  members  of  the  French  Empire, 
could  only  remind  them  of  long  and  igno 
minious  subjection  to  a  tyranny,  of  which 
they  had  only  felt  the  strength  in  exaction, 
and  blessed  the  lenity  in  neglect.  These 
causes  must  have  formed  the  provinces  into 
independent  republics;  and  the  destruction 
of  their  provincial  existence  was  indispensa 
ble  to  the  prevention  of  this  dismemberment. 
It  is  impossible  to  deny,  that  men  united  by 
no  previous  habitude  (whatever  may  be  said 
of  the  policy  of  the  union  in  other  respects) 
are  less  qualified  for  that  union  of  will  and 
force,  which  produces  an  independent  re 
public,  than  provincials,  who  were  attracted 
by  every  circumstance  towards  local  and 
partial  interests,  and  from  the  common  centre 
of  the  national  system.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  inevitable  than  the  independence 
of  those  great  provinces,  which  had  never 
been  moulded  into  one  empire  ;  and  we  may 
boldly  pronounce,  in  direct  opposition  to  Mr. 
Burke,  that  the  new  division  of  the  kingdom 
was  the  only  expedient  that  could  have  pre 
vented  its  dismemberment  into  a  confederacy 
of  sovereign  republics. 

The  solicitous  and  elaborate  division  of 
powers,  is  another  expedient  of  infallible 
operation,  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  body 
politic.  The  Municipalities  are  limited  to 
minute  and  local  administration  ;  the  Primary 
Assemblies  solely  to  election  ;  the  Assemblies 
of  the  District  to  objects  of  administration 
and  control  of  a  superior  class ;  and  the 
Assemblies  of  the  Departments  possess  func 
tions  purely  electoral,  exerting  no  authority 
legislative,  administrative,  or  judicial. 

But  whatever  danger  might  be  apprehend 
ed  of  the  assumption  of  power  by  these 
formidable  Assemblies,  they  are  biennially 
renewed  :  and  their  fugitive  nature  makes 
systematic  usurpation  hopeless.  What  power, 
indeed,  can  they  possess  of  dictating  to  the 
National  Assembly  ]*  or  what  interest  can 

*  I  do  not  mean  that  their  voice  will  not  be 
there  respected :   that  would  be  to  suppose  the 
56 


the  members  of  that  Assembly  have  in  obey 
ing  the  mandates  of  those  whose  tenure  of 
power  is  as  fugitive  and  precarious  as  their 
own  ?  The  provincial  Administrators  have 
that  amount  of  independence  which  the  con 
stitution  demands;  while  the  judges,  who 
are  elected  for  six  years,  must  feel  them 
selves  independent  of  constituents,  whom 
three  elections  may  so  radically  and  com 
pletely  change.  These  circumstances,  then, 
— the  minuteness  of  the  divisions,  the  dis 
solution  of  Provincial  ties,  the  elaborate  dis 
tribution  of  powers,  and  the  fugitive  consti 
tution  of  the  Electoral  Assemblies, — seem 
to  form  an  insuperable  barrier  against  the 
assumption  of  such  powers  by  any  of  the 
bodies  into  which  France  is  organized)  as 
would  tend  to  produce  the  federal  foim. 

The  next  objection  to  be  considered  is 
peculiar  to  Mr.  Burke.  The  subordination 
of  elections  has  been  regarded  by  the  ad 
mirers  of  the  French  lawgivers  as  a  master 
piece  of  their  legislative  wisdom.  It  seemed 
as  great  an  improvement  on  representative 
government,  as  representation  itself  was  on 
pure  democracy.  No  extent  of  territory  is 
too  great  for  a  popular  government  thus 
organized;  and  as  the  Primary  Assemblies 
may  be  divided  to  any  degree  of  minuteness, 
the  most  perfect  order  is  reconcilable  with 
the  widest  diffusion  of  political  right.  De 
mocracies  were  supposed  by  philosophers  to 
be  necessarily  small,  and  therefore  feeble, — 
to  demand  numerous  assemblies,  and  to  be 
therefore  venal  and  tumultuous.  Yet  this 
great  discovery,  which  gives  force  and  order 
in  so  high  a  degree  to  popular  governments, 
is  condemned  and  derided  by  Mr.  Burke. 
An  immediate  connection  between  the  re 
presentative  and  the  primary  constituent,  he 
considers  as  essential  to  the  idea  of  repre 
sentation.  As  the  electors  in  the  Primary 
Assemblies  do  not  immediately  elect  their 
lawgivers,  he  regards  their  rights  of  suffrage 
as  nominal  and  illusory.* 

It  will  in  the  first  instance  be  remarked, 
from  the  statement  which  has  already  been 
given,  that  in  stating  three  interposed  elec 
tions  between  the  Primary  Electors  and  the 
Legislature.  Mr.  Burke  has  committed  a 
most  important  error,  in  point  of  fact.  The 
original  plan  of  the  Constitutional  Committee 
was  indeed  agreeable  to  the  statement  of 
Mr.  Burke:— the  Primary  Assemblies  were 
to  elect  deputies  to  the  District, — the  District 
to  the  Department. — and  the  Department  to 
the  National  Assembly.  But  this  plan  was 
represented  as  tending  to  introduce  a  vicious 
complexity  into  the  system,  and,  by  making 
the  channel  through  which  the  national  will 
passes  into  its  public  acts  too  circuitous,  to 


Legislature  as  indolently  corrupt  as  that  of  a  neigh 
bouring  nation.  I  only  mean  to  assert,  that  they 
cannot  possess  such  a  power  as  will  enable  them 
to  dictate  instructions  to  their  representatives  as 
authoritatively  as  sovereigns  do  to  their  ambas 
sadors  ;  which  is  the  idea  of  a  confederated  re 
public. 
*  Burke,  pp.  270—272. 


442 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


enfeeble  its  energy  under  pretence  of  break 
ing  its  violence  ]  and  it  was  accordingly  suc 
cessfully  combated.  The  series  of  three 
elections  was  still  preserved  for  the  choice 
of  Departmental  Administrators;  but  the 
Electoral  Assemblies  in  the  Departments, 
•who  are  the  immediate  constituents  of  the 
Legislature,  are  directly  chosen  by  the  Pri 
mary  Assemblies,  in  the  proportion  of  one 
elector  to  every  hundred  active  citizens.* 

But, — to  return  to  the  general  question, 
which  is,  perhaps,  not  much  affected  by 
these  details, — I  profess  I  see  no  reason  why 
the  right  of  election  is  not  as  susceptible  of 
delegation  as  any  other  civil  function, — why 
a  citizen  may  not  as  well  delegate  the  right 
of  choosing  lawgivers,  as  that  of  making- 
laws.  Such  a  gradation  of  elections,  says 
Mr.  Burke,  excludes  responsibility  and  sub 
stantial  election,  since  the  primary  electors 
neither  can  know  nor  bring  to  account  the 
members  of  the  Assembly.  This  argument 
has  (considering  the  peculiar  system  of  Mr. 
Burke)  appeared  to  rne  to  be  the  most  singu 
lar  and  inconsistent  that  he  has  urged  in  his 
work.  Representation  itself  must  be  con 
fessed  to  be  an  infringement  on  the  most 
perfect  liberty:  for  the  best  organized  sys 
tem  cannot  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  vari 
ance  between  the  popular  and  the  represen 
tative  will.  Responsibility,  strictly  speak 
ing,  it  can  rarely  admit  ]  for  the  secrets  of 
political  fraud  are  so  impenetrable,  and  the 
line  which  separates  corrupt  decision  from 
erroneous  judgment  so  indiscernibly  minute. 
that  the  cases  where  the  deputies  could  be 
made  properly  responsible  are  too  few  to  be 
named  as  exceptions.  Their  dismissal  is  the 
only  punishment  that  can  be  inflicted :  and 
all  that  the  best  constitution  can  attain  is  a 
high  probability  of  unison  between  the  con 
stituent  and  his  deputy.  This  seems  attain 
ed  in  the  arrangements  of  France.  The 
Electors  of  the  Departments  are  so  nume 
rous,  and  so  popularly  elected,  that  there  is 
the  highest  probability  of  their  being  actu 
ated  in  their  elections,  and  re-elections,  by 
the  sentiments  of  the  Primary  Assemblies. 
They  have  too  many  points  of  contact  with 
the  general  mass  to  have  an  insulated  opi 
nion,  and  too  fugitive  an  existence  to  have 
a  separate  interest.  This  is  true  of  those 
cases,  where  the  merits  or  demerits  of  can- 

*  For  a  charge  of  such  fundamental  inaccuracy 
against  Mr.  Burke,  the  Public  will  most  justly  and 
namrally  expect  the  highest  evidence.  See  the 
Decret  sur  la  nouvelle  Division  du  Royaume,  Art. 
17,  and  the  Proces  Verbal  of  the  Assembly  for 
the  22d  Dec.,  1789.  If  this  evidence  should  de 
mand  any  collateral  aid,  the  authority  of  M.  de 
Calonne  (which  it  is  remarkable  that  Mr.  Burke 
should  have  overlooked)  corroborates  it  most  am 
ply.  "  On  prdonne  que  chacune  de  ces  Assem 
blies  (Primaires)  nommera  un  electeur  a  raison 
de  100  citoyens  actifs.".  .  .  "  Ces  cinquantes  mille 
electeurs  (des  Departements)  choisis  de  deux  ans 
en  deux  ans  par  les  Assemblies  Primaires,"  p. 
360.  The  Ex-Minister,  indeed,  is  rarely  to  be 
detected  in  any  departure  from  the  solicitous  ac 
curacy  of  professional  detail. 


didates  may  be  supposed  to  have  reached 
the  Primary  Assemblies :  but  in  those  far 
more  numerous  cases,  where  they  are  too 
obscure  to  obtain  that  notice,  but  by  the 
polluted  medium  of  a  popular  canvass,  this 
delegation  of  the  franchise  is  still  more  evi 
dently  wise.  The  peasant,  or  artisan,  who 
is  a  Primary  Elector,  knows  intimately 
among  his  equals,  or  immediate  superiors, 
many  men  who  have  information  and  hon 
esty  enough  to  choose  a  good  representative, 
but  few  who  have  genius,  leisure,  and  ambi 
tion  for  the  situation  themselves.  Of  De 
partmental  Electors  he  may  be  a  disinter 
ested,  deliberate,  and  competent  judge  :  but 
were  he  to  be  complimented,  or  rather 
mocked,  with  the  direct  right  of  electing 
legislators,  he  must,  in  the  tumult,  venality, 
and  intoxication  of  an  election  mob.  give  his 
suffrage  without  any  possible  just  knowledge 
of  the  situation,  character,  and  conduct  of 
the  candidates.  So  unfortunately  false,  in 
deed,  seems  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Burke,  that 
this  arrangement  is  the  only  one  that  sub 
stantially,  and  in  good  faith,  provides  for  the 
exercise  of  deliberate  discrimination  in  the 
constituent. 

This  hierarchy  of  electors  was,  moreover, 
obtruded  on  France  by  necessity.  Had  they 
rejected  it.  they  would  have  had  only  the 
alternative  of  tumultuous  electoral  assem 
blies,  or  a  tumultuous  Legislature.  If  the 
primary  electoral  assemblies  had  been  so 
divided  as  to  avoid  tumult,  their  deputies 
would  have  been  so  numerous  as  to  have 
made  the  national  assembly  a  mob.  If  the 
number  of  electoral  assemblies  had  been  re 
duced  to  the  number  of  deputies  constitut 
ing  the  Legislature,  each  of  them  would 
have  been  too  numerous.  I  cannot  perceive 
that  peculiar  unfitness  which  is  hinted  at  by 
Mr.  Burke  in  the  right  of  personal  choice  to 
be  delegated.*  It  is  in  the  practice  of  all 
states  delegated  to  great  officers,  who  are 
intrusted  with  the  power  of  nominating  their 
subordinate  agents.  It  is  in  the  most  ordi 
nary  affairs  of  common  life  delegated,  when 
our  ultimate  representatives  are  too  remote 
from  us  to  be  within  the  sphere  of  our  obser 
vation.  It  is  remarkable  that  M.  de  Calonne, 
addressing  his  work  to  a  people  enlightened 
by  the  masterly  discussions  to  which  these 
subjects  have  given  rise,  has  not,  in  all  the 
fervour  of  his  zeal  to  criminate  the  new  in 
stitutions,  hazarded  this  objection.  This  is 
not  the  only  instance  in  which  the  Ex-Minis 
ter  has  shown  more  respect  to  the  nation 
whom  he  addresses,  than  Mr.  Burke  has  paid 
to  the  intellect  and  information  of  the  Eng 
lish  public. t 


*  Burke,  p.  271. 

T  Though  it  may,  perhaps,  be  foreign  to  the 
purpose,  I  cannot  help  thinking  one  remark  on 
this  topic  interesting.  It  will  illustrate  the  differ 
ence  of  opinion  between  even  the  Aristocratic 
party  in  France  and  the  rulers  of  England.  M, 
de  Calonne  (p.  383,)  rightly  states  it  to  be  the 
unanimous  instruction  of  France  to  her  represen 
tatives,  to  enact  the  equal  admissibility  of  all  citi- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


443 


Thus  much,  of  the  elements  of  the  legisla 
tive  body.  Concerning  that  body,  thus  con 
stituted,  various  questions  remain.  Its  unity 
or  division  will  admit  of  much  dispute.  It 
•will  be  deemed  of  the  greatest  moment  by 
the  zealous  admirers  of  the  English  constitu 
tion,  to  determine  whether  any  semblance 
of  its  legislative  organization  could  have 
been  attained  by  France,  if  good,  or  ought 
to  have  been  pursued  by  her,  if  attainable. 
Nothing  has  been  asserted  with  more  confi 
dence  by  Mr.  Burke  than  the  facility  with 
which  the  fragments  of  the  long  subverted 
liberty  of  France  might  have  been  formed 
into  a  British  constitution  :  but  of  this  gene 
ral  position,  he  has  neither  explained  the 
mode,  nor  defined  the  limitations.  Nothing- 
is  more  favourable  to  the  popularity  of  a 
work  than  these  lofty  generalities  which  are 
light  enough  to  pass  into  vulgar  currency, 
and  to  become  the  maxims  of  a  popular 
creed.  Proclaimed  as  they  are  by  Mr.  Burke, 
they  gratify  the  pride  and  indolence  of  the 
people,  who  are  thus  taught  to  speak  what 
gains  applause,  without  any  effort  of  intel 
lect,  and  imposes  silence,  without  any  la 
bour  of  confutation;  but  touched  by  defini 
tion,  they  become  too  simple  and  precise  for 
eloquence, — too  cold  and  abstract  for  popu 
larity.  It  is  necessary  to  inquire  with  more 
precision  in  what  manner  France  could  have 
assimilated  the  remains  of  her  ancient  con 
stitution  to  that  of  the  English  Legislature. 
Three  modes  only  seem  conceivable  : — the 
preservation  of  the  three  Orders  distinct ;  the 
union  of  the  Clergy  and  Nobility  in  one  upper 
chamber ;  or  some  mode  of  selecting  from 
these  two  Orders  a  body  like  the  House  of 
Lords.  Unless  the  insinuations  of  Mr.  Burke 
point  to  one  or  other  of  these  schemes,  I  can 
not  divine  their  meaning. 

The  first  mode  would  neither  have  been 
congenial  in  spirit  nor  similar  in  form  to  the 
constitution  of  England  : — convert  the  Con 
vocation  into  an  integrant  and  co-ordinate 
branch  of  our  Legislature,  and  some  faint 
semblance  of  structure  might  be  discovered. 
But  it  would  then  be  necessary  to  arm  our 
Clergy  with  an  immense  mass  of  property, 
rendered  still  more  formidable  by  the  con 
centration  of  great  benefices  in  the  hands  of 
a  few,  and  to  bestow  on  this  clerico-military 
aristocracy,  in  each  of  its  shapes  of  Priest 
and  Noble,  a  separate  and  independent 
voice.  The  Monarch  would  thus  possess 
three  negatives, — one  avowed  and  disused, 
and  two  latent  and  in  perpetual  activity, — 
on  the  single  voice  which  impotent  and  illu 
sive  formality  had  yielded  to  the  Third  Es 
tate. 

zens  to  public  employ  !  England  adheres  to  the 
Test  Act, !  The  arrangements  of  M.  Neckar  for 
elections  to  the  States-General,  and  the  scheme 
of  MM.  Mourner  and  Lally-Tollendal  for  the  new 
constitution,  included  a  representation  of  the  peo 
ple  nearly  exact.  Yet  the  idea  of  it  is  regarded 
with  horror  in  England  !  The  highest  Aristocrates 
of  France  approach  more  nearly  to  the  creed  of 
general  liberty  than  the  most  popular  politicians 
of  England. 


Even  under  the  reign  of  despotism  the 
second  plan  was  proposed  by  M.  de  Ca 
lonne,* — that  the  Clergy  and  Nobility  should 
form  an  Upper  House,  to  exercise  conjointly 
with  the  King  and  the  Commons  the  legisla 
tive  authority.  That  such  a  constitution 
would  have  been  diametrically  opposite  in 
its  spirit  and  principles  to  that  of  England, 
will  be  evident  to  those  who  reflect  how 
different  were  the  Nobility  of  each  country. 
In  England  they  are  a  small  body,  united  to 
the  mass  by  innumerable  points  of  contact, 
receiving  from  it  perpetually  new  infusions, 
and  returning  to  it,  undistinguished  and  un 
privileged,  the  majority  of  their  children.  In 
France  they  formed  an  immense  caste,  in 
sulated  by  every  barrier  that  prejudice  or 
policy  could  raise.  The  Nobles  of  England 
are  a  senate  of  two  hundred :  the  Noblesse 
of  France  were  a  tribe  of  two  hundred  thou 
sand  .  Nobility  is  in  England  only  hereditary, 
so  far  as  its  professed  object — the  support 
of  an  hereditary  senate — demands.  Nobility 
in  France  was  as  widely  inheritable  as  its 
real  purpose — the  maintenance  of  a  privi 
leged  caste — prescribed.  It  was  therefore 
necessarily  descendible  to  all  male  children. 
The  Noblesse  of  France  were  at  once  formi 
dable  from  the  immense  property  of  their 
body,  and  dependent  from  the  indigence  of 
their  patrician  rabble  of  cadets,  whom  honour 
inspired  with  servility,  and  servility  excluded 
from  the  path  to  independence.  To  this  for 
midable  property  were  added  the  revenues 
of  the  Church,  monopolized  by  some  of  their 
children;  wrhile  others  had  no  patrimony 
but  their  sword.  If  these  last  were  generous, 
the  habits  of  military  service  devoted  them, 
from  loyalty, — if  they  were  prudent,  the 
hope  of  military  promotion  devoted  them, 
from  interest,  to  the  King.  How  immense 
therefore  and  irresistible  would  the  Royal 
influence  have  been  over  electors,  of  whom 
the  majority  were  the  servants  and  creatures 
of  the  Crown  ?  What  would  be  thought  in. 
England  of  a  House  of  Lords,  which,  while 
it  represented  or  contained  the  whole  landed 
interest  of  the  kingdom,  should  necessarily 
have  a  majority  of  its  members  septennially 
or  triennially  nominated  by  the  King  ?  Yet 
such  a  one  would  still  yield  to  the  French 
Upper  House  of  M.  de  Calonne  :  for  the  mo- 
nied  and  commercial  interests  of  England, 
which  wrould  continue  to  be  represented  by 
the  Commons,  are  important  and  formidable, 
while  in  France  they  are  comparatively  in 
significant.  The  aristocracy  could  have  been 
strong  only  against  the  people, — impotent 
against  the  Crown. 

There  remains  only  the  selection  of  an 


*  See  his  Lettre  au  Roi,  9th  February,  1789. 
See  also  Sur  1'Etat  de  France,  p.  167.  It  was 
also,  as  we  are  informed  by  M.  de  Calonne,  sug 
gested  in  the  Cahiers  of  the  Nobility  of  Metz  and 
Montargis.  It  is  worthy  of  incidental.  The  pro 
position  of  such  radical  changes  by  the  Nobility, 
is  incontestable  evidence  of  the  general  conviction 
that  a  total  change  was  necessary,  and  is  an  un 
answerable  reply  to  Mr.  Burke  and  M.  de  Ca 
lonne. 


444 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Upper  House  from  among  the  Nobility  and 
Clergy :  and  to  this  there  are  insuperable 
objections.  Had  the  right  of  thus  forming  a 
branch  of  the  Legislature  by  a  single  act  of 
prerogative  been  given  to  the  King,  it  must 
nave  strengthened  his  influence  to  a  degree 
terrible  at  any, — but  fatal  at  this  period. 
Had  any  mode  of  election  by  the  provinces. 
or  the  Legislature,  been  adopted,  or  had  any 
control  on  the  nomination  of  the  Crown  been 
vested  in.  them,  the  new  dignity  would  have 
been  sought  with  an  activity  of  corruption 
and  intrigue,  of  which,  in  such  a  national 
convulsion,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  the 
danger.  No  general  principle  of  selection, 
such  as  that  of  opulence  or  antiquity,  would 
have  remedied  the  evil  ;  for  the  excluded 
and  degraded  would  have  felt  that  nobility 
was  equally  the  patrimony  of  all.  By  the 
abolition  of  nobility,  no  one  was  degraded ; 
•for  to  '-'degrade"  is  to  lower  from'a  rank 
-that  continues  to  exist  in  society. 

So  evident  indeed  was  the  impossibility  of 
what  Mr.  Burke  supposes  to  have  been  at 
tainable,  that  no  party  in  the  Assembly  sug 
gested  the  imitation  of  the  English  model. 
The  system  of  his  oracles  in  French  politics, 
— MM.  Lally  and  Mounier, — approached 
more  near  to  the  constitution  of  the  Ameri 
can  States.  They  proposed  a  Senate  to  be 
chosen  for  life  by  the  King,  from  candidates 
offered  to  his  choice  by  the  provinces.  This 
Senate  was  to  enjoy  an  absolute  negative  on 
legislative  acts,  and  to  form  the  great  national 
court  for  the  trial  of  public  delinquents.  In 
effect,  such  a  body  would  have  formed  a 
far  more  vigorous  aristocracy  than  the  Eng- 
Ash  Peerage.  The  latter  body  only  preserves 
its  dignity  by  a  wise  disuse  of  its  power. 
But  the  Senate  of  M.  Mounier  would  have 
been  an  aristocracy  moderated  and  legalized, 
which,  because  it  appeared  to  have  less  in 
dependence,  would  in  fact  have  been  em 
boldened  to  exert  more.  Deriving  their 
rights  equally  with  the  Lower  House  from 
the  people,  and  vested  with  a  more  dignified 
and  extensive  trust,  they  would  neither 
have  shrunk  from  the  conflict  with  the  Com 
mons  nor  the  King.  The  permanence  of 
their  authority  must  have  given  them  a  su 
periority  over  the  former; — the  speciousriess 
of  their  cause  over  the  latter :  and  it  seems 
probable,  that  they  would  have  ended  in 
subjugating  both.  Let  those  who  suppose 
that  this  Senate  would  not  have  been  infect 
ed  by  the  "corporation  spirit,"  consider  ho\v 
keenly  the  ancient  judicatures  of  France  had 
been  Actuated  by  it. 

As'we  quit  the  details  of  these  systems,  a 
question  arises  for  our  consideration  of  a 
more  general  and  more  difficult  nature, — 
Whether  a  simple  representative  legislature, 
or  a  constitution  of  mutual  control,  be  the 
best  form  of  government  ?*  To  examine 

*  This  question,  translated  into  familiar  lan 
guage,  may  perhaps  he  thus  expressed,—"  Whe 
ther  the  vigilance  of  the  master,  or  the  squabbles 
of  the  servants,  be  the  best  security  for  faithful 
service  ?" 


this  question  at  length  is  inconsistent  with 
the  object  and  limits  of  the  present  publica 
tion  (which  already  grows  insensibly  beyond 
its  intended  size);  but  a  few  general  princi 
ples  may  be  hinted,  on  which  the  decision 
of  the  question  chiefly  depends. 

It  will  not  be  controverted,  that  the  object 
of  establishing  a  representative  legislature  is 
to  collect  the  general  will.  That  will  is  one : 
it  cannot,  therefore,  without  a  solecism,  be 
doubly  represented.  Any  absolute*  negative 
opposed  to  the  national  will,  decisively 
spoken  by  its  representatives,  is  null,  as  an 
usurpation  of  the  popular  sovereignty.  Thus 
far  does  the  abstract  principle  of  representa 
tion  condemn  the  division  of  the  legislature. 

All  political  bodies,  as  well  as  all  systems 
of  law,  foster  the  preponderance  of  partial 
interests.  A  controlling  senate  would  be 
most  peculiarly  accessible  to  this  contagious 
.pirit :  a  representative  body  itself  can  only 
be  preserved  from  it  by  those  frequent  elec 
tions  which  break  combinations,  and  infuse 
new  portions  of  popular  sentiments.  Let  us 
ijant  that  a  popular  assembly  may  some 
times  be  precipitated  into  unwise  decision 
by  the  seductions  of  eloquence,  or  the  rage 
of  faction,  and  that  a  controlling  senate  might 
remedy  this  evil :  but  let  us  recollect,  that  it 
is  better  the  public  interest  should  be  occa 
sionally  mistaken  than  systematically  op 
posed. 

It  is  perhaps  susceptible  of  proof,  that 
these  governments  of  balance  and  control 
have  never  existed  but  in  the  vision  of  theo 
rists.  The  fairest  example  will  be  that  of 
England.  If  the  two  branches  of  the  Legis 
lature,  w7hich  it  is  pretended  control  each 
other,  are  ruled  by  the  same  class  of  men, 
the  control  must  be  granted  to  be  imaginary. 
The  great  proprietors,  titled  and  untitled, 
possess  the  whole  force  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament  that  is  not  immediately  dependent 
on  the  Crown.  The  Peers  have  a  great  in 
fluence  in  the  House  of  Commons.  All  po 
litical  parties  are  formed  by  a  confederacy 
of  the  members  of  both  Houses.  The  Court 
party,  acting  equally  in  both,  is  supported  by 
a  part  of  the  independent  aristocracy ; — the 
Opposition  by  the  remainder  of  the  aristo 
cracy,  whether  peers  or  commoners.  Here 
is  every  symptom  of  collusion, — no  vestige 
of  control.  The  only  case  indeed,  where 
control  could  arise,  is  where  the  interest  of 
the  Peerage  is  distinct  from  that  of  the  other 
great  proprietors.  But  their  separate  inte 
rests  are  so  few  and  paltry,  that  the  history 
of  England  will  not  afford  one  undisputed 
in  stance. t 


*  The  suspensive  veto  vested  in  the  French 
King  is  only  an  appeal  to  the  people  on  the  con 
duct  of  their  representatives.  The  voice  of  the 
people  clearly  spoken,  the  negative  ceases. 

t"  The  rejection  of  the  Peerage  Bill  of  George 
the  First  is  urged  with  great  triumph  by  De 
Lolme.  There  it  seems  the  Commons  rejected 
the  Bill,  purely  actuated  by  their  fears,  that  the 
aristocracy  would  acquire  a  strength,  through  a 
limitation  of  the  number  of  Peers,  destructive  of 
the  balance  of  their  respective  powers.  It  is  un- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


445 


"  Through  a  diversity  of  members  and  in 
terests,"  if  we  may  "believe  Mr.  Burke, 
"  general  liberty  had  as  many  securities  as 
there  were  separate  views  in  the  several 
orders."  If  by  "general  liberty"  be  under 
stood  the  power  of  the  collective  body  of 
these  orders,  the  position  is  undeniable  :  but 
if  it  means. — what  it  ought  to  mean, — the 
liberty  of  mankind,  nothing  can  be  more 
false.  The  higher  class  in  society, — whether 
their  names  be  nobles,  bishops,  judges,  or 
possessors  of  landed  and  commercial  wealth, 
— has  ever  been  united  by  common  views, 
far  more  powerful  than  those  petty  repug 
nancies  of  interest  to  which  this  variety  of 
description  may  give  rise.  Whatever  may 
be  the  little  conflicts  of  ecclesiastical  with 
secular,  or  of  commercial  with  landed  opu 
lence,  they  have  the  one  common  interest  of 
preserving  their  elevated  place  in  the  social 
order.  There  never  was,  and  never  will  be, 
in  civilized  society,  but  two  grand  interests. — 
that  of  the  rich  and  that  of  the  poor.  The 
privileges  of  the  several  orders  among  the 
former  will  be  guarded,  and  Mr.  Burke  will 
decide  that  general  liberty  is  secure  !  It  is 
thus  that  a  Polish  Palatine  and  the  Assembly 
of  Jamaica  profanely  appeal  to  ths  principles 
of  freedom.  It  is  thus  that  Antiquity,  with 
all  her  pretended  political  philosophy,  can 
not  boast  one  philosopher  who  questioned  the 
justice  of  servitude, — nor  with  all  her  pre 
tended  public  virtue,  one  philanthropist  who 
deplored  the  misery  of  slaves. 

One  circumstance  more  concerning  the  pro 
posed  Legislature  remains  to  be  noticed. — 
the  exclusion  of  the  King's  Ministers  from  it. 
This  u  Self-denying  Ordinance"  I  unequivo 
cally  disapprove.  I  regard  all  disfranchise- 
ment  as  equally  unjust  in  its  principle,  de 
structive  in  its  example,  and  impotent  in  its 
purpose.  Their  presence  would  have  been 
of  great  utility  with  a  view  to  business,  and 
perhaps,  by  giving  publicity  to  their  opinions, 
favourable  on  the  whole  to  public  liberty. 
The  fair  and  open  influence  of  a  Government 
is  never  formidable.  To  exclude  them  from 
the  Legislature,  is  to  devote  them  to  the 
purposes  of  the  Crown,  and  thereby  to  enable 
tham  to  use  their  indirect  and  secret  influ 
ence  with  more  impunity  and  success.  The 
exclusion  is  equivalent  to  that  of  all  men  of 
superior  talent  from  the  Cabinet :  for  no  man 
of  genius  will  accept  an  office  which  banishes 
him  from  the  supreme  assembly,  which  is  the 
natural  sphere  of  his  powers. 

Of  the  plan  of  the  Judicature,  I  have  riot  yet 
presumed  to  form  a  decided  opinion.  It  cer 
tainly  approaches  to  an  experiment,  whether 
a  code  of  laws  can  be  formed  sufficiently 
simple  and  intelligible  to  supersede  the  ne- 


fortunate  that  political  theorists  do  not  consult  the 
history  as  well  as  the  letter  of  legislative  proceed 
ings.  The  rejection  of  that  Bill  was  occasioned 
by  the  secession  of  Walpole.  The  debate  was 
not  guided  by  any  general  legislative  principles. 
It  was  simply  an  experiment  on  the  strength  of  the 
two  parties  contending  for  power,  in  a  Parliament 
to  which  we  owe  the  Septennial  Act. 


cessity  of  professional  lawyers.*  Of  all  the 
attempts  of  the  Assembly,  the  complicated 
relations  of  civilized  society  seem  to  render 
this  the  most  problematical.  They  have  not, 
however,  concluded  this  part  of  their  labours : 
and  the  feebleness  attributed  to  the  elective 
judicatures  of  the  Departments  may  be  re 
medied  by  the  dignity  and  force  with  which 
they  will  invest  the  two  high  national  tribu 
nals,  t 

On  the  subject  of  the  Executive  Magis 
tracy,  the  Assembly  have  been  accused  of 
violating  their  own  principles  by  the  assump 
tion  of  executive  powers;  and  their  advo 
cates  have  pleaded  guilty  to  the  charge.  It 
has  been  forgotten  that  they  had  a  double 
function  to  perform :  they  were  not  only  to 
erect  a  new  constitution,  but  they  were  to 
guard  it  from  destruction.  Had  a  supersti 
tious  tenderness  for  a  principle  confined  them 
to  theoretical  abstractions  which  the  breath 
of  power  might  destroy,  they  would  indeed 
have  merited  tl|e  epithets  of  visionaries  and 
enthusiasts.  We  must  not,  as  has  been  justly 
observed,  mistake  for  the  new  political  edi 
fice  what  is  only  the  scaffolding  necessary  to 
its  erection.  The  powers  of  the  First  Magis 
trate  are  not  to  be  estimated  by  the  debility 
to  which  the  convulsions  of  the  moment 
have  reduced  them,  but  by  the  provisions  of 
the  future  constitution. 

The  portion  of  power  with  which  the 
King  of  France  is  invested  is  certainly  as 
much  as  pure  theory  would  demand  for  an 
executive  magistrate.  An  organ  to  collect 
the  public  will,  and  a  hand  to  execute  it,  are 
the  only  necessary  constituents  of  the  social 
union  :  the  popular  representative  forms  the 
first, — the  executive  officer  the  second.  To 
the  point  where  this  principle  would  have 
conducted  them,  the  French  have  not  ven 
tured  to  proceed.  It  has  been  asserted  by 
Mr.  Burke;  that  the  French  King  is  to  have 
no  negative  on  the  laws.  This,  however,  is 
not  true.  The  minority  who  opposed  any 
species  of  negative  in  the  Crown  was  only 
one  hundred  out  of  eight  hundred  members. 
The  King  possesses  the  power  of  withholding 
his  assent  to  a  proposed  law  for  two  succes 
sive  Assemblies.  This  species  of  suspensive 
veto  is  with  great  speciousness  and  ingenuity 
contended  by  M.  Neckar  to  be  more  efficient 
than  the  obsolete  negative  of  the  English 
princes.t  A  mild  and  limited  negative  may, 
he  remarked,  be  exercised  without  danger 
or  odium;  while  a  prerogative,  like  the  abso 
lute  vetOj  must  sink  into  impotence  from  its 
invidious  magnitude.  Is  not  that  negative 
really  efficient,  which  is  only  to  yield  to  the 
national  voice,  spoken  after  four  years'  de- 

*  The  sexennial  election  of  the  Judges  is  strong 
ly  and  ably  opposed  by  M.  de  Calonne, — chiefly 
on  the  principle,  that  the  stability  of  judicial  offices 
is  the  only  inducement  to  men  to  devote  their 
lives  to  legal  study. 

t  The  Cour  de  Cassation  and  the  Haute  Cour 
Rationale. 

t  Rapport  fait  au  Roi  dans  son  Conseil,  llth 
Sept.,  1789. 

2N 


444 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Upper  House  from  among  the  Nobility  and 
Clergy :  and  to  this  there  are  insuperable 
objections.  Had  the  right  of  thus  forming  a 
branch  of  the  Legislature  by  a  single  act  of 

Ererogative  been  given  to  the  King,  it  must 
ave  strengthened  his  influence  to  a  degree 
terrible  at  any, — but  fatal  at  this  period. 
Had  any  mode  of  election  by  the  provinces. 
or  the  Legislature,  been  adopted,  or  had  any 
control  on  the  nomination  of  the  Crown  been 
vested  in  them,  the  new  dignity  would  have 
been  sought  with  an  activity  of  corruption 
and  intrigue,  of  which,  in  such  a  national 
convulsion,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  the 
danger.  No  general  principle  of  selection, 
such  as  that  of  opulence  or  antiquity,  would 
have  remedied  the  evil*  for  the  excluded 
and  degraded  would  have  felt  that  nobility 
was  equally  the  patrimony  of  all.  By  the 
abolition  of  nobility,  no  one  was  degraded ; 

•for  to  u  degrade"  is  to  lower  from  a  rank 

•that  continues  to  exist  in  society. 

So  evident  indeed  was  the  impossibility  of 
what  Mr.  Burke  supposes  to  have  been  at 
tainable,  that  no  party  in  the  Assembly  sug 
gested  the  imitation  of  the  English  model. 
The  system  of  his  oracles  in  French  politics, 
— MM.  Lally  and  Mounier, — approached 
more  near  to  the  constitution  of  the  Ameri 
can  States.  They  proposed  a  Senate  to  be 
chosen  for  life  by  the  King,  from  candidates 
offered  to  his  choice  by  the  provinces.  This 
Senate  was  to  enjoy  an  absolute  negative  on 
legislative  acts,  and  to  form  the  great  national 
court  for  the  trial  of  public  delinquents.  In 
effect,  such  a  body  would  have  formed  a 
far  more  vigorous  aristocracy  than  the  Eng- 
Jsh  Peerage.  The  latter  body  only  preserves 
its  dignity  by  a  wise  disuse  of  its  power. 
But  the  Senate  of  M.  Mounier  would  have 
been  an  aristocracy  moderated  and  legalized, 
which,  because  it  appeared  to  have  less  in 
dependence,  would  in  fact  have  been  em 
boldened  to  exert  more.  Deriving  their 
rights  equally  with  the  Lower  House  from 
the  people,  and  vested  with  a  more  dignified 
and  extensive  trust,  they  would  neither 
have  shrunk  from  the  conflict  with  the  Com 
mons  nor  the  King.  The  permanence  of 
their  authority  must  have  given  them  a  su 
periority  over  the  former; — the  speciousriess 
of  their  cause  over  the  latter :  and  it  seems 
probable,  that  they  would  have  ended  in 
subjugating  both.  Let  those  who  suppose 
that  this  Senate  would  not  have  been  infect 
ed  by  the  "corporation  spirit,"  consider  how 
keenly  the  ancient  judicatures  of  France  had 
been  Actuated  by  it. 

As* we  quit  the  details  of  these  systems,  a 
question  arises  for  our  consideration  of  a 
more  general  and  more  difficult  nature,— 
Whether  a  simple  representative  legislature, 
or  a  constitution  of  mutual  control,  be  the 
best  form  of  government?*  To  examine 

*  This  question,  translated  into  familiar  lan 
guage,  may  perhaps  be  thus  expressed, — "  Whe 
ther  the  vigilance  of  the  master,  or  the  squabbles 
of  the  servants,  be  the  best  security  for  faithful 
service  ?" 


this  question  at  length  is  inconsistent  with 
the  object  and  limits  of  the  present  publica 
tion  (which  already  grows  insensibly  beyond 
its  intended  size);  but  a  few  general  princi 
ples  may  be  hinted,  on  which  the  decision 
of  the  question  chiefly  depends. 

It  will  not  be  controverted,  that  the  object 
of  establishing  a  representative  legislature  is 
to  collect  the  general  will.  That  will  is  one : 
it  cannot,  therefore,  without  a  solecism,  be 
doubly  represented.  Any  absolute*  negative 
opposed  to  the  national  will,  decisively 
spoken  by  its  representatives,  is  null,  as  an 
usurpation  of  the  popular  sovereignty.  Thus 
far  does  the  abstract  principle  of  representa 
tion  condemn  the  division  of  the  legislature. 

All  political  bodies,  as  well  as  all  systems 
of  law,  foster  the  preponderance  of  partial 
interests.  A  controlling  senate  would  be 
most  peculiarly  accessible  to  this  contagious 
spirit :  a  representative  body  itself  can  only 
be  preserved  from  it  by  those  frequent  elec 
tions  which  break  combinations,  and  infuse 
new  portions  of  popular  sentiments.  Let  us 
grant  that  a  popular  assembly  may  some 
times  be  precipitated  into  unwise  decision 
by  the  seductions  of  eloquence,  or  the  rage 
of  faction,  and  that  a  controlling  senate  might 
remedy  this  evil :  but  let  us  recollect,  that  it 
is  better  the  public  interest  should  be  occa 
sionally  mistaken  than  systematically  op 
posed. 

It  is  perhaps  susceptible  of  proof,  that 
these  governments  of  balance  and  control 
have  never  existed  but  in  the  vision  of  theo 
rists.  The  fairest  example  will  be  that  of 
England.  If  the  two  branches  of  the  Legis 
lature,  which  it  is  pretended  control  each 
other,  are  ruled  by  the  same  class  of  men, 
the  control  must  be  granted  to  be  imaginary. 
The  great  proprietors,  titled  and  untitled, 
possess  the  whole  force  of  both  Houses  of 
Parliament  that  is  not  immediately  dependent 
on  thp  Crown.  The  Peers  have  a  great  in 
fluence  in  the  House  of  Commons.  All  po 
litical  parties  are  formed  by  a  confederacy 
of  the  members  of  both  Houses.  The  Court 
party,  acting  equally  in  both,  is  supported  by 
a  part  of  the  independent  aristocracy ; — the 
Opposition  by  the  remainder  of  the  aristo 
cracy,  whether  peers  or  commoners.  Here 
is  every  symptom  of  collusion, — no  vestige 
of  control.  The  only  case  indeed,  where 
control  could  arise,  is  where  the  interest  of 
the  Peerage  is  distinct  from  that  of  the  other 
_reat  proprietors.  But  their  separate  inte 
rests  are  so  few  and  paltry,  that  the  history 
of  England  will  not  afford  one  undisputed 
instance.! 


11  The  suspensive  veto  vested  in  the  French 
King  is  only  an  appeal  to  the  people  on  the  con 
duct  of  their  representatives.  The  voice  of  the 
people  clearly  spoken,  the  negative  ceases. 

t  The  rejection  of  the  Peerage  Bill  of  George 
the  First  is  urged  with  great  triumph  by  De 
Lolme.  There  it  seems  the  Commons  rejected 
the  Bill,  purely  actuated  by  their  fears,  that  the 
aristocracy  would  acquire  a  strength,  through  a 
limitation  of  the  number  of  Peers,  destructive  of 
the  balance  of  their  respective  powers.  It  is  un- 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


445 


"  Through  a  diversity  of  members  and  in 
terests,"  if  we  may  believe  Mr.  Burke, 
"general  liberty  had  as  many  securities  as 
there  were  separate  views  in  the  several 
orders."  If  by  "general  liberty"  be  under 
stood  the  power  of  the  collective  body  of 
these  orders,  the  position  is  undeniable  :  but 
if  it  means, — what  it  ought  to  mean, — the 
liberty  of  mankind,  nothing  can  be  more 
false.  The  higher  class  in  society, — whether 
their  names  be  nobles,  bishops,  judges,  or 
possessors  of  landed  and  commercial  wealth, 
— has  ever  been  united  by  common  views, 
far  more  powerful  than  those  petty  repug 
nancies  of  interest  to  which  this  variety  of 
description  may  give  rise.  Whatever  may 
be  the  little  conflicts  of  ecclesiastical  with 
secular,  or  of  commercial  with  landed  opu 
lence,  they  have  the  one  common  interest  of 
preserving  their  elevated  place  in  the  social 
order.  There  never  was,  and  never  will  be, 
in  civilized  society,  but  two  grand  interests. — 
that  of  the  rich  and  that  of  the  poor.  The 
privileges  of  the  several  orders  among  the 
former  will  be  guarded,  and  Mr.  Burke  will 
decide  that  general  liberty  is  secure  !  It  is 
thus  that  a  Polish  Palatine  and  the  Assembly 
of  Jamaica  profanely  appeal  to  the  principles 
of  freedom.  It  is  thus  that  Antiquity,  with 
all  her  pretended  political  philosophy,  can 
not  boast  one  philosopher  who  questioned  the 
justice  of  servitude, — nor  with  all  her  pre 
tended  public  virtue,  one  philanthropist  who 
deplored  the  misery  of  slaves. 

One  circumstance  more  concerning  the  pro 
posed  Legislature  remains  to  be  noticed; — 
the  exclusion  of  the  King's  Ministers  from  it. 
This  u  Self-denying  Ordinance"  I  unequivo 
cally  disapprove.  I  regard  all  disfranchise- 
ment  as  equally  unjust  in  its  principle,  de 
structive  in  its  example,  and  impotent  in  its 
purpose.  Their  presence  would  have  been 
of  great  utility  with  a  view  to  business,  and 
perhaps,  by  giving  publicity  to  their  opinions, 
favourable  on  the  whole  "to  public  liberty. 
The  fair  and  open  influence  of  a  Government 
is  never  formidable.  To  exclude  them  from 
the  Legislature,  is  to  devote  them  to  the 
purposes  of  the  Crown,  and  thereby  to  enable 
them  to  use  their  indirect  and  secret  influ 
ence  with  more  impunity  and  success.  The 
exclusion  is  equivalent  to  that  of  all  men  of 
superior  talent  from  the  Cabinet :  for  no  man 
of  genius  will  accept  an  office  which  banishes 
him  from  the  supreme  assembly,  which  is  the 
natural  sphere  of  his  powers. 

Of  the  plan  of  the  Judicature.  I  have  riot  yet 
presumed  to  form  a  decided  opinion.  It  cer 
tainly  approaches  to  an  experiment,  whether 
a  code  of  laws  can  be  formed  sufficiently 
simple  and  intelligible  to  supersede  the  ne- 

fortunate  that  political  theorists  do  not  consult  the 
history  as  well  as  the  letter  of  legislative  proceed 
ings.  The  rejection  of  that  Bill  was  occasioned 
by  the  secession  of  Walpole.  The  debate  was 
not  guided  by  any  general  legislative  principles. 
It  was  simply  an  experiment  on  the  strength  of  the 
two  parties  contending  for  power,  in  a  Parliament 
to  which  we  owe  the  Septennial  Act. 


cessity  of  professional  lawyers.*  Of  all  the 
attempts  of  the  Assembly,  the  complicated 
relations  of  civilized  society  seem  to  render 
this  the  most  problematical.  They  have  not, 
however,  concluded  this  part  of  their  labours : 
and  the  feebleness  attributed  to  the  elective 
judicatures  of  the  Departments  may  be  re 
medied  by  the  dignity  and  force  with  which 
they  will  invest  the  two  high  national  tribu 
nals.! 

On  the  subject  of  the  Executive  Magis 
tracy,  the  Assembly  have  been  accused  of 
violating  their  own  principles  by  the  assump 
tion  of  executive  powers;  and  their  advo 
cates  have  pleaded  guilty  to  the  charge.  It 
has  been  forgotten  that  they  had  a  double 
function  to  perform :  they  were  not  only  to 
erect  a  new  constitution,  but  they  were  to 
guard  it  from  destruction.  Had  a  supersti 
tious  tenderness  for  a  principle  confined  them 
to  theoretical  abstractions  which  the  breath 
of  power  might  destroy,  they  would  indeed 
have  merited  tl|e  epithets  of  visionaries  and 
enthusiasts.  We  must  not,  as  has  been  justly 
observed,  mistake  for  the  new  political  edi 
fice  what  is  only  the  scaffolding  necessary  to 
its  erection.  The  powers  of  the  First  Magis 
trate  are  not  to  be  estimated  by  the  debility 
to  which  the  convulsions  of  the  moment 
have  reduced  them,  but  by  the  provisions  of 
the  future  constitution. 

The  portion  of  power  with  which  the 
King  of  France  is  invested  is  certainly  as 
much  as  pure  theory  would  demand  for  an 
executive  magistrate.  An  organ  to  collect 
the  public  will,  and  a  hand  to  execute  it,  are 
the  only  necessary  constituents  of  the  social 
union  :  the  popular  representative  forms  the 
first, — the  executive  officer  the  second.  To 
the  point  where  this  principle  would  have 
conducted  them,  the  French  have  not  ven 
tured  to  proceed.  It  has  been  asserted  by 
Mr.  Burkej  that  the  French  King  is  to  have 
no  negative  on  the  laws.  This,  however,  is 
not  true.  The  minority  who  opposed  any 
species  of  negative  in  the  Crown  was  only 
one  hundred  out  of  eight  hundred  members. 
The  King  possesses  the  power  of  withholding 
his  assent  to  a  proposed  law  for  two  succes 
sive  Assemblies.  This  species  of  suspensive 
veto  is  with  great  speciousness  and  ingenuity 
contended  by  M.  Neckar  to  be  more  efficient 
than  the  obsolete  negative  of  the  English 
princes.t  A  mild  and  limited  negative  may, 
he  remarked,  be  exercised  without  danger 
or  odium ;  while  a  prerogative,  like  the  abso 
lute  refo,  must  sink  into  impotence  from  its 
invidious  magnitude.  Is  not  that  negative 
really  efficient,  which  is  only  to  yield  to  the 
national  voice,  spoken  after  four  years'  de- 

*  The  sexennial  election  of  the  Judges  is  strong 
ly  and  ably  opposed  by  M.  de  Calonne, — chiefly 
on  the  principle,  that  the  stability  of  judicial  offices 
is  the  only  inducement  to  men  to  devote  their 
lives  to  legal  study. 

t  The  Cour  de  Cassation  and  the  Haute  Cour 
Nationale. 

t  Rapport  fait  au  Roi  dans  son  Conseil,  llth 
Sept.,  1789. 

2N 


448 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


it  will  probably  be  formed  by  rotation :  a 
certain  period  of  military  service  will  be  ex 
acted  from  every  citizen,  and  may,  as  in 
the  ancient  republics,  be  made  a  necessary 
qualification  for  the  pursuit  of  civil  honours. 
"  Gallos  quoque  in  bellis  floruisse  audivi- 
mus,"*  may  again  be  the  sentiment  of  our 
children.  The  glory  of  heroism,  and  the 
splendour  of  conquest,  have  long  enough 
been  the  patrimony  of  that  great  nation.  It 
is  time  that  it  should  seek  a  new  glory,  and 
a  new  splendour,  under  the  shade  of  free 
dom,  in  cultivating  the  arts  of  peace,  and 
extending  the  happiness  of  mankind.  Happy 
would  it  be  for  us  all,  if  the  example  of  that 
"manifesto  of  humanity'5  which  has  been 
adopted  by  the  legislators  of  France,  should 
make  an  adequate  impression  on  surround 
ing  nations. 

Tune  genus  humanum  positis  sibi  consulat  armis, 
Inque  vicem  gens  omnis  amet.t 


SECTION  V. 

English  admirers  vindicated. 

IT  is  thus  that  Mr.  Burke  has  spoken  of 
the  men  and  measures  of  a  foreign  nation, 
where  there  was  no  patriotism  to  excuse  his 
.prepossession  or  his  asperity,  and  no  duty  or 
feeling  to  preclude  him  from  adopting  the 
feelings  of  a  disinterested  posterity,  and  as 
suming  the  dispassionate  tone  of  a  philoso 
pher  and  a  historian.  What  wonder  then  if 
he  should  wanton  in  all  the  eloquence  and 
virulence  of  an  advocate  against  fellow-citi 
zens,  to  whom  he  attributes  the  flagitious 
purpose  of  stimulating  England  to  the  imita 
tion  of  such  enormities.  The  Revolution  and 
Constitutional  Societies,  and  Dr.  Price,  whom 
he  regards  as  their  oracle  and  guide,  are  the 
grand  objects  of  his  hostility.  For  them  no 
contumely  is  too  debasing, — no  invective  too 
intemperate, — no  imputation  too  foul.  Joy 
at  the  downfall  of  despotism  is  the  indelible 
crime,  for  which  no  virtue  can  compensate, 
and  no  punishment  can  atone.  An  incon 
sistency,  however,  betrays  itself  not  unfre- 
quently  in  literary  quarrels : — he  affects  to 
despise  those  whom  he  appears  to  dread. 
His  anger  exalts  those  whom  his  ridicule 
would  vilify ;  and  on  those  whom  at  one  mo 
ment  he  derides  as  too  contemptible  for  re 
sentment,  he  at  another  confers  a  criminal 
eminence,  as  too  audacious  for  contempt. 
Their  voice  is  now  the  importunate  chirp  of 
the  meagre  shrivelled  insects  of  the  hour, — 
now  the  hollow  murmur,  ominous  of  con 
vulsions  and  earthquakes,' that  are  to  lay  the 
fabric  of  society  in  ruins.  To  provoke  against 
the  doctrines  and  persons  of  these  unfortu 
nate  Societies  this  storm  of  execration  and 

*  The  expression  of  Tacitus  (Agricola),  quoted 
by  Mr.  Burke  in  the  Speech  on  the  Army  Esti 
mates. — ED. 

T  Pharsalia,  lib.  i. 


derision,  it  was  not  sufficient  that  the  French 
Revolution  should  be  traduced;  every  re 
cord  of  English  policy  and  law  is  to  be  dis 
torted. 

The  Revolution  of  1688  is  confessed  to 
have  established  principles  by  those  who 
lament  that  it  has  not  reformed  institutions. 
It  has  sanctified  the  theory,  if  it  has  not  in 
sured  the  practice  of  a  free  government.  It 
declared,  by  a  memorable  precedent,  the 
right  of  the  people  of  England  to  revoke 
abused  power,  to  frame  the  government,  and 
bestow  the  crown.  There  was  a  time,  in 
deed,  when  some  wretched  followers  of'Fil- 
mer  and  Black  wood  lifted  their  heads  in  op 
position  :  but  more  than  half  a  century  had 
withdrawn  them  from  public  contempt,  to 
the  amnesty  and  oblivion  which  their  in 
noxious  stupidity  had  purchased. 

It  was  reserved  for  the  latter  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  construe  these  innocent 
and  obvious  inferences  into  libels  on  the  con 
stitution  and  the  laws.  Dr.  Price  has  as 
serted  (I  presume  without  i'ear  of  contradic 
tion)  that  the  House  of  Hanover  owes  the 
crown  of  England  to  the  choice  of  their  peo 
ple,  and  that  the  Revolution  has  established 
our  right  "  to  choose  our  own  governors,  to 
cashier  them  for  misconduct,  and  to  frame  a 
government  for  ourselves. "*  The  first  pro 
position,  says  Mr.  Burke,  is  either  false  or 
nugatory.  If  it  imports  that  England  is  an 
elective  monarchy,  "it  is  an  unfounded, 
dangerous,  illegal,  and  unconstitutional  posi 
tion."  "If  it  alludes  to  the  election  of  his 
Majesty's  ancestors  to  the  throne,  it  no  more 
legalizes  the  government  of  England  than 
that  of  other  nations,  where  the  founders  of 
dynasties  have  generally  founded  their  claims 
on  some  sort  of  election."  The  first  member 
of  this  dilemma  merits  no  reply.  The  people 
may  certainly,  as  they  have  done,  choose  an 
hereditary  rather  than  an  elective  monarchy : 
they  may  elect  a  race  instead  of  an  individual. 
It  is  vain  to  compare  the  pretended  elections 
in  which  a  council  of  barons,  or  an  army  of 
mercenaries,  have  imposed  usurpers  on  en 
slaved  and  benighted  kingdoms,  with  the 
solemn,  deliberate,  national  choice  of  1688. 
It  is,  indeed,  often  expedient  to  sanction  these 
deficient  titles  by  subsequent  acquiescence 
in  them.  .  It  is  not  among  the  projected  in 
novations  of  France  to  revive  the  claims  of 
any  of  the  posterity  of  Pharamond  and  Clovis, 
or  to  arraign  the  usurpations  of  Pepin  or 
Hugh  Capet.  Public  tranquillity  thus  de 
mands  a  veil  to  be  drawn  over  the  successful 
crimes  through  which  kings  have  so  often 
"waded  to  the  throne."  But  wherefore 
should  we  not  exult,  that  the  supreme  ma 
gistracy  of  England  is  free  from  this  blot,— 
that  as  a  direct  emanation  from  the  sove 
reignty  of  the  people,  it  is  as  legitimate  in  its 
origin  as  in  its  administration.  Thus  under- 


*  A  Discourse  on  the  Love  of  our  Country,  de 
livered  on  Nov.  4th,  1789,  at  the  Meeting-house 
in  Old  Jewry,  to  the  Society  for  commemorating 
the  Revolution  in  Great  Britain.  London,  1789. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


449 


stood,  the  position  of  Dr.  Price  is  neither  false 
nor  nugatory.  It  is  not  nugatory,  for  it 
honourably  distinguishes  the  English  mo 
narchy  among  the  governments  of  the  world  ] 
and  if  it  be  false,  the  whole  history  of  our 
Revolution  must  be  a  legend.  The  fact  was 
shortly,  that  the  Prince  of  Orange  was  elected 
King  of  England,  in  contempt  of  the  claims, 
not  only  of  the  exiled  monarch  and  his  son, 
but  of  the  Princesses  Mary  and  Anne,  the 
undisputed  progeny  of  James.  The  title  of 
William  III.  was  then  clearly  not  by  succes 
sion  ;  and  the  House  of  Commons  ordered 
Dr.  Burnet's  tract  to  be  burnt  by  the  hands 
of  the  hangman,  for  maintaining  that  it  was 
by  conquest.  There  remains  only  election  : 
for  these  three  claims  to  royalty  are  all  that 
are  known  among  men.  It  is  futile  to  urge, 
that  the  Convention  deviated  only  slightly 
from  the  order  of  succession.  The  deviation 
was  indeed  slight,  but  the  principle  was  de 
stroyed.  The  principle  that  justified  the 
elevation  of  William  III.  and  the  preference 
of  the  posterity  of  Sophia  of  Hanover  to  those 
of  Henrietta  of  Orleans,  would  equally,  in 
point  of  right,  have  vindicated  the  election 
of  Chancellor  Jeffreys  or  Colonel  Kirke.  The 
choice  was,  like  every  other  choice,  to  be 
guided  by  views  of  policy  and  prudence ; 
but  it  was  a  choice  still. 

From  these  views  arose  that  repugnance 
between  the  conduct  and  the  language  of 
the  Revolutionists,  of  which  Mr.  Burke  has 
availed  himself.  Their  conduct  was  manly 
and  systematic :  their  language  was  conciliat 
ing  and  equivocal.  They  kept  measures 
with  a  prejudice  which  they  deemed  neces 
sary  to  the  order  of  society.  They  imposed 
on  the  grossness  of  the  popular  understand 
ing,  by  a  sort  of  compromise  between  the 
constitution  and  the  abdicated  family.  "  They 
drew  a  politic  well-wrought  veil,"  to  use  the 
expression  of  Mr.  Burke,  over  the  glorious 
scene  which  they  had  acted.  They  affected 
to  preserve  a  semblance  of  succession, — to 
recur  for  the  objects  of  their  election  to  the 
posterity  of  Charles  and  James, — that  respect 
and  loyalty  might  with  less  violence  to  public 
sentiment  attach  to  the  new  Sovereign.  Had 
a  Jacobite  been  permitted  freedom  of  speech 
in  the  Parliaments  of  William  III.  he  might 
thus  have  arraigned  the  Act  of  Settlement: 
— "Is  the  language  of  your  statutes  to  be  at 
eternal  war  with  truth  ?  Not  long  ago  you 
profaned  the  forms  of  devotion  by  a  thanks 
giving,  which  either  means  nothing,  or  in 
sinuates  a  lie  :  you  thanked  Heaven  for  the 
preservation  of  a  King  and  a  Queen  on  the 
throne  of  their  ancestors, — an  expression 
which  either  alluded  only  to  their  descent, 
which  was  frivolous,  or  insinuated  their  here 
ditary  right,  which  was  false.  With  the 
same  contempt  for  consistency  and  truth,  we 
are  this  day  called  on  to  settle  the  crown  of 
England  on  a  princess  of  Germany,  'because' 
she  is  the  granddaughter  of  James  the  First. 
If  that  be,  as  the  phraseology  insinuates,  the 
true  and  sole  reason  of  the  choice,  consistency 
demands  that  the  words  after  'excellent 
57 


should  be  omitted,  and  in  their  place  be  in 
serted  'Victor  Amadeus,  Duke  of  Savoy, 
married  to  the  daughter  of  the  most  excellent 
Princess  Henrietta,  late  Duchess  of  Orleans, 
daughter  of  our  late  Sovereign  Lord  Charles  I. 
of  glorious  memory.'  Do  homage  to  royalty 
n  your  actions,  or  abjure  it  in  your  words  : 
avow  the  grounds  of  your  conduct,  and  your 
manliness  will  be  respected  by  those  who 
detest  your  rebellion/'  What  reply  Lord 
Somers,  or  Mr.  Burke,  could  have  devised  to 
this  Philippic,  I  know  not,  unless  they  con 
fessed  that  the  authors  of  the  Revolution  had 
one  language  for  novices  and  another  for 
adepts.  Whether  this  conduct  was  the  fruit 
of  caution  and  consummate  wisdom,  or  of  a 
narrow,  arrogant,  and  dastardly  policy,  which 
regarded  the  human  race  as  only  to  be  go 
verned  by beingduped,  it  isuseless  to  inquire, 
and  might  be  presumptuous  to  determine. 
But  it  certainly  was  not  to  be  expected,  that 
any  controversy  should  have  arisen  by  con 
founding  their  principles  with  their  pretexts : 
with  the  latter  the  position  of  Dr.  Price  has 
no  connection  :  from  the  former,  it  is  an  in 
fallible  inference. 

The  next  doctrine  of  this  obnoxious  Sermon 
that  provokes  the  indignation  of  Mr.  Burke, 
is,  "  that  the  Revolution  has  established  our 
right  to  cashier  our  governors  for  miscon 
duct."  Here  a  plain  man  could  have  foreseen 
scarcely  any  diversity  of  opinion.  To  contend 
that  the  deposition  of  a  king  for  the  abuse 
of  his  powers  did  not  establish  a  principle  in 
favour  of  the  like  deposition,  when  the  like 
abuse  should  again  occur,  is  certainly  one  of 
the  most  arduous  enterprises  that  ever  the 
heroism  of  paradox  encountered.  He  has, 
however,  not  neglected  the  means  of  retreat. 
"No  government/'  he  tells  us,  " could  stand 
a  moment,  if  it  could  be  blown  down  with 
anything  so  loose  and  indefinite  as  opinion  of 
misconduct."  One  might  suppose,  from  the 
dexterous  levity  with  which  the  word  "mis 
conduct"  is  introduced,  that  the  partisans 
of  democracy  had  maintained  the  expediency 
of  deposing  a  king  for  every  frivolous  and 
venial  fault. — of  revolting  against  him  for  the 
choice  of  his  titled  or  nntitled  valets, — his 
footmen,  or  his  Lords  of  the  Bedchamber.  It 
would  have  been  candid  in  Mr.  Burke  not  to 
have  dissembled  what  he  must  know,  that 
by  "misconduct"  was  meant  that  precise 
species  of  misconduct  for  which  James  II. 
was  dethroned, — a  conspiracy  against  the 
liberty  of  his  country. 

Nothing  can  be  more  weak  than  to  urge 
the  constitutional  irresponsibility  of  kings  or 
parliaments.  The  law  can  never  suppose 
them  responsible,  because  their  responsibility 
supposes  the  dissolution  of  society,  which  is 
the  annihilation  of  law.  In  the  governments 
which  have  hitherto  existed,  the  power  of 
the  magistrate  is  the  only  article  in  the  social 
compact :  destroy  it,  and  society  is  dissolved. 
It  is  because  they  cannot  be  legally  and  con 
stitutionally,  that  they  must  be  morally  and 
rationally  responsible.  It  is  because  there 
are  no  remedies  to  be  found  within  the  pale 
2N2 


450 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  society,  that  we  are  to  seek  them  in  nature, 
and  throw  our  parchment  chains  in  the  face 
of  our  oppressors.  No  man  can  deduce  a 
precedent  of  law  from  the  Revolution  ;  for 
Jaw  cannot  exist  in  the  dissolution  of  govern 
ment  :  a  precedent  of  reason  and  justice  only 
can  be  established  in  it.  And  perhaps  the 
friends  of  freedom  merit  the  misrepresenta 
tion  with  which  they  have  been  opposed,  for 
trusting  their  cause  to  such  frail  and  frivolous 
auxiliaries,  and  for  seeking  in  the  profligate 
practices  of  men  what  is  to  be  found  in  the 
sacred  rights  of  nature.  The  system  of  law 
yers  is  indeed  widely  different.  They  can 
only  appeal  to  usage,  precedents,  authorities, 
and  statutes.  They  display  their  elaborate 
frivolity,  and  their  perfidious  friendship,  in 
disgracing  freedom  with  the  fantastic  honour 
of  a  pedigree.  A  pleader  at  the  Old  Bailey, 
who  would  attempt  to  aggravate  the  guilt  of 
a  robber  or  a  murderer,  by  proving  that  King 
John  or  King  Alfred  punished  robbery  and 
murder,  would  only  provoke  derision.  A 
man  who  should  pretend  that  the  reason 
why  we  had  right  to  property  is.  because  our 
ancestors  enjoyed  that  right  four  hundred 
years  ago,  would  be  justly  contemned.  Yet 
so  little  is  plain  sense  heard  in  the  mysterious 
nonsense  which  is  the  cloak  of  political  fraud, 
that  the  Cokes,  the  Blackstones,  and  the 
Burkes,  speak  as  if  our  right  to  freedom  de 
pended  on  its  possession  by  our  ancestors. 
In  the  common  cases  of  morality  we  should 
blush  at  such  an  absurdity.  No  man  would 
justify  murder  by  its  antiquity,  or  stigmatize 
benevolence  for  being  new.  The  genealogist 
who  should  emblazon  the  one  as  coeval  with 
Cain,  or  stigmatize  the  other  as  upstart  with 
Howard,  would  be  disclaimed  even  by  the 
most  frantic  partisan  of  aristocracy.  This 
Gothic  transfer  of  genealogy  to  truth  and  jus 
tice  is  peculiar  to  politics.  The  existence  of 
robbery  in  one  age  makes  its  vindication  in 
the  next ;  and  the  champions  of  freedom 
have  abandoned  the  stronghold  of  right  for 
precedent,  which,  when  the  most  favourable, 
is,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  ages  which 
furnish  it,  feeble,  fluctuating,  partial,  and 
equivocal.  It  is  not  because  we  have  been 
free,  but  because  we  have  a  right  to  be  free, 
that  we  ought  to  demand  freedom.  Justice 
and  liberty  have  neither  birth  nor  race,  youth 
nor  age.  It  would  be  the  same  absurdity  to 
assert,  that  we  have  a  right  to  freedom,  be 
cause  the  Englishmen  of  Alfred's  reign  \vere 
free,  as  that  three  and  three  are  six,  because 
they  were  so  in  the  camp  of  Genghis  Khan. 
Let  us  hear  no  more  of  this  ignoble  and 
ignominious  pedigree  of  freedom.  Let  us 
hear  no  more  of  her  Saxon,  Danish,  or  Nor 
man  ancestors.  Let  the  immortal  daughter 
of  Reason,  of  Justice,  and  of  God,  be  no  lon 
ger  confounded  with  the  spurious  abortions 
that  have  usurped  her  name. 

"But,"  says  Mr.  Burke,  "we  do  not  con 
tend  that  right  is  created  by  antiquarian  re 
search.  We  are  far  from  contending  that 
possession  legitimates  tyranny,  or  that  fact 
ought  to  be  confounded  with  right,  But  (to 


strip  his  eulogies  on  English  wisdom  of  their 
declamatory  appendage)  the  impression  of 
antiquity  endears  and  ennobles  freedom,  and 
fortifies  it  by  rendering  it  august  and  vene 
rable  in  the  popular  mind."  The  illusion  is 
useful;  the  expediency  of  political  impos 
ture  is  the  whole  force  of  the  argument  : — a 
principle  odious  to  the  friends  of  freedom,  as 
the  grand  bulwark  of  secular  and  spiritual 
despotism.  To  pronounce  that  men  are  only 
to  be  governed  by  delusion  is  to  libel  the 
human  understanding,  and  to  consecrate  the 
frauds  that  have  elevated  despots  and  muftis, 
pontiffs  and  sultans,  on  the  ruin  of  degraded 
and  oppressed  humanity.  But  the  doctrine 
is  as  false  as  it  is  odious.  Primary  political 
truths  are  few  and  simple.  It  is  easy  to 
make  them  understood,  and  to  transfer  to 
government  the  same  enlightened  self-inte 
rest  that  presides  in  the  other  concerns  of 
life.  It  may  be  made  to  be  respected,  not 
because  it  is  ancient,  or  because  it  is  sacred, 
— not  because  it  has  been  established  by 
barons,  or  applauded  by  priests, — but  because 
it  is  useful.  Men  may  easily  be  instructed 
to  maintain  rights  which  it  is  their  interest 
to  maintain,  and  duties  which  it  is  their  in 
terest  to  perform.  This  is  the  only  principle 
of  authority  that  does  not  violate  justice  and 
insult  humanity:  it  is  also  the  only  one  which 
can  possess  stability.  The  various  fashions 
of  prejudice  and  factitious  sentiment  which 
have  been  the  basis  of  governments,  are 
short-lived  things.  The  illusions  of  chivalry, 
and  the  illusions  of  superstition,  which  have 
given  to  them  splendour  or  sanctity,  are  in 
their  turn  succeeded  by  new  modes  of  opi 
nion  and  new  systems  of  manners.  Reason 
alone  and  natural  sentiment  are  the  denizens 
of  every  nation,  and  the  contemporaries  of 
every  age.  A  conviction  of  the  utility  of 
government  affords  the  only  stable  and  ho 
nourable  security  for  obedience. 

Our  ancestors  at  the  Revolution,  it  is  true, 
were  far  from  feeling  the  full  force  of  these 
sublime  truths :  nor  was  the  public  mind  of 
Europe,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  suffi 
ciently  enlightened  and  matured  for  the 
grand  enterprises  of  legislation.  The  science 
which  teaches  the  rights  of  man,  and  the 
eloquence  that  kindles  the  spirit  of  freedom, 
had  for  ages  been  buried  with  the  other 
monuments  of  wisdom,  and  the  other  relics 
of  the  genius  of  antiquity.  The  revival  of 
letters  first  unlocked, — but  only  to  a  few, — 
the  sacred  fountain.  The  necessary  labours 
of  criticism  and  lexicography  occupied  the 
earlier  scholars ;  and  some  time  elapsed  be- 
the  spirit  of  antiquity  was  transfused  into 
its  admirers.  The  first  man  of  that  period 
who  united  elegant  learning  to  original  and 
masculine  thought  was  Buchanan  ;*  and  he 


*  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  Buchanan 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  antagonist,  Maitland, 
the  same  alarms  for  the  downfall  of  literature  that 
have  been  excited  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Burke  by 
the  French  Revolution.  We  can  smile  at  such 
alarms  on  a  retrospect  of  the  literary  history  of 
Europe  for  the  seventeenth  of  eighteen  centuries  • 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


451 


too  seems  to  have  been  the  first  scholar  who 
caught  from  the  ancients  the  noble  flame  of 
republican  enthusiasm.  This  praise  is  merit 
ed  by  his  neglected,  though  incomparable 
tract,  De  Jure  Regni,  in  which  the  principles 
of  popular  politics,  and  the  maxims  of  a  free 
government,  are  delivered  with  a  precision, 
and  enforced  with  an  energy,  which  no  for 
mer  age  had  equalled,  and  no  succeeding 
one  has  surpassed.  The  subsequent  pro 
gress  of  the  human  mind  was  slow.  The 
profound  views  of  Harrington  were  derided 
as  the  ravings  of  a  visionary ;  and  who  can 
wonder,  that  the  frantic  loyalty  which  de 
pressed  Paradise  Lost,  should  involve  in 
ignominy  the  eloquent  Apology  of  Milton  for 
the  People  of  England  against  a  feeble  and 
venal  pedant.  Sidney, 

"  By  ancient  learning  to  th'  enlighten'd  love 

Of  ancient  freedom  warm'd,"* 
taught  the  principles  which  he  was  to  seal 
with  his  blood  ;  and  Locke,  whose  praise  is 
less  that  of  being  bold  and  original,  than  of 
being  temperate,  sound,  lucid,  and  methodi 
cal,  deserves  the  immortal  honour  of  having 
systematized  and  rendered  popular  the  doc 
trines  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  In  Ire 
land,  Molyneux,  the  friend  of  Locke,  pro 
duced  The  Case  of  Ireland, — a  production 
of  which  it  is  sufficient  praise  to  say,  that  it 
was  ordered  to  be  burnt  by  the  despotic 
parliament.  In  Scotland,  Andrew  Fletcher, 
the  scholar  of  Algernon  Sidney,  maintained 
the  case  of  his  deserted  country  with  the 
force  of  ancient  eloquence,  and  the  dignity 
of  ancient  virtue.  Such  is  a  rapid  enumera 
tion  of  thjose  who  had  before,  or  near  the  Re 
volution,  contributed  to  the  diffusion  of  poli 
tical  light.  But  their  number  was  small, 
their  writings  were  unpopular,  their  dogmas 
were  proscribed.  The  habits  of  reading  had 
only  then  begun  to  reach  the  great  body  of 
mankind,  whom  the  arrogance  of  rank  and 
letters  has  ignominiously  confounded  under 
the  denomination  of  the  vulgar. 

Many  causes  too  contributed  to  form  a 
powerful  Tory  interest  in  England.  The 
remnant  of  that  Gothic  sentiment,  the  ex 
tinction  of  which  Mr.  Burke  so  pathetically 
deplores,  which  engrafted  loyalty  on  a  point 
of  honour  in  military  attachment,  formed  one 
part,  which  may  be  called  the  '•  Toryism  of 
chivalry."  Doctrines  of  a  divine  right  in 
kings,  which  are  now  too  much  forgotten 
even  for  successful  ridicule,  were  then  sup 
ported  and  revered  ; — these  may  be  called 
the  "  Toryism  of  superstition."  A  third  spe 
cies  arose  from  the  great  transfer  of  property 
to  an  upstart  commercial  interest,  which 
drove  the  ancient  gentry  of  England,  for  pro 
tection  against  its  inroads,  behind  the  throne  ; 
— this  may  be  called  the  "  Toryism  of  landed 
aristocracy."!  Religious  prejudices,  outrages 

and  should  our  controversies  reach  the  enlightened 
scholars  of  a  future  age,  they  will  probably,  with 
the  same  reason,  smile  at  the  alarms  of  Mr. 
Burke. 

*  Thomson's  Summer. 

t  Principle  is  respectable,  even  in  its  mistakes ; 


on  natural  sentiments,  which  any  artificial 
system  is  too  feeble  to  withstand,  and  the 
stream  of  events  which  bore  them  along  to 
extremities  \vhich  no  man  could  have  fore 
seen,  involved  the  Tories  in  the  Revolution, 
and  made  it  a  truly  national  act :  but  their 
repugnance  to  every  shadow  of  innovation 
was  invincible. 

Something  the  Whigs  may  be  supposed  to 
have  conceded  for  the  sake  of  conciliation ; 
but  few  even  of  their  leaders,  it  is  probable, 
had  grand  and  liberal  views.  What  indeed 
could  have  been  expected  from  the  delegates 
of  a  nation,  in  which,  a  few  years  before,  the 
University  of  Oxford,  representing  the  na 
tional  learning  and  wisdom,  had,  in  a  solemn 
decree,  offered  their  congratulations  to  Sir 
George  Mackenzie  (infamous  for  the  abuse 
of  brilliant  accomplishments  to  the  most 
servile  and  profligate  purposes)  for  having 
confuted  the  abominable  doctrines  of  Bu 
chanan  and  Milton,  and  for  having  demon 
strated  the  divine  rights  of  kings  to  tyrannise 
and  oppress  mankind  !  It  must  be  evident, 
that  a  people  who  could  thus,  by  the  organ 
of  its  most  learned  body,  prostrate  its  reason 
before  such  execrable  absurdities,  was  too 
young  for  legislation.  Hence  the  absurd  de 
bates  in  the  Convention  about  the  palliative 
phrases  of  a abdicate,"  "desert."  &c.,  which 
were  better  cut  short  by  the  Parliament  of 
Scotland,  when  they  used  the  correct  and 
manly  expression,  that  James  II.  had  "  for 
feited  the  throne."  Hence  we  find  the  Revo 
lutionists  perpetually  belying  their  political 
conduct  by  their  legal  phraseology:  hence 
their  impotent  and  illusive  reforms :  hence 
their  neglect  of  foresight*  in  not  providing 
bulwarks  against  the  natural  tendency  of  a 
disputed  succession  to  accelerate  most  rapid 
ly  the  progress  of  Royal  influence,  by  ren 
dering  it  necessary  to  strengthen  so  much 


and  these  Tories  of  the  last  century  were  a  party 
of  principle.  There  were  accordingly  among  them 
men  of  the  most  elevated  and  untainted  honour. 
Who  will  refuse  that  praise  to  Clarendon  and 
Southampton,  to  Ormonde  and  Montrose  ?  But 
Toryism,  as  a  party  of  principle,  cannot  now  exist 
'n  England  ;  for  the  principles  on  which  we  have 
seen  it  to  be  founded,  exist  no  more.  The  Gothic 
sentiment  is  effaced  ;  the  superstition  is  exploded  ; 
and  the  landed  and  commercial  interests  are  com 
pletely  intermixed.  The  Toryism  of  the  present 
day  can  only  arise  from  an  abject  spirit,  or  a  cor 
rupt  heart. 

*  This  progress  of  Royal  influence  from  a  dis 
puted  succession  has,  in  fact,  most  fatally  taken 
place.  The  Protestant  succession  was  the  sup 
posed  means  of  preserving  our  liberties  ;  and  to 
that  means  the  end  has  been  most  deplorably 
sacrificed.  The  Whigs,  the  sincere  though  timid 
and  partial  friends  of  freedom,  were  forced  to 
cling  to  the  throne  as  the  anchor  of  liberty.  To 
preserve  it  from  utter  shipwreck,  they  were  forced 
to  yield  something  to  its  protectors  ; — hence  a  na 
tional  debt,  a  septennial  Parliament,  and  a  stand- 
'ng  army.  The  avowed  reason  of  the  two  last 
was  Jacobitism ; — hence  the  unnatural  coalition 
between  Whiggism  and  Kings  during  the  reigns 
of  the  two  first  princes  of  the  House  of  Hanover, 
which  the  pupilage  of  Leicester  House  so  totally 
broke. 


452 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  possessor  of  the  crown  against  the  pre 
tender  to  it. 

But  to  elucidate  the  question  more  fully. 
"  let  us  listen  to  the  genuine  oracles  of  Revo 
lution  policy;" — not  to  the  equivocal  and 
palliative  language  of  their  statutes,  but  to 
the  unrestrained  effusion  of  sentiment  in  that 
memorable  conference  between  the  Lords 
and  Commons,  on  Tuesday  the  5th  of  Feb 
ruary,  1688,  which  terminated  in  establish 
ing  the  present  government  of  England. 
The  Tories,  yielding  to  the  torrent  in  the 
personal  exclusion  of  James,  resolved  to  em 
barrass  the  Whigs,  by  urging  that  the  decla 
ration  of  the  abdication  and  vacancy  of  the 
throne,  was  a  change  of  the  government, 
pro  hdc  vice,  into  an  elective  monarchy. 
The  inference  is  irresistible :  and  it  must  be 
confessed,  that  though  the  Whigs  were  the 
better  citizens,  the  Tories  were  the  more 
correct  logicians.  It  is  in  this  conference 
that  we  see  the  Whig  leaders  compelled 
to  disclose  so  much  of  those  principles, 
which  tenderness  for  prejudice,  and  reve 
rence  for  usage,  had  influenced  them  to  dis 
semble.  It  is  here  that  we  shall  discover 
sparks  kindled  in  the  collision  of  debate  suf 
ficient  tW  enlighten  the  "  politic  gloom"  in 
which  they  had  enveloped  their  measures. 

If  there  be  any  names  venerable  among 
the  constitutional  lawyers  of  England,  they 
are  those  of  Lord  Somers  and  Serjeant  May- 
nard.  They  were  both  conspicuous  mana 
gers  for  the  Commons  in  this  conference; 
and  the  language  of  both  will  more  than  jus 
tify  the  inferences  of  Dr.  Price,  and  the  creed 
of  the  Revolution  Society.  My  Lord  Not 
tingham,  who  conducted  the  conference  on 
the  part  of  the  Tories,  in  a  manner  most 
honourable  to  his  dexterity  and  acuteness, 
demanded  of  the  managers  for  the  Com 
mons: — "Whether  they  mean  the  throne  to 
be  so  vacant  as  to  annul  the  succession  in 
the  hereditary  line,  and  so  all  the  heirs  to  be 
cut  off?  which  we  (the  Lords)  say,  will 
make  the  crown  elective."  Maynard,  whose 
argument  always  breathed  much  of  the  old 
republican  spirit,  replied  with  force  and 
plainness: — '-It  is  not  that  the  Commons  do 
say  the  crown  of  England  is  always  and 
perpetually  elective :  but  it  is  necessary 
there  be  a  supply  where  there  is  a  defect." 
It  is  impossible  to  mistake  the  import  of 
these  words.  Nothing  can  be  more  evident, 
than  that  by  the  mode  of  denying  "  that  the 
crown  was  always  and  perpetually  elective," 
he  confesses  that  it  was  for  the  then  exigen 
cy  elective.  In  pursuance  of  his  argument, 
he  uses  a  comparison  strongly  illustrative  of 
his  belief  in  dogmas  anathematised  by  Mr. 
Burke  : — "If  two  of  us  make  a  mutual  agree 
ment  to  help  and  defend  each  other  from 
any  one  that  should  assault  us  in  a  journey, 
and  he  that  is  with  me  turns  upon  me,  and 
breaks  my  head,  he  hath  undoubtedly  abdi 
cated  my  assistance,  and  revoked."  Senti 
ments  of  the  kingly  office,  more  irreverent 
and  more  correct,  are  not  to  be  found  in  the 
most  profane  evangelist  that  disgraces  the 


Democratic  canon.  It  is  not  unworthy  of 
incidental  remark,  that  there  were  then  per 
sons  who  felt  as  great  horror  at  novelties, 
which  have  since  been  universally  received, 
as  Mr.  Burke  now  feels  at  the  "rights  of 
men."  The  Earl  of  Clarendon,  in  his  strict 
ures  on  the  speech  of  Mr.  Somers,  said  : — 
"  I  may  say  thus  much  in  general,  that  this 
breaking  the  original  contract  is  a  language 
that  has  not  long  been  used  in  this  place, 
nor  known  in  any  of  our  law  books,  or  public 
records.  It  is  sprung  up  but  as  taken  from 
some  late  authors,  and  those  none  of  the 
best  received!"  This  language  one  might 
have  supposed  to  be  that  of  Mr.  Burke :  it 
is  not  however  his;  it  is  that  of  a  Jacobite 
lord  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  Tories  continued  to  perplex  and  in 
timidate  the  Whigs  with  the  idea  of  election. 
Maynard  again  replies,  "  The  word  '  elective' 
is  none  of  the  Commons'  word.  The  provi 
sion  must  be  made,  and  if  it  be,  that  will  not 
render  the  kingdom  perpetually  elective." 
If  it  were  necessary  to  multiply  citations  to 
prove,  that  the  Revolution  was  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  an  election,  we  might  hear 
Lord  Nottingham,  whose  distinction  is  pecu 
liarly  applicable  to  the  case  before  us.  "  If." 
says  he,  "you  do  once  make  it  elective,  I  do 
not  say  you  are  always  bound  to  go  to  elec 
tion  ;  but  it  is  enough  to  make  it  so,  if  by 
that  precedent  there  be  a  breach  in  the  he 
reditary  succession."  The  reasoning  of  Sir 
Robert  Howard,  another  of  the  managers  for 
the  Commons,  is  bold  and  explicit: — "My 
Lords,  you  will  do  well  to  consider.  Have 
you  riot  yourselves  limited  the  succession, 
and  cut  off  some  that  might  have  a  line  of 
right  ?  Have  you  not  concurred  with  us  in 
our  vote,  that  it  is  inconsistent  with  our  reli 
gion  and  our  laws  to  have  a  Papist  to  reifjn 
over  us?  Must  we  not  then  come  to  an 
election,  if  the  next  heir  be  a  Papist?" — the 
precise  fact  which  followed.  But  what  tends 
the  most  strongly  to  illustrate  that  contradic 
tion  between  the  exoteric  and  esoteric 'doc 
trine, — the  legal  language,  and  the  real  prin 
ciples. — which  forms  the  basis  of  this  whole 
argument,  is  the  avowal  of  Sir  Richard  Tem 
ple,  another  of  the  managers  for  the  Com 
mons : — "We  are  in  as  natural  a  capacity 
as  any  of  our  predecessors  were  to  provide 
for  a  remedy  in  such  exigencies  as  this." 
Hence  it  followed  infallibly,  that  their  pos 
terity  to  all  generations  would  be  in  the 
same  "  natural  capacity,"  to  provide  a  reme 
dy  for  such  exigencies. 

But  let  us  hear  their  statutes : — there  "  the 
Lords  Spiritual  and  Temporal,  arid  Commons, 
do,  in  the  name  of  all  the  people  of  England, 
most  humbly  and  faithfully  submit  them 
selves,  their  heirs  and  posterity  for  ever," 
&c.  Here  is  the  triumph  of  Mr.  Burke  ; — a 
solemn  abdication  and  renunciation  of  right 
to  change  the  monarch  or  the  constitution  ! 
His  triumph  is  increased  by  this  statutory 
abolition  of  the  rights  of  men  being  copied 
from  a  similar  profession  of  eternal  alle 
giance  made  by  the  Parliament  of  Elizabeth. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


453 


It  is  difficult  to  conceive  any  thing  more  pre 
posterous.  In  the  very  act  of  exercising  a 
right  which  their  ancestors  had  abdicated  in 
their  name,  they  abdicate  the  same  right  in 
the  name  of  tneir  posterity.  To  increase 
the  ridicule  of  this  legislative  farce,  they 
impose  an  irrevocable  law  on  their  posterity, 
in  the  precise  words  of  that  law  irrevocably 
imposed  on  them  by  their  ancestors,  at  the 
moment  when  they  are  violating  it.  The 
Parliament  of  Elizabeth  submit  themselves 
and  their  posterity  for  ever :  the  Convention 
of  1688  spurn  the  submission  for  themselves, 
but  re-enact  it  for  their  posterity.  And  after 
such  a  glaring  inconsistency,  this  language 
of  statutory  adulation  is  seriously  and  tri 
umphantly  brought  forward  as  '•  the  unerring- 
oracles  of  Revolution  policy." 

Thus  evidently  has  it  appeared,  from  the 
conduct  and  language  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Revolution,  that  it  was  a  deposition  and  an 
election ;  and  that  all  language  of  a  contrary 
tendency,  which  is  to  be  found  in  their  acts, 
arose  from  the  remnant  of  their  own  preju 
dice,  or  from  concession  to  the  prejudice  of 
others,  or  from  the  superficial  and  presump 
tuous  policy  of  imposing  august  illusions  on 
mankind.  The  same  spirit  regulated, — the 
same  prejudices  impeded  their  progress  in 
every  department.  u  They  acted,"  says  Mr. 
Burke,  "  by  their  ancient  States  :" — they  did 
not.  Were  the  Peers,  and  the  Members  of 
a  dissolved  House  of  Commons,  with  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  London,  &c.  convoked  by  a 
summons  from  the  Prince  of  Orange,  the 
Parliament  of  England7? — no:  they  were 
neither  lawfully  elected,  nor  lawfully  assem 
bled.  But  they  affected  a  semblance  of  a 
Parliament  in  their  Convention,  and  a  sem 
blance  of  hereditary  right  in  their  election. 
The  subsequent  Act  of  Parliament  is  nuga 
tory  ;  for  as  that  Legislature  derived  its  whole 
existence  and  authority  from  the  Convention, 
it  could  not  return  more  than  it  had  received, 
and  could  not,  therefore,  legalise  the  acts  of 
the  body  which  created  it.  If  they  were 
not  previously  legal,  the  Parliament  itself 
was  without  legal  authority,  and  could  there 
fore  give  no  legal  sanction. 

It  is,  therefore,  without  any  view  to  a  prior, 
or  allusion  to  a  subsequent  revolution,  that 
Dr.  Price,  and  the  Revolution  Society  of  Lon 
don,  think  themselves  entitled  to  conclude, 
that  abused  power  is  revocable,  and  that  cor 
rupt  governments  ought  to  be  reformed.  Of 
the  first  of  these  Revolutions, — that  in  1648, 
— they  may,  perhaps,  entertain  different  sen 
timents  from  Mr.  Burke.  They  will  confess 
that  it  was  debased  by  the  mixture  of  fanati 
cism;  they  may  lament  that  History  has  so 
often  prostituted  her  ungenerous  suffrage  to 
success ;  and  that  the  commonwealth  was 
obscured  and  overwhelmed  by  the  splendid 
profligacy  of  military  usurpation :  but  they 
cannot  arrogate  to  themselves  the  praise  of 
having  been  the  first  to  maintain, — nor  can 
Mr.  Burke  support  his  claim  to  have  been 
the  first  to  reprobate, — since  that  period,  the 
audacious  heresy  of  popular  politics. 


The  prototype  of  Mr.  Burke  is  not  a  less 
notorious  personage  than  the  predecessor  he 
has  assigned  to  Dr.  Price.  History  has  pre 
served  fewer  memorials  of  Hugh  Peters  than 
of  Judge  Jeffries.  It  was  the  fortune  of  that 
luminary  and  model  of  lawyers  to  sit  in 
judgment  on  one  of  the  fanatical  apostles  of 
democracy.  In  the  present  ignominious  ob 
scurity  of  the  sect  in  England,  it  may  be 
necessary  to  mention,  that  the  name  of  this 
criminal  was  Algernon  Sidney,  who  had.  it 
is  true,  in  his  own  time  acquired  some  re 
nown. — celebrated  as  the  hero,  and  deplored 
as  the  martyr  of  freedom.  But  the  learned 
magistrate  was  above  this  ••'epidemical  fana 
ticism:"  he  inveighed  against  his  pestilential 
dogmas  in  a  spirif  that  deprives  Mr.  Burke's 
invective  against  Dr.  Price  of  all  pretensions 
to  originality.  An  unvarnished  statement 
will  so  evince  the  harmony  both  of  the  cul 
prits  and  the  accusers,  that  remark  is  super 
fluous  : — 

"  And  that  the  aforesaid  Al-       "We  have  a  right 
gernon  Sidney  did  make,  coin-    to    choose    our    own 
pose  and  write,  or  cause  to  be    governors,  to  cashier 
made,  composed  and  written,  a    them  for  misconduct, 
certain    false,   scandalous   and    and   to   frame   a  go- 
seditious  libel,  in  which  is  con-    vernment     for     our- 
tained    the    following   English    selves." — Dr.  Price's 
words  : — '  The  Power  originally    Sermon. 
in  the  people  is  delegated  to  the 
Parliament.     He  (meaning  the 
King)  is  subject  to  the  laws  of 
God,  as  he  is  a  man,  and  to  the 
people   that  made  him  a  king, 
inasmuch  as  he  is  a  king.'  And 
in  another  place  of  the  said  li 
bel  he  says,  '  We  may  therefore 
take  away  kings  without  break 
ing  any  yoke,  or  that  is  made  a 
yoke,  which   ought   not  to   be 
one;  and  the  injury   therefore 
is  making  or  imposing,  and  there 
can   be   none   in    breaking   it,' 
&c." — Indictment  of  JHgernun 
Sidney,  State  Trials,  vol.  iii.  p. 
716. 

Thus  we  see  the  harmony  of  the  culprits: 
the  one  is  only  a  perspicuous  and  precise 
abridgment  of  the  other.  The  harmony  of 
the  judges  will  not  be  found  less  remarkable  : 
Mr.  Burke,  "when  he  talks  as  if  he  had 
made  a  discovery,  only  follows  a  prece 
dent:" — 


"  The  King,  it  says,  is 
responsible  to  them,  and 
he  is  only  their  trustee. 
He  has  misgoverned,  and 
he  is  to  give  it  up,  that 
they  may  be  all  kings 
themselves.  Gentlemen, 
I  must  tell  you,  I  think  T 
ought,  more  than  ordina 
rily,  to  press  this  on  you, 
because  I  know  the  mis 
fortunes  of  the  late  un 
happy  rebellion  ;  and  the 
bringing  of  the  late  bless 
ed  King  to  the  scaffold 
was  first  begun  by  such 
kind  of  principles. "-Jef 
fries'  Charge. 


"The  Revolution  Society 
chooses  to  assert,  that  a  king 
is  no  more  than  the  first  ser 
vant  of  the  public,  created 
by  it,  and  responsible  to  it." 
"  The  second  claim  of  the 
Revolution  Society  is  ca 
shiering  the  monarch  for 
misconduct." — "  The  Revo 
lution  Society,  the  heroic 
band  of  fabricators  of  go 
vernments,  electors  of  sove 
reigns." — "This  sermon  is 
in  a  strain  which  has  never 
been  heard  in  this  kingdom 
in  any  of  the  pulpits  which 
are  tolerated  or  encourag 
ed  in  it  since  1648."— Jlfr. 
Burke's  Reflections. 


Thus  does  Mr.  Burke  chant  his  political 
song  in  exact  unison  with  the  strains  of  the 
venerable  magistrate  :  they  indict  the  same 
crimes  :  they  impute  the  same  motives ;  they 
dread  the  same  consequences. 


454 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


The  Revolution  Society  felt,  from  the  great 
event  which  they  professedly  commemora 
ted,  new  motives  to  exult  in  the  emancipa 
tion  of  France.  The  Revolution  of  1688  de 
serves  more  the  attention  of  a  philosopher 
from  its  indirect  influence  on  the  progress  of 
human  opinion,  than  from  its  immediate 
effects  on  the  government  of  England.  In 
the  first  view,  it  is  perhaps  difficult  to  esti 
mate  the  magnitude  of  its  effects.  It  sanc 
tified,  as  we  have  seen,  the  general  princi 
ples  of  freedom.  It  gave  the  first  example 
in  civilized  modem  Europe  of  a  government 
which  reconciled  a  semblance  of  political, 
and  a  large  portion  of  civil  liberty,  with  sta 
bility  and  peace.  But  above  all,  Europe  owes 
to  it  the  inestimable  blessing  of  an  asylum 
for  freedom  of  thought.  Hence  England 
became  the  preceptress  of  the  wrorld  in  phi 
losophy  and  freedom:  hence  arose  the  school 
of  sages,  who  unshackled  and  emancipated 
the  human  mind  ;  from  among  whom  issued 
the  Lockes,  the  Rousseaus,  the  Turgots.  and 
the  Franklins, — the  immortal  band  of  pre 
ceptors  and  benefactors  of  mankind.  They 
silently  operated  a  grand  moral  revolution, 
which  was  in  due  time  to  ameliorate  the 
social  order.  They  had  tyrants  to  dethrone 
more  formidable  than  kings,  and  from  whom 
kings  held  their  power.  They  wrested  the 
sceptre  from  Superstition,  and  dragged  Pre 
judice  in  triumph.  They  destroyed  the  ar 
senal  whence  Despotism  had  borrowed  her 
thunders  and  her  chains.  These  grand  en 
terprises  of  philosophic  heroism  must  have 
preceded  the  reforms  of  civil  government. 
The  Colossus  of  tyranny  was  undermined, 
and  a  pebble  overthrew  it. 

With  this  progress  of  opinion  arose  the 
American  Revolution;  and  from  this  last, 
most  unquestionably,  the  delivery  of  France. 
Nothing,  therefore,  could  be  more  natural, 
than  that  those  who,  without  blind  bigotry 
for  the  forms,  had  a  rational  reverence  for 
the  principles  of  our  ancestors,  should  rejoice 
in  a  Revolution,  in  which  these  principles, 
long  suffered  to  repose  in  impotent  abstrac 
tion  in  England,  are  called  forth  into  energy, 
expanded,  invigorated,  and  matured.  If,  as 
we  have  presumed  to  suppose,  the  Revolu 
tion  of  1688  may  have  had  no  small  share 
in  accelerating  the  progress  of  light  which 
has  dissolved  the  prejudices  that  supported 
despotism,  they  may  be  permitted,  besides 
their  exultation  as  friends  of  humanity,  to 
indulge  some  pride  as  Englishmen. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  our  ancestors  in 
1688,  confined,  in  their  practical  regulations, 
their  views  solely  to  the  urgent  abuse.  They 
punished  the  usurper  without  ameliorating 
the  government ;  and  they  proscribed  usurpa 
tions  without  correcting  their  source.  They 
were  content  to  clear  "the  turbid  stream,  in 
stead  of  purifying  the  polluted  fountain. 
They  merit,  however,  veneration  for  their 
achievements,  and  the  most  ample  amnesty 
for  their  defects ;  for  the  first  were  their  own, 
and  the  last  are  imputable  to  the  age  in  which 
thoy  lived.  The  true  admirers  of  the  Revo 


lution  will  pardon  it  for  having  spared  use 
less  establishments,  only  because  they  revere 
it  for  having  established  grand  principles. 
But  the  case  of  Mr.  Burke  is  different ;  he 
deifies  its  defects,  and  derides  its  principles : 
and  were  Lord  Somers  to  listen  to  such  mis 
placed  eulogy,  and  tortured  inference,  he 
might  justly  say,  "You  deny  us  the  only 
praise  we  can  claim ;  and  the  only  merit  you 
allow  us  is  in  the  sacrifices  we  were  com 
pelled  to  make  to  prejudice  and  ignorance. 
Your  glory  is  our  shame."  Reverence  for 
the  principles,  and  pardon  of  the  defects  of 
civil  changes,  which  arise  in  ages  but  par 
tially  enlightened,  are  the  plain  dictates  of 
common  sense.  Admiration  of  Magna  Charta 
does  not  infer  any  respect  for  villainage ; 
reverence  for  Roman  patriotism  is  not  incom 
patible  with  detestation  of  slavery ;  nor  does 
veneration  for  the  Revolutionists  of  1688  im 
pose  any  blindness  to  the  gross,  radical,  and 
multiplied  absurdities  and  corruptions  in 
their  political  system.  The  true  admirers 
of  Revolution  principles  cannot  venerate  in 
stitutions  as  sa^e  and  effectual  protections 
of  freedom,  which  experience  has  proved  to 
be  nerveless  and  illusive. 

"  The  practical  claim  of  impeachment,77 — 
the  vaunted  responsibility  oi  ministers, — is 
the  most  sorry  juggle  of  political  empiricism 
by  which  a  people  were  ever  attempted  to 
be  lulled  into  servitude.  State  prosecutions 
in  free  states  have  ever  either  languished  in 
impotent  and  despised  tediousness,  or  burst 
forth  in  a  storm  of  popular  indignation,  that 
has  at  once  overwhelmed  its  object,  without 
discrimination  of  innocence  or  guilt.  Nothing 
but  this  irresistible  fervor  can  destroy  the 
barriers  within  which  powerful  and  opulent 
delinquents  are  fortified.  If  it  is  not  with 
imminent  hazard  to  equity  and  humanity 
gratified  at  the  moment,  it  subsides.  The 
natural  influence  of  the  culprit,  and  of  the 
accomplices  interested  in  his  impunity,  re 
sumes  its  place.  As  these  trials  are  neces 
sarily  long,  and  the  facts  which  produce 
conviction,  and  the  eloquence  which  rouses 
indignation,  are  effaced  from  the  public  mind 
by  time,  by  ribaldry,  and  by  sophistry,  the 
shame  of  a  corrupt  decision  is  extenuated. 
Every  source  of  obloquy  or  odium  that  can 
be  attached  to  the  obnoxious  and  invidious 
character  of  an  accuser  is  exhausted  by  the 
profuse  corruption  of  the  delinquent.  The 
tribunal  of  public  opinion,  which  alone  pre 
serves  the  purity  of  others,  is  itself  polluted  ; 
and  a  people  wearied,  disgusted,  irritated, 
and  corrupted,  suffer  the  culprit  to  retire  in 
impunity  and  splendour.* 

"  Damnatus  inani 

Judicio.    Quid  enim  salvis  infamia  nummis  ft 

Such  has  ever  been  the  state  of  things,  when 

*  Part  of  this  description  is  purely  historical. 
Heaven  forbid  that  the  sequel  should  prove  pro 
phetic! —  When  this  subject  [the  late  trial  of 
Warren  Hastings. — ED.]  presents  Mr.  Burke  to 
mind,  I  must  say,  "  Tabs  cum  sis,  ulinam  noster 
esses." 

t  Juvenal,  Sat.  i. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


455 


the  force  of  the  Government  has  been  suffi 
cient  to  protect  the  accused  from  the  first 
ebullition  of  popular  impetuosity.  The  de 
mocracies  of  antiquity  presented  a  spectacle 
directly  the  reverse;  but  no  history  affords 
any  example  of  a  just  medium.  Slate  trials 
will  always  either  be  impotent  or  oppressive, 
— a  persecution  or  a  farce. 

Thus  vain  is  the  security  of  impeachment : 
and  equally  absurd,  surely,  is  our  confidence 
in  "  the  control  of  parliaments,"  in  their  pre 
sent  constitution,  and  with  their  remaining 
powers.  To  begin  with  the  last : — they  pos 
sess  the  nominal  power  of  impeachment. 
Not  to  mention  its  disuse  in  the  case  of  any 
minister  for  more  than  seventy  years,  it  is 
always  too  late  to  remedy  the  evil,  and  pro 
bably  always  too  weak  to  punish  the  criminal. 
They  possess  a  pretended  power  of  with 
holding  supplies :  but  the  situation  of  society- 
has  in  truth  wrested  it  from  them.  The  sup 
plies  they  must  vote  :  for  the  army  must  have 
its  pay,  and  the  public  creditors  their  interest. 
A  power  that  cannot  be  exercised  without 
provoking  mutiny,  and  proclaiming  bank 
ruptcy,  the  blindest  bigot  cannot  deny  to  be 
purely  nominal.  A  practical  substitute  for 
these  theoretical  powers  existed  till  our  days 
in  the  negative  exercised  by  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  choice  of  the  Minister  of 
the  Crown.  But  the  elevation  of  Mr.  Pitt 
has  establised  a  precedent  which  has  extir 
pated  the  last  shadow  of  popular  control  from 
the  government  of  England  : — 

"  Olim  vera  fides,  Sulla  Marioque  receptis, 
Libenatis  obit:  Pompeio  rebus  adempto, 
Nunc  et  ficta  perit."* 

In  truth,  the  force  and  the  privileges  of 
Parliament  are  almost  indifferent  to  the  peo 
ple;  for  it  is  not  the  guardian  of  their  rights. 
nor  the  organ  of  their  voice.  We  are  said 
to  be  u  unequally  represented."  This  is  one 
of  those  contradictory  phrases  that  form  the 
political  jargon  of  half-enlightened  periods. 
Unequal  freedom  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
The  law  is  the  deliberate  reason  of  all.  guid 
ing  their  occasional  will.  Representation  is 
an  expedient  for  peacefully,  systematically, 
and  unequivocally  collecting  this  universal 
voice:  —  so  thought  and  so  spoke  the  Ed 
mund  Burke  of  better  times.  c'  To  follow, 
not  to  force  the  public  inclination,  to  give  a 
direction,  a  form,  a  technical  dress,  and  a 
specific  sanction  to  the  general  sense  of  the' 
community,  is  the  true  end  of  legislature  :"f 
— there  spoke  the  correspondent  of  Frank 
lin, J  the  champion  of  America,  the  enlight 
ened  advocate  of  humanity  and  freedom  ! 
If  these  principles  be  true,  and  they  are  so 
true  that  it  seems  almost  puerile  to  repeat 
them,  who  can  without  indignation  hear  the 
House  of  Commons  of  England  called  a  po- 

*  Pharsalia,  lib.  ix. 

t  Burke's  "  Two  Letters  to  Gentlemen  in  the 
City  of  Bristol"  (1778),  p.  52. 

t  Mr.  Burke  has  had  the  honour  of  being  tra 
duced  for  corresponding,  during  the  American  war, 
with  this  great  man,  because  he  was  a  rebel ! 


pular  representative  body  ?  A  more  insolent 
and  preposterous  abuse  of  language  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  vocabulary  of  tyrants. 
The  criterion  that  distinguishes  laws  from 
dictates,  freedom  from  servitude,  rightful 
government  from  usurpation, — a  law  being 
an  expression  of  the  general  will. — as  want 
ing.  This  is  the  grievance  which  the  ad 
mirers  of  the  Revolution  of  1688  desire  to 
remedy  according  to  its  principles.  This  is 
that  perennial  source  of  corruption  which  has 
increased,  is  increasing,  and  ouiiht  to  be 
diminished.  If  the  general  interest  is  not 
the  object  of  our  government,  it  is — it  must 
be  because  the  general  will  does  not  govern. 
We  are  boldly  challenged  to  produce  our 
proofs;  our  complaints  are  asserted  to  be 
chimerical;  and  the  excellence  of  our  govern 
ment  is  inferred  from  its  beneficial  effects. 
Most  unfortunately  for  us, — most  unfortu 
nately  for  our  country,  these  proofs  are  too 
ready  and  too  numerous.  We  find  them  in 
that  •'  monumental  debt,"  the  bequest  of 
wasteful  and  profligate  wars,  which  already 
wrings  from  the  peasant  something  of  his 
hard-earned  pittance. — which  already  has 
punished  the  industry  of  the  useful  and  up 
right  manufacturer,  by  robbing  him  of  the 
asylum  of  his  house,  and  the  judgment  of 
his  peers,* — to  which  the  madness  of  political 
Quixotism  adds  a  million  for  every  farthing 
that  the  pomp  of  ministerial  empiricism  pays, 
— and  which  menaces  our  children  with  con 
vulsions  and  calamities,  of  which  no  age  has 
seen  the  parallel.  We  find  them  in  the  black 
and  bloody  roll  of  persecuting  statutes  that 
are  still  suffered  to  stain  our  code ; — a  list 
so  execrable,  that  were  no  monument  to 
be  preserved  of  what  England  was  in  the 
eighteenth  century  but  her  Statute  Book, 
she  might  be  deemed  to  have  been  then 
still  plunged  in  the  deepest  gloom  of  super 
stitious  barbarism.  We  find  them  in  the 
ignominious  exclusion  of  great  bodies  of  our 
fellow-citizens  from  political  trusts,  by  tests 
which  reward  falsehood  and  punish  probity, 
— which  profane  the  rights  of  the  religion 
they  pretend  to  guard,  and  usurp  the  do 
minion  of  the  God  they  profess  to  revere. 
We  find  them  in  the  growing  corruption  of 
those  who  administer  the  government, — in 
the  venality  of  a  House  of  Commons,  which 
has  become  only  a  cumbrous  and  expensive 
chamber  for  registering  ministerial  edicts, — 
in  the  increase  of  a  nobility  degraded  by  the 
profusion  and  prostitution  of  honours,  which 
the  most  zealous  partisans  of  democracy 
would  have  spared  them.  We  find  them, 
above  all,  in  the  rapid  progress  which  has 
been  made  in  silencing  the  great  organ  of 
public  opinion, — that  Press,  which  is  the 
true  control  over  the  Ministers  and  Parlia 
ments,  who  might  else,  with  impunity,  tram 
ple  on  the  impotent  formalities  that  form  the 
pretended  bulwark  of  our  freedom.  Tho 
mutual  control,  the  well-poised  balance  of 

*  Alluding  to  the  stringent  provisions   of  tin* 
"Tobacco  Act."— ED. 


456 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  several  members, of  our  Legislature,  are 
the  visions  of  theoretical,  or  the  pretext  of 
practical  politicians.  It  is  a  government,  not 
of  check,  but  of  conspiracy. — a  conspiracy 
which  can  only  be  repressed  by  the  energy 
of  popular  opinion. 

These  are  no  visionary  ills, — no  chimerical 
apprehensions:  they  are  the  sad  and  sober 
reflections  of  as  honest  and  enlightened  men 
as  any  in  the  kingdom.  Nor  are  they  alle 
viated  by  the  torpid  and  listless  security  into 
which  tlie  people  seem  to  be  lulled.  "'Sum- 
mum  otium  fo reuse  non  quiescentissed  sene- 
scentis  civitatis."  It  is  in  this  fatal  temper 
that  men  become  sufficiently  debased  and 
ernbruted  to  sink  into  placid  and  polluted 
servitude.  It  is  then  that  it  may  most  truly 
be  said,  that  the  mind  of  a  country  is  slain. 
The  admirers  of  Revolution  principles  natu 
rally  call  on  every  aggrieved  and  enlightened 
citizen  to  consider  the  source  of  his  oppres 
sion.  If  penal  statutes  hang  over  our  Catho 
lic  brethren,* — if  Test  Acts  outrage  our 
Protestant  fellow-citizens, — if  the  remains 
of  feudal  tyranny  are  still  suffered  to  exist  in 
Scotland, — if  the  press  is  fettered, — if  our 
right  to  trial  by  jury  is  abridged, — if  our 
manufacturers  are  proscribed  and  hunted 
down  by  excise, — the  reason  of  all  these  op 
pressions  is  the  same  : — no  branch  of  the 
Legislature  represents  the  people.  Men  are 
oppressed  because  they  have  no  share  in 
their  own  government.  Let  all  these  classes 
of  oppressed  citizens  melt  their  local  and 
partial  grievances  into  one  great  mass.  Let 
them  cease  to  be  suppliants  for  their  rights, 
or  to  sue  for  them  like  mendicants,  as  a 
precarious  boon  from  the  arrogant  pity  of 
usurpers.  Until  the  Legislature  speaks  their 
voice  it  will  oppress  them.  Let  them  unite 
to  procure  such  a  Reform  in  the  representa 
tion  of  the  people  as  will  make  the  House 
of  Commons  their  representative.  If,  dis 
missing  all  petty  views  of  obtaining  their 
own  particular  ends,  they  unite  for  this  great 
object,  they  must  succeed.  The  co-operating 
efforts  of  so  many  bodies  of  citizens  must 
awaken  the  nation  ;  and  its  voice  will  be 
spoken  in  a  tone  that  virtuous  governors  will 
obey,  and  tyrannical  ones  must  dread. 

This  tranquil  and  legal  Reform  is  the  ulti 
mate  object  of  those  whom  Mr.  Burke  has 
so  foully  branded.  In  effect,  this  would  be 
amply  sufficient.  The  powers  of  the  King 
and  the  Lords  have  never  been  formidable 

*  No  body  of  men  in  any  state  that  pretends  to 
freedom  have  ever  been  so  insolently  oppressed  as 
the  Catholic  majority  of  Ireland.  Their  cause  has 
been  lately  pleaded  by  an  eloquent  advocate, 
whose  virtues  might,  have  been  supposed  to  have 
influenced  rny  praise,  as  the  partial  dictate  of 
friendship,  had  not  his  genius  extorted  it  as  a  strict 
tribute  to  justice.  I  perceive  that  he  retains  much 
of  that  admiration  which  we  cherished  in  common, 
by  his  classical  quotation  respecting  Mr.  Burke  : — 
"  Uni  quippe  vacat,  studiisque  odiisque  carenti, 

Humanum  legere  genus."  Pharsalia,  lib.  ii. 
See  "  The  Constitutional  Interests  of  Ireland  with 
respect  to  the  Popery  Laws,"  (Dublin,  1791,) 
part  iv. 


in  England,  but  from  discords  between  the 
House  of  Commons  and  its  pretended  con 
stituents.     Were  that  House  really   to   be 
come  the  vehicle  of  the  popular  voice,  the 
privileges  of  other  bodies,  in  opposition  to 
the  sense  of  the  people  and  their  representa 
tives,  would  be  but  as  dust  in  the  balance. 
From  this  radical  improvement  all  subaltern 
reform  would  naturally  and  peaceably  arise. 
We  dream  of  no  more  •  and  in  claiming  this, 
instead  of  meriting  the  imputation  of  being 
apostles  of  sedition,  we  conceive  ourselves 
entitled  to  be  considered  as  the  most  sincere 
friends  of  tranquil  and  stable  government. 
We  desire  to  avert  revolution  by  reform. — 
subversion  by   correction.*     We   admonish 
our  governors  to  reform,  while  they  retain 
the  force  to  reform  with  dignity  and  secu 
rity;  and  we  conjure  them  not  to  await  the 
moment,  which  will  infallibly  arrive,  when 
they  shall  be  obliged  to  supplicate  that  peo 
ple,  whom  they  oppress  and  despise,  for  the 
slenderest  pittance  of  their  present  powers. 
The  grievances  of  England  do  not  now, 
we  confess,  justify  a  change  by  violence : 
but  they  are  in  a  rapid  progress  to  that  fatal 
j  state,  in  which  they  will  both  justify  arid 
'  produce  it.     It  is  because  we  sincerely  love 
I  tranquil  freedom, f  that  we  earnestly  depre 
cate  the  arrival  of  the  moment  when  virtue 
!  and  honour  shall  compel  us  to  seek  her  with 
I  our  swords.     Are  not  they  the  true  friends 
!  to   authority  who  desire,   that  whatever  is 
I  granted  by  it  "should  issue  as  a  gift  of  her 
!  bounty  and  beneficence,  rather  than  as  claim 3 
recovered  against  a  struggling  litigant'?     Or, 
I  at  least,  that  if  her  beneficence  obtained  no 
j  credit  in  her  concessions,  they  should  appear 
I  the  salutary  provisions  of  wisdom  and  fore 
sight,  not  as  things  wrung  with  blood  by  the 
cruel  gripe  of  a  rigid  necessity."!     We  de 
sire  that  the  political  light  which  is  to  break 
in   on    England   should  be   "through  well- 
contrived   and  well-disposed    windows,   not 
through  flaws  and  breaches, — through  the 
yawning  chasms  of  our  ruin."§  , 

Such  was  the  language  of  Mr.  Bnrke  in 
cases  nearly  parallel  to  the  present.  But  of 
those  who  now  presume  to  give  similar 
counsels,  his  alarm  and  abhorrence  are  ex 
treme.  They  deem  the  "'present  times" 
favourable  "  to  all  exertions  in  the  cause  of 
liberty."  They  naturally  must :  their  hopes 
in  that  great  cause  are  from  the  determined 
and  recording  voices  of  enlightened  men. 
The  shock  that  has  destroyed  the  despotism 
of  France  has  widely  dispersed  the  clouds 
that  intercepted  reason  from  the  political  and 


*  Let  the  governors  of  all  states  compare  the 
convulsion  which  the  obstinacy  of  the  Government 
provoked  in  France,  with  the  peaceful  and  digni-. 
fied  reform  which  its  wisdom  effected  in  Poland. 
The  moment  is  important,  the  dilemma  inevitable, 
the  alternative  awful,  the  lesson  most  instructive. 

t  "  Manus  haac  inimica  tyrannis 

Ense  petit  placidam  sub  libertate  quietem." 
[The  lines  inserted  by  Algernon  Sidney  in  the 
Album  of  the  University  of  Copenhagen. — ED.] 

}  Burke,  Speech  at  Bristol. 

§  Ibid. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


457 


moral  world  ;  and  we  cannot  suppose,  that 
England  is  the  only  spot  that  has  not  been 
reached  by  this  "  flood  of  light"  that  has 
burst  upon  the  human  race.  We  might 
suppose,  too,  that  Englishmen  would  be 
shamed  out  of  their  torpor  by  the  great  ex 
ertions  of  nations  whom  we  had  long  deemed 
buried  in  hopeless  servitude. 

But  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  to 
assert,  that  all  who  admire  wish  to  imitate 
the  French  Revolution.  In  one  view,  there 
is  room  for  diversity  of  opinion  among  the 
warmest  and  wisest  friends  of  freedom, — as 
to  the  amount  of  democracy  infused  into  the 
new  government.  In  another,  and  a  more 
important  one,  it  is  to  be  recollected,  that 
the  conduct  of  nations  is  apt  to  vary  with 
the  circumstances  in  which  they  are  placed. 
Blind  admirers  of  Revolutions  take  them  for 
implicit  models.  Thus  Mr.  Burke  admires 
that  of  1688  :  but  we,  who  conceive  that  we 
pay  the  purest  homage  to  the  authors  of  that 
Revolution,  not  in  contending  for  what  they 
then  did,  but  for  what  they  now  would  do. 
can  feel  no  inconsistency  in  looking  on 
France,  not  to  model  our  conduct,  but  to 
invigorate  the  spirit  of  freedom.  We  per 
mit  ourselves  to  imagine  how  Lord  Somers, 
in  the  light  and  knowledge  of  the  eighteenth 
century. — how  the  patriots  of  France,  in  the 
tranquillity  and  opulence  of  England,  would 
have  acted.  We  are  not  bound  to  copy  the 
conduct  to  which  the  last  were  driven  by  a 
bankrupt  exchequer  and  a  dissolved  govern 
ment,  nor  to  maintain  the  establishments, 
which  were  spared  by  the  first  in  a  preju 
diced  and  benighted  age.  Exact  imitation 
is  not  necessary  to  reverence.  We  venerate 
the  principles  which  presided  in  both  events ; 
and  we  adapt  to  political  admiration  a  maxim 
which  has  long  been  received  in  polite  let 
ters. — that  th.3  only  manly  and  liberal  imita 
tion  is  to  speak  as  a  great  man  would  have 
spoken,  had  he  lived  in  our  times,  and  had 
been  placed  in  our  circumstances. 

But  let  us  hear  the  charge  of  Mr.  Burke. 
c:  Is  our  monarchy  to  be  annihilated,  with  all 
the  laws,  all  the  tribunals,  all  the  ancient 
corporations  of  the  kingdom  ?  Is  every  land 
mark  of  the  kingdom  to  be  done  away  in 
favour  of  a  geometrical  and  arithmetical 
constitution'?  Is  the  House  of  Lords  to  be 
useless?  Is  episcopacy  to  be  abolished'?" — 
and,  in  a  word,  is  France  to  be  imitated  ? 
Yes  !  if  our  governors  imitate  her  policy,  the 
state  must  follow  her  catastrophe.  Man  is 
every  where  man:  imprisoned  grievance 
will  at  length  have  vent ;  and  the  storm  of 
popular  passion  will  find  a  feeble  obstacle  in 
the  solemn  imbecility  of  human  institutions. 
But  who  are  the  true  friends  of  order,  the 
prerogative  of  the  monarch,  the  splendour 
of  the  hierarchy,  and  the  dignity  of  the  peer 
age] — those  most  certainly  who  inculcate, 
that  to  withhold  Reform  is  to  stimulate  con 
vulsion, — those  who  admonish  all  to  whom 
honour,  and  rank,  and  dignity,  and  wealth 
are  dear,  that  they  can  only  in  the  end  pre 
serve  them  by  conceding,  while  the  moment 
58 


of  concession  remains, — those  who  aim  at 
draining  away  the  fountains  that  feed  the 
torrent,  instead  of  opposing  puny  barriers  to 
its  course.  "The  beginnings  of  confusion  in 
England  are  at  present  feeble  enough  :  but 
with  you  we  have  seen  an  infancy  still  more 
feeble  growing  by  moments  into  a  strength 
to  heap  mountains  upon  mountains,  and  to 
wage  war  with  Heaven  itself.  Whenever 
our  neighbour's  house  is  on  fire,  it  cannot  be 
amiss  for  the  engines  to  play  a  little  upon 
our  own."  This  language,  taken  in  its  most 
natural  sense,  is  exactly  what  the  friends  of 
Reform  in  England  would  adopt.  Every 
gloomy  tint  that  is  added  to  the  horrors  of 
the  French  Revolution  by  the  tragic  pencil 
of  Mr.  Burke,  is  a  new  argument  in  support 
of  their  claims;  and  those  only  are  the  real 
enemies  of  the  Nobility,  the  Priesthood,  and 
other  bodies  of  men  that  suffer  in  such  con 
vulsions,  who  stimulate  them  to  unequal  and 
desperate  conflicts.  Such  are  the  sentiments 
of  those  who  can  admire  without  servilely 
copying  recent  changes,  and  can  venerate 
the  principles  without  superstitiously  defend 
ing  the  corrupt  reliques  of  old  revolutions. 

"  Grand,  swelling  sentiments  of  liberty," 
says  Mr.  Burke,  "  I  am  sure  I  do  not  despise. 
Old  as  I  am,  I  still  read  ihe  fine  raptures  of 
Lucan  and  Corneille  with  pleasure."  Long 
may  that  virtuous  and  venerable  age  enjoy 
such  pleasures !  But  why  should  he  be  in 
dignant  that  ':the  glowing  sentiment  and 
the  lofty  speculation  should  have  passed 
from  the  schools  and  the  closet  to  the  se 
nate,"  and  no  longer  only  serving 

"  To  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale,"* 

should  be  brought  home  to  the  business  and 
the  bosoms  of  men'?  The  sublime  genius, 
whom  Mr.  Burke  admires,  and  who  sung  the 
obsequies  of  Roman  freedom,  has  one  senti 
ment,  which  the  friends  of  liberty  in  Eng 
land,  if  they  are  like  him  condemned  to  look 
abroad  for  a  free  government,  must  adopt : — 

"  Redituraque  nunquam 
l.ibertas  ultra  Tierim  Rhenumque  recessit, 
Et  toties  nobis  jugulo  quaesita  negatur."t 


SECTION  VI. 

Speculations  on  the  probable  consequences  of 
the  French  Revolution  in  Europe. 

THERE  is  perhaps  only  one  opinion  about 
the  French  Revolution  in  which  its  friends 
and  its  enemies  agree  : — they  both  conceive 
that  its  influence  will  not  be  confined  to 
France ;  they  both  predict  that  it  will  pro 
duce  important  changes  in  the  general  state 
of  Europe.  This  is  the  theme  of  the  exulta 
tion  of  its  admirers ;  this  is  the  source  of  the 
alarms  of  its  detractors.  It  were*  indeed 
difficult  to  suppose  that  a  Revolution  so  un- 


*  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes. — ED. 
t  Pharsalia,  lib.  vii. 
20 


458 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


paralleled  should  take  place  in  the  most  re 
nowned  of  the  European  nations,  without 
spreading  its  influence  throughout  the  Chris 
tian  commonwealth;  connected  as  it  is  by 
the  multiplied  relations  of  politics,  by  the 
common  interest  of  commerce,  by  the  wide 
intercourse  of  curiosity  and  of  literature,  by 
similar  arts,  and  by  congenial  manners.  The 
channels  by  which  the  prevailing  sentiments 
of  France  may  enter  into  the  other  nations 
of  Europe,  are  so  obvious  and  so  numerous, 
that  it  would  be  unnecessary  and  tedious  to 
detail  them ;  but  I  may  remark,  as  among 
the  most  conspicuous,  a  central  situation,  a 
predominating  language,  and  an  authority 
almost  legislative  in  the  ceremonial  of  the 
private  intercourse  of  life.  These  and  many 
other  causes  must  facilitate  the  diffusion  of 
French  politics  among  neighbouring  nations: 
but  it  will  be  justly  remarked,  that  their  ef 
fect  must  in  a  great  measure  depend  on  the 
stability  of  the  Revolution.  The  suppression 
of  an  honourable  revolt  would  strengthen  all 
the  governments  of  Europe :  the  view  of  a 
splendid  revolution  would  be  the  signal  of 
insurrection  to  their  subjects.  Any  reason 
ings  on  the  influence  of  the  French  Revolu 
tion  may  therefore  be  supposed  to  be  prema 
ture  until  its  permanence  be  ascertained. 
Of  that  permanence  my  conviction  is  firm : 
but  I  am  sensible  that  in  the  field  of  political 
prediction,  where  veteran  sagacity*  has  so 
often  been  deceived,  it  becomes  me  to  har 
bour  with  distrust,  and  to  propose  with  diffi 
dence,  a  conviction  influenced  by  partial  en 
thusiasm,  and  perhaps  produced  by  the  in 
experienced  ardour  of  youth. 

The  moment  at  whicli  I  write  (August  25th. 
1791,)  is  peculiarly  critical.  The  invasion  of 
France  is  now  spoken  of  as  immediate  by 
the  exiles  and  their  partisans;  and  a  con 
federacy  of  despotst  is  announced  with  new 
confidence.  Notwithstanding  these  threats, 
I  retain  my  doubts  whether  the  jarring  inte 
rests  of  the  European  Courts  will  permit  this 
alliance  to  have  much  energy  or  cordiality  ; 
and  whether  the  cautious  prudence  of  des 
pots  will  send  their  military  slaves  to  a 
school  of  freedom  in  France.  But  if  there 
be  doubts  about  the  likelihood  of  the  enter 
prise  being  undertaken,  there  be  few  about 
the  probability  of  its  event.  History  cele 
brates  many  conquests  of  obscure  tribes, 
whose  valour  was  animated  by  enthusiasm : 

*  Witness  the  memorable  example  of  Harring 
ton,  who  published  a  demonstration  of  the  im 
possibility  of  re-establishing  monarchy  in  England 
six  months  before  the  restoration  of  Charles  II. 
Religious  prophecies  have  usually  the  inestimable 
convenience  of  relating  to  a  distant  futurity. 

t  The  malignant  hostility  displayed  against 
French  freedom  by  a  perfidious  Prince,  who  oc 
cupies  and  dishonours  the  throne  of  Gustavus 
Vasa,  cannot  excite  our  wonder,  though  it  may 
provoke  our  indignation.  The  pensioner  of  Krench 
despotism  could  not  rejoice  in  its  destruction;  nor 
could  a  monarch^  whose  boasted  talents  have  hi 
therto  been  confined  to  perjury  and  usurpation, 
fail  to  be  wounded  by  the  establishment  of  free 
dom  :  for  freedom  demands  genius,  not  intrigue, 
—wisdom,  not  cunning. 


but  she  records  no  example  where  a  foreign 
force  has  subjugated  a  powerful  and  gallant 
people,  governed  by  the  most  imperious  pas 
sion  that  can  sway  the  human  breast.* — 
Whatever  wonders  fanaticism  has  performed, 
may  be  again  effected  by  a  passion  as  ardent, 
though  not  so  transitory,  because  it  is  sanc 
tioned  by  virtue  and  reason.  To  animate 
patriotism, — to  silence  tumult. — to  banish 
division, — would  be  the  only  effects  of  an 
invasion  in  the  present  state  of  France.  A 
people  abandoned  to  its  own  inconstancy, 
have  often  courted  the  yoke  which  they  had 
thrown  off:  but  to  oppose  foreign  hostility 
to  the  enthusiasm  of  a  nation,  can  only  have 
the  effect  of  adding  to  it  ardour,  arid  con 
stancy,  and  force.  These  and  similar  views 
must  offer  themselves  to  the  European  Cabi 
nets;  but  perhaps  they  perceive  themselves 
to  be  placed  in  so  peculiar  a  situation,  that 
exertion  and  inactivity  are  equally  perilous. 
If  they  fail  in  the  attempt  to  crush  the  infant 
liberty  of  France,  the  ineffectual  effort  will 
recoil  on  their  own  governments:  if  they 
tamely  suffer  a  school!  of  freedom  to  be 
founded  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  they 
must  foresee  the  hosts  of  disciples  that  are 
to  issue  from  it  for  the  subversion  of  their 
despotism. 

They  cannot  be  blind  to  a  species  of 
danger  which  the  history  of  Europe  reveals 
to  them  in  legible  characters.  They  see, 
indeed,  that  the  negotiations,  the  wars,  and 
the  revolutions  of  vulgar  policy,  pass  away 
without  leaving  behind  them  any  vestige 
of  their  transitory  and  ignominious  opera 
tion  :  but  they  must  remark  also,  that  be- 


*  May  I  be  permitted  to  state  how  the  ances 
tors  of  a  nation  now  stigmatized  for  servility,  felt 
this  powerful  sentiment  ?  The  Scottish  Nobles, 
contending  for  their  liberty  under  Robert  Bruce, 
thus  spoke  to  the  Pope  : — "  Non  pugnarnus  prop- 
tor  divitias,  honores,  aut  dignitates,  sed  propter 
libertatem  tantummodo,  quam  nemo  bonus  nisi 
simul  cum  vita  amittit  !"  Nor  was  this  senti 
ment  confined  to  the  Magnates ;  for  the  same 
letter  declares  the  assent  of  the  Commons  : — 
"  Totaque  Communitas  Regni  Scotiae  !"  Reflect 
ing  on  the  various  fortunes  of  my  country,  I  can 
not  exclude  from  my  mind  the  comparison  between 
its  present  reputation  and  our  ancient  character, — 
"  terrarum  et  libertatis  extremes  :"  nor  can  1  for 
get  the  honourable  reproach  against  the  Scottish 
name  in  the  character  of  Buchanan  by  Thuanus, 
(Hist.  lib.  Ixxvi.  cap.  11,)  "  Libertate  genti  innata 
in  regium  fasiigium  acerbior."  This  melancholy 
retrospect  is  however  relieved  by  the  hope  that  a 
gallant  and  enlightened  people  will  not  be  slow 
in  renewing  the  era  for  such  reproaches. 

t  The  most  important  materials  for  the  philoso 
phy  of  history  are  collected  from  remarks  on  the 
coincidence  of  the  situations  and  sentiments  of 
distant  periods  ;  and  it  may  be  curious  as  well  as 
instructive,  to  present  to  the  reader  the  topics 
by  which  the  Calonnes  of  Charles  I.  were  in 
structed,  to  awaken  the  jealousy  and  solicit  the 
aid  of  the  European  courts: — "  A  dangerous  com 
bination  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  have  laid  a  de 
sign  to  dissolve  the  monarchy  and  frame  of  govern 
ment,  becoming  a  dangerous  precedent  to  all  the 
monarchies  of  Christendom,  if  attended  with  suc 
cess  in  their  design." — Charles  I.'s  Instructions 
to  his  Minister  in  Denmark,  Ludlow'z  Memoirs, 
vol.  iii.  p.  257. 


A  DEFENCE  OF  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


459 


sides  this  monotonous  villany,  there  are 
cases  in  which  Europe,  actuated  by  a  com 
mon  passion,  has  appeared  as  one  nation. 
The  religious  passion  animated  and  guided 
the  spirit  of  chivalry  : — hence  arose  the  Cru 
sades.  "  A  nerve  was  touched  of  exquisite 
feeling ;  and  the  sensation  vibrated  to  the 
heart  of  Europe."*  In  the  same  manner 
the  Reformation  gave  rise  to  religious  wars, 
the  duration  of  which  exceeded  a  century 
and  a  half.  Both  examples  prove  the  exist 
ence  of  that  sympathy,  by  the  means  of 
which  a  great  passion,  taking  its  rise  in  any 
considerable  state  of  Europe,  must  circulate 
through  the  whole  Christian  commonwealth. 
Illusion  is,  however,  transient,  while  truth  is 
immortal.  The  epidemical  fanaticism  of 
former  times  was  short-lived,  for  it  could 
only  flourish  in  the  eclipse  of  reason :  but 
the  virtuous  enthusiasm  of  liberty,  though  it 
be  like  that  fanaticism  contagious,  is  not  like 
it  transitory. 

But  there  are  other  circumstances  which 
entitle  us  to  expect,  that  the  example  of 
France  will  have  a  mighty  influence  on  the 
subjects  of  despotic  governments.  The 
Gothic  governments  of  Europe  have  lived 
their  time.  "Man,  and  for  ever!"  is  the 
sage  exclamation  of  Mr.  Hume.t  Limits 
are  no  less  rigorously  prescribed  by  Nature 
to  the  age  of  governments  than  to  that  of 
individuals.  The  Heroic  governments  of 
Greece  yielded  to  a  body  of  legislative  re 
publics  :  these  were  in  their  turn  swallowed 
up  by  the  conquests  of  Rome.  That  great 
empire  itself,  under  the  same  forms,  passed 
through  various  modes  of  government.  The 
first  usurpers  concealed  it  under  a  republican 
disguise :  their  successors  threw  off  the  mask, 
and  avowed  a  military  despotism :  it  expired 
in  the  ostentatious  feebleness  of  an  Asiatic 
monarchy. J  It  was  overthrown  by  savages, 
whose  rude  institutions  and  barbarous  man 
ners  have,  until  our  days,  influenced  Europe 
with  a  permanance  refused  to  wiser  and 
milder  laws.  But,  unless  historical  analogy 
be  altogether  delusive,  the  decease  of  the 
Gothic  governments  cannot  be  distant.  Their 
maturity  is  long  past :  and  symptoms  of 
their  decrepitude  are  rapidly  accumulating. 
Whether  they  are  to  be  succeeded  by  more 
beneficial  or  more  injurious  forms  may  be 
doubted  ;  but  that  they  are  about  to  perish, 
we  are  authorized  to  suppose,  from  the  usual 
age  to  which  the  governments  recorded  in 
history  have  arrived. 

There  are  also  other  presumptions  fur 
nished  by  historical  analogy,  wrhich  favour 
the  supposition  that  legislative  governments 
are  about  to  succeed  to  the  rude  usurpations 
of  Gothic  Europe.  The  commonwealths 


*  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall,  &c.,  chap.  Ivii. 

t  Philosophical  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  579.— ED. 

t  See  this  progress  stated  in  the  concise  philoso 
phy  of  Montesquieu,  and  illustrated  by  the  copious 
eloquence  of  Gibbon.  The  republican  disguise 
extends  from  Augustus  to  Severus  ;  the  military 
despotism  from  Severus  to  Diocletian  ;  the  Asiatic 
Sultanship  from  Diocletian  to  the  final  extinction 
of  the  Roman  name. 


which  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era  were  erected  on  the 
ruins  of  the  heroic  monarchies  of  Greece, 
are  perhaps  the  only  genuine  example  of  go 
vernments  truly  legislative  recorded  in  his 
tory.  A  close  inspection  will,  perhaps,  dis 
cover  some  coincidence  between  the  circum 
stances  which  formed  them  and  those  which 
now  influence  the  state  of  Europe.  The 
Phenician  and  Egyptian  colonies  were  not 
like  our  colonies  in  America,  populous 
enough  to  subdue  or  extirpate  the  native 
savages  of  Greece:  they  were,  however, 
sufficiently  so  to  instruct  and  civilize  them. 
From  that  alone  could  their  power  be  de 
rived:  to  that  therefore  were  their  efforts 
directed.  Imparting  the  arts  and  the  know 
ledge  of  polished  nations  to  rude  tribes,  they 
attracted,  by  avowed  superiority  of  know 
ledge,  a  submission  necessary  to  the  effect  of 
their  legislation, — a  submission  which  impos 
tors  acquire  through  superstition,  and  con 
querors  derive  from  force.  An  age  of  legisla 
tion  supposes  great  inequality  of  knowledge 
between  the  legislators  and  those  who  receive 
their  institutions.  The  Asiatic  colonists,  who 
first  scattered  the  seeds  of  refinement,  pos 
sessed  this  superiority  over  the  Pelasgic 
hordes:  and  the  legislators  who  in  subse 
quent  periods  organised  the  Grecian  common 
wealths,  acquired  from  their  travels  in  the 
polished  states  of  the  East,  that  reputation  of 
superior  knowledge,  which  enabled  them  to 
dictate  laws  to  their  fellow-citizens.  Let  us 
then  compare  Egypt  and  Phenicia  with  the 
enlightened  part  of  Europe, — separated  as 
widely  from  the  general  mass  by  the  moral 
difference  of  instruction,  as  these  countries 
were  from  Greece  by  the  physical  obsta 
cles  which  impeded  a  rude  navigation. — and 
we  must  discern,  that  philosophers  become 
legislators  are  colonists  from  an  enlightened 
country  reforming  the  institutions  of  rude 
tribes.  The  present  moment  indeed  resem 
bles  with  wonderful  exactness  the  legisla 
tive  age  of  Greece.  The  multitude  have 
attained  sufficient  knowledge  to  value  the 
superiority  of  enlightened  men ;  and  they 
retain  a  sufficient  consciousness  of  ignorance 
to  preclude  rebellion  against  their  dictates. 
Philosophers  have  meanwhile  long  remained 
a  distinct  nation  in  the  midst  of  an  unen 
lightened  multitude.  It  is  only  now  that 
the  conquests  of  the  press  are  enlarging  the 
dominion  of  reason ;  as  the  vessels  of  Cad 
mus  and  Cecrops  spread  the  arts  and  the 
wisdom  of  the  East  among  the  Pelasgic  bar 
barians. 

These  general  causes, — the  unity  of  the 
European  commonwealth,  the  decrepitude 
on  which  its  fortuitous  governments  are 
verging,  and  the  similarity  between  our 
age  and  the  only  recorded  period  when  the 
ascendant  of  philosophy  dictated  laws,-  -en 
title  us  to  hope  that  freedom  and  reason  will 
be  rapidly  propagated  from  their  source  in 
France.  And  there  are  not  wanting  symp 
toms  which  justify  the  speculation.  The  first 
symptoms  which  indicate  the  approach  of 


460 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


a  contagious  disease  are  the  precautions 
adopted" against  it:  the  first  marks  of  the 
probable  progress  of  French  principles  are 
the  alarms  betrayed  by  despots.  The  Courts 
of  Europe  seem  to  look  on  France,  and  to 
exclaim  in  their  despair; — 

"  Hinc  populum  late  regem,  belloque  superbum, 
Venturum  excidio  Libyae." 

The  King  of  Spain  already  seems  to  tremble 
for  his  throne,  though  it  be  erected  on  so 
firm  a  basis  of  general  ignorance  and  trium 
phant  priestcraft.  By  expelling  foreigners, 
and  by  subjecting  the  entrance  of  travellers 
to  such  multiplied  restraints,  he  seeks  the 
preservation  of  his  despotism  in  a  vain  at 
tempt  to  convert  his  kingdom  into  a  Bastile, 
and  to  banish  his  subjects  from  the  European 
commonwealth.  The  Chinese  government 
has  indeed  thus  maintained  its  permanency; 
but  it  is  insulated  by  Nature  more  effectually 
than  by  policy.  Let  the  Court  of  Madrid  re 
call  her  ambassadors,  shut  up  her  ports, 
abandon  her  commerce,  sever  every  tie  that 
unites  her  to  Europe:  the  effect  of  such 
shallow  policy  must  be  that  of  all  ineffectual 
rigour  (and  all  rigour  short  of  extirpation  is 
here  ineffectual),  to  awaken  reflection. — to 
stimulate  inquiry, — to  aggravate  discontent, 
— and  to  provoke  convulsion.  "There  are 
no  longer  Pyrenees,"  said  Louis  XIV.,  on 
the  accession  of  his  grandson  to  the  Spanish 
throne:  " There  are  no  longer  Pyrenees," 
exclaimed  the  alarmed  statesmen  of  Aran- 
juez, — u  to  protect  our  despotism  from  being 
consumed  by  the  sun  of  liberty."  The 
alarm  of  the  Pope  for  the  little  remnant  of 
his  authority  naturally  increases  with  the 
probability  of  the  diffusion  of  French  princi 
ples.  Even  the  mild  and  temperate  aristo 
cracies  of  Switzerland  seem  to  apprehend  the 
arrival  of  that  period,  when  men  will  not  be 
content  to  owe  the  benefits  of  government 
to  the  fortuitous  character  of  their  governors, 
but  to  its  own  intrinsic  excellence.  Even 
the  unsuccessful  struggle  of  Liege,  and  the 
theocratic  insurrection  of  Brabant,  have  left 
behind  them  traces  of  a  patriotic  party, 
whom  a  more  favourable  moment  may  call 
into  more  successful  action.  The  despotic 
Court  of  the  Hague  is  betraying  alarm  that 
the  Dutch  republic  may  yet  revive,  on  the 
destruction  of  a  government  odious  and  in 
tolerable  to  an  immense  majority  of  the 
people.  Every  where  then  are  those  alarms 
discernible,  which  are  the  most  evident 
symptoms  of  the  approaching  downfall  of  the 
European  despotisms. 

But  the  impression  produced  by  the  French 
Revolution  in  England, — in  an  enlightened 
country,  which  had  long  boasted  of  its  free 
dom, — merits  more  particular  remark.  Be 
fore  the  publication  of  Mr.  Burke,  the  public 
were  not  recovered  from  that  astonishment 
into  which  they  had  been  plunged  by  unex 
ampled  events,  and  the  general  opinion  could 
riot  have  been  collected  with  precision.  But 
that  performance  has  divided  the  nation  into 
marked  parties.  It  has  produced  a  contro- 


j  versy,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  trial 
I  of  the  French  Revolution  before  the  enlight 
ened  and  independent  tribunal  of  the  Eng 
lish  public.  What  its  decision  has  been  I 
shall  not  presume  to  decide  •  for  it  does  not 
become  an  advocate  to  announce  the  deci 
sion  of  the  judge.  But  this  I  may  be  per 
mitted  to  remark,  that  the  conduct  of  our 
enemies  has  not  resembled  the  usual  triumph 
of  those  who  have  been  victorious  in  the  war 
of  reason.  Instead  of  the  triumphant  calm 
ness  that  is  ever  inspired  by  conscious  su 
periority,  they  have  betrayed  the  bitterness 
of  defeat,  and  the  ferocity  of  resentment, 
which  are  peculiar  to  the  black  revenge  of 
detected  imposture.  Priestcraft  and  Tory 
ism  have  been  supported  only  by  literary  ad 
vocates  of  the  most  miserable  description  : 
but  they  have  been  ably  aided  by  auxiliaries 
of  another  kind.  Of  the  two  great  classes 
of  enemies  to  political  reform, — the  interest 
ed  and  the  prejudiced. — the  activity  of  the 
first  usually  supplies  what  may  be  wanting 
in  the  talents  of  the  last.  Judges  have  for 
gotten  the  dignity  of  their  function. — priests 
the  mildness  of  their  religion ;  the  Bench, 
which  should  have  spoken  with  the  serene 
temper  of  justice,  the  Pulpit,  whence  only 
should  have  issued  the  healing  sounds  of 
charity,  have  been  prostituted  to  party  pur 
poses,  and  polluted  with  invectives  against 
freedom.  The  churches  have  resounded 
with  language  at  which  Laud  would  have 
shuddered,  and  Sacheverell  would  have 
blushed  :  the  most  profane  comparisons  be 
tween  our  duty  to  the  Divinity  and  to  kings, 
have  been  unblushingly  pronounced  :  flat 
tery  of  the  Ministers  has  been  mixed  with 
the  solemnities  of  religion,  by  the  servants, 
and  in  the  temple  of  God.  These  profligate 
proceedings  have  not  been  limited  to  a  single 
spot :  they  have  been  general  over  England. 
In  many  churches  the  French  Revolution 
has  been  expressly  named :  in  a  majority  it 
was  the  constant  theme  of  invective  for 
many  weeks  before  its  intended  celebration. 
Yet  these  are  the  peaceful  pastors,  who  so 
sincerely  and  meekly  deprecate  political 
sermons.* 

Nor  was  this  sufficient.  The  grossness  of 
the  popular  mind,  on  which  political  invec 
tive  made  but  a  faint  impression,  was  to  be 
roused  into  action  by  religious  fanaticism, — 
the  most  intractable  and  domineering  of  all 
destructive  passions.  A  clamour  which  had 
for  half  a  century  lain  dormant  has  been  re 
vived  : — the  Church  was  in  danger  !  The 
spirit  of  persecution  against  an  unpopular  sect 
has  been  artfully  excited ;  and  the  friends 
of  freedom,  whom  it  might  be  odious  and 
dangerous  professedly  to  attack,  are  to  be 
overwhelmed  as  Dissenters.  That  the  ma- 


*  These  are  no  vague  accusations.  A  sermon 
was  preached  in  a  parish  church  in  Middlesex  on 
the  anniversary  of  the  Restoration,  in  which  eter 
nal  punishment  was  denounced  against  political 
disaffection  !  Persons  for  whose  discernment  and 
veracity  I  can  be  responsible,  were  among  the 
indignant  auditors  of  this  infernal  homily. 


REASONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH  WAR  OF  1793. 


461 


jority  of  the  advocates  for  the  French  Revo 
lution  are  not  Dissenters  is,  indeed,  suffi 
ciently  known  to  their  enemies.  They  are 
well  known  to  be  philosophers  and  friends 
of  humanity,  superior  to  the  creed  of  any 
sect,  and  indifferent  to  the  dogmas  of  any 
popular  faith.  But  it  has  suited  the  purpose 
of  their  profligate  adversaries  to  confound 
them  with  the  Dissenters,  and  to  animate 
against  them  the  fury  of  prejudices  which 
those  very  adversaries  despised. 

The  diffusion  of  these  invectives  has  pro 
duced  those  obvious  and  inevitable  effects, 
which  it  may  require  something  more  than 
candour  to  suppose  not  foreseen  and  desired. 
A  banditti,  which  had  been  previously  stimu 
lated,  as  it  has  since  been  excused  and  pane 
gyrized  by  incendiary  libellers,  have  wreaked 
their  vengeance  on  a  philosopher,*  illustrious 


*  Alluding  to  the  destruction  of  Dr.  Priestley's 


by  his  talents  and  his  writings,  venerable 
for  the  spotless  purity  of  his  life,  and  amia 
ble  for  the  unoffending  simplicity  of  his 
manners.  The  excesses  of  this  mob  of 
churchmen  and  loyalists  are  to  be  poorly 
expiated  by  the  few  misguided  victims  who 
are  sacrificed  to  the  vengeance  of  the  law. 

We  are,  however,  only  concerned  with 
these  facts,  as  they  are  evidence  from  our 
enemies  of  the  probable  progress  of  freedom. 
The  probability  of  that  progress  they  all  con 
spire  to  prove.  The  briefs  of  the  Pope,  and 
the  pamphlets  of  Mr.  Burke,  the  edicts  of 
the  Spanish  Court,  and  the  mandates  of  the 
Spanish  inquisition,  the  Birmingham  rioters, 
and  the  Oxford  graduates,  equally  render  to 
Liberty  the  involuntary  homage  of  their 
alarm. 


house  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Birmingham  by  the 
mob,  on  the  14th  of  July,  1791.— ED. 


REASONS 

AGAINST  THE  FRENCH  WAR  OF  1793. 


AT  the  commencement  of  the  year  1793 
the  whole  body  of  the  supporters  of  the  war 
seemed  unanimous;  yet  even  then  was  per 
ceptible  the  germ  of  a  difference  which  time 
and  events  have  since  unfolded.  The  Min 
ister  had  early  and  frequent  recourse  to  the 
high  principles  of  Mr.  Burke,  in  order  to  adorn 
his  orations, — to  assail  his  antagonists  in  de 
bate, — to  blacken  the  character  of  the  ene 
my, — and  to  arouse  the  national  spirit  against 
them.  Amid  the  fluctuating  fortune  of  the 
war,  he  seemed  in  the  moment  of  victory 
to  deliver  opinions  scarcely  distinguishable 
from  those  of  Mr.  Burke,  and  to  recede  from 
them  by  imperceptible  degrees,  as  success 
abandoned  the  arms  of  the  Allies.  When 
the  armies  of  the  French  republic  were 
every  where  triumphant,  and  the  pecuniary 
embarrassments  of  Great  Britain  began  to 
be  severely  felt,  he  at  length  dismissed  alto 
gether  the  consideration  of  the  internal  state 
of  F ranee,  and  professed  to  view  the  war  as 
merely  defensive  against  aggressions  com 
mitted  on  Great  Britain  and  her  allies. 

That  the  war  was  not  just  on  such  princi 
ple?  perhaps  a  very  short  argument  will  be  | 
sufficient  to  demonstrate.     War  is  just  only  ' 
to  those  by  whom  it  is  unavoidable;  and 
every  appeal  to  arms  is  unrighteous,  except 
that  of  a  nation  which  has  no  other  resource 
for  the  maintenance  of  its  security  or  the 
assertion  of  its  honour.     Injury  and  insult  do 
not  of  themselves  make  it  lawful  for  a  nation 
to  seek  redress  by  war,  because  they  do  not 

*  From  the  Monthly  Review,  vol.  xl.  p.  433. — ED 


make  it  necessary :  another  means  of  redress 
is  still  in  her  power,  and  it  is  still  her  duty 
to  employ  it.  It  is  not  either  injury  or  in 
sult;  but  injury  for  which  reparation  has 
been  asked  and  denied,  or  insult  for  which 
satisfaction  has  been  demanded  arid  refused, 
that  places  her  in  a  state  in  which,  having 
in  vain  employed  every  other  means  of  vin 
dicating  her  rights,  she  may  justly  assert 
them  by  arms.  Any  commonwealth,  there 
fore,  which  shuts  up  the  channel  of  negotia 
tion  wrhile  disputes  are  depending,  is  the 
author  of  the  war  which  may  follow.  As'a 
perfect  equality  prevails  in  the  society  and 
intercourse  of  nations,  no  state  is  bound  to 
degrade  herself  by  submitting  to  unavowed 
and  clandestine  negotiation ;  but  every  go 
vernment  has  a  perfect  right  to  be  admitted 
to  that  open,  avowed,  authorized,  honourable 
negotiation  which  in  the  practice  of  nations 
is  employed  for  the  pacific  adjustment  of^ 
their  contested  claims.  To  refuse  authorized 
negotiation  is  to  refuse  the  only  negotiation 
to  which  a  government  is  forced  to  submit : 
it  is,  therefore,  in  effect  to  refuse  negotiation 
altogether;  and  it  follows,  as  a  necessary 
consequence,  that  they  who  refuse  such  au 
thorized  negotiation  are  responsible  for  a  war 
which  that  refusal  makes  on  their  part  unjust. 
These  principles  apply  with  irresistible 
force  to  the  conduct  of  the  English  Govern 
ment  in  the  commencement  of  the  present 
war.  They  complained,  perhaps  justly,  of 
the  opening  of  the  Scheldt, — of  the  Decree 
of  Fraternity, — of  the  countenance  shown  to 
disaffected  Englishmen :  but  they  refused 
2o  2 


462 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


that  authorised  intercourse  with  the  French 
Government  through  its  ambassador,  M. 
Chauvelin,  which  might  have  amicably  ter 
minated  these  disputes.  It  is  no  answer 
that  they  were  ready  to  carry  on  a  clandes 
tine  correspondence  with  that  government 
through  Noel  and  Maret,  or  any  other  of  its 
secret  agents.  That  Government  was  not 
obliged  to  submit  to  such  an  intercourse; 
and  the  British  Government  put  itself  in  the 
wrong  by  refusing  an  intercourse  of  another 
sort. 

No  difficulties  arising  from  a  refusal  to  ne 
gotiate  embarrass  the  system  of  Mr.  Burke. 
It  is  founded  on  the  principle  that  the  nature 
of  the  French  Government  is  a  just  ground 
of  war  for  its  destruction,  and  regards  the 
particular  acts  of  that  government  no  farther 
than  as  they  are  proofs  of  its  irreconcilable 
hostility  to  all  other  states  and  communities. 

We  are  not  disposed  to  deny  that  so  mighty 
a  change  in  the  frame  of  government  and  the 
state  of  society,  of  one  of  the  greatest  nations 
of  the  civilized  world,  as  was  effected  by  the 
Revolution  in  France, — attended  by  such  ex 
travagant  opinions,  and  producing  such  vio 
lent  passions, — was  of  a  nature  to  be  danger 
ous  to  the  several  governments  and  to  the 
quiet  of  the  various  communities,  which 
compose  the  great  commonwealth  of  Europe. 
To  affirm  the  contrary  would  be  in  effect  to 
maintain  that  man  is  not  the  creature  of 
sympathy  and  imitation, — that  he  is  not  al 
ways  disposed,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
to  catch  the  feelings,  to  imbibe  the  opinions, 
and  to  copy  the  conduct  of  his  fellow-men. 
Most  of  the  revolutions  which  have  laid  an 
cient  systems  in  ruins,  and  changed  the 
whole  face  of  society. '  have  sprung  from 
these  powerful  and  active  principles  of  hu 
man  nature.  The  remote  effect  of  these  re 
volutions  has  been  sometimes  beneficial  and 
sometimes  pernicious :  but  the  evil  which 
accompanied  them  has  ever  been  great  and 
terrible;  their  future  tendency  was  neces 
sarily  ambiguous  and  contingent ;  and  their 
ultimate  consequences  were  always  depend 
ent  on  circumstances  much  beyond  the  con 
trol  of  the  agents.  With  these  opinions,  the 
only  question  that  can  be  at  issue  between 
Mr.  Burke  and  ourselves  is,  whether  a  war 
was  a  just,  effectual,  and  safe  mode  of 
averting  the  danger  with  which  the  French 
Revolution  might  threaten  the  established 
governments  of  Europe ; — just  in  its  princi 
ple, — effectual  for  its  proposed  end, — and 
safe  from  the  danger  of  collateral  evil.  On 
all  the  three  branches  of  this  comprehen 
sive  question  we  are  obliged  to  dissent  very 
widely  from  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Burke. 

We  are  not  required  to  affirm  universally 
that  there  never  are  cases  in  which  the  state 
of  the  internal  government  of  a  foreign  nation 
may  become  a  just  ground  of  war ;  and  we 
know  too  well  the  danger  of  universal  affir 
mations  to  extend  our  line  of  posts  farther 
than  is  absolutely  necessary  for  our  own  de 
fence.  We  are  not  convinced  of  the  fact 
that  the  French  Government  in  the  year  1791 


(when  the  Royal  confederacy  originated)  was 
of  such  a  nature  as  to  be  incapable  of  being 
so  ripened  and  mitigated  by  a  wise  modera 
tion  in  the  surrounding  Powers,  that  it  might 
not  become  perfectly  safe  and  inoffensive  to 
the  neighbouring  states.  Till  this  fact  be 
proved,  the  whole  reasoning  of  Mr.  Burke 
appears  to  us  inconclusive.  Whatever  may 
be  done  by  prudence  and  forbearance  is  not 
to  be  attempted  by  war.  Whoever,  there 
fore,  proposes  war  as  the  means  of  attaining 
any  public  good,  or  of  averting  any  public 
evil,  must  first  prove  that  his  object  is  un 
attainable  by  any  other  means.  And  pecu 
liarly  heavy  is  the  burden  of  proof  on  the 
man  who,  in  such  cases  as  the  present,  is 
the  author  of  violent  counsels, — which,  even 
when  they  are  most  specious  in  promise,  are 
hard  and  difficult  in  trial,  as  well  as  most  un 
certain  in  their  issue, — which  usually  pre 
clude  any  subsequent  recurrence  to  milder 
and  more  moderate  expedients. — and  from 
which  a  safe  retreat  is  often  difficult,  and  an 
honourable  retreat  is  generally  impossible. 

Great  and  evident  indeed  must  be  the  ne 
cessity  which  can  justify  a  war  that  in  its 
nature  must  impair,  and  in  its  effects  may 
subvert  the  sacred  principle  of  national  in 
dependence, — the  great  master-principle  of 
public  morality,  from  which  all  the  rules  of 
the  law  of  nations  flow,  and  which  they  are 
all  framed  only  to  defend, — of  which  the 
balance  of  power  itself  (for  which  so  many 
wars,  in  our  opinion  just,  have  been  carried 
on)  is  only  a  safeguard  and  an  outwork. — 
and  of  which  the  higher  respect  and  the 
more  exact  observance  have  so  happily  dis 
tinguished  our  western  parts  of  Europe,  in 
these  latter  times,  above  all  other  ages  and 
countries  of  the  world.  Under  the  guard  of 
this  venerable  principle,  our  European  socie 
ties,  with  the  most  different  forms  of  govern 
ment  and  the  greatest  inequalities  of  strength, 
have  subsisted  and  flourished  in  almost  equal 
security, — the  character  of  man  has  been 
exhibited  in  all  that,  variety  and  vigour  which 
are  necessary  for  the  expansion  arid  display 
both  of  his  powers  and  of  his  virtues, — the 
spring  and  spirit  and  noble  pride  and  gene 
rous  emulation,  which  arise  from  a  division 
of  territory  among  a  number  of  independent 
states,  have  been  combined  with  a  large 
measure  of  that  tranquil  security  which  has 
been  found  so  rarely  reconcilable  with  such 
a  division, — the  opinion  of  enlightened  Eu 
rope  has  furnished  a  mild  but  not  altogether 
ineffectual,  control  over  the  excesses  of  des 
potism  itself,— and  the  victims  of  tyranny 
have  at  least  found  a  safe  and  hospitable 
asylum  in  foreign  countries  from  the  rage  of 
their  native  oppressors.  It  has  alike  exempt 
ed  us  from  the  lethargic  quiet  of  extensive 
empire, — from  the  scourge  of  wide  and  rapid 
conquest, — and  from  the  pest  of  frequent  do 
mestic  revolutions. 

This  excellent  principle,  like  every  other 
rule  which  governs  the  moral  conduct  of 
men,  may  be  productive  of  occasional  evil. 
It  must  be  owned  that  the  absolute  indepen- 


REASONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH  WAR  OF  1793. 


463 


dence  of  states,  and  their  supreme  exclusive 
jurisdiction  over  all  acts  done  within  their 
own  territory,  secure  an  impunity  to  the  most 
atrocious  crimes  either  of  usurpers  or  of  law 
ful  governments  degenerated  into  tyrannies. 
There  is  no  tribunal  competent  to  punish 
such  crimes,  because  it  is  not  for  the  interest 
of  mankind  to  vest  in  any  tribunal  an  au 
thority  adequate  to  their  punishment;  and  it 
is  better  that  these  crimes  should  be  unpun 
ished,  than  that  nations  should  not  be  inde 
pendent.  To  admit  such  an  authority  would 
only  be  to  supply  fresh  incitements  to  am 
bition  and  rapine, — to  multiply  the  grounds 
of  war, — to  sharpen  the  rage  of  national  ani 
mosity, — to  destroy  the  confidence  of  inde 
pendence  and  internal  quiet. — and  to  furnish 
new  pretexts  for  invasion,  for  conquest,  and 
for  partition.  When  the  Roman,  general 
Flarninius  was  accomplishing  the  conquest 
of  Greece,  under  pretence  of  enfranchising 
the  Grecian  republics,  he  partly  covered  his 
ambitious  designs  under  colour  of  punishing 
the  atrocious  crimes  of  the  Lacedasmonian 
tyrant  Nabis.*  When  Catherine  II.  and  her 
accomplices  perpetrated  the  greatest  crime 
which  any  modern  government  has  ever 
committed  against  another  nation,  it  was 
easy  for  them  to  pretend  that  the  partition 
of  Poland  was  necessary  for  the  extirpation 
of  Jacobinism  in  the  north  of  Europe. 

We  are  therefore  of  opinion  that  the  war 
proposed  by  Mr.  Burke  is  unjust,  both  be 
cause  it  has  not  been  proved  that  no  other 
means  than  war  could  have  preserved  us 
from  the  danger;  and  because  war  was  an 
expedient,  which  it  was  impossible  to  employ 
for  such  a  purpose,  without  shaking  the  au 
thority  of  that  great  tutelary  principle,  under 
the  shade  of  which  the  nations  of  Europe 
have  so  long  flourished  in  security.  There 
is  no  case  of  fact  made  out  to  which  the 
principles  of  the  law  of  vicinage  are  to  apply. 
If  the  fact  had  been  proved,  we  might  confess 
the  justice  of  the  war  •  though  even  in  that 
case  its  wisdom  and  policy  would  still  remain 
to  be  considered. 

The  first  question  to  be  discussed  in  the 
examination  of  every  measure  of  policy  is, 
whether  it  is  likely  to  be  effectual  for  its 
proposed  ends.  That  the  war  against  France 
was  inadequate  to  the  attainment  of  its  ob 
ject  is  a  truth  which  is  now  demonstrated 
by  fatal  experience:  but  which,  in  our 
opinion,  at  the  time  of  its  commencement, 
was  very  evident  to  men  of  sagacity  and 
foresight.  The  nature  of  the  means  to  be 
employed  was  of  itself  sufficient  to  prove 
their  inadequacy.  The  first  condition  es 
sential  to  the  success  of  the  war  was,  that 
the  confederacy  of  ambitious  princes  who 
were  to  carry  it  on,  should  become  perfectly 
wise,  moderate,  and  disinterested, — that  they 
should  bury  in  oblivion  past  animosities  and 
all  mutual  jealousies — that  they  should  sacri 
fice  every  view  of  ambition  and  every  op- 

*  Livy,  lib.  xxxiv.  cap.  24.  The  whole  narra 
tive  is  extremely  curious,  and  not  without  resem 
blance  and  application  to  later  events. 


portunity  of  aggrandisement  to  the  great 
object  of  securing  Europe  from  general  con 
fusion  by  re-establishing  the  ancient  mo 
narchy  of  France.  No  man  has  proved  this 
more  unanswerably  than  Mr.  Burke  himself. 
This  moderation  and  this  disinterestedness 
were  not  only  necessary  for  the  union  of  the 
Allies,  but  for  the  disunion  of  France. 

But  we  will  venture  to  affirm,  that  the 
supposition  of  a  disinterested  confederacy 
of  ambitious  princes  is  as  extravagant  a  chi 
mera  as  any  that  can  be  laid  to  the  charge 
of  the  wildest  visionaries  of  democracy. 
The  universal  peace  of  the  Abbe  St.  Pierre 
was  plausible  and  reasonable,  when  com 
pared  with  this  supposition.  The  universal 
republic  of  Anacharsis  Cloots  himself  was 
not  much  more  irreconcilable  with  the  uni 
form  experience  and  sober  judgment  of  man 
kind.  We  are  far  from  confounding  two 
writers, — one  of  whom  was  a  benevolent 
visionary  and  the  other  a  sanguinary  mad 
man, — who  had  nothing  in  common  but  the 
wildness  of  their  predictions  and  the  extrava 
gance  of  their  hopes.  The  Abbe  St.  Pierre 
had  the  simplicity  to  mistake  an  ingenious 
raillery  of  the  Cardinal  Fleuri  for  a  deliberate 
adoption  of  his  reveries.  That  minister  had 
told  him  "that  he  had  forgotten  an  indis 
pensable  preliminary — that  of  sending  a  body 
of  missionaries  to  turn  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  the  princes  of  Europe."  Mr.  Burke,  with 
all  his  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  with 
all  his  experience  of  public  affairs,  has  for 
gotten  a  circumstance  as  important  as  that 
which  was  overlooked  by  the  simple  and 
recluse  speculator.  He  has  forgotten  that  he 
must  have  made  ambition  disinterested, — 
power  moderate, — the  selfish  generous, — and 
the  short-sighted  wise,  before  he  could  hope 
for  success  in  the  contest  which  he  recom 
mended.*  To  say  that  if  the  authors  of  the 
partition  of  Poland  could  be  made  perfectly 
wise  and  honest,  they  might  prevail  over  the 
French  democracy,  is  very  little  more  than 
the  most  chimerical  projector  has  to  offer  for 
his  wildest  scheme.  Such  an  answer  only 
gives  us  this  new  and  important  information, 
that  impracticable  projects  will  be  realised 
when  insurmountable  obstacles  are  overcome. 
Who  are  you  that  presume  to  frame  laws  for 
men  without  taking  human  passions  into  ac 
count, — to  regulate  the  actions  of  mankind 


*  Perhaps  something  more  of  flexibility  of  cha 
racter  and  accommodation  of  temper, — a  mind 
more  broken  down  to  the  practice  of  the  world, — 
would  have  fitted  Mr.  Burke  better  for  the  execu 
tion  of  that  art  which  is  the  sole  instrument  of 
political  wisdom,  and  without  which  the  highest 
political  wisdom  is  but  barren  speculation— we 
mean  the  art  of  guiding  and  managing  mankind. 
How  can  he  have  forgotten  that  these  vulgar  poli 
ticians  were  the  only  tools  with  which  he  had  to 
work  in  reducing  his  schemes  to  practice  ?  These 
"  creatures  of  the  desk  and  creatures  of  favour" 
unfortunately  govern  Europe.  The  ends  of  gene 
rosity  were  to  be  compassed  alone  through  the 
agency  of  the  selfish  ;  and  the  objects  of  pro 
spective  wisdom  were  to  be  attained  by  the  exer 
tions  of  the  short-sighted.  —  Monthly  Review 
(IV.  £.),  vol.  xix.  p.  317.— ED. 


464 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


without  regarding  the  source  and  principle 
of  those  actions  ?  A  chemist  who  in  his  ex 
periments  should  forget  the  power  of  steam 
or  of  electricity,  would  have  no  right  to  be 
surprised  that  his  apparatus  should  be  shi 
vered  to  pieces,  and  his  laboratory  covered 
with  the  fragments. 

It  must  be  owned,  indeed,  that  no  one 
could  have  ventured  to  predict  the  extent 
and  extravagance  of  that  monstrous  and 
almost  incredible  infatuation  which  has  dis 
tracted  the  strength  and  palsied  the  arms 
of  the  Allied  Powers:  but  it  was  easy  to 
foresee,  and  it  was  in  fact  predicted,  that  a 
sufficient  degree  of  that  infatuation  must 
prevail  to  defeat  the  attainment  of  their 
professed  object.  We  cannot  help  express 
ing  our  surprise,  tfiat  the  immense  differ 
ence  in  this  respect  between  the  present 
confederacy  and  the  Grand  Alliance  of. 
King  William  III.  did  not  present  itself 
to  the  great  understanding  of  Mr.  Burke. 
This  is  a  war  to  avert  the  danger  of  the 
French  Revolution,  in  which  it  is  indis 
pensably  necessary  to  avoid  all  appearance 
of  a  design  to  aggrandise  the  Allies  at  the 
expense  of  France.  The  other  was  one 
designed  to  limit  the  exorbitant  power  of 
Louis,  which  was  chiefly  to  be  effected  by 
diminishing  his  overgrown  dominions.  The 
members  of  that  confederacy  gratified  their 
own  ambition  by  the  same  means  which 
provided  for  the  general  safety.  In  that 
contest,  every  conquest  promoted  the  gene 
ral  object : — in  this,  every  conquest  retards 
and  tends  to  defeat  it.  No  romantic  mode 
ration — no  chimerical  disinterestedness — no 
sacrifice  of  private  aggrandisement  to  the 
cause  of  Europe,  was  required  in  that  con 
federacy.  Yet,  with  that  great  advantage, 
it  is  almost  the  only  one  recorded  in  history, 
which  was  successful.  Still  it  required,  to 
build  it  up,  and  hold  it  together,  all  the  ex 
alted  genius,  all  the  comprehensive  wisdom, 
all  the  disinterested  moderation,  and  all  the 
unshaken  perseverance  of  William* — other 
talents  than  those  of  petty  intrigue  and  pom 
pous  declamation.  The  bitterest  enemies 
#f  our  present  ministers  could  scarcely  ima- 

*  "  It  there  be  any  man  in  the  present  age  who 
deserves  the  honour  of  being  compared  with  this 
great  prince,  it  is  George  Washington.  The 
merit  of  both  is  more  solid  than  dazzling.  The 
same  plain  sense,  the  same  simplicity  of  character, 
the  same  love  of  their  country,  the  same  unaffect 
ed  heroism,  distinguished  both  these  illustrious 
men  ;  and  both  were  so  highly  favoured  by  Pro 
vidence  as  to  be  made  its  chosen  instruments  for 
redeeming  nations  from  bondage.  As  William 
had  to  contend  with  greater  captains,  and  to  strug 
gle  with  more  complicated  political  difficulties,  we 
are  able  more  decisively  to  ascertain  his  martial 
prowess,  and  his  civil  prudence.  It  has  been  the 
fortune  of  Washington  to  give  a  mor-e  signal  proof 
of  his  disinterestedness,  as  he  was  placed  in  a 
situation  in  which  he  could  without  blame  resign 
the  supreme  administration  of  that  commonwealth 
which  his  valour  had  guarded  in  infancy  against 
a  foreign  force,  and  which  his  wisdom  has  since 
guided  through  still  more  formidable  domestic 
perils." — Monthly  Review,  vol.  xi.  p.  308. — ED. 


gine  so  cruel  a  satire  upon  them,  as  any 
comparison  between  their  talents  and  policy, 
and  those  of  the  great  monarch.  The  dis 
approbation  of  the  conduct  of  the  British 
Cabinet  must  have  arisen  to  an  extraordinary 
degree  of  warmth  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Burke, 
before  he  could  have  prevailed  on  himself 
to  bring  into  view  the  policy  of  other  and 
better  times,  and  to  awaken  recollections  of 
past  wisdom  and  glory  which  must  tend  so 
much  to  embitter  our  indignation  at  the  pre 
sent  mismanagement  of  public  affairs.  In 
a  word,  the  success  of  the  war  required  it  to 
be  felt  by  Frenchmen  to  be  a  war  direct 
ed  against  the  Revolution,  and  not  against 
France;  w^ile  the  ambition  of  the  Allies 
necessarily  made  it  a  war  against  France, 
and  not  against  the  Revolution.  Mr.  Burke', 
M.  de  Calonne,  M.  Mallet  du  Pan,  and  all 
the  other  distinguished  writers  who  have 
appeared  on  behalf  of  the  French  Royalists 
— a  name  which  no  man  should  pronounce 
without  pity,  and  no  Englishman  ought  to 
utter  without  shame — have  acknowledged, 
lamented,  and  condemned  the  wretched 
policy  of  the  confederates.  We  have  still 
to  impeach  their  sagacity,  for  not  having  ori 
ginally  foreseen  what  a  brittle  instrument 
such  a  confederacy  must  prove;  we  have 
still  to  reproach  them,  for  not  having  from 
the  first  perceived,  that  to  embark  the  safety 
of  Europe  on  the  success  of  such  an  alliance, 
was  a  most  ambiguous  policy, — only  to  be 
reluctantly  embraced,  after  every  other  ex 
pedient  was  exhausted,  in  a  case  of  the  most 
imminent  danger,  and  in  circumstances  of 
the  most  imperious  necessity. 

These  reflections  naturally  lead  us  to  the 
consideration  of  the  safety  of  the  war,  or  of 
the  collateral  evil  with  which  it  was  preg 
nant  in  either  alternative,  of  its  failure  or 
success ;  and  we  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm, 
that,  in  our  humble  opinion,  its  success  was 
dangerous  to  the  independence  of  nations, 
and  its  failure  hostile  to  the  stability  of  go 
vernments.  The  choice  between  two  such 
dreadful  evils  is  embarrassing  and  cruel :  yet. 
with  the  warmest  zeal  for  the  tranquillity  of 
every  people, — with  the  strongest  wishes 
that  can  arise  from  personal  habits  and  cha 
racter  for  quiet  and  repose, — with  all  our 
heartfelt  and  deeply-rooted  detestation  for 
the  crimes,  -calamities,  and  horrors  of  civil 
confusion,  we  cannot  prevail  on  ourselves  to 
imagine  that  a  greater  evil  could  befall  the 
human  race  than  the  partition  of  Europe 
among  the  spoilers  of  Poland.  All  the  wild 
freaks  of  popular  licentiousness, — all  the 
fantastic  transformations  of  government, — all 
the  frantic  cruelty  of  anarchical  tyranny, 
almost  vanish  before  the  terrible  idea  of 
gathering  the  whole  civilized  world  under 
the  iron  yoke  of  military  despotism.  It  is — 
at  least,  it  was — an  instinct  of  the  English 
character,  to  feel  more  alarm  and  horror  at 
despotism  than  at  any  other  of  those  evils 
which  afflict  human  society;  and  we  own 
our  minds  to  be  still  under  the  influence  of 
this  old  and  perhaps  exploded  national  preju- 


REASONS  AGAINST  THE  FRENCH  WAR  OF  1793. 


465 


dice.  It  is  a  prejudice,  however,  which  ap 
pears  to  us  founded  on  the  most  sublime  and 
profound  philosophy  ;  and  it  has  been  im 
planted  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen  by  their 
long  experience  of  the  mildest  and  freest 
government  with  which  the  bounty  of  Divine 
Providence  has  been  pleased  for  so  many 
centuries  to  favour  so  considerable  a  portion 
of  the  human  race.  It  has  been  nourished 
by  the  blood  of  our  forefathers ;  it  is  em 
bodied  in  our  most  venerable  institutions; 
it  is  the  spirit  of  our  sacred  laws ;  it  is  the 
animating  principle  of  the  English  character ; 
it  is  the  very  life  and  soul  of  "the  British  con 
stitution  ;  it  is  the  distinguishing  nobility  of 
the  mealiest  Englishman  ;  it  is  that  proud 
privilege  which  exalts  him,  in  his  own  re 
spect,  above  the  most  illustrious  slave  that 
drags  his  gilded  chain  in  the  court  of  a  ty 
rant.  It  has  given  vigour  and  lustre  to  our 
warlike  enterprises,  justice  and  humanity  to 
our  laws,  and  character  and  energy  to  our 
national  genius  and  literature.  Of  such  a 
prejudice  we  are  not  ashamed:  and  we  have 
no  desire  to  outlive  its  extinction  in  the  minds 
of  our  countrymen  : — 

tune  omne  Latinum 
Fabula  nomen  erit.* 

To  return  from  what  may  be  thought  a 
digression,  but  which  is  inspired  by  feelings 
that  we  hope  at  least  a  few  of  our  readers 
may  still  be  old-fashioned  enough  to  pardon 
us  for  indulging, — we  proceed  to  make  some 
remarks  on  the  dangers  with  which  the 
failure  of  this  war  threatened  Europe.  It  is 
a  memorable  example  of  the  intoxication  of 
men,  and  of  their  governors,  that  at  the  com 
mencement  of  this  war,  the  bare  idea  of  the 
possibility  of  its  failure  would  have  been 
rejected  with  indignation  and  scorn:  yet  it 
became  statesmen  to  consider  this  event  as 
at  least  possible ;  and,  in  that  alternative, 
what  were  the  consequences  which  the 
European  governments  had  to  apprehend? 
With  their  counsels  baffled,  their  armies  de 
feated,  their  treasuries  exhausted,  their  sub 
jects  groaning  under  the  weight  of  taxes, 
their  military  strength  broken,  and  their 
reputation  for  military  superiority  destroyed, 
— they  have  to  contend,  in  their  own  states, 
against  the  progress  of  opinions,  which  their 
own  unfortunate  policy  has  surrounded  with 
the  dazzling  lustre  of  heroism,  and  with  all 
the  attractions  and  fascinations  of  victory. 
Disgraced  in  a  conflict  with  democracy 
abroad,  with  what  vigour  and  effect  can  they 
repress  it  at  home "?  If  they  had  forborne 
from  entering  on  the  war,  the  reputation  of 
their  power  would  at  least  have  been  whole 
and  entire :  the  awful  question,  whether  the 
French  Revolution,  or  the  established  go 
vernments  of  Europe,  are  the  strongest, 
would  at  least  have  remained  undecided; 

*  Pharsalia,  lib.  vii. 
59 


and  the  people  of  all  countries  would  not 
have  witnessed  the  dangerous  examples  of 
their  sovereigns  humbled  before  the  leaders 
of  the  new  sect.  Mr.  Burke  tells  us  that  the 
war  has  at  least  procured  a  respite  for  Eu 
rope;  but  he  has  forgotten  to  inform  us,  that 
there  are  respites  which  aggravate  the  se 
verity  of  the  punishment,  and  that  there  are 
violent  struggles  which  provoke  a  fate  that 
might  otherwise  be  avoided. 

We  purposely  forbear  to  enlarge  on  this  sub 
ject,  because  the  display  of  those  evils  which, 
at  the  commencement  of  the  war,  were  likely 
to  arise  from  its  failure,  is  now  become,  unfor- 
i  Innately,  the  melancholy  picture  of  the  actual 
!  situation  of  Europe.     This  is  a  theme  more 
!  adapted  for  meditation  than  discourse.     It  is 
:  as  sincere  wellwishers  to  the  stability  and 
|  tranquil  improvement  of  established  govern 
ments, — as  zealous  and  ardent  friends  to  that 
'  admirable  constitution  of  government,  and 
happy  order  of  society,  which  prevail  in  our 
native  land,  that  we  originally  deprecated, 
and  still  condemn,  a  war  which  has  brought 
these  invaluable  blessings  into  tne  most  im 
minent  peril.     All  the  benevolence  and  pa 
triotism  of  the  human  heart  cannot,  in  our 
opinion,  breathe  a  prayer  more  auspicious 
for  Englishmen  to  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the 
world,  than  that  they  may  enjoy  to  the  latest 
generations  the  blessings  of  that  constitution 
which  has  been  bequeathed  to  them  by  their 
forefathers.      We   desire   its  improvement, 
indeed, — we    ardently  desire   its    improve 
ment — as  a  means  of  its  preservation  ;  but, 
above  all  things,  we  desire  its  preservation. 

We  cannot  close  a  subject,  on  which  we 
are  serious  even  to  melancholy,  without  of 
fering  the  slender  but  unbiassed  tribute  of 
our  admiration  and  thanks  to  that  illustrious 
statesman. — the  friend  of  what  we  must  call 
the  better  days  of  Mr.  Burke, — whose  great 
talents  have  been  devoted  to  the  cause  of 
liberty  and  of  mankind, — who,  of  all  men, 
most  'ardently  loves,  because  he  most  tho 
roughly  understands,  the  British  constitution, 
— who  has  made  a  noble  and  memorable, 
though  unavailing,  struggle  to  preserve  us 
from  the  evils  and  dangers  of  the  present 
war, — who  is  requited  for  the  calumnies  of 
his  enemies,  the  desertion  of  his  friends,  and 
the  ingratitude  of  his  country,  by  the  appro 
bation  of  his  own  conscience,  and  by  a  well- 
grounded  expectation  of  the  gratitude  and 
reverence  of  posterity.  We  never  can  reflect 
on  the  event  of  this  great  man's  counsel 
without  calling  to  mind  that  beautiful  pas 
sage  of  Cicero,  in  which  he  deplores  the 
death  of  his  illustrious  rival  Hortensius :  "  Si 
fuit  tempus  ullum  cum  extorquere  arma  pos 
set  e  manibus  iratorum  eivium  boni  civis 
auctoritas  et  oratio,  turn  profecto  fuit,  cum 
]  patrocinium  pacis  exclusum  estaut  errore  ho- 
j  minum  aut  timore."* 

*  De  Claris  Oratoribus. 


466 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  FRANCE  IN  1815. 


To  appreciate  the  effects  of  the  French 
Revolution  on  the  people  of  France,  is  an 
undertaking  for  which  no  man  now  alive  has 
sufficient  materials,  or  sufficient  impartiality, 
even  if  he  had  sufficient  ability.  It  is  a  task 
from  which  Tacitus  and  Machiavel  would 
have  shrunk  j  and  to  which  the  little  pam 
phleteers,  who  speak  on  it  with  dogmatism, 
prove  themselves  so  unequal  by  their  pre 
sumption,  that  men  of  sense  do  not  wait  for  the 
additional  proof  which  is  always  amply  fur 
nished  by  their  performances.  The  French  Re 
volution  was  a  destruction  of  great  abuses,  ex 
ecuted  with  much  violence,  injustice,  arid  in 
humanity.  The  destruction  of  abuse  is,  in 
itself,  and  for  so  much,  a  good  :  injustice  and 
inhumanity  would  cease  to  be  vices,  if  they 
were  not  productive  of  great  mischief  to  so 
ciety.  This  is  a  most  perplexing  account  to 
balance. 

As  applied,  for  instance,  to  the  cultivators 
and  cultivation  of  France,  there  seems  no 
reason  to  doubt  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
all  travellers  and  observers,  that  agriculture 
has  advanced,  and  that  the  condition  of  the 
agricultural  population  has  been  sensibly  im 
proved.  M.  de  la  Place  calculates  agricul 
tural  produce  to  have  increased  one  fifth 
during  the  last  twenty-five  years.  M.  Cu- 
vier,  an  unprejudiced  and  dispassionate  man. 
rather  friendly  than  adverse  to  much  of  what 
the  Revolution  destroyed,  and  who,  in  his 
frequent  journeys  through' France,  surveyed 
the  country  with  the  eyes  of  a  naturalist  and 
a  politician,  bears  the  most  decisive  testi 
mony  to  the  same  general  result.  M.  de 
Candolle,  a  very  able  and  enlightened  Gene- 
vese,  who  is  Professor  of  Botany  at  Mont- 
pellier,  is  preparing  for  the  press  the  fruit  of 
several  years  devoted  to  the  survey  of  French 
cultivation,  in  which  we  are  promised  the 
detailed  proofs  of  its  progress.  The  appre 
hensions  lately  entertained  by  the  landed  in 
terest  of  England,  and  countenanced  by  no 
less  an  authority  than  that  of  Mr.  Mai  thus, 
that  France,  as  a  permanent  exporter  of  corn, 
would  supply  our  market,  and  drive  our  in 
ferior  lands  out  of  cultivation, — though  we 
consider  them  as  extremely  unreasonable, — 
must  be  allowed  to  be  of  some  weight  in 
this  question.  No  such  dread  of  the  rival- 
ship  of  French  corn-growers  was  ever  felt 
or  affected  in  this  country  in  former  times. 
Lastly,  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Birkbeck,  an 


*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxiv.  p. 
518.  These  remarks  were  written  during  the 
Hundred  Days,  the  author  having  spent  part  of 
the  preceding  winter  in  Paris.— ED. 


independent  thinker,  a  shrewd  observer, 
and  an  experienced  farmer,  though  his  jour 
ney  was  rapid,  and  though  he  perhaps  wish 
ed  to  find  benefits  resulting  from  the  Re 
volution,  must  be  allowed  to  be  of  high 
value. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  benefits 
conferred  by  the  Revolution  on  the  cultiva 
tors,  supposing  them  to  have  been  more  ques 
tionable  than  they  appear  to  have  been,  it  is 
at  all  events  obvious,  that  the  division  of  the 
confiscated  lands  among  the  peasantry  must 
have  given  that  body  an  interest  and  a  pride 
in  the  maintenance  of  the  order  or  disorder 
which  that  revolution  had  produced.  All 
confiscation  is  unjust.  The  French  confisca 
tion,  being  the  most  extensive,  is  the  most 
abominable  example  of  that  species  of  legal 
robbery.  But  we  speak  only  of  its  political 
effects  on  the  temper  of  the  peasantry.  These 
effects  are  by  no  means  confined  to  those 
who  had  become  proprietors.  The  promo 
tion  of  many  inspired  all  with  pride :  the 
whole  class  was  raised  in  self-importance  by 
the  proprietary  dignity  acquired  by  nume 
rous  individuals.  Nor  must  it  be  supposed 
that  the  apprehensions  of  such  a  rabble  of 
ignorant  owners,  who  had  acquired  their 
ownerships  by  means  of  which  their  own 
conscience  would  distrust  the  fairness,  were 
to  be  proportioned  to  the  reasonable  pro 
babilities  of  clanger.  The  alarms  of  a  mul 
titude  for  objects  very  valuable  to  them, 
are  always  extravagantly  beyond  the  degree 
of  the  risk,  especially  when  they  are  strength 
ened  by  any  sense,  however  faint  and  indis 
tinct,  of  injustice,  which,  by  the  immutable 
laws  of  human  nature,  stamps  every  posses 
sion  which  suggests  it  with  a  mark  of  inse- 
curity".  It  is  a  panic  fear  j — one  of  those  fears 
which  are  so  rapidly  spread  and  so  violently 
exaggerated  by  sympathy,  that  the  lively 
fancy  of  the  ancients  represented  them  as 
inflicted  by  a  superior  power. 

Exemption  from  manorial  rights  and  feu 
dal  services  was  not  merely,  nor  perhaps 
principally,  considered  by  the  French  far 
mers  as  a  relief  from  oppression.  They  were 
connected  with  the  exulting  recollections  of 
deliverance  from  a  yoke, — of  a  triumph  over 
superiors, — aided  even  by  the  remembrance 
of  the  licentiousness  with  which  they  had 
exercised  their  saturnalian  privileges  in  the 
first  moments  of  their  short  and  ambiguous 
liberty.  They  recollected  these  distinctions 
as  an  emancipation  of  their  caste.  The  in 
terest,  the  pride,  the  resentment,  and  the 
fear,  had  a  great  tendency  to  make  the 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  FRANCE  IN  1815. 


467 


maintenance  of  these  changes  a  point  of 
honour  among  the  whole  peasantry  of  France. 
On  this  subject,  perhaps,  they  were  likely 
to  acquire  that  jealousy  and  susceptibility 
which  the  dispersed  population  of  the  coun 
try  rarely  exhibit,  unless  when  their  religion, 
or  their  national  pride,  or  their  ancient  usa 
ges,  are  violently  attacked.  The  only  secu 
rity  for  these  objects  would  appear  to  them  to 
be  a  government  arising,  like  their  own  pro 
perty  and  privileges,  out  of  the  Revolution. 

We  are  far  from  commending  these  senti 
ments,  and  still  farther  from  confounding 
them  with  the  spirit  of  liberty.  If  the  forms 
of  a  free  constitution  could  have  been  pre 
served  under  a  counter-revolutionary  govern 
ment,  perhaps  these  hostile  dispositions  of 
the  peasants  and  new  proprietors  against 
such  a  government,  might  have  been  gradu 
ally  mitigated  and  subdued  into  being  one 
of  the  auxiliaries  of  freedom.  But,  in  the 
present  state  of  France,  there  are  unhappily 
no  elements  of  such  combinations.  There  is 
no  such  class  as  landed  gentry, — no  great 
proprietors  resident  on  their  estates, — conse 
quently  no  leaders  of  this  dispersed  popula 
tion,  to  give  them  permanent  influence  on 
the  public  counsels,  to  animate  their  general 
sluggishness,  or  to  restrain  their  occasional 
violence.  In  such  a  state  they  must,  in  ge 
neral,  be  inert ; — in  particular  matters,  which 
touch  their  own  prejudices  and  supposed  in 
terest,  unreasonable  and  irresistible.  The 
extreme  subdivision  of  landed  property  m  ight, 
under  some  circumstances,  be  favourable  to 
a  democratical  government.  Under  a  limit 
ed  monarchy  it  is  destructive  of  liberty,  be 
cause  it  annihilates  the  strongest  bulwarks 
against  the  power  of  the  crown.  Having 
no  body  of  great  proprietors,  it  delivers  the 
monarch  from  all  regular  and  constant  re 
straint,  and  from  every  apprehension  but 
that  of  an  inconstant  and  often  servile  popu 
lace.  And,  melancholy  as  the  conclusion  is, 
it  seems  too  probable  that  the  present  state 
of  property  and  prejudice  among  the  larger 
part  of  the  people  of  France,  rather  disposes 
them  towards  a  despotism  deriving  its  sole 
title  from  the  Revolution,  and  interested  in 
maintaining  the  system  of  society  which  it 
has  established,  and  armed  with  that  tyran 
nical  power  which  may  be  necessary  for  its 
maintenance. 

Observations  of  a  somewhat  similar  nature 
are  applicable  to  other  classes  of  the  French 
population.  Many  of  the  tradesmen  and 
merchants,  as  well  as  of  the  numerous  bo 
dies  of  commissaries  and  contractors  grown 
rich  by  war,  had  become  landed  proprietors. 
These  classes  in  general  had  participated 
in  the  early  movements  of  the  Revolution. 
They  had  indeed  generally  shrunk  from  its 
horrors ;  but  they  had  associated  their  pride, 
their  quiet,  almost  their  moral  character, 
with  its  success,  by  extensive  purchases  of 
confiscated  land.  These  feelings  were  not 
to  be  satisfied  by  any  assurances,  however 
solemn  and  repeated,  or  however  sincere, 
that  the  sales  of  national  property  were  to  be 


inviolable.  The  necessity  of  such  assurance 
continually  reminded  them  of  the  odiousness 
of  their  acquisitions,  and  of  the  light  in  which 
the  acquirers  were  considered  by  the  govern 
ment.  Their  property  was  to  be  spared  as 
an  evil,  incorrigible  from  its  magnitude. 
What  they  must  have  desired,  was  a  govern 
ment  from  whom  no  such  assurances  could 
have  been  necessary. 

The  middle  classes  in  cities  were  precisely 
those  who  had  been  formerly  humbled,  mor 
tified,  and  exasperated  by  the  privileges  of 
the  nobility, — for  whom  the  Revolution  was 
a  triumph  over  those  who,  in  the  daily  in 
tercourse  of  life,  treated  them  with  constant 
disdain, — and  whom  that  Revolution  raised 
to  the  vacant  place  of  these  deposed  chiefs. 
The  vanity  of  that  numerous,  intelligent,  and 
active  part  of  the  community — merchants, 
bankers,  manufacturers,  tradesmen,  lawyers, 
attorneys,  physicians,  surgeons,  artists,  ac 
tors,  men  of  letters — had  been  humbled  by 
the  monarchy,  and  had  triumphed  in  the  Re 
volution  :  they  rushed  into  the  stations  which 
the  gentry — emigrant,  beggared,  or  proscrib 
ed — could  no  longer  fill :  the  whole  govern 
ment  fell  into  their  hands. 

Buonaparte's  nobility  was  an  institution 
framed  to  secure  the  triumph  of  all  these 
vanities,  and  to  provide  against  the  possibili 
ty  of  a  second  humiliation.  It  was  a  body 
composed  of  a  Revolutionary  aristocracy, 
with  some  of  the  ancient  nobility, — either 
rewarded  for  their  services  to  the  Revolu 
tion,  by  its  highest  dignities,  or  compelled  to 
lend  lustre  to  it,  by  accepting  in  it  secondary 
ranks,  with  titles  inferior  to  their  own, — and 
with  many  lawyers,  men  of  letters,  mer 
chants,  physicians,  &c.,  who  often  receive  in 
ferior  marks  of  honour  in  England,  but  whom 
the  ancient  system  of  the  French  monarchy 
had  rigorously  excluded  from  such  distinc 
tions.  The  military  principle  predominated, 
not  only  from  the  nature  of  the  government, 
but  because  military  distinction  was  the  pur 
est  that  was  earned  during  the  Revolution. 
The  Legion  of  Honour  spread  the  same  prin 
ciple  through  the  whole  army,  which  proba 
bly  contained  six-and-thirty  thousand  out  of 
the  forty  thousand  who  composed  the  order. 
The  whole  of  these  institutions  was  an  array 
of  new  against  old  vanities, — of  that  of  the 
former  roturiers  against  that  of  the  former 
nobility.  The  new  knights  and  nobles  were 
daily  reminded  by  their  badges,  or  titles,  of 
their  interest  to  resist  the  re-establishment 
of  a  system  which  would  have  perpetuated 
their  humiliation.  The  real  operation  of 
these  causes  was  visible  during  the  short 
reign  of  Louis  XVIII.  Military  men,  indeed, 
had  the  courage  to  display  their  decorations, 
and  to  avow  their  titles :  but  most  civilians 
were  ashamed,  or  afraid,  to  use  their  new 
names  of  dignity  :  they  were  conveyed,  if  at 
all,  in  a  subdued  voice,  almost  in  a  whisper; 
they  were  considered  as  extremely  unfa 
shionable  and  vulgar.  Talleyrand  renounced 
his  title  of  Prince  of  Beneventum }  and  Mas- 
sena's  resumption  of  his  dignity  of  Prince 


468 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


was  regarded  as  an  act  of  audacity,  if  not  of 
intentional  defiance. 

From  these  middle  classes  were  chosen 
another  body,  who  were  necessarily  attached 
'to  the  Revolutionary  government, — the  im 
mense  body  of  civil  officers  who  were  placed 
in  all  the  countries  directly  or  indirectly  sub 
ject  to  France, — in  Italy,  in  Germany,  in 
Poland,  in  Holland,  in  the  Netherlands, — for 
the  purposes  of  administration  of  finance,  and 
of  late  to  enforce  the  vain  prohibition  of 
commerce  with  England.  These  were  all 
thrown  back  on  France  by  the  peace.  They 
had  no  hope  of  employment :  their  gratitude, 
their  resentment,  and  their  expectations 
bound  them  to  the  fortune  of  Napoleon. 

The  number  of  persons  in  France  interest 
ed,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  sale  of  con 
fiscated  property — by  original  purchase,  by 
some  part  in  the  successive  transfers,  by 
mortgage,  or  by  expectancy, — has  been  com 
puted  to  be  ten  millions.  This  must  be  a 
great  exaggeration :  but  one  half  of  that 
number  would  be  more  than  sufficient  to 
give  colour  to  the  general  sentiment.  Though 
the  lands  of  the  Church  and  the  Crown  were 
never  regarded  in  the  same  invidious  light 
with  those  of  private  owners,  yet  the  whole 
mass  of  confiscation  was  held  together  by  its 
Revolutionary  origin :  the  possessors  of  the 
most  odious  part  were  considered  as  the  out 
posts  and  advanced  guards  of  the  rest.  The 
purchasers  of  small  lots  were  peasants ;  those 
of  considerable  estates  were  the  better  classes 
of  the  inhabitants  of  cities.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
the  powerful  causes  which  attached  these 
last  to  the  Revolution,  it  is  certain,  that 
among  the  class  called  u  La  bonne  bourgeoisie'' 
are  to  be  found  ths  greatest  number  of  those 
who  approved  the  restoration  of  the  Bour 
bons  as  the  means  of  security  and  quiet. 
They  were  weary  of  revolution,  and  they 
dreaded  confusion  :  but  they  are  inert  and 
timid,  and  almost  as  little  qualified  to  defend 
a  throne  as  they  are  disposed  to  overthrow  it. 
Unfortunately,  their  voice,  of  great  weight 
in  the  administration  of  regular  governments. 
is  scarcely  heard  in  convulsions.  They  are 
destined  to  stoop  to  the  bold; — too  often, 
though  with  vain  sorrow  and  indignation,  to 
crouch  under  the  yoke  of  the  guilty  and  the 
desperate. 

The  populace  of  great  towns  (a  most  im 
portant  constituent  part  of  a  free  community, 
when  the  union  ofliberal  institutions,  with  a 
vigorous  authority,  provides  both  a  vent  for 
their  sentiments,  and  a  curb  on  their  vio 
lence,)  have,  throughout  the  French  Revolu 
tion,  showed  at  once  all  the  varieties  and 
excesses  of  plebeian  passions,  and  all  the  pe 
culiarities  of  the  French  nat'ional  character 
in  their  most  exaggerated  state.  The  love 
of  show,  or  of  change. — the  rage  for  liberty 
or  slavery,  for  war  or  for  peace,  soon  wearing 
itself  out  into  disgust  and  weariness, — the 
idolatrous  worship  of  demagogues,  soon  aban 
doned,  and  at  last  cruelly  persecuted, — the 
envy  of  wealth,  or  the  servile  homage  paid 
to  it,— all  these;  in  every  age,  in  everyplace. 


from  Athens  to  Paris,  have  characterised  a 
populace  not  educated  by  habits  of  reverence 
for  the  laws,  or  bound  by  ties  of  character 
and  palpable  interest  to  the  other  classes  of 
a  free  commonwealth.  When  the  Parisian 
mob  were  restrained  by  a  strong  government, 
and  compelled  to  renounce  their  democratic 
orgies,  they  became  proud  of  conquest, — 
proud  of  the  splendour  of  their  despotism. — 
proud  of  the  magnificence  of  its  exhibitions 
and  its  monuments.  Men  may  be  so  bru- 
talised  as  to  be  proud  of  their  chains.  That 
sort  of  interest  in  public  concerns,  which  the 
poor,  in  their  intervals  of  idleness,  and  es 
pecially  when  they  are  met  together,  feel 
perhaps  more  strongly  than  other  classes 
more  constantly  occupied  with  prudential 
cares,  overflowed  into  new  channels.  They 
applauded  a  general  or  a  tyrant,  as  they  had 
applauded  Robespierre,  and  worshipped  Ma 
rat.  They  applauded  the  triumphal  entry 
of  a  foreign  army  within  their  walls  as  a 
grand  show ;  and  they  huzzaed  the  victori 
ous  sovereigns,  as  they  would  have  celebra 
ted  the  triumph  of  a  French  general.  The 
return  of  the  Bourbons  was  a  novelty,  and  a 
sight,  which,  as  such,  might  amuse  them  for 
a  day ;  but  the  establishment  of  a  pacific 
and  frugal  government,  with  an  infirm  mo 
narch  and  a  gloomy  court,  without  sights  or 
donatives,  and  the  cessation  of  the  gigantic 
works  constructed  to  adorn  Paris,  were  sure 
enough  to  alienate  the  Parisian  populace. 
There  was  neither  vigour  to  overawe  them, — 
nor  brilliancy  to  intoxicate  them. — nor  foreign 
enterprise  to  divert  their  attention. 

Among  the  separate  parties  into  which 
every  people  is  divided,  the  Protestants  are 
to  be  regarded  as  a  body  of  no  small  import 
ance  in  France.  Their  numbers  were  rated 
at  between  two  and  three  millions ;  but  their 
importance  was  not  to  be  estimated  by  their 
numerical  strength.  Their  identity  of  inte 
rest, — their  habits  of  conceit, — their  com 
mon  wrongs  and  resentments, — gave  them 
far  more  strength  than  a  much  larger  number 
of  a  secure,  lazy,  and  dispirited  majority.  It 
was,  generally  speaking,  impossible  that 
French  Protestants  should  wish  well  to  the 
family  of  Louis  XIV.,  peculiarly  supported 
as  it  was  by  the  Catholic  party.  The  lenity 
with  which  they  had  long  been  treated,  was 
ascribed  more  to  the  liberality  of  the  age 
than  that  of  the  Government.  Till  the  year 
1788,  even  their  marriages  and  their  inheri 
tances  had  depended  more  upon  the  conni 
vance  of  the  tribunals,  than  upon  the  sanc 
tion  of  the  law.  The  petty  vexations,  and 
ineffectual  persecution  of  systematic  exclu 
sion  from  public  offices,  and  the  consequent 
degradation  of  their  body  in  public  opinion, 
long  survived  trie  detestable  but  effectual 
persecution  which  had  been  carried  on  by 
missionary  dragoons,  and  wrhich  had  benevo 
lently  left  them  the  choice  to  be  hypocrites, 
or  exiles,  or  galley-slaves.  The  Revolution 
first  gave  them  a  secure  and  effective  equali 
ty  with  the  Catholics,  and  a  real  admission 
into  civil  office.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  they 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  FRANCE  IN  1815. 


469 


may  have  sometimes  exulted  over  the  suffer 
ings  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  thereby 
contracted  some  part  of  the  depravity  of  their 
ancient  persecutors.  But  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  they  were  generally  attached  to  the  Re 
volution,  and  to  governments  founded  on  it. 

The  same  observations  may  be  applied, 
without  repetition,  to  other  sects  of  Dissi 
dents.  Of  all  the  lessons  of  history,  there  is 
none  more  evident  in  itself,  and  more  uni 
formly  neglected  by  governments,  than  that 
persecutions,  disabilities,  exclusions,  —  all 
systematic  wrong  to  great  bodies  of  citizens, 
— are  sooner  or  later  punished ;  though  the 
punishment  often  falls  on  individuals,  who  are 
not  only  innocent,  but  who  may  have  had 
the  merit  of  labouring  to  repair  the  wrong. 

The  voluntary  associations  which  have  led 
or  influenced  the  people  during  the  Revolu 
tion,  are  a  very  material  object  in  a  review 
like  the  present.  The  very  numerous  body 
who,  as  Jacobins  or  Terrorists,  had  partici 
pated  in  the  atrocities  of  1793  and  1794,  had, 
in  the  exercise  of  tyranny,  sufficiently  un 
learned  the  crude  notions  of  liberty  with 
which  they  had  set  out.  But  they  all  re 
quired  a  government  established  on  Revolu 
tionary  foundations.  They  all  took  refuge 
under  Buonaparte's  authority.  The  more 
base  accepted  clandestine  pensions  or  insig 
nificant  places :  Barrere  wrote  slavish  para 
graphs  at  Paris;  Tallien  was  provided  for  by 
an  obscure  or  a  nominal  consulship  in  Spain. 
Fouche,  who  conducted  this  part  of  the  sys 
tem,  thought  the  removal  of  an  active  Jaco 
bin  to  a  province  cheaply  purchased  by  five 
hundred  a  year.  Fouche  himself,  one  of  the 
most  atrocious  of  the  Terrorists,  had  been 
gradually  formed  into  a  good  administrator 
under  a  civilized  despotism, — regardless  in 
deed  of  forms,  but  paying  considerable  re 
spect  to  the  substance,  and  especially  to  the 
appearance  of  justice, — never  shrinking  from 
what  was  necessary  to  crush  a  formidable 
enemy,  but  carefully  avoiding  wanton  cru 
elty  and  unnecessary  evil.  His  administra 
tion,  during  the  earlier  and  better  part  of  Na 
poleon's  government,  had  so  much  repaired 
the  faults  of  his  former  life,  that  the  appoint 
ment  of  Savary  to  the  police  was  one  of  the 
most  alarming  acts  of  the  internal  policy 
during  the  violent  period  which  followed  the 
invasion  of  Spain. 

At  the  head  of  this  sort  of  persons,  not 
indeed  in  guilt,  but  in  the  conspicuous  nature 
of  the  act  in  which  they  had  participated, 
were  the  Regicides.  The  execution  of  Louis 
XVI.  being  both  unjust  and  illegal,  was  un 
questionably  an  atrocious  murder :  but  it 
would  argue  great  bigotry  and  ignorance  of 
human  nature,  riot  to  be  aware,  that  many 
who  took  a  share  in  it  must  have  viewed  it 
in  a  directly  opposite  light.  Mr.  Hume  him 
self,  with  all  his  passion  for  monarchy,  ad 
mits  that  Cromwell  probably  considered  his 
share  in  the  death  of  Charles  I.  as  one  of 
his  most  distinguished  merits.  Some  of 
those  who  voted  for  the  death  of  Louis  XVI. 
have  proved  that  they  acted  only  from  erro 


neous  judgment,  by  the  decisive  evidence 
of  a  virtuous  life.  One  of  them  perished  in 
Guiana,  the  victim  of  an  attempt  to  restore 
the  Royal  Family.  But  though  among  the 
hundreds  who  voted  for  the  death  of  that 
unfortunate  Prince,  there  might  be  seen 
every  shade  of  morality  from  the  blackest 
depravity  to  the  very  confines  of  purity — at 
least  in  sentiment,  it  was  impossible  that  any 
of  them  could  be  contemplated  without  hor 
ror  by  the  brothers  and  daughter  of  the  mur 
dered  Monarch.  Nor  would  it  be  less  vain 
to  expect  that  the  objects  of  this  hatred 
should  fail  to  support  those  Revolutionary 
authorities,  which  secured  them  from  punish 
ment, — which  covered  them  from  contempt 
by  station  and  opulence. — and  which  com 
pelled  the  monarchs  of  Europe  to  receive 
them  into  their  palaces  as  ambassadors. 
They  might  be — the  far  greater  part  of  them 
certainly  had  become — indifferent  to  liberty, 
— perhaps  partial  to  that  exercise  of  unlimit 
ed  power  to  which  they  had  been  accustom 
ed  under  what  they  called  a  "free"  govern 
ment  :  but  they  could  not  be  indifferent  in 
their  dislike  of  a  government,  under  which 
their  very  best  condition  was  that  of  par 
doned  criminals,  whose  criminality  was  the 
more  odious  on  account  of  the  sad  necessity 
which  made  it  pardoned.  All  the  Terrorists, 
and  almost  all  the  Regicides,  had  accordingly 
accepted  emoluments  and  honours  from  Na 
poleon,  and  were  eager  to  support  his  autho 
rity  as  a  Revolutionary  despotism,  strong 
enough  to  protect  them  from  general  un 
popularity,  and  to  insure  them  against  the 
vengeance  or  the  humiliating  mercy  of  a 
Bourbon  government. 

Another  party  of  Revolutionists  had  com 
mitted  great  errors  in  the  beginning,  which 
co-operated  with  the  alternate  obstinacy  and 
feebleness  of  the  Counter-revolutionists,  to 
produce  all  the  evils  which  we  feel  and  fear, 
and  which  can  only  be  excused  by  their  own 
inexperience  in  legislation,  and  by  the  pre 
valence  of  erroneous  opinions,  at  that  period, 
throughout  the  most  enlightened  part  of  Eu 
rope.  These  were  the  best  leaders  of  the  Con 
stituent  Assembly,  who  never  relinquished 
the  cause  of  liberty,  nor  disgraced  it  by  sub 
missions  to  tyranny,  or  participation  in  guilt. 

The  best  representative  of  this  small  class, 
is  M.  de  La  Fayette,  a  man  of  the  purest  ho 
nour  in  private  life,  who  has  devoted  himself 
to  the  defence  of  liberty  from  his  earliest 
youth.  He  may  have  committed  some  mis 
takes  in  opinion ;  but  his  heart  has  always 
been  worthy  of  the  friend  of  Washington 
and  of  Fox.  In  due  time  the  world  will 
see  how  victoriously  he  refutes  the  charges 
against  him  of  misconduct  towards  the  Roy 
al  Family,  when  the  palace  of  Versailles  was 
attacked  by  the  mob,  and  when  the  King 
escaped  to  Varennes.  Having  hazarded  his 
life  to  preserve  Louis  XVI.,  he  was  impri 
soned  in  various  dungeons,  by  Powers,  who 
at  the  same  time  released  Regicides.  His 
wife  fell  a  victim  to  her  conjugal  heroism. 
His  liberty  was  obtained  by  Buonaparte3  who 
2P 


470 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


paid  court  to  him  during  the  short  period  of 
apparent  liberality  and  moderation  which 
opened  his  political  career.  M.  de  La  Fay- 
ette  repaid  him,  by  faithful  counsel;  and 
when  he  saw  his  rapid  strides  towards  arbi 
trary  power,  he  terminated  all  correspond 
ence  with  him,  by  a  letter,  which  breathes 
the  calm  dignity  of  constant  and  intrepid 
virtue.  In  the  choice  of  evils,  he  considered 
the  prejudices  of  the  Court  and  the  Nobility 
as  more  capable  of  being  reconciled  with 
liberty,  than  the  power  of  an  army.  After  a 
long  absence  from  courts,  he  appeared  at  the 
levee  of  Monsieur,  on  his  entry  into  Paris ; 
and  was  received  with  a  slight, — not  justi 
fied  by  his  character,  nor  by  his  rank — more 
important  than  character  in  the  estimate  of 
palaces.  He  returned  to  his  retirement,  far 
from,  courts  or  conspiracies,  with  a  reputation 
for  purity  and  firmness,  which,  if  it  had  been 
less  rare  among  French  leaders,  would  have 
secured  the  liberty  of  that  great  nation,  and 
placed  her  fame  on  better  foundations  than 
those  of  mere  military  genius  and  success. 

This  party,  whose  principles  are  decisively 
favourable  to  a  limited  monarchy,  and  indeed 
to  the  general  outlines  of  the  institutions  of 
Great  Britain,  had  some  strength  among  the 
reasoners  of  the  capital,  but  represented  no 
interest  and  no  opinion  in  the  country  at 
large.  Whatever  popularity  they  latterly 
appeared  to  possess,  arose  but  too  probably 
from  the  momentary  concurrence,  in  opposi 
tion  to  the  Court,  of  those  who  were  really 
their  most  irreconcilable  enemies, — the  dis 
contented  Revolutionists  and  concealed  Na- 
poleonists.  During  the  late  short  pause  of 
restriction  on  the  press,  they  availed  them 
selves  of  the  half-liberty  of  publication  which 
then  existed,  to  employ  the  only  arms  in 
which  they  were  formidable, — those  of  ar 
gument  and  eloquence.  The  pamphlets  of 
M.  Benjamin  Constant  were  by  far  the  most 
distinguished  of  those  which  they  produced; 
and  he  may  be  considered  as  the  literary 
representative  of  a  party,  which  their  ene 
mies,  as  well  as  their  friends,  called  the 
"Liberal,"  who  were  hostile  to  Buonaparte 
and  to  military  power,  friendly  to  the  gene 
ral  principles  of  the  constitution  established 
by  Louis  XVIII.,  though  disapproving  some 
of  its  parts,  and  seriously  distrusting  the  spi 
rit  in  which  it  was  executed,  and  the  max 
ims  prevalent  at  Court.  M.  Constant,  who 
had  been  expelled  from  the  Tribunal,  and  in 
effect  exiled  from  France,  by  Buonaparte, 
began  an  attack  on  him  before  the  Allies 
had  crossed  the  Rhine,  and  continued  it  till 
after  his  march  from  Lyons.  He  is  unques 
tionably  the  first  political  writer  of  the  Con 
tinent,  and  apparently  the  ablest  man  in 
France.  His  first  Essay,  that,  on  Conquest, 
is  a  most  ingenious  development  of  the  prin 
ciple,  that  a  system  of  war  and  conquest, 
suitable  to  the  condition  of  barbarians,  is  so 
much  at  variance  with  the  habits  and  pur 
suits  of  civilized,  commercial,  and  luxurious 
nations,  that  it  cannot  be  long-lived  in  such 
an  age  as  ours.  If  the  position  be  limited  to 


those  rapid  and  extensive  conquests  which 
tend  towards  universal  monarchy,  and  if  the 
tendency  in  human  affairs  to  resist  them  be 
stated  only  as  of  great  force,  and  almost  sure 
within  no  long  time  of  checking  their  pro 
gress,  the  doctrine  of  M.  Constant  will  be 
generally  acknowledged  to  be  true.  With 
the  comprehensive  views,  and  the  brilliant 
poignancy  of  Montesquieu,  he  unites  some 
of  the  defects  of  that  great  writer.  Like 
him,  his  mind  is  too  systematical  for  the 
irregular  variety  of  human  affairs;  and  he 
sacrifices  too  many  of  those  exceptions  and 
limitations,  which  political  reasonings  re 
quire,  to  the  pointed  sentences  which  com 
pose  his  nervous  and  brilliant  style.  His 
answer  to  the  Abbe  Montesquieu's  foolish 
plan  of  restricting  the  press,  is  a  model  of 
polemical  politics,  uniting  English  solidity 
and  strength  with  French  urbanity.  His 
tract  on  Ministerial  Responsibility,  with  some 
errors  (though  surprisingly  fe\v)  on  English 
details,  is  an  admirable  discussion  of  one  of 
the  most  important  institutions  of  a  free  go 
vernment,  and,  though  founded  on  English 
practice,  would  convey  instruction  to  most 
of  those  who  have  best  studied  the  English 
constitution.  We  have  said  thus  much  of 
these  masterly  productions,  because  we  con 
sider  them  as  the  only  specimens  of  the 
Parisian  press,  during  its  semi-emancipa 
tion,  which  deserve  the  attention  of  political 
philosophers,  and  of  the  friends  of  true  li 
berty,  in  all  countries.  In  times  of  more 
calm,  we  should  have  thought  a  fuller  ac 
count  of  their  contents,  and  a  free  discussion 
of  their  faults,  due  to  the  eminent  abilities 
of  the  author.  At  present  we  mention  them, 
chiefly  because  they  exhibit,  pretty  fairly, 
the  opinions  of  the  liberal  party  in  that 
country. 

But,  not  to  dwell  longer  on  this  little  fra 
ternity  (who  are  too  enlightened  and  con 
scientious  to  be  of  importance  in  the  shocks 
of  faction,  and  of  whom  we  have  spoken 
more  from  esteem  for  their  character,  than 
from  an  opinion  of  their  political  influence), 
it  will  be  already  apparent  to  our  readers, 
that  many  of  the  most  numerous  and  guiding 
classes  in  the  newly-arranged  community 
of  France,  were  bound,  by  strong  ties  of  in 
terest  and  pride,  to  a  Revolutionary  govern 
ment,  ho\vever  little  they  might  be  qualified 
or  sincerely  disposed  for  a  free  constitution, 
— which  they  struggled  to  confound  with 
the  former:  that  these  dispositions  among 
the  civil  cla'sses  formed  one  great  source  of 
danger  to  the  administration  'of  the  Bour 
bons;  and  that  they  now  constitute  a  mate 
rial  part  of  the  strength  of  Napoleon.  To 
them  he  appeals  in  his  Proclamations,  when 
he  speaks  of  "  a  new  dynasty  founded  on 
the  same  bases  with  the  new  interests  and 
new  institutions  which  owe  their  rise  to  the 
Revolution."  To  them  he  appeals,  though 
more  covertly,  in  his  professions  of  zeal  for 
the  dignity  of  the  people,  and  of  hostility 
to  feudal  nobility,  and  monarchy  by  Divine 
right. 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  FRANCE  IN  1815. 


47J 


It  is  natural  to  inquire  how  the  conscrip 
tion,  and  the  prodigious  expenditure  of  human 
Jife  in  the  campaigns  of  Spain  arid  Russia, 
were  not  of  themselves  sufficient  to  make 
the  government  of  Napoleon  detested  by  the 
great  majority  of  the  French  people.  But  it 
is  a  very  melancholy  truth,  that  the  body  of 
a  people  may  be  gradually  so  habituated  to 
war,  that  their  habits  and  expectations  are 
at  least  so  adapted  to  its  demand  for  men, 
and  its  waste  of  life,  that  they  become  almost 
insensible  to  its  evils,  and  require  long  dis 
cipline  to  re-inspire  them  with  a  relish  for 
the  blessings  of  peace,  and  a  capacity  for  the 
virtues  of  industry.  The  complaint  is  least 
when  the  evil  is  greatest :  —  it  is  as  difficult 
to  teach  such  a  people  the  value  of  peace, 
as  it  would  be  to  reclaim  a  drunkard,  or  to 
subject  a  robber  to  patient  labour. 

A  conscription  is,  under  pretence  of  equa 
lity,  the  most  unequal  of  all  laws;  because 
it  assumes  that  military  service  is  equally 
easy<to  all  classes  and  ranks  of  men.  Ac 
cordingly,  it  always  produces  pecuniary  com 
mutation  in  the  sedentary  and  educated 
classes.  To  them  in  many  of  the  towns  of 
France  it  was  an  oppressive  and  grievous  tax. 
But  to  the  majority  of  the  people,  always 
accustomed  to  military  service,  the  life  of  a 
soldier  became  perhaps  more  agreeable  than 
any  other.  Families  even  considered  it  as  a 
means  of  provision  for  their  children;  each 
parent  labouring  to  persuade  himself  that  his 
children  would  be  among  those  who  should 
have  the  fortune  to  survive.  Long  and  con 
stant  wars  created  a  regular  demand  for  men, 
to  which  the  principle  of  population  adapted 
itself.  An  army  which  had  conquered  and 
plundered  Europe,  and  in  which  a  private 
soldier  might  reasonably  enough  hope  to  be 
a  marshal  or  a  prince,  had  more  allurements, 
and  riot  more  repulsive  qualities,  than  many 
of  those  odious,  disgusting,  unwholesome,  or 
perilous  occupations,  which  in  the  common 
course  of  society  are  always  amply  supplied. 
The  habit  of  war  unfortunately  perpetuates 
itself:  and  this  moral  effect  is  a  far  greater 
evil  than  the  more  destruction  of  life.  What 
ever  may  be  the  justness  of  these  specula 
tions,  certain  it  is,  that  the  travellers  who 
lately  visited  France,  neither  found  the  con 
scription  so  unpopular,  nor  the  decay  of  male 
population  so  perceptible,  as  plausible  and 
confident  statements  had  led  them  to  ex 
pect. 

It  is  probable  that  among  the  majority  of 
the  French  (excluding  the  army),  the  restored 
Bourbons  gained  less  popularity  by  abolish 
ing  the  conscription,  than  they  lost  by  the 
cession  of  all  the  conquests  of  France.  This 
fact  affords  a  most  important  warning  of  the 
tremendous  dangers  to  which  civilized  na 
tions  expose  their  character  by  long  war. 
To  say  that  liberty  cannot  survive  it,  is  say 
ing  little  :  —  liberty  is  one  of  the  luxuries 
which  only  a  few  nations  seem  destined  to 
enjoy;  —  and  they  only  for  a  short  period. 
It  is"  not  only  fatal  to  the  refinements  and 
ornaments  of  civilized  life  :  —  its  long  con 


tinuance  must  inevitably  destroy  even  that 
degree  (moderate  as  it  is)  of  order  and  secu 
rity  which  prevails  even  in  the  pure  mon 
archies  of  Europe,  and  distinguishes  them 
above  all  other  societies  ancient  or  modern. 
It  is  vain  to  inveigh  against  the  people  of 
France  for  delighting  in  war,  for  exulting  in 
conquest,  and  for  being  exasperated  and  mor 
tified  by  renouncing  those  vast  acquisitions. 
These  deplorable  consequences  arise  from 
an  excess  of  the  noblest  and  most  necessary 
principles  in  the  character  of  a  nation,  acted 
upon  by  habits  of  arms,  and  "  cursed  with 
every  granted  prayer,"  during  years  of  vic 
tory  and  conquest.  No  nation  could  endure 
such  a  trial.  Doubtless  those  nations  who 
have  the  most  liberty,  the  most  intelligence, 
the  most  virtue, — who  possess  in  the  highest 
degree  all  the  constituents  of  the  most  perfect 
civilization,  will  resist  it  the  longest.  But, 
let  us  not  deceive  ourselves, — long  war  ren 
ders  all  these  blessings  impossible:  it  dis 
solves  all  the  civil  and  pacific  virtues;  it 
leaves  no  calm  for  the  cultivation  of  reason ; 
and  by  substituting  attachment  to  leaders, 
instead  of  reverence  for  laws,  it  destroys  . 
liberty,  the  parent  of  intelligence  and  of 
virtue. 

The  French  Revolution  has  strongly  con 
firmed  the  lesson  taught  by  the  history  of  all 
ages,  that  while  political  divisions  excite  the 
activity  of  geriius;  and  teach  honour  in  en 
mity,  as  well  as  fidelity  in  attachment,  the 
excess  of  civil  confusion  and  convulsion  pro 
duces  diametrically  opposite  effects, — sub 
jects  society  to  force,  instead  of  mind, — 
renders  its  "distinctions  the  prey  of  boldness 
and  atrocity,  instead  of  being  the  prize  of 
talent,  —  and  concentrates  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  every  individual  upon  himself, — 
his  own  sufferings  and  fears.  Whatever 
beginnings  of  such  an  unhappy  state  may  be 
observed"  in  France, — whatever  tendency  it 
may  have  had  to  dispose  the  people  to  a  light 
transfer  of  allegiance,  and  an  undistinguishing 
profession  of  attachment. — it  is  more  useful 
to  consider  them  as  the  results  of  these 
general  causes,  than  as  vices  peculiar  to  that 
great  nation. 

To  this  we  must  add,  before  we  conclude 
our  cursory  survey,  that  frequent  changes  of 
government,  however  arising,  promote  a  dis 
position  to  acquiesce  in  change.  No  people 
can  long  preserve  the  enthusiasm,  which  first 
impels  them  to  take  an  active  part  in  change. 
Its  frequency  at  least  teaches  them  patiently 
to  bear  it.  They  become  indifferent  to  go 
vernments  and  sovereigns.  They  are  spec 
tators  of  revolutions,  instead  of  actors  in 
them.  They  are  a  prey  to  be  fought  for  by 
the  hardy  and  bold,  and  are  generally  dis 
posed  of  by  an  army.  In  this  state  of  things, 
revolutions  become  bloodless,  not  from  the 
humanity,  but  from  the  indifference  of  a 
people.  Perhaps  it  may  be  true,  though  it 
will  appear  paradoxical  to  many,  that  such 
revolutions,  as  those  of  England  and  Ame 
rica,  conducted  with  such  a  regard  for  mo 
deration  and  humanity,  and  even  with  such 


472 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


respect  for  established  authorities  and  insti 
tutions,  independently  of  their  necessity  for 
the  preservation  of  liberty,  may  even  have 
a  tendency  to  strengthen,  instead  of  weaken 
ing,  the  frame  of  the  commonwealth.  The 
example  of  reverence  for  justice, — of  caution 
in  touching  ancient  institutions,  —  of  not  in 


novating,  beyond  the  necessities  of  the  case, 
even  in  a  season  of  violence  and  anger,  may 
impress  on  the  minds  of  men  those  conser 
vative  principles  of  society,  more  deeply  and 
strongly,  than  the  most  uninterrupted  obser 
vation  of  them  in  the  ordinary  course  of  quiet 
and  regular  government. 


ON 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE.* 


WHAT  mode  of  representation  is  most 
likely  to  secure  the  liberty,  and  consequent 
ly  the  happiness,  of  a  community  circum 
stanced  like  the  people  of  Great  Britain? 
On  the  elementary  part  of  this  great  ques 
tion,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  remind  the  reader 
of  a  few  undisputed  truths.  The  object  of 
government,  is  security  against  wrong. — 
Most  civilized  governments,  tolerably  secure 
their  subjects  against  wrong  from  each  other. 
But  to  secure  them,  by  laws,  against  wrong 
from  the  government  itself,  is  a  problem  of 
a  far  more  difficult  sort,  which  few  nations 
have  attempted  to  solve. — and  of  which  it  is 
not  so  much  as  pretended  that,  since  the  be 
ginning  of  history,  more  than  one  or  two 
great  states  have  approached  the  solution. 
It  will  be  universally  acknowledged,  that 
this  approximation  has  never  been  affected 
by  any  other  means  than  that  of  a  legislative 
assembly,  chosen  by  some  considerable  por 
tion  of  the  people. 

The  direct  object  of  a  popular  representa 
tion  is,  that  one.  at  least,  of  the  bodies  exer 
cising  the  legislative  power  being  dependent 
on  the  people  by  election,  should  have  the 
strongest  inducement  to  guard  their  interests, 
and  to  maintain  their  rights.  For  this  pur 
pose,  it  is  not  sufficient,  that  it  should  have 
the  same  general  interests  with  the  people; 
for  every  government  has,  in  truth,  the  same 
interests  with  its  subjects.  It  is  necessary 
that  the  more  direct  and  palpable  interest, 
arising  from  election,  should  be  superadded. 
In  every  legislative  senate,  the  modes  of  ap 
pointment  ought  to  be  such  as  to  secure  the 
nomination  of  members  the  bast  qualified, 
and  the  most  disposed,  to  make  laws  condu 
cive  to  the  well-being  of  the  whole  commu 
nity.  In  a  representative  assembly  this  con 
dition,  though  absolutely  necessary,  is  not 
of  itself  sufficient. 

To  understand  the  principles  of  its  compo 
sition  thoroughly,  we  must  divide  the  people 
into  classes,  and  examine  the  variety  of  local 
and  professional  interests  of  which  the  whole 


*  From  the  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxxi.  p. 
1/4.-ED. 


j  is  composed.  Each  of  these  classes  must  be 
j  represented  by  persons  who  will  guard  its 
peculiar  interest,  whether  that  interest  arises 
from  inhabiting  the  same  district,  or  pursu- 
j  ing  the  same  occupation, — such  as  traffic,  or 
husbandry,  or  the  useful  or  Ornamental  arts. 
The  fidelity  and  zeal  of  such  representatives, 
are  to  be  secured  by  every  provision  which, 
to  a  sense  of  common  interest,  can  superadd 
a  fellow-feeling  with  their  constituents.  Nor 
is  this  all :  in  a  great  state,  even  that  part  of 
the  public  interest  which  is  common  to  all 
classes,  is  composed  of  a  great  variety  of 
branches.  A  statesman  should  indeed  have 
a  comprehensive  view  of  the  whole  :  but  no 
one  man  can  be  skilled  in  all  the  particulars. 
The  same  education,  and  the  same  pursuits, 
which  qualify  men  to  understand  and  regu 
late  some  branches,  disqualify  them  for 
others.  The  representative  assembly  must 
therefore  contain,  some  members  peculiarly 
qualified  for  discussions  of  the  constitution 
and  the  laws, — others  for  those  of  foreign 
policy, — some  for  those  of  the  respective  in 
terests  of  agriculture,  commerce,  and  manu 
factures, — some  for  those  of  military  affairs 
by  sea  and  land, — and  some  also  who  are 
conversant  with  the  colonies  and  distant  pos 
sessions  of  a  great  empire.  It  would  be  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  place  of  such 
representatives  could  be  supplied  by  wit 
nesses  examined  on  each  particular  subject. 
Both  are  not  more  than  sufficient  j — skilful 
witnesses  occasionally,  for  the  most  minute 
information, — skilful  representatives  contin- 
ally,  to  discover  and  conduct  evidence,  and 
to  enforce  and  illustrate  the  matters  belong 
ing  to  their  department  with  the  weight  of 
those  who  speak  on  a  footing  of  equality. 

It  is  obvious,  that  as  long  as  this  composi 
tion  is  insured,  it  is  for  the  present  purpose 
a  matter  of  secondary  importance  whether  it 
be  effected  by  direct  or  indirect  means.  To 
be  a  faithful  representative,  it  is  necessary 
that  such  an  assembly  should  be  numerous, 
— that  it  should  learn,  from  experience,  the 
movements  that  agitate  multitudes, —  and 
that  it  should  be  susceptible,  in  no  small  de 
gree,  of  the  action  of  those  causes  which 


ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE. 


473 


sway  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  assemblies 
of  the  people.  For  the  same  reason,  among 
others,  it  is  expedient  that  its  proceedings 
should  be  public,  and  the  reasonings  on 
which  they  are  founded,  submitted  to  the 
judgment  of  mankind .  These  democratical 
elements  are  indeed  to  be  tempered  and  re 
strained  by  such  contrivances  as  may  be 
necessary  to  maintain  the  order  and  inde 
pendence  of  deliberation:  but,  without  them, 
no  assembly,  however  elected,  can  truly 
represent  a  people. 

Among  the  objects  of  representation,  two 
may,  in  an  especial  manner,  deserve  ob 
servation: —  the  qualifications  for  making 
good  laws,  and  those  for  resisting  oppression. 

Now,  the  capacity  of  an  assembly  to  make 
good  laws,  evidently  depends  on  the  quan 
tity  of  skill  and  information  of  every  kind 
which  it  possesses.  But  it  seems  to  be  ad 
vantageous  that  it  should  contain  a  large 
proportion  of  one  body  of  a  more  neutral  and 
inactive  character, — not  indeed  to  propose 
much,  but  to  mediate  or  arbitrate  in  the  dif 
ferences  between  the  more  busy  classes, 
from  whom  important  propositions  are  to  be 
expected.  The  suggestions  of  every  man 
relating  to  his  province,  have  doubtless  a 
peculiar  value  :  but  most  men  imbibe  preju 
dices  with  their  knowledge;  and,  in  the 
struggle  of  various  classes  Tor  their  conflict 
ing  interests,  the  best  chance  for  an  a 


to  riirht  decision,  lies 


in  an  appea. 


largest  body  of  well-educated  men,  of  lei 
sure,  large  property,  temperate  character, 
and  who  are  impartial  on  more  subjects  than 
any  other  class  of  men.  An  ascendency, 
therefore,  of  landed  proprietors  must  be  con 
sidered,  on  the  whole,  as  a  beneficial  cir 
cumstance  in  a  representative  body. 

For  resistance  to  oppression,  it  is  pecu 
liarly  necessary  that  the  lower,  and.  in  some 
places,  the  lowest  classes,  should  possess  the 
right  of  suffrage.  Their  rights,  would  other 
wise  be  less  protected  than  those  of  any 
other  class;  for  some  individuals  of  every 
other  class,  would  generally  find  admittance 
into  the  legislature;  or,  at  least,  there  is  no 
other  class  which  is  not  connected  with  some 
of  its  members.  But  in  the  uneducated 
classes,  none  can  either  sit  in  a  representa 
tive  assembly,  or  be  connected  on  an  equal 
footing  with  its  members.  The  right  of  suf 
frage,  therefore,  is  the  only  means  by  which 
they  can  make  their  voice  heard  in  its  de 
liberations.  They  also  often  send  to  a  repre 
sentative  assembly,  members  whose  charac 
ter  is  an  important  element  in  its  composi 
tion, — men  of  popular  talents,  principles,  and 
feelings, — quick  in  suspecting  oppression, — 
bold  in  resisting  it, — not  thinking  favourably 
of  the  powerful, — listening,  almost  wkh  cre 
dulity  to  the  complaints  of  the  humble  and 
the  feeble, — and  impelled  by  ambition,  where 
they  are  not  prompted  by  generosity,  to  be 
the  champions  of  the  defenceless. 

In  all  political  institutions,  it  is  a  fortunate 
circumstance  when  legal  power  is  bestowed 
on  those  who  already  possess  a  natural  in- 
60 


fluence  and  ascendant  over  their  fellow-citi 
zens.  Wherever,  indeed,  the  circumstances 
of  society,  and  the  appointments  of  law,  are 
in  this  respect  completely  at  variance,  sub 
mission  can  hardly  be  maintained  without 
the  odious  and  precarious  means  of  force 
and  fear.  But  in  a  representative  assembly, 
which  exercises  directly  no  power,  and  of 
which  the  members  are  too  numerous  to  de 
rive  much  individual  consequence  from  their 
stations,  the  security  and  importance  of  the 
body,  more  than  in  any  other  case,  depend 
on  the  natural  influence  of  those  who  com- 

se  it.     In  this  respect,  talent  and   skill, 

sides  their  direct  utility,  have  a  secondary 
value  of  no  small  importance.  Together 
with  the  other  circumstances  which  com 
mand  respect  or  attachment  among  men, — 
with  popularity,  vvith  fame,  with  property, 
with  liberal  education  and  condition, — they 
form  a  body  of  strength,  which  no  law  could 
give  or  take  away.  As  far  as  an  assembly 
is  deprived  of  any  of  these  natural  princi 
ples  of  authority,  so  far  it  is  weakened  both 
for  the  purpose  of  resisting  the  usurpations 
of  government  and  of  maintaining  the  order 
of  society. 

An  elective  system  tends  also,  in  other 
material  respects,  to  secure  that  free  govern 
ment,' of  which  it  is4he  most  essential  mem 
ber.  As  it  calls  some  of  almost  every  class 
of  men  to  share  in  legislative  power,  and 
many  of  all  classes  to  exercise  the  highest 
franchises,  it  engages  the  pride,  the  honour, 
and  the  private  interest  as  well  as  the  gene 
rosity,  of  every  part  of  the  community,  in 
defence  of  the  constitution.  Every  noble 
sentiment,  every  reasonable  consideration, 
every  petty  vanity,  and  every  contemptible 
folly,  are  made  to  contribute  towards  its  se 
curity.  The  performance  of  some  of  its 
functions  becomes  part  of  the  ordinary  habits 
of  bodies  of  men  numerous  enough  to  spread 
their  feelings  over  great  part  of  a  nation. 

Popular  representation  thus,  in  various 
ways,  tends  to  make  governments  good,  and 
to  make  good  governments  secure : — these 
are  its  primary  advantages.  But  free,  that 
is  just,  governments,  tend  to  make  men  more 
intelligent,  more  honest,  more  brave,  more 
generous.  Liberty  is  the  parent  of  genius. — 
the  nurse  of  reason, — the  inspirer  of  that 
valour  which  makes  nations  secure  and 
powerful, — the  incentive  to  that  activity  and 
enterprise  to  which  they  owe  wealth  and 
splendour,  the  school  of  those  principles  of 
humanity  arid  justice  which  bestow  an  un 
speakably  greater  happiness,  than  any  of  the 
outward  advantages  of  which  they  are  the 
chief  sources,  and  the  sole  guardians. 

These  effects  of  free  government  on  the 
character  of  a  people,  may.  in  one  sense,  be 
called  indirect  and  secondary;  but  they  are 
not  the  less  to  be  considered  as  among  its 
greatest  blessings :  and  it  is  scarcely  neces 
sary  to  observe,  how  much  they  tend  to  en 
large  and  secure  the  liberty  from  which  they 
spring.  But  their  effect  will  perhaps  be 
better  shown  by  a  more  particular  view  of 
2p2 


474 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  influence  of  popular  elections  on  the 
character  of  the  different  classes  of  the  com 
munity. 

To  begin  with  the  higher  classes: — the 
English  nobility,  \vho  are  blended  with  the 
gentry  by  imperceptible  shades,  are  the  most 
opulent  and  powerful  order  of  men  in  Europe. 
They  are  comparatively  a  small  body,  who 
unite  great  legal  privileges  with  ample  pos 
sessions,  and  names  both  of  recent  renown 
and  historical  glory.  They  have  attained 
almost  all  the  objects  of  human  pursuit. 
They  are  surrounded  by  every  circumstance 
which  might  seem  likely  to  fill  them  with 
arrogance, — to  teach  them  to  scorn  their  in 
feriors,  and  which  might  naturally  be  sup 
posed  to  extinguish  enterprise,  and  to  lull 
every  power  of  the  understanding  to  sleep. 
What  has  preserved  their  character  ?  What 
makes  them  capable  of  serving  or  adorning 
their  country  as  orators  and  poets,  men  of 
letters  and  men  of  business,  in  as  great  a 
proportion  as  in  any  equal  number  of  the 
best  educated  classes  of  their  countrymen'? 
Surely  only  one  solution  can  be  given  of  these 
phenomena,  peculiar  to  our  own  country.* 
Where  all  the  ordinary  incentives  to  action 
are  withdrawn,  a  free  constitution  excites  it, 
by  presenting  political  power  as  a  new  object 
of  pursuit.  By  rendering  that  power  in  a 
great  degree  dependent  on  popular  favour,  it 
compels  the  highest  to  treat  their  fellow- 
creatures  with  decency  and  courtesy,  and 
disposes  the  best  of  them  to  feel,  that  inferiors 
in  station  may  be  superiors  in  worth,  as  they 
are  equals  in  right.  Hence  chiefly  arises 
that  useful  preference  for  country  life,  which 
distinguishes  the  English  gentry  from  that 
of  other  nations.  In  despotic  countries  they 
flock  to  the  court,  where  all  their  hopes  are 
fixed  :  but  here,  as  they  have  much  to  hope 
from  the  people,  they  must  cultivate  the 
esteem,  and  even  court  the  favour  of  their 
own  natural  dependants.  They  are  quicken 
ed  in  the  pursuit  of  ambition,  by  the  rivalship 
of  that  enterprising  talent,  which  is  stimu 
lated  by  more  urgent  motives.  These  dis 
positions  and  manners  have  become,  in  some 
measure,  independent  of  the  causes  which 
originally  produced  them,  and  extend  to 
many  on  whom  these  causes  could  have  little 
operation.  In  a  great  body,  we  must  allow 
for  every  variety  of  form  and  degree.  It  is 
sufficient  that  a  system  of  extensively  popu 
lar  representation  has,  in  a  course  of  time, 
produced  this  general  character,  and  that  the 
English  democracy  is  the  true  preservative 
oi  the  talents  and  virtues  of  the  aristocracy. 

Tho  effects  of  the  elective  franchise  upon 
the  humbler  classes,  are,  if  possible,  still 

*  To  be  quite  correct,  we  must  remind  the  rea 
der,  that  we  speak  of  the  character  of  the  whole 
body,  composed,  as  it  is,  of  a  small  number.  In 
a  body  like  the  French  noblesse,  amounting  per 
haps  to  a  hundred  thousand,  many  of  whom  were 
acted  upon  by  the  strongest  stimulants  of  neces 
sity,  and,  in  a  country  of  such  diffused  intelligence 
as  France,  it  would  have  been  a  miracle  if  many 
had  not  risen  to_  eminence  in  the  state,  and  in  let 
ters,  as  well  as  in  their  natural  profession  of  arms. 


more  obvious  and  important.  By  it  the  pea 
sant  is  taught  to  "  venerate  himself  as  a 
man" — to  employ  his  thoughts,  at  least  oc 
casionally,  upon  high  matters, — to  meditate 
on  the  same  subjects  with  the  wise  and  the 
great, — to  enlarge  his  feelings  beyond  the 
circle  of  his  narrow  concerns. — to  sympa 
thise,  however  irregularly,  with  great  bodies 
of  his  fellow-creatures,  and  sometimes  to  do 
acts  which  he  may  regard  as  contributing 
directly  to  the  welfare  of  his  country.  Much 
of  this  good  tendency  is  doubtless  counter 
acted  by  other  circumstances.  The  outward 
form  is  often  ridiculous  or  odious.  The  judg 
ments  of  the  multitude  are  never  exact,  and 
their  feelings  often  grossly  misapplied  :  but, 
after  all  possible  deductions,  great  benefits 
must  remain.  The  important  object  is.  that 
they  should  think  and  feel, — that  they  should 
contemplate  extensive  consequences  as  capa 
ble  of  arising  from  their  own  actions,  and 
thus  gradually  become  conscious  of  the  moral 
dignity  of  their  nature. 

Among  the  very  lowest  classes,  where  the 
disorders  of  elections  are  the  most  offensive, 
the  moral  importance  of  the  elective  fran 
chise  is,  in  some  respects,  the  greatest.  As 
individuals,  they  feel  themselves  of  no  con 
sequence  ; — hence,  in  part,  arises  their  love 
of  numerous  assemblies, — the  only  scenes  in 
which  the  poor  feel  their  importance.  Brought 
together  for  elections,  their  tumultuary  dis 
position,  which  is  little  else  than  a  desire  to 
display  their  short-lived  consequence,  is 
gratified  at  the  expense  of  inconsiderable 
evils.  It  is  useful  that  the  pride  of  the  high 
est  should  be  made  occasionally  to  bend 
before  them, — that  the  greatest  objects  of 
ambition  should  be  partly  at  their  disposal ; 
it  teaches  them  to  feel  that  they  also  are 
men.  It  is  to  the  exercise  of  this  franchise, 
by  some  bodies  of  our  lowest  classes,  that  we 
are  to  ascribe  that  sense  of  equality, — that 
jealousy  of  right, — that  grave  independence, 
and  calm  pride,  which  has  been  observed  by 
foreigners  as  marking  the  deportment  of  En 
glishmen. 

By  thus  laying  open  some  of  the  particular 
modes  in  which  representation  produces  its 
advantages  to  the  whole  community,  and  to 
its  separate  classes,  we  hope  that  we  have 
contributed  somewhat  to  the  right  decision 
of  the  practical  question  which  now  presents 
itself  to  our  view.  Systems  of  election  may 
be  of  very  various  kinds.  The  right  of  suf 
frage  may  be  limited,  or  universal •  it  may 
be  secretly,  or  openly  exercised ;  the  repre 
sentatives  may  be  directly,  or  indirectly, 
chosen  by  the  people ;  and  where  a  qualifi 
cation  is  necessary,  it  may  be  uniform,  or  it 
may  vary  in  different  places.  A  variety  of 
rights  of  suffrage  is  the  principle  of  the  En 
glish  representation.  In  the  reign  of  Edward 
the  First,  as  much  as  at  the  present  moment, 
the  members  for  counties  were  chosen  by 
freeholders,  and  those  for  cities  and  towns 
by  freemen,  burgage  tenants,  householders 
or  freeholders.  Now,  we  prefer  this  general 
principle  of  our  representation  to  any  uniform 


ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE. 


475 


right  of  suffrage;  though  we  think  that,  in 
the  present  state  of  things,  there  are  marry 
particulars  which,  according  to  that  principle, 
ought  to  be  amended. 

Our  reasons  for  this  preference  are  shortly 
these  :  —  every  uniform  system  which  se 
riously  differs  from  universal  suffrage,  must 
be  founded  on  such  a  qualification,  as  to  take 
away  the  elective  franchise  from  those  por 
tions  of  the  inferior  classes  who  now  enjoy 
it.  Even  the  condition  of  paying  direct  taxes 
would  disfranchise  many.  After  what  we 
have  already  said,  on  the  general  subject  of 
representation,  it  is  needless  for  us  to  add, 
that  we  should  consider  such  a  disfranchise- 
rnent  as  a  most  pernicious  mutilation  of  the 
representative  system.  It  has  already  been 
seen,  how  much,  in  our  opinion,  the  proper 
composition  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
justice  of  the  government  and  the  morality 
of  the  people,  depend  upon  the  elections 
which  would  be  thus  sacrificed. 

This  tendency  of  an  uniform  qualification 
is  visible  in  the  new  French  system.  The 
qualification  for  the  electors,  is  the  annual 
payment  of  direct  taxes  to  the  amount  of 
about  121.  When  the  wealth  of  the  two 
countries  is  compared,  it  will  be  apparent 
that,  in  this  country,  such  a  system  would 
be  thought  a  mere  aristocracy.  In  France, 
the  result  is  a  body  of  one  hundred  thousand 
electors  ;*  and  in  the  situation  and  temper  of 
the  French  nation,  such  a  scheme  of  repre 
sentation  may  be  eligible.  But  we  mention 
it  only  as  an  example,  that  every  uniform 
qualification,  which  is  not  altogether  illusory, 
must  incline  towards  independent  property, 
as  being  the  only  ground  on  which  it  can 
vest.  The  reform  of  Cromwell  had  the  same 
aristocratical  character,  though  in  a  far  less 
degree.  It  nearly  excluded  what  is  called 
the  "populace;"  and,  for  that  reason,  is 
commended  by  the  most  sagacioust  of  our 
Tory  writers.  An  uniform  qualification,  in 
short,  must  be  so  high  as  to  exclude  true 
popular  election,  or  so  low,  as  to  be  liable  to 
most  of  the  objections  which  we  shall  pre 
sently  offer  against  universal  suffrage.  It 
seems  difficult  to  conceive  how  it  could  be 
so  adjusted,  as  not  either  to  impair  the  spirit 
of  liberty,  or  to  expose  the  quiet  of  society 
to  continual  hazard. 

Our  next  objection  to  uniformity  is,  that  it 
exposes  the  difference  between  the  proprie 
tors  and  the  indigent,  in  a  way  offensive  and 
degrading  to  the  feelings  of  the  latter.  The 
difference  itself  is  indeed  real,  and  cannot  be 
removed :  but  in  our  present  system,  it  is 
disguised  under  a  great  variety  of  usages;  it 
is  far  from  uniformly  regulating  the  franchise ; 
and,  even  where  it  does,  this  invidious  dis 
tinction  is  not  held  out  in  its  naked  form.  It 
is  something,  also,  that  the  system  of  various 
rights  does  not  constantly  thrust  forward  that 
qualification  of  property  which,  in  its  undis- 

*  The  population  of  France  is  now  [1818,  ED.] 
estimated  at  twenty-nine  millions  and  a  half, 
t  Clarendon,  Hume,  &c. 


guised  state,  may  be  thought  to  teach  the 
people  too  exclusive  a  regard  for  wealth. 

This  variety,  by  giving  a  very  great  weight 
to  property  in  some  elections,  enables  us 
safely  to  allow  an  almost  unbounded  scope 
to  popular  feeling  in  others.  While  some 
have  fallen  under  the  influence  of  a  few  great 
proprietors,  others  border  on  universal  suf 
frage.  All  the  intermediate  varieties,  and 
all  their  possible  combinations,  find  their 
place.  Let  the  reader  seriously  reflect  how 
all  the  sorts  of  men,  who  are  necessary  com 
ponent  parts  of  a  good  House  of  Commons, 
could  on  any  other  scheme  find  their  way  to 
it.  We  have  already  sufficiently  animad 
verted  on  the  mischief  of  excluding  popular 
leaders.  Would  there  be  no  mischief  in  ex 
cluding  those  important  classes  of  men,  whose 
character  unfits  them  for  success  in  a  can 
vass,  or  whose  fortune  may  be  unequal  to 
the  expense  of  a  contest  ?  A  representative 
assembly,  elected  by  a  low  uniform  quali 
fication,  would  fluctuate  between  country 
gentlemen  and  demagogues: — elected  on  a 
high  qualification,  it  would  probably  exhibit 
an  unequal  contest  between  landholders  arid 
courtiers.  All  other  interests  would,  on  either 
system,  be  unprotected  :  no  other  class  would 
contribute  its  contingent  of  skill  and  know 
ledge  to  aid  the  deliberations  of  the  legisla 
ture. 

The  founders  of  new  commonwealths 
must,  we  confess,  act  upon  some  uniform 
principle.  A  builder  can  seldom  imitate, 
with  success,  all  the  fantastic  but  picturesque 
and  comfortable  irregularities,  of  an  old  man 
sion,  which  through  a  course  of  ages  has  been 
repaired,  enlarged,  and  altered,  according  to 
the  pleasure  of  various  owners.  This  is  one 
of  the  many  disadvantages  attendant  on  the 
lawgivers  of  infant  states.  Something,  per 
haps,  by  great  skill  and  caution,  they  might 
do ;  but  their  wisdom  is  most  shown,  after 
guarding  the  great  principles  of  liberty,  by 
leaving  time  to  do  the  rest. 

Though  we  are  satisfied,  by  the  above  and 
by  many  other  considerations,  that  we  ought 
not  to  exchange  our  diversified  elections  for 
any  general  qualification,  we  certainly  consi 
der  universal  suffrage  as  beyond  calculation 
more  mischievous  than  any  other  uniform 
right.  The  reasons  which  make  it  important  to 
liberty,  that  the  elective  franchise  should  be 
exercised  by  large  bodies  of  the  lower  classes, 
do  not  in  the  least  degree  require  that  it 
should  be  conferred  on  them  all.  It  is  ne 
cessary  to  their  security  from  oppression,  that 
the  wnole  class  should  have  some  represen 
tatives  :  but  as  their  interest  is  every  where 
the  same,  representatives  elected  by  one 
body  of  them  are  necessarily  the  guardians 
of  the  rights  of  all.  The  great  object  of 
representation  for  them,  is  to  be  protected 
against  violence  and  cruelty.  Sympathy  with 
suffering,  and  indignation  against  cruelty,  are 
easily  excited  in  numerous  assemblies,  and 
must  either  be  felt  or  assumed  by  all  their 
members.  Popular  elections  generally  insure 
the  return  of  some  men;  who  shrink  from  no 


476 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


appeal,  however  invidious,  on  behalf  of  the 
oppressed.  We  must  again  repeat,  that  we 
consider  such  men  as  invaluable  members 
of  a  House  of  Commons; — perhaps  their 
number  is  at  present  too  small.  What  \ve 
now  maintain  is,  that,  though  elected  by  one 
place,  they  are  in  truth  the  representatives 
of  the  same  sort  of  people  in  other  places. 
Their  number  must  be  limited,  unless  we 
are  willing  to  exclude  other  interests,  and  to 
sacrifice  other  most  important  objects  of 
representation. 

The  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise  by 
some  of  the  labouring  classes,  betters  the 
character,  raises  the  spirit,  and  enhances  the 
consequence  of  all.  An  English  farmer  or 
artisan  is  more  high-spirited  and  independent 
than  the  same  classes  in  despotic  countries; 
but  nobody  has  ever  observed  that  there  is 
in  England  a  like  difference  between  the 
husbandman  and  mechanic,  who  have  votes, 
and  who  have  not.  The  exclusion  of  the 
class  degrades  the  whole  :  but  the  admission 
of  a  part  bestows  on  the  whole  a  sense  of 
importance,  and  a  hold  on  the  estimation  of 
their  superiors.  It  must  be  admitted,  that  a 
small  infusion  of  popular  election  would  not 
produce  these  effects :  whatever  might  seem 
to  be  the  accidental  privilege  of  a  few,  would 
have  no  influence  on  the  rank  of  their  fellows. 
It  must  be  considerable,  and, — what  is  per 
haps  still  more  necessary, — it  must  be  con 
spicuous,  and  forced  on  the  attention  by  the 
circumstances  which  excite  the  feelings,  and 
strike  the  imagination  of  mankind.  The 
value  of  external  dignity  is  not  altogether 
confined  to  kings  or  senates.  The  people 
also  have  their  majesty ;  and  they  too  ought 
to  display  their  importance  in  the  exercise 
of  their  rights. 

The  question  is,  whether  all  interests  will 
be  protected,  where  the  representatives  are 
chosen  by  all  men,  or  where  they  are  elect 
ed  by  considerable  portions  only,  of  all 
classes  of  men.  This  question  will  perhaps 
be  more  clearly  answered  by  setting  out 
from  examples,  than  from  general  reason 
ings.  If  we  suppose  Ireland  to  be  an  inde 
pendent  state,  governed  by  its  former  House 
of  Commons,  it  will  at  once  be  admitted, 
that  no  shadow  of  just  government  existed, 
where  the  legislature  were  the  enemies,  in 
stead  of  being  the  protectors,  of  the  Catholics, 
who  formed  a  great  class  in  the  community. 
That  this  evil  was  most  cruelly  aggravated 
by  the  numbers  of  the  oppressed,  is  true. 
But,  will  it  be  contended,  that  such  a  go 
vernment  was  unjust,  only  because  the  Ca 
tholics  were  a  majority  ?  We  have  only  then 
to  suppose  the  case  reversed ; — that  the  Ca 
tholics  were  to  assume  the  whole  power, 
and  to  retaliate  upon  the  Protestants,  by  ex 
cluding  them  from  all  political  privilege. 
Would  this  be  a  just  or  equal  government  ? 
That  will  hardly  be  avowed.  But  what 
would  be  the  effect  of  establishing  universal 
suffrage  in  Ireland  ?  It  would  be,  to  do  that 
in  substance,  which  no  man  would  propose 
in  form.  The  Catholics,  forming  four-fifths  of 


the  population,  would,  as  far  as  depends  on 
laws,  possess  the  whole  authority  of  the  state. 
Such  a  government,  instead  of  protecting  all 
interests,  would  be  founded  in  hostility  to 
that  which  is  the  second  interest  in  numbers, 
and  in  many  respects  the  first.  The  oppres 
sors  and  the  oppressed  would,  indeed,  change 
places; — we  should  have  Catholic  tyrants, 
and  Protestant  slaves :  but  our  only  conso 
lation  would  be,  that  the  island  would  con 
tain  more  tyrants,  and  fewer  slaves.  If  there 
be  persons  v\ho  believe  that  majorities  have 
any  power  over  the  eternal  principles  of  jus 
tice,  or  that  numbers  can  in  the  least  degree 
affect  the  difference  between  right  and 
wrong,  it  would  be  vain  for  us  to  argue 
against  those  with  whom  we  have  no  prin 
ciples  in  common.  To  all  others  it  must  be 
apparent,  that  a  representation  of  classes 
might  possibly  be  so  framed  as  to  secure 
both  interests ;  but  that  a  representation  of 
•numbers  must  enslave  the  Protestant  mi 
nority. 

That  the  majority  of  a  people  may  be  a 
tyrant  as  much  as  one  or  a  few,  is  most  ap 
parent  in  the  cases  where  a  state  is  divided, 
by  conspicuous  marks,  into  a  permanent  ma 
jority  and  minority.  Till  the  principles  of 
toleration  be  universally  felt,  as  well  as  ac 
knowledged,  religion  will  form  one  of  these 
cases.  Till  reason  and  morality  be  far  more 
widely  diffused  than  they  are,  the  outward 
distinctions  of  colour  and  feature  will  form 
another,  more  pernicious,  and  less  capable 
of  remedy.  Does  any  man  doubt,  that  the 
establishment  of  universal  suffrage,  among 
emancipated  slaves,  would  be  only  another 
word  for  the  oppression,  if  not  the  destruc 
tion,  of  their  former  masters  ?  But  is  slavery 
itself  really  more  unjust,  where  the  slaves 
are  a  majority,  than  where  they  are  a  mi 
nority  ?  or  may  it  not  be  said,  on  the  con 
trary,  that  to  hold  men  in  slavery  is  most 
inexcusable,  where  society  is  not  built  on 
that  unfortunate  foundation, — where  the  sup 
posed  loss  of  the  labour  would  be  an  incon 
siderable  evil,  and  no  danger  could  be  pre 
tended  from  their  manumission?  Is  it  not 
apparent,  that  the  lower  the  right  of  suffrage 
descends  in  a  country,  where  the  whites  are 
the  majority,  the  more  cruel  would  be  the  op-' 
pression  of  the  enslaved  minority  ?  An  aris- 
tocratical  legislature  might  consider,  with 
some  impartiality,  the  disputes  of  the  free 
and  of  the  servile  labourers;  but  a  body,  in 
fluenced  chiefly  by  the  first  of  these  rival 
classes,  must  be  the  oppressors  of  the  latter. 

These,  it  may  be  said,  are  extreme  cases; 
— they  are  selected  for  that  reason  :  but  the 
principle  which  they  strikingly  illustrate, 
will,  on  a  very  little  reflection,  be  found  ap 
plicable  in  some  degree  to  all  communities 
of  men. 

The  labouring  classes  are  in  every  country 
a  perpetual  majority.  The  diffusion  of  edu 
cation  will  doubtless  raise  their  minds,  and 
throw  open  prizes  for  the  ambition  of  a  few 
which  will  spread  both  activity  and  content 
among  the  rest :  but  in  the  present  state  of 


ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE. 


477 


the  population  and  territory  of  European 
countries,  the  majority  of  men  must  earn 
their  subsistence  by  daily  labour.  Notwith 
standing  local  differences,  persons  in  this  situ 
ation  have  a  general  resemblance  of  charac 
ter,  and  sameness  of  interest.  Their  interest, 
or  what  they  think  their  interest,  may  be  at 
variance  with  the  real  or  supposed  interests 
of  the  higher  orders.  If  they  are  considered 
as  forming;  in  this  respect,  one  class  of  so 
ciety,  a  share  in  the  representation  may  be 
allotted  to  them,  sufficient  to  protect  their 
interest,  compatibly  with  the  equal  protec 
tion  of  the  interests  of  all  other  classes,  and 
regulated  by  a  due  regard  to  all  the  qualities 
\vhich  are  required  in  a  well-composed  le 
gislative  assembly.  But  if  representation  be 
proportioned  to  numbers  alone,  every  other 
interest  in  society  is  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  the  multitude.  No  other  class  can  be 
effectually  represented  :  no  other  class  can 
have  a  political  security  for  justice  ;  no  other 
can  have  any  weight  in  the  deliberations  of 
the  legislature.  No  talents,  no  attainments, 
but  such  as  recommend  men  to  the  favour 
of  the  multitude,  can  have  any  admission 
into  it.  A  representation  so  constituted, 
would  produce  the  same  practical  effects, 
as  if  every  man  whose  income  was  above  a 
certain  amount,  were  excluded  from  the 
right  of  voting.  It  is  of  little  moment  to  the 
proprietors,  whether  they  be  disfranchised, 
or  doomed,  in  every  election,  to  form  a  hope 
less  minority. 

Nor  is  this  all.  A  representation,  founded 
on  numbers  only,  would  be  productive  of 
gross  inequality  in  that  very  class  to  which 
all  others  are  sacrificed.  The  difference  be 
tween  the  people  of  the  country  and  those 
of  towns,  is  attended  with  consequences 
which  no  contrivance  of  law  can  obviate. 
Towns  are  the  nursery  of  political  feeling. 
The  frequency  of  meeting,  the  warmth  of 
discussion,  the  variety  of  pursuit,  the  rival- 
ship  of  interest,  the  opportunities  of  informa 
tion,  even  the  fluctuations  and  extremes  of 
fortune,  direct  the  minds  of  their  inhabitants 
to  public  concerns,  and  render  them  the 
seats  of  republican  governments,  or  the  pre 
servers  of  liberty  in  monarchies.  But  if  this 
difference  be  considerable  among  educated 
men,  it  seems  immeasurable  when  we  con 
template  its  effects  on  the  more  numerous 
classes.  Among  them,  no  strong  public  senti 
ment  can  be  kept  up  without'numerous  meet 
ings.  It  is  chiefly  when  they  are  animated 
by  a  view  of  their  own  strength  and  numbers. 
— when  they  are  stimulated  by  an  eloquence 
suited  to  their  character. — and  when  the  pas 
sions  of  each  are  strengthened  by  the  like 
emotions  of  the  multitude  which  surround 
him.  that  the  thoughts  of  such  men  are  direct 
ed  to  subjects  so  far  from  their  common  call 
ings  as  the  concerns  of  the  commonwealth. 
All  these  aids  are  necessarily  wanting  to  the 
dispersed  inhabitants  of  the  country,  whose 
frequent  meetings  are  rendered  impossible 
by  distance  and  poverty, — who  have  few 
opportunities  of  being  excited  by  discussion 


or  declamation,  and  very  imperfect  means 
of  correspondence  or  concert  with  those  at 
a  distance.  An  agricultural  people  is  gene 
rally  submissive  to  the  laws,  and  observant 
of  the  ordinary  duties  of  life,  but  stationary 
and  stagnant,  without  the  enterprise  which 
is  the  source  of  improvement,  and  the  public 
spirit  which  preserves  liberty.  If  the  whole 
political  power  of  the  state,  therefore,  were 
thrown  into  the  hands  of  the  lowest  classes, 
it  would  be  really  exercised  only  by  the 
towns.  About  two-elevenths  of  the  people 
of  England  inhabit  towns  which  have  a 
population  of  ten  thousand  souls  or  upwards. 
A  body  so  large,  strengthened  by  union,  dis 
cipline,  and  spirit,  would  without  difficulty 
domineer  over  the  lifeless  and  scattered 
peasants.  In  towns,  the  lower  part  of  the 
middle  classes  are  sometimes  tame;  while 
the  lowest  class  are  always  susceptible  of 
animation.  But  the  small  freeholders,  and 
considerable  farmers,  acquire  an  indepen 
dence  from  their  position,  which  makes  them 
very  capable  of  public  spirit.  While  the 
classes  below  them  are  incapable  of  being 
permanently  rendered  active  elements  in  any 
political  combination,  the  dead  weight  of 
their  formal  suffrages  would  only  oppress 
the  independent  votes  of  their  superiors. 
All  active  talent  would,  in  such  a  case,  fly 
to  the  towns,  where  alone  its  power  could 
be  felt.  The  choice  of  the  country  would 
be  dictated  by  the  cry  of  the  towns,  where- 
ever  it  was  thought  worth  while  to  take  it 
from  the  quiet  influence  of  the  resident  pro 
prietors.  Perhaps  the  only  contrivance,  which 
can  in  any  considerable  degree  remedy  the 
political  inferiority  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  to  those  of  towns,  has  been  adopted 
in  the  English  constitution,  which,  while  it 
secures  an  ascendant  of  landholders  in  the 
legislature,  places  the  disposal  of  its  most 
honoured  and  envied  seats  in  the  hands  of 
the  lowest  classes  among  the  agricultural 
population,  who  are  capable  of  employing 
the  right  of  suffrage  with  spirit  and  effect. 

They  who  think  representation  chiefly 
valuable,  because  whole  nations  cannot  meet 
to  deliberate  in  one  place,  have  formed  a 
very  low  notion  of  this  great  improvement. 
It  is  not  a  contrivance  for  conveniently  col 
lecting  or  blindly  executing  all  the  pernicious 
and  unjust  resolutions  of  ignorant  multitudes. 
To  correct  the  faults  of  democratical  govern 
ment,  is  a  still  more  important  object  of 
representation,  than  to  extend  the  sphere  to 
which  that  government  may  be  applied.  It 
balances  the  power  of  the  multitude  by  the 
influence  of  other  classes :  it  substitutes 
skilful  lawgivers  for  those  who  are  utterly 
incapable  of  any  legislative  function;  and 
it  continues  the  trust  long  enough  to  guard 
the  legislature  from  the  temporary  delusions 
of  the  people.  By  a  system  of  universal 
suffrage  and  annual  elections,  all  these  tem 
peraments  wTould  be  destroyed.  The  effect 
of  a  crowded  population,  in  increasing  the 
intensity  and  activity  of  the  political  pas 
sions,  is  extremely  accelerated  in  cities  of 


478 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  first  class.  The  population  of  London 
and  its  environs  is  nearly  equal  to  that  of  all 
other  towns  in  England  of  or  above  ten  thou 
sand  souls.  According  to  the  principle  of 
universal  suffrage,  it  would  contain  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  electors;  and 
send  fifty-five  members  to  Parliament.  T^iis 
electoral  army  would  be  occupied  for  the 
whole  year  in  election  or  canvass,  or  in  the 
endless  animosities  in  which  both  would  be 
fertile.  A  hundred  candidates  for  their  suf 
frages  would  be  daily  employed  in  inflaming 
their  passions.  No  time  for  deliberation, — 
no  interval  of  repose  in  which  inflamed  pas 
sions  might  subside,  could  exist.  The  repre 
sentatives  would  naturally  be  the  most  da 
ring.  and;  for  their  purposes,  the  ablest  of 
their  body.  They  must  lead  or  overawe 
the  legislature.  Every  transient  delusion,  or 
momentary  phrensy  of  which  a  multitude 
is  susceptible,  must  rush  with  unresisted 
violence  into  the  representative  body.  Such 
a  representation  would  differ  in  no  beneficial 
respect  from  the  wildest  democracy.  It 
would  be  a  democracy  clothed  in  a  specious 
disguise,  and  armed  with  more  effective  in 
struments  of  oppression. — but  not  wiser  or 
more  just  than  the  democracies  of  old,  which 
Hobbes  called  "an  aristocracy  of  orators, 
sometimes  interrupted  by  the  monarchy  of  a 
single  orator." 

It  may  be  said  that  such  reasonings  sup 
pose  the  absence  of  those  moral  restraints 
of  property  and  opinion  which  would  temper 
the  exercise  of  this,  as  well  as  of  every  other 
kind  of  suffrage.  Landholders  would  still 
influence  their  tenants,  —  farmers  their  la 
bourers, — artisans  and  manufacturers  those 
•whom  they  employ; — property  would  still 
retain  its  power  over  those  who  depend  on 
the  proprietor.  To  this  statement  we  in 
some  respects  accede ;  and  on  it  we  build 
our  last  and  most  conclusive  argument  against 
universal  suffrage. 

It  is  true,  that  in  very  quiet  times,  a  multi 
plication  of  dependent  voters  would  only 
augment  the  influence  of  wealth.  If  votes 
were  bestowed  on  every  private  soldier,  the 
effect  would  be  only  to  give  a  thousand  votes 
to  the  commanding  officer  who  marched  his 
battalion  to  the  poll.  Whenever  the  people 
felt  little  interest  in  public  affairs,  the  same 
power  would  be  exercised  by  every  master 
through  his  dependants.  The  traders  who 
employ  many  labourers  in  great  cities  would 
possess  the  highest  power ;  the  great  consu 
mers  and  landholders  would  engross  the  re 
mainder;  the  rest  of  the  people  would  be 
insignificant.  As  the  multitude  is  composed 
of  those  individuals  who  are  most  incapable 
of  fixed  opinions,  and  as  they  are,  in  their 
collective  capacity,  peculiarly  alive  to  pre 
sent  impulse,  there  is  no  vice  to  which  they 
are  so  liable  as  inconstancy.  Their  passions 
are  quickly  worn  out  by  their  own  violence. 
They  become  weary  of  the  excesses  into 
which  they  have  been  plunged.  Lassitude 
and  indifference  succeed  to  their  fury,  and 
are  proportioned  to  its  violence.  They  aban 


don  public  affairs  to  any  hand  disposed  to 
guide  them.  They  give  up  their  favourite 
measures  to  reprobation,  and  their  darling 
leaders  to  destruction.  Their  acclamations 
are  often  as  loud  around  the  scaffold  of  the 
demagogue,  as  around  his  triumphal  car. 

Under  the  elective  system,  against  which 
we  now  argue,  the  opposite  evils  of  too  much 
strengthening  wealth,  and  too  much  subject 
ing  property  to  the  multitude,  are  likely,  by 
turns,  to  prevail.  In  either  case,  in  may  be 
observed  that  the  potver  of  the  middle  classes 
would  be  annihilated.  Society,  on  such  a 
system,  would  exhibit  a  series  of  alternate 
fits  of  phrensy  and  lethargy.  When  the 
people  were  naturally  disposed  to  violence, 
the  mode  of  election  would  inflame  it  to  mad 
ness.  When  they  were  too  much  inclined 
of  themselves  to  listlessness  and  apathy,  it 
would  lull  them  to  sleep.  In  these,  as  in  every 
other  respect,  it  is  the  reverse  of  a  wisely  con 
stituted  representation,  which  is  a  restraint  on 
the  people  in  times  of  heat,  and  a  stimulant 
to  their  sluggishness  when  they  would  other 
wise  fall  into  torpor.  This  even  and  steady 
interest  in  public  concerns,  is  impossible  in 
a  scheme  which,  in  every  case,  would  aggra 
vate  the  predominant  excess. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten,  that  the  whole 
proprietary  body  must  be  in  a  state  of  per 
manent  conspiracy  against  an  extreme  de 
mocracy.  They  are  the  natural  enemies  of 
a  constitution,  which  grants  them  no  power 
and  no  safety.  Though  property  is  often 
borne  down  by  the  torrent  of  popular  tyranny, 
yet  it  has  man)*  chances  of  prevailing  at 
last.  Proprietors  have  steadiness,  vigilance, 
concert,  secrecy,  and,  if  need  be,  dissimula 
tion.  They  yield  to  the  storm  :  they  regain 
their  natural  ascendant  in  the  calm.  Not 
content  with  persuading  the  people  to  sub 
mit  to  salutary  restraints,  they  usually  betray 
them,  by  insensible  degrees,  into  absolute 
submission. 

If  the  commonwealth  does  not  take  this 
road  to  slavery,  there  are  many  paths  that 
lead  to  that  state  of  perdition.  "A  dema 
gogue  seizes  on  that  despotic  power  for  him 
self,  which  he  for  a  long  time  has  exercised 
in  the  name  of  his  faction ; — a  victorious  gene 
ral  leads  his  army  to  enslave  their  country : 
and  both  these  candidates  for  tyranny  too 
often  find  auxiliaries  in  those  classes  of  so 
ciety  which  are  at  length  brought  to  regard 
absolute  monarchy  as  an  asylum.  Thus, 
wherever  property  is  not  allowed  great 
weight  in  a  free  state,  it  will  destroy  liberty. 
The  history  of  popular  clamour,  even  in  Eng 
land,  is  enough  to  show  that  it  is  easy  some 
times  to  work  the  populace  into  "a  sedition 
for  slavery." 

These  obvious  consequences  have  dis 
posed  most  advocates  of  universal  suffrage 
to  propose  its  combination  with  some  other 
ingredients,  by  which,  they  tell  us,  that  the 
poison  will  be  converted  into  a  remedy. 
The  composition  now  most  in  vogue  is  its 
union  with  the  Ballot.  Before  we  proceed 
to  the  consideration  of  that  proposal,  we  shall 


ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE. 


479 


bestow  a  few  words  on  some  other  plans 
which  have  been  adopted  or  proposed,  to 
render  uniform  popular  election  consistent 
with  public  quiet.  The  most  remarkable 
of  these  are  that  of  Mr.  Hume,  where  the 
freeholders  and  the  inhabitants  assessed  to 
the  poor,  elect  those  who  are  to  name  the 
members  of  the  Supreme  Council; — that 
lately  proposed  in  France,  where  a  popular 
body  would  propose  candidates,  from  whom 
a  small  number  of  the  most  considerable  pro 
prietors  would  select  the  representatives; — 
and  the  singular  plan  of  Mr.  Home  Tooke, 
which  proposed  to  give  the  right  of  voting 
to  all  persons  rated  to  the  land-tax  or  parish- 
rates  at  21.  2s.  per  annum,  on  condition  of 
their  paying  to  the  public  21.  2s.  at  the  time 
of  voting ;  but  providing,  that  if  the  number 
of  voters  in  any  district  fell  short  of  four 
thousand,  every  man  rated  at  201.  per  annum 
might  give  a  second  vote,  on  again  paying 
the  same  sum;  and  making  the  same  provi 
sion,  in  case  of  the  same  failure,  for  third, 
fourth,  fifth,  &c.  votes  for  every  additional 
100L  at  which  the  voter  is  rated,  till  the 
number  of  four  thousand  votes  for  the  dis 
trict  should  be  completed. 

This  plan  of  Mr.  Tooke  is  an  ingenious  stra 
tagem  for  augmenting  the  power  of  wealth, 
under  pretence  of  bestowing  the  suffrage 
almost  universally.  To  that  of  Mr.  Hume 
it  is  a  decisive  objection,  that  it  leaves  to  the 
people  only  those  subordinate  elections  which 
would  excite  no  interest  in  their  minds,  and 
would  consequently  fail  in  attaining  one  of 
the  principal  objects  of  popular  elections. 
All  schemes  for  separating  the  proposition 
of  candidates  for  public  office  from  the  choice 
of  the  officers,  become  in  practice  a  power 
of  nomination  in  the  proposers.  It  is  easy  to 
leave  no  choice  to  the  electors,  by  coupling 
the  favoured  candidates  with  none  but  such 
as  are  absolutely  ineligible.  Yet  one  reason 
able  object  is  common  to  these  projects : — 
they  all  aim  at  subjecting  elections  to  the 
joint  influence  of  property  and  popularity. 
In  none  of  them  is  overlooked  the  grand  prin 
ciple  of  equally  securing  all  orders  of  men, 
and  interesting  all  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
constitution.  It  is  possible  that  any  of  them 
might  be  in  some  measure  effectual ;  but  it 
would  be  an  act  of  mere  wantonness  in  us 
to  make  the  experiment.  By  that  variety  of 
rights  of  suffrage  which  seems  so  fantastic, 
the  English  constitution  has  provided  for  the 
union  of  the  principles  of  property  and  popu 
larity,  in  a  manner  much  more  effectual  than 
those  which  the  most  celebrated  theorists 
have  imagined.  Of  the  three,  perhaps  the 
least  unpromising  is  that  of  Mr.  Tooke,  be 
cause  it  approaches  nearest  to  the  forms  of 
public  and  truly  popular  elections. 

In  the  system  now  established  in  France, 
where  the  right  of  suffrage  is  confined  to 
those  who  pay  direct  taxes  amounting  to 
twelve  pounds  by  the  year,  the  object  is  evi 
dently  to  vest  the  whole  power  in  the  hands 
of  the  middling  classes.  The  Royalists,  who 
are  still  proprietors  of  the  greatest  estates  in 


the  kingdom,  would  have  preferred  a  greater 
extension  of  suffrage,  in  order  to  multiply 
the  votes  of  their  dependants.  But.  as  the 
subdivision  of  forfeited  estates  has  created  a 
numerous  body  of  small  land-owners,  who 
are  deeply  interested  in  maintaining  the  new 
institutions,  the  law,  which  gives  them  almost 
the  whole  elective' power,  may  on  that  ac 
count  be  approved  as  politic.  As  a  general 
regulation,  it  is  very  objectionable. 

If  we  were  compelled  to  confine  all  elec 
tive  influence  to  one  order,  we  must  indeed 
vest  it  in  the  middling  classes ;  both  because 
they  possess  the  largest  share  of  sense  and 
virtue,  and  because  they  have  the  most 
numerous  connections  of  interest  with  the 
other  parts  of  society.  It  is  right  that  they 
should  have  a  preponderating  influence,  be 
cause  they  are  likely  to  make  the  best  choice. 
But  that  is  not  the  sole  object  of  representa 
tion  ;  and,  if  it  were,  there  are  not  wanting 
circumstances  which  render  it  unfit  that  they 
should  engross  the  whole  influence.  Per 
haps  there  never  was  a  time  or  country  in 
which  the  middling  classes  were  of  a  cha 
racter  so  respectable  and  improving  as  they 
are  at  this  day  in  Great  Britain  :  but  it  un 
fortunately  happens,  that  this  sound  and  pure 
body  have  more  to  hope  from  the  favour  of 
Government  than  any  other  part  of  the  nation. 
The  higher  classes  may.  if  they  please,  be 
independent  of  its  influence ;  the  lower  are 
almost  below  its  direct  action.  On  the  mid 
dling  classes,  it  acts  with  concentrated  and 
unbroken  force.  Independent  of  that  local 
consideration,  the  virtues  of  that  excellent 
class  are  generally  of  a  circumspect  nature, 
and  apt  to  degenerate  into  timidity.  They 
have  little  of  that  political  boldness  which 
sometimes  belongs  to  commanding  fortune, 
and  often,  in  too  great  a  degree,  to  thought 
less  poverty.  They  require  encouragement 
and  guidance  from  higher  leaders ;  and  they 
need  excitement  fronTthe  numbers  and  even 
turbulence  of  their  inferiors.  The  end  of 
representation  is  not  a  medium  between 
wealth  and  numbers,  but  a  combination  of 
the  influence  of  both.  It  is  the  result  of  the 
separate  action  of  great  property,  of  delibe 
rate  opinion,  and  of  popular  spirit,  on  different 
parts  of  the' political  system. 

"That  principle  of  representation,"  said 
Mr.  Fox,  "  is  the  best  which  calls  into  ac 
tivity  the  greatest  number  of  independent 
votes,  and  excludes  those  whose  condition 
takes  from  them  the  powers  of  deliberation." 
But  even  this  principle,  true  in  general,  can 
not  be  universally  applied.  Many  who  are 
neither  independent  nor  capable  of  delibera 
tion,  are  at  present  rightly  vested  with  the 
elective  franchise, — not  because  they  are 
qualified  to  make  a  good  general  choice  of 
members, — but  because  they  indirectly  con 
tribute  to  secure  the  good  composition  and 
right  conduct  of  the  legislature. 

The  question  of  the  Ballot  remains.  On 
the  Ballot  the  advocates  of  universal  suffrage 
seem  exclusively  to  rely  for  the  defence 
of  their  schemes:  without  it,  they  appear 


480 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


tacitly  to  admit  that  universal  suffrage  would 
be  an  impracticable  and  pernicious  proposal. 
,  But  all  males  in  the  kingdom,  it  is  said, 
may  annually  vote  at  elections  with  quiet 
and  independence,  if  the  Ballot  enables  them 
to  give  their  votes  secretly.  Whether  this 
expectation  be  reasonable,  is  the  question  on 
which  the  decision  of  the  dispute  seems  now 
to  depend. 

The  first  objection  to  this  proposal  is,  that 
the  Ballot  would  not  produce  secrecy.  Even 
in  those  classes  of  men  who  are  most  ac 
customed  to  keep  their  own  secret,  the  effect 
of  the  Ballot  is  very  unequal  and  uncertain. 
The  common  case  of  clubs,  in  which  a  small 
minority  is  generally  sufficient  to  exclude  a 
candidate,  may  serve  as  an  example.  Where 
the  club  is  numerous,  the  secret  may  be 
kept,  as  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  the  few 
who  reject :  but  in  small  clubs,  where  the 
dissentients  may  amount  to  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  whole,  they  are  almost 
always  ascertained.  The  practice,  it  is  true, 
is,  in  these  cases,  still  useful  j  but  it  is  only 
because  it  is  agreed,  by  a  sort  of  tacit  con 
vention,  that  an  exclusion  by  Ballot  is  not  a 
just  cause  of  offence  :  it  prevents  quarrel, 
not  disclosure.  In  the  House  of  Commons,- 
Mr.  Bentham  allows  that  the  Ballot  does  not 
secure  secrecy  or  independent  choice.  The 
example  of  the  elections  at  the  India  House  is 
very  unfortunately  selected ;  for  every  thing 
which  a  Ballot  is  supposed  to  prevent  is  to  be 
found  in  these  elections :  public  and  private 
canvass, — the  influence  of  personal  friend 
ship,  connexion,  gratitude,  expectation, — pro 
mises  almost  universally  made  and  observed, 
— votes  generally  if  not  always  known, — as 
much  regard,  indeed,  to  public  grounds  of 
preference  as  in  most  other  bodies, — but 
scarcely  any  exclusion  of  private  motives, 
unless  it  be  the  apprehension  of  incurring  re 
sentment,  which  is  naturally  confined  within 
narrow  limits,  by  the  independent  condition 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  electors.  In  gene 
ral,  indeed,  they  refuse  the  secrecy  which 
the  legislature  seems  to  tender  to  them. 
From  kindness,  from  esteem,  from  other 
motives,  they  are  desirious  that  their  votes 
should  be  known  to  candidates  whom  they 
favour.  And  what  is  disclosed  to  friends, 
is  speedily  discovered  by  opponents. 

If  the  Ballot  should  be  thought  a  less  of 
fensive  mode  of  voting  against  an  individual 
than  the  voice,  this  slight  advantage  is  alto 
gether  confined  to  those  classes  of  society 
who  have  leisure  for  such  fantastic  refine 
ments.  But  are  any  such  influences  likely, 
or  rather  sure,  to  act  on  the  two  millions  of 
voters  who  would  be  given  to  us  by  univer 
sal  suffrage  1  Let  us  examine  them  closely. 
Will  the  country  labourer  ever  avail  himself 
of  the  proffered  means  of  secrecy  ?  To  be 
lieve  this,  we  must  suppose  that  he  performs 
the  most  important  act  of  his  life, — that 
which  most  natters  his  pride,  and  gratifies 
his  inclination, — without  speaking  of  his  in 
tention  before,  or  boasting  of  his  vote  when 
he  has  given  it.  His  life  has  no  secrets. 


The  circle  of  his  village  is  too  small  for  con 
cealment.  His  wife,  his  children,  his  fellow- 
labourers,  the  companions  of  his  recreations, 
know  all  that  he  does,  and  almost  all  that  he 
thinks.  Can  any  one  believe  that  he  would 
pass  the  evening  before,  or  the  evening  after 
the  day  of  election,  at  his  alehouse,  wrapt 
up  in  the  secrecy  of  a  Venetian  senator,  and 
concealing  a  suffrage  as  he  would  do  a  mur 
der  ?  If  his  character  disposed  him  to  se 
crecy,  would  his  situation  allow  it  ?  His 
landlord,  or  his  employer,  or  their  agents,  or 
the  leaders  of  a  party  in  the  election,  could 
never  have  any  difficulty  in  discovering  him. 
The  simple  acts  of  writing  his  vote,  of  de 
livering  it  at  the  poll,  or  sending  it  if  he  could 
not  attend,  would  betray  his  secret  in  spite 
of  the  most  complicated  Ballot  ever  contrived 
in  Venice.  In  great  towns,  the  veiy  men 
tion  of  secret  suffrage  is  ridiculous.  By  what 
contrivance  are  public  meetings  of  the  two- 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  London  electors 
to  be  prevented  ?  There  may  be  quiet  and 
secrecy  at  the  poll ;  but  this  does  not  in  the 
least  prevent  publicity  and  tumult  at  other 
meetings  occasioned  by  the  election.  A  can 
didate  will  not  forego  the  means  of  success 
which  such  meetings  afford.  The  votes  of 
those  who  attend  them  must  be  always 
known.  If  the  Council  of  Ten  were  dispersed 
among  a  Westminster  mob  while  candidates 
were  "speaking,  they  would  catch  its  spirit, 
and  betray  their  votes  by  huzzas  or  hisses. 
Candidates  and  their  partisans,  committees 
in  parishes,  agents  in  every  street  during  an 
active  canvass,  would  quickly  learn  the  se 
cret  of  almost  any  man  in  Westminster.  The 
few  who  affected  mystery  would  be  detected 
by  their  neighbours.  The  evasive  answer 
of  the  'ablest  of  such  dissemblers  to  his  fa 
voured  friend  or  party,  would  be  observably 
different,  at  least  in  tone  and  manner,  from 
that  which  he  gave  to  the  enemy.  The  zeal, 
attachment,  and  enthusiasm,  which  must 
prevail  in  such  elections,  as  long  as  they  con 
tinue  really  popular,  would  probably  bring 
all  recurrence  to  means  of  secrecy  into  dis 
credit,  and  very  speedily  into  general  disuse. 
Even  the  smaller  tradesmen,  to  whom  the 
Ballot  might  seem  desirable,  as  a  shield  from 
the  displeasure  of  their  opulent  customers, 
would  betray  the  part  they  took  in  the  elec 
tion,  by  their  ambition  to  be  leaders  in  their 
parishes.  The  formality  of  the  Ballot  might 
remain :  but  the  object  of  secrecy  is  incom 
patible  with  the  nature  of  such  elections. 

The  second  objection  is,  that  if  secrecy  of 
suffrage  could  be  really  adopted,  it  would, 
in  practice,  contract,  instead  of  extending, 
the  'elective  franchise,  by  abating,  if  not  ex 
tinguishing,  the  strongest  inducements  to  its 
exercise.  All  wise  laws  contain  in  them 
selves  effectual  means  for  their  own  execu 
tion  :  but,  where  votes  are  secret,  scarcely 
any  motive  for  voting  i-s  left  to  the  majority 
of  electors.  Tn  a  blind  eagerness  to  free  the 
franchise  from  influence,  nearly  all  the  com 
mon  motives  for  its  exercise  are  taken  away. 
The  common  elector  is  neither  to  gain  the 


ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE. 


481 


favour  of  his  superiors,  nor  the  kindness  of 
his  fellows,  nor  the  gratitude  of  the  candi 
date  for  whom  he  votes :  from  all  these,  se 
crecy  must  exclude  him.  He  is  forbidden 
to  strengthen  his  conviction, — to  kindle  his 
zeal, — to  conquer  his  fears  or  selfishness,  in 
numerous  meetings  of  those  with  whom  he 
agrees ;  for,  if  he  attends  such  meetings,  he 
must  publish  his  suffrage,  and  the  Ballot,  in 
his  case,  becomes  altogether  illusory.  Every 
blamable  motive  of  interest, — every  pardon 
able  inducement  of  personal  impartiality,  is, 
indeed,  taken  away.  But  what  is  left  in  their 
place  1  Nothing  but  a  mere  sense  of  pub 
lic  duty,  unaided  by  the  popular  discipline 
which  gives  fervour  and  vigour  to  public 
sentiments.  A  wise  lawgiver  does  not  trust 
to  a  general  sense  of  duty  in  the  most  unim 
portant  law.  If  such  a  principle  could  be 
trusted,  laws  would  be  unnecessary.  Yet 
to  this  cold  feeling,  stripped  of  all  its  natural 
and  most  powerful  aids,  would  the  system 
of  secret  suffrage  alone  trust  for  its  execu 
tion.  At  the  poll  it  is  said  to  be  sufficient, 
because  all  temptations  to  do  ill  are  sup 
posed  to  be  taken  away  :  but  the  motives  by 
which  electors  are  induced  to  go  to  a  poll, 
have  been  totally  overlooked.  The  infe 
rior  classes,  for  whom  this  whole  system  is 
contrived,  would,  in  its  practice,  be  speedily 
disfranchised.  They  would  soon  relinquish 
a  privilege  when  it  was  reduced  to  a  trouble 
some  duty.  Their  public  principles  are  often 
generous;  but  they  do  not  arise  from  secret 
meditation,  and  they  do  not  flourish  in  soli 
tude. 

Lastly,  if  secret  suffrage  were  to  be  per 
manently  practised  by  all  voters,  it  would 
deprive  election  of  all  its  popular  qualities, 
and  of  many  of  its  beneficial  effects.  The 
great  object  of  popular  elections  is,  to  in 
spire  and  strengthen  the  love  of  liberty. 
On  the  strength  of  that  sentiment  freedom 
wholly  depends,  not  only  for  its  security 
against  the  power  of  time  and  of  enemies, 
but  for  its  efficiency  and  reality  while  it  lasts. 
If  we  could  suppose  a  people  perfectly  indif 
ferent  to  political  measures,  and  without  any 
disposition  to  take  a  part  in  public  affairs, 
the  most  perfect  forms  and  institutions  of 
liberty  would  be  among  them  a  dead  let 
ter.  The  most  elaborate  machinery  would 
stand  still  for  want  of  a  moving  power.  In 
proportion  as  a  people  sinks  more  near  to  that 
slavish  apathy,  their  constitution  becomes 
so  far  vain,  and  their  best  laws  impotent. 
Institutions  are  carried  into  effect  by  men, 
and  men  are  moved  to  action  by  their  feel 
ings.  A  system  of  liberty  can  be  executed 
only  by  men  who  love  liberty.  With  the 
spirit  of  liberty,  very  unpromising  forms 
grow  into  an  excellent  government :  without 
it,  the  most  specious  cannot  last,  and  are  not 
worth  preserving.  The  institutions  of  a  free 
state  are  safest  and  most  effective,  when  nu 
merous  bodies  of  men  exercise  their  politi 
cal  rights  with  pleasure  and  pride, — conse 
quently  with  zeal  and  boldness, — when  these 
rights  are  endeared  to  them  by  tradition  and 
61 


:>y  habit,  as  well  as  by  conviction  and  feel 
ing  of  their  inestimable  value, — and  when 
the  mode  of  exercising  privileges  is  such  as 
o  excite  the  sympathy  of  all  who  view  it, 
and  to  spread  through  the  whole  society  a 
ealous  love  of  popular  right,  and  a  proneness 
o  repel  with  indignation  every  encroach 
ment  on  it. 

Popular  elections  contribute  to  these  ob- 
ects,  partly  by  the  character  of  the  majority 
of  the  electors,  and  partly  by  the  mode  in 
which  they  give  their  suffrage.  Assemblies 
of  the  people  of  great  cities,  are  indeed  very 
11  qualified  to  exercise  authority;  but  with 
out  their  occasional  use,  it  can  never  be 
strongly  curbed.  Numbers  are  nowhere  else 
o  be  collected.  On  numbers,  alone,  much 
of  their  power  depends.  In  numerous  meet- 
Ings,  every  man  catches  animation  from 
;he  feelings  of  his  neighbour,  and  gathers 
iourage  from  the  strength  of  a  multitude, 
•mch  assemblies,  and  they  alone,  with  all 
their  defects  and  errors,  have  the  privilege 
of  inspiring  many  human  beings  with  a  per 
fect,  however  transient,  disinterestedness, 
and  of  rendering  the  most  ordinary  men 
apable  of  foregoing  interest,  and  forgetting 
self,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  zeal  for  a  common 
cause.  Their  vices  are  a  corrective  of  the 
leliberating  selfishness  of  their  superiors. 
Their  bad,  as  well  as  good  qualities,  render 
them  the  portion  of  society  the  most  sus 
ceptible  of  impressions,  and  the  most  acces 
sible  to  public  feelings.  They  are  fitted  to 
produce  that  democratic  spirit  which,  tem 
pered  in  its  progress  through  the  various 
classes  of  the  community,  becomes  the  vital 
principle  of  liberty.  It  is  very  true,  that'  the 
occasional  absurdity  and  violence  of  these 
meetings,  often  alienate  men  of  timid  virtue 
from  the  cause  of  liberty.  It  is  enough  for 
the  present  purpose,  that  in  those  long  pe 
riods  to  which  political  reasonings  must  al 
ways  be  understood  to  apply,  they  contribute 
far  more  to  excite  and  to  second,  than  to 
offend  or  alarm,  the  enlightened  friends  of 
the  rights  of  the  people.  But  meetings  for 
election  are  by  far  the  safest  and  the  most 
effective  of  all  popular  assemblies.  They 
are  brought  together  by  the  constitution; 
they  have  a  legal  character:  they  display 
the  ensigns  of  public  authority:  they  assem 
ble  men  of  all  ranks  and  opinions  :  and,  in 
them,  the  people  publicly  and  conspicuously 
bestow  some  of  the  highest  prizes  pursued 
by  a  generous  ambition.  Hence  they  derive 
a  consequence,  and  give  a  sense  of  self-im 
portance,  to  their  humblest  members,  which 
would  be  vainly  sought  for  in  spontaneous 
meetings.  They  lend  a  part  of  their  own 
seriousness  and  dignity  to  other  meetings 
occasioned  by  the  election,  and  even  to  those 
which,  at  other  times  are  really,  or  even  no 
minally,  composed  of  electors. 

In  elections,  political  principles  cease  to 
be  mere  abstractions.  They  are  embodied 
in  individuals ;  and  the  cold  conviction  of  a 
truth,  or  the  languid  approbation  of  a  mea 
sure,  is  animated  by  attachment  for  leaders. 
2Q 


482 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


and  hostility  to  adversaries.  Every  political 
passion  is  warmed  in  the  contest.  Even  the 
outward  circumstances  of  the  scene  strike 
the  imagination,  and  affect  the  feelings.  The 
recital  of  them  daily  spreads  enthusiasm  over 
a  country.  The  various  fortunes  of  the  com 
bat  excite  anxiety  and  agitation  on  all  sides; 
and  an  opportunity  is  offered  of  discussing 
almost  every  political  question,  under  cir 
cumstances  in  which  the  hearts  of  bearers 
and  readers  take  part  in  the  argument :  till 
the  issue  of  a  controversy  is  regarded  by  the 
nation  with  some  degree  of  the  same  solici 
tude  as  the  event  of  a  battle.  In  this  man 
ner  is  formed  democratical  ascendency, 
•which  is  most  perfect  when  the  greatest 
numbers  of  independent  judgments  influence 
the  measures  of  government.  Reading  may, 
indeed,  increase  the  number  and  intelligence 
of  those  whose  sentiments  compose  public 
opinion ;  but  numerous  assemblies,  and  con 
sequently  popular  elections,  can  alone  gene 
rate  the  courage  and  zeal  which  form  so  large 
a  portion  of  its  power. 

With  these  effects  it  is  apparent  that  secret 
suffrage  is  absolutely  incompatible  :  they  can 
not  exist  together.  Assemblies  to  elect,  or 
assemblies  during  elections,  make  all  suffra 
ges  known.  The  publicity  and  boldness  in 
which  voters  give  their  suffrage  are  of  the 
very  essence  of  popular  elections,  and  greatly 
contribute  to  their  animating  effect.  The 
advocates  of  the  Ballot  tell  us,  indeed,  that 
it  would  destroy  canvass  and  tumult.  But 
after  the  destruction  of  the  canvass,  elections 
would  no  longer  teach  humility  to  the  great, 
nor  self-esteem  to  the  humble.  Were  the 
causes  of  tumult  destroyed,  elections  would 
no  longer  be  nurseries  of  political  zeal,  and 
instruments  for  rousing  national  spirit.  The 
friends  of  liberty  ought  rather  to  view  the 
turbulence  of  the  people  with  indulgence  and 
pardon,  as  powerfully  tending  to  exercise  and 
invigorate  their  public  spirit.  It  is  not  to  be 
extinguished,  but  to  be  rendered  safe  by 
countervailing  institutions  of  an  opposite  ten 
dency  on  other  parts  of  the  constitutional 
system. 

The  original  fallacy,  which  is  the  source 
of  all  erroneous  reasoning  in  favour  of  the 
Ballot,  is  the  assumption  that  the  value  of 
popular  elections  chiefly  depends  on  the  ex 
ercise  of  a  deliberate  judgment  by  the  elec 
tors.  The  whole  anxiety  of  its  advocates  is 
to  remove  the  causes  which  might  disturb  a 
considerate  choice.  In  order  to  obtain  such 
a  choice,  which  is  not  the  great  purpose  of 
popular  elections,  these  speculators  would 
deprive  them  of  the  power  to  excite  and  dif 
fuse  public  spirit, — the  great  and  inestima 
ble  service  which  a  due  proportion  of  such 
elections  renders  to  a  free  state.  In  order  to 
make  the  forms  of  democracy  universal,  their 
plan  would  universally  extinguish  its  spirit. 
In  a  commonwealth  where  universal  suffrage 
was  already  established,  the  Ballot  might 
perhaps  be  admissible  as  an  expedient  for 
tempering  such  an  extreme  democracy. 
Even  there,  it  might  be  objected  to,  as  one 


of  these  remedies  for  licentiousness  which 
are  likely  to  endanger  liberty  by  destroying 
all  democratic  spirit; — it  would  be  one  of 
those  dexterous  frauds  by  which  the  people 
are  often  weaned  from  the  exertion  of  their 
privileges. 

The  system  which  we  oppose  is  establish 
ed  in  the  United  States  of  America ;  and  it 
is  said  to  be  attended  with  no  mischievous 
effects.  To  this  we  answer,  that,  in  America, 
universal  suffrage  is  not  the  rule,  but  the  ex 
ception.  In  twelve  out  of  the  nineteen  states* 
which  compose  that  immense  confedernc)-, 
the  disgraceful  institution  of  slavery  deprives 
great  multitudes  not  only  of  political  fran 
chises,  but  of  the  indefeasible  rights  of  all 
mankind.  The  numbers  of  the  representa 
tives  of  the  Slave-states  in  Congress  is  pro 
portioned  to  their  population,  whether  slaves 
or  freemen; — a  provision  arising,  indeed, 
from  the  most  abominable  of  all  human  in 
stitutions,  but  recognising  the  just  principle, 
that  property  is  one  of  the  elements  of  every 
wise  representation.  In  many  states,  the 
white  complexion  is  a  necessary  qualifica 
tion  for  suffrage,  and  the  disfranchised  are 
separated  from  the  privileged  order  by  a  phy 
sical  boundary,  which  no  individual  can  ever 
pass.  In  countries  of  slavery,  where  to  be 
free  is  to  be  noble,  the  universal  distribution 
of  privilege  among  the  ruling  caste,  is  a  na 
tural  consequence  of  the  aristocratical  pride 
with  which  each  man  regards  the  dignity  of 
the  whole  order,  especially  when  they  are 
all  distinguished  from  their  slaves  by  the 
same  conspicuous  and  indelible  marks.  Yet, 
in  Virginia,  which  has  long  been  the  ruling 
state  of  the  confederacy,  even  the  citizens 
of  the  governing  class  cannot  vote  without 
the  possession  of  a  freehold  estate.  A  real 
or  personal  estate  is  required  in  New  Eng 
land, — the  ancient  seat  of  the  character  and 
spirit  of  America, — the  parent  of  those  sea 
men,  who.  with  a  courage  and  skill  worthy 
of  our  common  forefathers,  have  met  the  fol 
lowers  of  Nelson  in  war, — the  nursery  of  the 
intelligent  and  moral,  as  well  as  hardy  and 
laborious  race,  who  now  annually  colonize 
the  vast  regions  of  the  West. 

But  were  the  fact  otherwise,  America  con 
tains  few  large,  and  no  very  great  towns ; 
the  people  are  dispersed,  and  agricultural ; 
and,  perhaps,  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants 
are  either  land-owners,  or  have  that  imme 
diate  expectation  of  becoming  proprietors, 
which  produces  nearly  the  same  effect  on 
character  with  the  possession  of  property. 
Adventurers  who,  in  other  countries,  disturb 
society,  are  there  naturally  attracted  towards 
the  frontier,  where  they  pave  the  way  for  in 
dustry,  and  become  the  pioneers  of  civiliza 
tion.  There  is  no  part  of  their  people  in  the 
situation  where  democracy  is  dangerous,  or 
even  usually  powerful.  The  dispersion  of 
the  inhabitants,  and  their  distance  from  the 


*  This  was  written  in  1819.  In  1845  the  pro 
portion  is  thirteen  Slave  to  fourteen  Free  states, 
exclusive  of  Texas.— ED. 


ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  PARLIAMENTARY  SUFFRAGE. 


483 


scene  of  great  affairs,  are  perhaps  likely  ra 
ther  to  make  the  spirit  of  liberty  among  them 
languid,  than  to  rouse  it  to  excess. 

In  what  manner  the  present  elective  sys 
tem  of  America  may  act,  at  the  remote  pe 
riod  when  the  progress  of  society  shall  have 
conducted  that  country  to  the  crowded  cities 
and  unequal  fortunes  of  Europe,  no  man  will 
pretend  to  foresee,  except  those  whose  pre 
sumptuous  folly  disables  them  from  forming 
probable  conjectures  on  such  subjects.  If, 
from  the  unparalleled  situation  of  America, 
the  present  usages  should  quietly  prevail  for 
a  very  long  time,  they  may  insensibly  adapt 
themselves  to  the  gradual  changes  in  the 
national  condition,  and  at  length  be  found 
capable  of  subsisting  in  a  state  of  things  to 
which,  if  they  had  been  suddenly  introduced, 
they  would  have  proved  irreconcilably  ad 
verse.  In  the  thinly  peopled  states  of  the 
West,  universal  suffrage  itself  may  be  so  long 
exercised  without  the  possibility  of  danger, 
as  .to  create  a  national  habit  which  may  be 
strong  enough  to  render  its  exercise  safe  in 
the  midst  of  an  indigent  populace.  In  that 
long  tranquillity  it  may  languteh  into  forms, 
and  these  forms  may  soon  follow  the  spirit. 
For  a  period  far  exceeding  our  foresight,  it 
cannot  affect  the  confederacy  further  than 
the  effect  which  may  arise  from  very  popu 
lar  elections  in  a  few  of  the  larger  Western 
towns.  The  order  of  the  interior  country 
wherever  it  is  adopted,  will  be  aided  by  the 
compression  of  its  firmer  and  more  compact 
confederates.  It  is  even  possible  that  the 
extremely  popular  system  which  prevails  in 
some  American  elections,  may,  in  future 
times,  be  found  not  more  than  sufficient  to 
counterbalance  the  growing  influence  of 
wealth  in  the  South,  and  the  tendencies  to 
wards  Toryism  which  are  of  late  perceptible 
in  New  England. 

The  operation  of  different  principles  on 
elections,  in  various  parts  of  the  Continent, 
may  even  now  be  discerned.  Some  remarka 
ble  facts  have  already  appeared.  In  the 
state  of  Pennsylvania,  we  have*  a  practical 
proof  that  the  Ballot  is  not  attended  with 
secrecy.  We  also  know,t  that  committees 
composed  of  the  leaders  of  the  Federal  and 
Democratic  parties,  instruct  their  partisans 
how  they  are  to  vote  at  every  election  ;  and 
that  in  this  manner  the  leaders  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  who  now  predominate  in  their 
Caucus}:  or  committee  at  Washington,  do  in 


*  Fearon,  Travels  in  North  America,  p.  138. 
How  could  this  intelligent  writer  treat  the  absence 
of  tumult,  in  such  a  city  and  country,  as  bearing 
any  resemblance  to  the  like  circumstance  in  Eu- 
iope  ? 

t  Ibid.  p.  320. 

t  The  following  account  of  this  strange  term, 
will  show  its  probable  origin,  and  the  long-experi 
enced  efficacy  of  such  an  expedient  for  controlling 
the  Ballot : — "  About  the  year  1738,  the  father  of 
Samuel  Adams,  and  twenty  others  who  lived  in 
tlie  north  or  shipping  part  of  Boston,  used  to  meet, 
to  make  a  Caucus,  and  lay  their  plan  for  intro 
ducing  certain  persons  into  places  of  trust.  Each 
distributed  the  ballots  in  his  own  circle,  and  they 


effect  nominate  to  all  the  important  offices 
in  North  America.  Thus,  we  already  see 
combinations  formed,  and  interests  arising, 
on  which  the  future  government  of  the  con 
federacy  may  depend  more  than  on  the  forms 
of  election,  or  the  letter  of  its  present  laws. 
Those  who  condemn  the  principle  of  party, 
may  disapprove  these  associations  as  uncon 
stitutional.  To  us  who  consider  parties  as 
inseparable  from  liberty,  they  seem  remark 
able  as  examples  of  those  undesigned  and 
unforeseen  correctives  of  inconvenient  laws 
which  spring  out  of  the  circumstances  of 
society.  The  election  of  so  great  a  magis 
trate  as  the  President,  by  great  numbers  of 
electors,  scattered  over  a  vast  continent, 
without  the  power  of  concert,  or  the  means 
of  personal  knowledge,  would  naturally  pro 
duce  confusion,  if  it  were  not  tempered  by 
the  confidence  of  the  members  of  both  parties 
in  the  judgment  of  their  respective  leaders. 
The  permanence  of  these  leaders,  slowly 
raised  by  a  sort  of  insensible  election  to  the 
conduct  of  parties,  tends  to  counteract  the 
evil  of  that  system  of  periodical  removal, 
which  is  peculiarly  inconvenient  in  its  appli 
cation  to  important  executive  offices.  The 
internal  discipline  of  parties  may  be  found 
to  be  a  principle  of  subordination  of  great 
value  in  republican  institutions.  Certain  it 
is,  that  the  affairs  of  the  United  States  have 
hitherto  been  generally  administered,  in 
times  of  great  difficulty  and  under  a  succes 
sion  of  Presidents,  with  a  forbearance,  cir 
cumspection,  constancy,  and  vigour,  not  sur 
passed  by  those  commonwealths  who  have 
been  most  justly  renowned  for  the  wisdom 
of  their  councils. 

The  only  disgrace  or  danger  which  we 
perceive  impending  over  America,  arises 
from  the  execrable  institution  of  slavery, — 
the  unjust  disfranchisement  of  free  Blacks, — 
the  trading  in  slaves  carried  on  from  state 
to  state, — and  the  dissolute  and  violent  cha 
racter  of  those  adventurers,  whose  impa 
tience  for  guilty  wealth  spreads  the  horrors 
of  slavery  over  the  new  acquisitions  in  the 
South.  Let  the  lawgivers  of  that  Imperial 
Republic  deeply  consider  how  powerfully 
these  disgraceful  circumstances  tend  to 
weaken  the  love  of  liberty, — the  only  bond 
which  can  hold  together  such  vast  territo 
ries,  and  therefore  the  only  source  and 
guard  of  the  tranquillity  and  greatness  of 
America. 


generally  carried  the  election.  In  this  manner 
Mr.  S.  Adams  first  became  representative  for 
Boston.  Caucusing  means  electioneering."  — 
(Gordon,  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  p. 
216,  note.)  It  is  conjectured,  that  as  this  practice 
originated  in  the  shipping  part  of  Boston.  '  Caucus' 
was  a  corruption  of  Caulkers'  Meeting.  For  this 
information  we  are  indebted  to  Pickering's  Ameri 
can  Vocabulary  (Boston,  1816);  a  modest  and 
sensible  book,  of  which  the  principal  fault  is,  that 
the  author  ascribes  too  much  importance  to  some 
English  writers,  who  are  not  objects  of  much 
reverence  to  a  near  observer.  Mr.  Pickering's 
volume,  however,  deserves  a  place  in  English 
libraries. 


484 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


A   SPEECH 


IN 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER, 

ACCUSED  OF  A  LIBEL  ON  THE  FIRST  CONSUL  OF  FRANCE. 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  COURT  OF  KING'S  BENCH  ON  THE  21ST  OF  FEBRUARY.    1803.* 


GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  JURY, 

T.he  time  is  now  come  for  me  to  address 
you  on  behalf  of  the  unfortunate  Gentleman 
who  is  the  defendant  on  this  record. 

I  must  begin  with  observing,  that  though 
I  know  myself  too  well  to  ascribe  to  any 
thing  but  to  the  kindness  and  good-nature  of 
my  learned  friend  the  Attorney-General  t  the 
unmerited  praises  which  he  has  been  pleased 
to  bestow  on  me,  yet  I  will  venture  to  say, 
he<has  done  me  no  more  than  justice  in  sup 
posing  that  in  this  place,  and  on  this  occasion, 
where  I  exercise  the  functions  of  an  inferior 
minister  of  justice, — an  inferior  minister  in 
deed,  but  a  minister  of  justice  still, — I  am 
incapable  of  lending  myself  to  the  passions 
of  any  client,  and  that  I  will  not  make  the 
proceedings  of  this  Court  subservient  to  any 
political  purpose.  Whatever  is  respected  by 
the  laws  and  government  of  my  country, 
shall,  in  this  place,  be  respected  by  me.  In 
considering  matters  that  deeply  interest  the 
quiet,  the  safety,  and  the  liberties  of  all 
mankind,  it  is  impossible  for  me  not  to  feel 
warmly  and  strongly  j  but  I  shall  make  an 
effort  to  control  my  feelings,  however  painful 
that  effort  maybe,  and  where  I  cannot  speak 

*  The  First  Consul  had  for  some  time  previ 
ously  shown  considerable  irritability  under  the  fire 
of  the  English  journalists,  when  the  Peace  of 
Amiens,  by  permitting  a  rapprochement  with  the 
English  Ministry,  afforded  an  opening  through 
which  his  paw  could  reach  the  source  of  annoyance. 
M.  Jean  Peltier,  on  whom  it  lighted,  was  an  emi 
grant,  who  had  been  conducting  for  some  years 
various  periodical  works  in  the  Royalist  interest. 
From  one  of  these, — "  L'Ambigu" — three  arti 
cles,  which  are  alluded  to  separately  in  the  course 
of  the  speech,  were  selected  by  the  law  officers 
of  the  Crown  for  prosecution,  as  instigating  the 
assassination  of  the  First  Consul.  Nor  perhaps, 
could  such  a  conclusion  have  been  successfully 
struggled  with  by  any  advocate.  The  proceeding 
was  one  that  was  accompanied  with  much  excite 
ment  in  public  opinion,  as  was  evidenced  by  the  j 
concourse  of  persons  surrounding  the  court  on  the 
day  of  trial.  It  was  supposed  by  some  that  a  ver 
dict  of  acquittal  would  have  had  an  unfavourable 
effect  upon  the  already  feverish  state  of  the  inter 
course  between  the  two  Governments.  In  fact, 
though  found  '  guilty,'  the  Defendant  escaped 
any  sentence  through  the  recurrence  of  hostili 
ties. — ED. 

t  The  Right  Honourable  Spencer  Perceval. 
— ED. 


out  at  the  risk  of  offending  either  sincerity 
or  prudence,  I  shall  labour  to  contain  myself 
and  be  silent. 

I  cannot  but  feel,  Gentlemen,  how  much  \ 
stand  in  need  of  your  favourable  attention 
and  indulgence.  The  charge  which  I  have 
to  defend  is  surrounded  with  the  most  in 
vidious  topics  of  discussion.  But  they  are 
not  of  my  seeing.  The  case,  and  the  topics 
which  are  inseparable  from  it,  are  brought 
here  by  the  prosecutor.  Here  I  find  them, 
and  here  it  is  my  duty  to  deal  with  them,  as 
the  interests  of  Mr.  Peltier  seem  to  me  to 
require.  He,  by  his  choice  and  confidence, 
has  cast  on  me  a  very  arduous  duty,  which 
I  could  not  decline,  and  which  I  can  still  less 
betray.  He  has  a  right  to  expect  from  me  a 
faithful,  a  zealous;  and  a  fearless  defence ; 
and  this  his  just  expectation,  according  to 
the  measure  of  my  humble  abilities,  shall  be 
fulfilled.  I  have  said,  a  fearless  defence  : — 
perhaps  that  word  was  unnecessary  in  the 
place  where  I  now  stand.  Intrepidity  in  the 
discharge  of  professional  duty  is  so  common 
a  quality  at  the  English  Bar,  that  it  has, 
thank  God  !  long  ceased  to  be  a  matter  of 
boast  or  praise.  If  it  had  been  otherwise, 
Gentlemen, — if  the  Bar  could  have  been 
silenced  or  overawed  by  power,  I  may  pre 
sume  to  say,  that  an  English  jury  would  not 
this  day  have  been  met  to  administer  justice. 
Perhaps  I  need  scarce  say  that  my  defence 
shall  be  fearless,  in  a  place  where  fear  never 
entered  any  heart  but  that  of  a  criminal.  But 
you  will  pardon  me  for  having  said  so  much, 
when  you  consider  who  the  real  parties 
before  you  are. 

Gentlemen,  the  real  prosecutor  is  the  mas 
ter  of  the  greatest  empire  the  civilized  world 
ever  saw.  The  Defendant  is  a  defenceless 
proscribed  exile.  He  is  a  French  Royalist, 
who  fled  from  his  country  in  the  autumn  of 
1792,  at  the  period  of  that  memorable  and 
awful  emigration  when  all  the  proprietors 
and  magistrates  of  the  greatest  civilized 
country  of  Europe  were  driven  from  their 
homes  by  the  daggers  of  assassins ; — when 
our  shores  were  covered,  as  with  the  wreck 


of  a  great  tempest 


h  old 


men,  and  wo 


men,  and  children,  and  ministers  of  religion, 
who'ned  from  the  ferocity  of  their  country 
men  as  before  an  army  of  invading  barba- 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


485 


rians.  The  greater  part  of  these  unfortunate 
exiles, — of  those  I  mean  who  have  been 
spared  by  the  sword,  or  who  have  survived 
the  effect  of  pestilential  climates  or  broken 
hearts, — have  been  since  permitted  to  re 
visit  their  country.  Though  despoiled  of 
their  all,  they  have  eagerly  embraced  even 
the  sad  privilege  of  being  suffered  to  die  in 
their  native  land.  Even  this  miserable  in 
dulgence  was  to  be  purchased  by  compli 
ances, — by  declarations  of  allegiance  to  the 
new  government, — which  some  of  these  suf 
fering  royalists  deemed  incompatible  with 
their  conscience,  with  their  dearest  attach 
ments  and  their  most  sacred  duties.  Among 
these  last  is  Mr.  Peltier.  I  do  not  presume 
to  blame  those  who  submitted ;  and  I  trust 
you  will  not  judge  harshly  of  those  who  re 
fused.  You  will  not  think  unfavourably  of 
a  man  who  stands  before  you  as  the  volun 
tary  victim  of  his  loyalty  and  honour.  If  a 
revolution  (which  God  avert !)  were  to  drive 
us  into  exile,  and  to  cast  us  on  a  foreign 
shore,  we  should  expect,  at  least,  to  be  par 
doned  by  generous  men.  for  stubborn  loyalty, 
and  unseasonable  fidelity,  to  the  laws  and 
government  of  our  fathers. 

This  unfortunate  Gentleman  had  devoted 
a  great  part  of  his  life  to  literature.  It  was 
the  amusement  and  ornament  of  his  better 
days :  since  his  own  ruin,  and  the  desolation 
of  his  country,  he  has  been  compelled  to 
employ  it  as  a  means  of  support.  For  the 
last  ten  years  he  has  been  engaged  in  a  va 
riety  of  publications  of  considerable  import 
ance  :  but,  since  the  peace,  he  has  desisted 
from  serious  political  discussion,  and  confined 
himself  to  the  obscure  journal  which  is  now 
before  you, — the  least  calculated,  surely,  of 
any  publication  that  ever  issued  from  the 
press,  to  rouse  the  alarms  of  the  most  jeal 
ous  government, — which  will  not  be  read  in 
England,  because  it  is  not  written  in  our 
language, — which  cannot  be  read  in  France, 
because  its  entry  into  that  country  is  pro 
hibited  by  a  power  whose  mandates  are  not 
very  supinely  enforced,  nor  often  evaded 
with  impunity, — which  can  have  no  other 
object  than  that  of  amusing  the  companions 
of  the  author's  principles  and  misfortunes,  by 
pleasantries  and  sarcasms  on  their  victorious 
enemies.  There  is,  indeed,  Gentlemen,  one 
remarkable  circumstance  in  this  unfortunate 
publication:  it  is  the  only,  or  almost  the 
only,  journal,  which  still  dares  to  espouse 
the  cause  of  that  royal  and  illustrious  family, 
which  but  fourteen  years  ago  was  flattered 
by  every  press,  and  guarded  by  every  tribu 
nal,  in  Europe.  Even  the  court  in  which  we 
are  met  affords  an  example  of  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  their  fortune.  My  Learned  Friend 
has  reminded  you,  that  the  last  prosecution 
tried  in  this  place,  at  the  instance  of  a  French 
government,  was  for  a  libel  on  that  magnani 
mous  princess,  who  has  since  been  butchered 
in  sight  of  her  palace. 

I  do  not  make  these  observations  with  any 
purpose  of  questioning  the  general  principles 
which  have  been  laid  down  by  my  Learned 


Friend.  I  must  admit  his  right  to  bring  be 
fore  you  those  who  libel  any  government  re 
cognised  by  His  Majesty,  and  at  peace  with 
the  British  empire.  I  admit  that,  whether 
such  a  government  be  of  yesterday  or  a  thou 
sand  years  old, — whether  it  be  a  crude  and 
bloody  usurpation,  or  the  most  ancient,  just, 
and  paternal  authority  upon  earth, — we  are 
equally  bound  by  His  Majesty's  recognition 
to  protect  it  against  libellous  attacks.  I  ad 
mit  that  if,  during  our  Usurpation,  Lord  Cla 
rendon  had  published  his  History  at  Paris, 
or  the  Marquis  of  Montrose  his  verses  on 
the  murder  of  his  sovereign,  or  Mr.  Cowley 
his  Discourse  on  Cromwell's  Government, 
and  if  the  English  ambassador  had  com 
plained,  the  President  de  Mole,  or  any  other 
of  the  great  magistrates  who  then  adorned 
the  Parliament  of  Paris,  however  reluctant 
ly,  painfully,  and  indignantly,  might  have 
been  compelled  to  have  condemned  these  il 
lustrious  men  to  the  punishment  of  libellers. 
I  say  this  only  for  the  sake  of  bespeaking  a 
favourable  attention  from  your  generosity 
and  compassion  to  what  will  be  feebly  urged 
in  behalf  of  my  unfortunate  Client,  who  has 
sacrificed  his  fortune,  his  hopes,  his  connec 
tions,  and  his  country,  to  his  conscience, — 
who  seems  marked  out  for  destruction  in  this 
his  last  asylum. 

That  he  still  enjoys  the  security  of  this 
asylum, — that  he  has  not  been  sacrificed  to 
the  resentment  of  his  powerful  enemies,  is 
perhaps  owing  to  the  firmness  of  the  King's 
Government.  If  that  be  the  fact,  Gentle 
men, — if  his  Majesty's  Ministers  have  re 
sisted  the  applications  to  expel  this  unfor 
tunate  Gentleman  from  England,  I  should 
publicly  thank  them  for  their  firmness,  if  it 
were  not  unseemly  and  improper  to  suppose 
that  they  could  have  acted  otherwise, — to 
thank  an  English  Government  for  not  viola 
ting  the  most  sacred  duties  of  hospitality, — 
for  not  bringing  indelible  disgrace  on  their 
country.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  Gentlemen, 
he  now  comes  before  you  perfectly  satisfied 
that  an  English  jury  is  the  most  refreshing 
prospect  that  the  eye  of  accused  innocence 
ever  met  in  a  human  tribunal ;  and  he  feels 
with  me  the  most  fervent  gratitude  to  the 
Protector  of  empires,  that,  surrounded  as 
we  are  with  the  ruins  of  principalities  and 
powers,  we  still  continue  to  meet  together, 
after  the  manner  of  our  fathers,  to  adminis 
ter  justice  in  this  her  ancient  sanctuary. 

There  is  another  point  of  view,  Gentle 
men,  in  which  this  case  seems  to  me  to 
merit  your  most  serious  attention.  I  con 
sider  it  as  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  con 
flicts  between  the  greatest  power  in  the 
world,  and  the  only  free  press  remaining  in 
Europe.  No  man  living  is  more  thoroughly 
convinced  than  I  am,  that  my  Learned  Friend 
will  never  degrade  his  excellent  character, — 
that  he  will  never  disgrace  his  high  magis 
tracy  by  mean  compliances, — by  an  immode 
rate  and  unconscientious  exercise  of  power; 
yet  I  am  convinced  by  circumstances  which 
I  shall  now  abstain  from  discussinsr,  that  I 
2a2 


486 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


am  to  consider  this  as  the  first  of  a  long  series 
of  conflicts,  between  the  greatest  power  in  the 
world,  and  the  only  free  press  now  remaining 
in  Europe.  Gentlemen,  this  distinction  of 
the  English  press  is  new :  it  is  a  proud  and 
melancholy  distinction.  Before  the  great 
earthquake  of  the  French  Revolution  had 
swallowed  up  all  the  asylums  of  free  discus 
sion  on  the  Continent,  we  enjoyed  that  pri- 
vilege;  indeed,  more  fully  than  others,  but 
we  did  not  enjoy  it  exclusively.  In  great 
monarchies  the  press  has  always  been  con 
sidered  as  too  formidable  an  engine  to  be 
intrusted  to  unlicensed  individuals.  But  in 
other  Continental  countries,  either  by  the 
laws  of  the  state,  or  by  long  habits  of  libe 
rality  and  toleration  in  magistrates,  a  liberty 
of  discussion  has  been  enjoyed,  perhaps  suffi 
cient  for  the  most  useful  purposes.  It  ex 
isted,  in  fact,  where  it  was  not  protected  by 
law :  and  the  wise  and  generous  connivance 
of  governments  was  daily  more  and  more 
.secured  by  the  growing  civilization  of  their 
subjects.  In  Holland,  in  Switzerland,  and  in 
.the  Imperial  towns  of  Germany,  the  press 
was  either  legally  or  practically  free.  Hol 
land  and  Switzerland  are  no  more:  arid, 
since  the  commencement  of  this  prosecu 
tion,  fifty  Imperial  towns  have  been  erased 
from  the  list  of  independent  states,  by  one 
dash  of  the  pen.  Three  or  four  still  preserve 
a  precarious  and  trembling  existence.  I  will 
not  say  by  what  compliances  they  must  pur 
chase  its  continuance.  I  will  not  insult  the 
feebleness  of  states  whose  unmerited  fall  I 
do  most  bitterly  deplore. 

These  governments  were  in  many  respects 
one  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  the  an 
cient  system  of  Europe.  Unfortunately  for 
the  repose  of  mankind,  great  states  are  com 
pelled,  by  regard  to  their  own  safety,  to  con 
sider  the  military  spirit  and  martial  habits 
of  their  people  as  one  of  the  main  objects 
of  their  policy.  Frequent  hostilities  seem 
almost  the  necessary  condition  of  their  great 
ness  :  and,  without"  being  great,  they  cannot 
long  remain  safe.  Smaller  states,  exempted 
from  this  cruel  necessity, — a  hard  condition 
of  greatness,  a  bitter  satire  on  human  nature, 
— devoted  themselves  to  the  arts  of  peace, 
to  the  cultivation  of  literature,  and  the  im 
provement  of  reason.  They  became  places 
of  refuge  for  free  and  fearless  discussion: 
they  were  the  impartial  spectators  and  judges 
of  the  various  contests  of  ambition,  which, 
from  time  to  time,  disturbed  the  quiet  of  the 
world.  They  thus  became  peculiarly  quali 
fied  to  be  the  organs  of  that  public  opinion 
which  converted  Europe  into  a  great  repub 
lic,  with  laws  which  mitigated,  though  they 
could  not  extinguish,  ambition,  and  with 
moral  tribunals  to  which  eyen  the  most  de 
spotic  sovereigns  were  amenable.  If  wars 
of  aggrandisement  were  undertaken,  their 
authors  were  arraigned  in  the  face  of  Europe. 
If  acts  of  internal  tyranny  were  perpetrated, 
they  resounded  from  a"  thousand  presses 
throughout  all  civilized  countries.  Princes 
on  whose  will  there  were  no  legal  checks; 


thus  found  a  moral  restraint  which  the  most 
powerful  of  them  could  not  brave  with  abso 
lute  impunity.  They  acted  before  a  vast 
audience,  to  whose  applause  or  condemna 
tion  they  could  not  be  utterly  indifferent. 
The  very  constitution  of  human  nature, — the 
unalterable  laws  of  the  mind  of  man,  against 
which  all  rebellion  is  fruitless,  subjected  the 
proudest  tyrants  to  this  control.  No  eleva 
tion  of  power, — no  depravity,  however  con 
summate, — no  innocence,  however  spotless, 
can  render  man  wholly  independent  of  the 
praise  or  blame  of  his  fellow-men. 

These  governments  were  in  other  respects 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  interesting 
parts  of  our  ancient  system.  The  perfect 
security  of  such  inconsiderable  and  feeble 
states, — their  undisturbed  tranquillity  amidst 
the  wars  and  conquests  that  surrounded 
them,  attested,  beyond  any  other  part  of  the 
European  system,  the  moderation,  the  jus 
tice,  the  civilization  to  which  Christian  Eu 
rope  had  reached  in  modern  times.  Their 
weakness  was  protected  only  by  the  habitual 
reverence  for  justice,  which,  during  a  long 
series  of  ages,  had  grown  up  in  Christendom. 
This  was  the  only  fortification  which  de 
fended  them  against  those  mighty  monarchs 
to  whom  they  offered  themselves  so  easy  a 
prey.  And,  till  the  French  Revolution,  this 
was  sufficient.  Consider,  for  instance,  the 
situation  of  the  republic  of  Geneva  :  think  of 
her  defenceless  position  in  the  very  jaws  of 
France;  but  think  also  of  her  undisturbed 
security. — of  her  profound  quiet, — of  the 
brilliant' success  with  which  she  applied  to 
industry  and  literature,  while  Louis  XIV. 
was  pouring  his  myriads  into  Italy  before 
her  gates.  Call  to  mind,  if  ages  crowded 
into  years  have  not  effaced  them  from  your 
memory,  that  happy  period  when  we  scarcely 
dreamt  more  of  the  subjugation  of  the  feeblest 
republic  of  Europe,  than  of  the  conquest  of 
her  mightiest  empire,  and  tell  me  if  you  can 
imagine  a  spectacle  more  beautiful  to  the 
moral  eye,  or  a  more  striking  proof  of  pro 
gress  in  the  noblest  principles  of  true  civili 
zation. 

These  feeble  states. — these  monuments  of 
the  justice  of  Europe, — the  asylums  of  peace, 
of  industry,  and  of  literature, — the  organs 
of  public  reason, — the  refuge  of  oppressed 
innocence  and  persecuted  truth, — have  pe 
rished  with  those  ancient  principles  which 
were  their  sole  guardians  and  protectors. 
They  have  been  swallowed  up  by  that  fear 
ful  convulsion  which  has  shaken  the  utter 
most  corners  of  the  earth.  They  are  de 
stroyed  and  gone  for  ever.  One  asylum  of 
free  discussion  is  still  inviolate.  There  is 
still  one  spot  in  Europe  where  man  can  freely 
exercise  his  reason  on  the  most  important 
concerns  of  society, — where  he  can  boldly 
publish  his  judgment  on  the  acts  of  the 
proudest  and  most  powerful  tyrants.  The 
press  of  England  is  still  free.  It  is  guarded 
by  the  free  constitution  of  our  forefathers  j — 
it  is  guarded  by  the  hearts  and  arms  of 
Englishmen ;  and  I  trust  I  may  venture  to 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


487 


say,  that  if  it  be  to  fall,  it  will  fall  only 
under  the  ruins  of  the  British  empire.  It  is 
an  awful  consideration,  Gentlemen  : — every 
other  monument  of  European  liberty  has 
perished  :  that  ancient  fabric  which  has  been 
gradually  reared  by  the  wisdom  and  virtue 
of  our  fathers  still  stands.  It  stands,  (thanks 
be  to  God!)  solid  and  entire;  but  it  stands 
alone,  and  it  stands  amidst  ruins. 

In  these  extraordinary  circumstances,  I 
repeat  that  I  must  consider  this  as  the  first 
of  a  long  series  of  conflicts  between  the 
greatest  power  in  the  world  and  the  only 
free  press  remaining  in  Europe;  and  I  trust 
that  you  will  consider  yourselves  as  the  ad 
vanced  guard  of  liberty,  as  having  this  day 
to  fight  the  first  battle  of  free  discussion 
against  the  most  formidable  enemy  that  it 
ever  encountered.  You  will  therefore  ex 
cuse  me,  if  on  so  important  an  occasion  I 
remind  you  at  more  length  than  is  usual,  of 
those  general  principles  of  law  and  policy  on 
this  subject,  which  have  been  handed  down 
to  us  by  our  ancestors. 

Those  who  slowly  built  up  the  fabric  of 
our  laws,  never  attempted  anything  so  absurd 
as  to  define  by  any  precise  rule  the  obscure 
and  shifting  boundaries  which  divide  libel 
from  history  or  discussion.  It  is  a  subject 
which,  from  its  nature,  admits  neither  rules 
nor  definitions.  The  same  words  may  be 
perfectly  innocent  in  one  case,  and  most 
mischievous  and  libellous  in  another.  A 
change  of  circumstances,  often  apparently 
slight,  is  sufficient  to  make  the  whole  differ 
ence.  These  changes,  which  may  be  as 
numerous  as  the  variety  of  human  intentions 
.and  conditions,  can  never  be  foreseen  or 
comprehended  under  any  legal  definitions  ] 
and  the  framers  of  our  law  have  never  at 
tempted  to  subject  them  to  such  definitions. 
They  left  such  ridiculous  attempts  to  those 
who  call  themselves  philosophers,  but  who 
have  in  fact  proved  themselves  most  grossly 
and  stupidly  ignorant  of  that  philosophy 
which  is  conversant  with,  human  affairs. 

The  principles  of  the  law  of  England  on 
the  subject  of  political  libel  are  few  arid  sim 
ple  ;  and  they  are  necessarily  so  broad,  that, 
without  an  habitually  mild  administration 
of  justice,  they  might  encroach  materially 
on  the  liberty  of  political  discussion.  Every 
publication  which  is  intended  to  vilify  either 
our  own  government  or  the  government  of 
any  foreign  state  in  amity  with  this  kingdom, 
is,  by  the  law  of  England,  a  libel.  To  pro 
tect  political  discussion  from  the  danger  to 
which  it  would  be  exposed  by  these  \vide 
principles,  if  they  were  severely  and  literally 
enforced,  our  ancestors  trusted  to  various 
securities;  some  growing  out  of  the  law  and 
constitution,  and  others  arising  from  the 
character  of  those  public  officers  whom  the 
constitution  had  formed,  and  to  whom  its 
administration  is  committed.  They  trusted 
in  the  first  place  to  the  moderation  of  the 
legal  officers  of  the  Crown,  educated  in  the 
maxims  and  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  a  free 
government,  controlled  by  the  superintending 


power  of  Parliament,  and  peculiarly  watched 
in  all  political  prosecutions  by  the  reasonable 
and  wholesome  jealousy  of  their  fellow-sub 
jects.  And  I  am  bound  to  admit,  that  since 
the  glorious  era  of  the  Revolution. — making 
due  allowance  for  the  frailties,  the  faults,  and 
the  occasional  vices  of  men, — they  have  upon 
the  whole  not  been  disappointed.  I  know  that, 
in  the  hands  of  my  Learned  Friend,  that  trust 
will  never  be  abused.  But.  above  all,  they 
confided  in  the  moderation  and  good  sense  of 
juries, — popular  in  their  origin, — popular  in 
their  feelings, — popular  in  their  very  preju 
dices, — taken  from  the  mass  of  the  people, 
and  immediately  returning  to  that  mass  again. 
By  these  checks  and  temperaments  they 
hoped  that  they  should  sufficiently  repress 
malignant  libels,  without  endangering  that 
freedom  of  inquiry  which  is  the  first  security 
of  a  free  state.  They  knew  that  the  offence 
of  a  political  libel  is  of  a  very  peculiar  nature, 
and  differing  in  the  most  important  particu 
lars  from  all  other  crimes.  In  all  other  cases 
the  most  severe  execution  of  law  can  only 
spread  terror  among  the  guilty;  but  in  politi 
cal  libels  it  inspires  even  the  innocent  with 
fear.  This  striking  peculiarity  arises  from 
the  same  circumstances  which  make  it  im 
possible  to  define  the  limits  of  libel  and  inno 
cent  discussion, — which  make  it  impossible 
for  a  man  of  the  purest  and  most  honourable 
mind  to  be  always  perfectly  certain,  whether 
he  be  within  the  territory  of  fair  argument 
and  honest  narrative,  or  whether  he  may 
not  have  unwittingly  overstepped  the  faint 
and  varying  line  which  bounds  them.  But, 
Gentlemen,  I  will  go  farther: — this  is  the 
only  offence  where  severe  and  frequent  pun 
ishments  not  only  intimidate  the  innocent, 
but  deter  men  from  the  most  meritorious 
acts,  and  from  rendering  the  most  important 
services  to  their  country, — indispose  and  dis 
qualify  men  for  the  discharge  of  the  most 
sacred  duties  which  they  owe  to  mankind. 
To  inform  the  public  on  the  conduct  of 
those  who  administer  public  affairs,  requires 
courage  and  conscious  security.  It  is  always 
an  invidious  and  obnoxious  office :  but  it  is 
often  the  most  necessary  of  all  public  duties. 
If  it  is  not  done  boldly,  it  cannot  be  done 
effectually:  and  it  is  not  from  writers  trem 
bling  under  the  uplifted  scourge,  that  we  are 
to  hope  for  it. 

There  are  other  matters,  Gentlemen,  to 
which  I  am  desirous  of  particularly  calling 
your  attention.  These  are,  the  circum 
stances  in  the  condition  of  this  country,  which 
have  induced  our  ancestors,  at  all  times,  to 
handle  with  more  than  ordinary  tenderness 
that  branch  of  the  liberty  of  discussion  which 
is  applied  to  the  conduct  of  foreign  states. 
The  relation  of  this  kingdom  to  the  common 
wealth  of  Europe  is  so  peculiar,  that  no  his 
tory,  I  think,  furnishes  a  parallel  to  it.  From 
the  moment  in  which  we  abandoned  all  pro 
jects  of  Continental  aggrandisement,  we 
could  have  no  interest  respecting  the  state 
of  the  Continent,  but  the  interests  of  national 
safety,  and  of  commercial  prosperity.  The 


488 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


paramount  interest  of  every  state,  —  that 
which  comprehends  every  other,  is  security: 
and  the  security  of  Great  Britain  requires 
nothing  on  the  Continent  but  the  uniform 
observance  of  justice.  It  requires  nothing 
but  th.3  inviolability  of  ancient  boundaries, 
and  the  sacredness  of  ancient  possessions, 
•which,  on  these  subjects,  is  but  another  form 
of  words  for  justice. 

As  to  commercial  prosperity,  it  is,  indeed, 
a  secondary,  but  still  a  very-important  branch 
of  our  national  interest;  and  it  requires  no 
thing  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  but  the 
maintenance  of  peace,  as  far  as  the  para 
mount  interest  of  security  will  allow.  What 
ever  ignorant  or  prejudiced  men  may  affirm, 
no  war  was  ever  gainful  to  a  commercial  na 
tion.  Losses  may  be  less  in  some,  and  in 
cidental  profits  may  arise  in  others.  But  no 
such  profits  ever  formed  an  adequate  com 
pensation  for  the  waste  of  capital  and  indus 
try  which  all  wars  must  produce.  Next  to 
peace,  our  commercial  greatness  depends 
chiefly  on  the  affluence  and  prosperity  of  our 
neighbours.  A  commercial  nation  has.  in- 
d?ed,  the  same  interest  in  the  wealth  of  her 
neighbours,  that  a  tradesman  has  in  the 
wealth  of  his  customers.  The  prosperity 
of  England  has  been  chiefly  owing  to  the 
general  progress  of  civilized  nations  in  the 
arts  and  improvements  of  social  life.  Not 
an  acre  of  land  has  been  brought  into  culti 
vation  in  the  wilds  of  Siberia,  or  on  the  shores 
of  the  Mississippi,  which  has  not  widened 
the  market  for  English  industry.  It  is  nou 
rished  by  the  progressive  prosperity  of  the 
world;  and  it  amply  repays  all  that  it  has 
received.  It  can  only  be  employed  in  spread 
ing  civilization  and  enjoyment  over  the  earth  ; 
and  by  the  unchangeable  laws  of  nature,  in 
spite  of  the  impotent  tricks  of  governments, 
it  is  now  partly  applied  to  revive  the  industry 
of  those  very  nations  who  are  the  loudest  in 
their  senseless  clamours  against  its  pretended 
mischiefs.  If  the  blind  and  barbarous  pro 
ject  of  destroying  English  prosperity  could  j 
be  accomplished,  it  could  have  no  other 
effect  than  that  of  completely  beggaring  the 
very  countries,  which  now  stupidly  ascribe 
their  own  poverty  to  our  wealth. 

Under  these  circumstances,  Gentlemen,  it 
became  the  obvious  policy  of  this  kingdom, 
— a  policy  in  unison  with  the  maxims  of  a  ! 
free  government. — to  consider  with  great  in 
dulgence  even  the  boldest  animadversions 
of  our  political  writers  on  the  ambitious  pro 
jects  of  foreign  states.  Bold,  and  sometimes 
indiscreet,  as  these  animadversions  might  be, 
they  had  at  least  the  effect  of  warning  the 
people  of  their  danger,  and  of  rousing  the 
national  indignation  against  those  encroach 
ments  which  England  has  almost  always 
been  compelled  in"  the  end  to  resist  by  arms. 
Seldom,  indeed,  has  she  been  allowed  to 
wait,  till  a  provident  regard  to  her  own  safety 
should  compel  her  to  take  up  arms  in  defence 
of  others.  For,  as  it  was  said  by  a  great 
orator  of  antiquity,  "  that  no  man  ever  was 
the  enemy  of  the  republic  who  had  not  first 


declared  war  against  him,"*  so  I  may  say, 
with  truth,  that  no  man  ever  meditated  the 
subjugation  of  Europe,  who  did  not  consider 
the  destruction,  or  the  corruption,  of  England 
as  the  first  condition  of  his  success.  If  you 
examine  history  you  will  find,  that  no  such 
project  was  ever  formed  in  which  it  was  not 
deemed  a  necessary  preliminary,  either  to 
detach  England  from  the  common  cause,  or 
to  destroy  her.  It  seems  as  if  all  the  con 
spirators  against  the  independence  of  nations 
might  have  sufficiently  taught  other  states 
that.  England  is  their  natural  guardian  and 
protector, — that  she  alone  has  no  interest  but 
their  preservation, — that  her  safety  is  inter- 
woVen  with  their  own.  When  vast  projects 
of  aggrandisement  are  manifested, — when 
schemes  of  criminal  ambition  are  carried  into 
effect,  tlie  day  of  battle  is  fast  approaching 
for  England.  Her  free  government  cannot 
engage  in  dangerous  wars,  without  the  hearty 
and  affectionate  support  of  her  people.  A 
state  thus  situated  cannot  without  the  utmost 
peril  silence  those  public  discussions,  which 
are  to  point  the  popular  indignation  against 
those  who  must  soon  be  enemies.  In  do 
mestic  dissensions,  it  may  sometimes  be  the 
supposed  interest  of  government  to  overawe 
the  press :  but  it  never  can  be  evon  their 
apparent  interest  when  the  danger  is  purely 
foreign.  A  King  of  England  who,  in  such 
circumstances,  should  conspire  against  the 
free  press  of  this  country,  would  undermine 
the  foundations  of  his  own  throne; — he 
would  silence  the  trumpet  which  is  to  call 
his  people  round  his  standard. 

Gentlemen,  the  public  spirit  of  a  people 
(by  which  I  mean  the  whole  body  of  those 
affections  which  unites  men's  hearts  to  the 
commonwealth)  is  in  various  countries  com 
posed  of  various  elements,  and  depends  on 
a  great  variety  of  causes.  In  this  country,  I 
may  venture  to  say,  that  it  mainly  depends 
on  the  vigour  of  the  popular  parts  and  prin 
ciples  of  our  government ;  and  that  the  spirit 
of  liberty  is  one  of  its  most  important  ele 
ments.  Perhaps  it  may  depend  less  on  those 
advantages  of  a  free  government,  which  are 
most  highly  estimated  by  calm  reason,  than 
upon  those  parts  of  it  which  delight  the  ima 
gination,  and  flatter  the  just  and  natural 
pride  of  mankind.  Among  these  we  are 
certainly  not  to  forget  the  political  rights 
which  are  not  uniformly  withheld  from  the 
lowest  classes,  and  the  continual  appeal 
made  to  them,  in  public  discussion,  upon  the 
greatest  interests  of  the  state.  These  are 
undoubtedly  among  the  circumstances  which 
endear  to  Englishmen  their  government  and 
their  country,  and  animate  their  zeal  for  that 
glorious  institution  which  confers  on  the 
meanest  of  them  a  sort  of  distinction  and  no 
bility  unknown  to  the  most  illustrious  slaves 
who  tremble  at  the  frown  of  a  tyrant.  Who 
ever  was  unwarily  and  rashly  to  abolish  or 
narrow  these  privileges  (which  it  must  be 


*  The  reference  is  probably  to  Cicero.     Oral,  in 
Catilinam,  iv.  cap.  10. — ED. 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


489 


owned  are  liable  to  great  abuse,  and  to  very 
specious  objections),  might  perhaps  discover, 
too  late,  that  he  had  been  dismantling  the 
fortifications  of  his  country.  Of  whatever 
elements  public  spirit  is  composed,  it  is 
always  and  every  where  the  chief  defensive 
principle  of  a  state  (it  is  perfectly  distinct 
from  courage  : — perhaps  no  nation — certainly 
no  European  nation  ever  perished  from  an 
inferiority  of  courage);  and  undoubtedly  no 
considerable  nation  was  ever  subdued,  in 
which  the  public  affections  were  sound  and 
vigorous.  It  is  public  spirit  which  binds  to 
gether  the  dispersed  courage  of  individuals, 
and  fastens  it  to  the  commonwealth : — it  is 
therefore,  as  I  have  said,  the  chief  defensive 
principle  of  every  country.  Of  all  the  stimu 
lants  which  rouse  it  into  action,  the  most 
powerful  among  us  is  certainly  the  press: 
and  the  press  cannot  be  restrained  or  weak 
ened  without  imminent  danger  that  the  na 
tional  spirit  may  languish,  and  that  the  peo 
ple  may  act  with  less  zeal  and  affection  for 
their  country  in  the  hour  of  its  danger. 

These  principles.  Gentlemen,  are  not  new  : 
they  are  genuine  old  English  principles.  And 
though  in  our  days  they  have  been  disgraced 
and  abused  by  ruffians  and  fanatics,  they  are 
in  themselves  as  just  and  sound  as  they  are 
liberal ;  and  they  are  the  only  principles  on 
which  a  free  state  can  be  safely  governed. 
'These  principles  I  have  adopted  since  I  first 
learnt  the  use  of  reason  :  and  I  think  I  shall 
abandon  them  only  with  life. 

On  these  principles  I  am  now  to  call  your 
attention  to  the  libel  with  which  this  unfor 
tunate  Gentleman  is  charged.  I  heartily  re 
joice  that  I  concur  with  the  greatest  part  of 
what  has  been  said  by  my  Learned  Friend, 
who  has  done  honour  even  to  his  character 
by  the  generous  and  liberal  principles  which 
he  has  laid  down.  He  has  told  you  that  he 
does  not  mean  to  attack  historical  narrative  : 
— he  has  told  you  that  he  does  not  mean  to 
attack  political  discussion ; — he  has  told  you 
also  that  he  does  not  consider  every  intempe 
rate  word  into  which,  a  writer,  fairly  engaged 
in  narration  or  reasoning,  might  be  betrayed, 
as  a  fit  subject  for  prosecution.  The  essence 
of  the  crime  of  libel  consists  in  the  malignant 
mind  which  the  publication  proves,  and  from 
which  it  flows.  A  jury  must  be  convinced, 
before  they  find  a  man  guilty  of  libel,  that 
his  intention  was  to  libel, — not  to  state  facts 
\vhich  he  believed  to  be  true,  or  reasonings 
which  he  thought  just.  My  Learned  Friend 
has  told  you  that  the  liberty  of  history  in 
cludes  the  right  of  publishing  those  observa 
tions  which  occur  to  intelligent  men  when 
they  consider  the  affairs  of  the  world  ;  and  I 
think  he  will  not  deny  that  it  includes  also 
the  right  of  expressing  those  sentiments 
which  all  good  men  feel  on  the  contempla 
tion  of  extraordinary  examples  of  depravity 
or  excellence. 

One  more  privilege  of  the  historian,  which 

the  Attorney-General  has  not  named,  but  to 

which  his  principles  extend,  it  is  now  my 

duty  to  claim  on  behalf  of  my  client: — I 

62 


mean,  the  right  of  republishing,  historically, 
those  documents  (whatever  their  original 
malignity  may  be)  which  display  the  cha 
racter  and  unfold  the  intentions  of  govern 
ments,  or  factions,  or  individuals.  I  think 
my  Learned  Friend  will  not  deny,  that  an 
historical  compiler  may  innocently  republish 
in  England  the  most  insolent  and  outrageous 
declaration  of  war  ever  published  against 
His  Majesty  by  a  foreign  government.  The 
intention  of  the  original  author  was  to  vilify 
arid  degrade  his  Majesty's  government :  but 
the  intention  of  the  compiler  is  only  to  gratify 
curiosity,  or  perhaps  to  rouse  just  indignation 
against  the  calumniator  whose  production  he 
republishes;  his  intention  is  not  libellous, — 
his  republication  is  therefore  not  a  libel.  Sup 
pose  this  to  be  the  case  with  Mr.  Peltier; — 
suppose  him  to  have  republished  libels  with 
a  merely  historical  intention.  In  that  case  it 
cannot  be  pretended  that  he  is  more  a  libeller 
than  my  learned  friend  Mr.  Abbott,*  who 
read  these  supposed  libels  to  you  when  he 
opened  the  pleadings.  Mr.  Abbott  repub 
lished  them  to  you,  that  you  might  know  and 
judge  of  them :  Mr.  Peltier,  on  the  supposi 
tion  I  have  made,  also  republished  them  that 
the  public  might  know  and  judge  of  them. 

You  already  know  that  the  general  plan  of 
Mr.  Peltier's  publication  was  to  give  a  pic 
ture  of  the  cabals  and  intrigues, — of  the 
hopes  and  projects,  of  French  factions.  It 
is  undoubtedly  a  natural  and  necessary  part 
of  this  plan  to  republish  all  the  serious  and 
ludicrous  pieces  which  these  factions  circu 
late  against  each  other.  The  Ode  ascribed 
to  Chenier  or  Ginguene  I  do  really  believe  to 
have  been  written  at  Paris. — to  have  been 
circulated  there, — to  have  been  there  attri 
buted  to  one  of  these  writers, — to  have  been 
sent  to  England  as  their  work, — and  as  such, 
to  have  been  republished  by  Mr.  Peltier. 
But  I  am  not  sure  that  I  have  evidence  to 
convince  you  of  the  truth  of  this.  Suppose 
that  I  have  not :  will  my  Learned  Friend  say 
that  my  client  must  necessarily  be  con 
victed1?  I,  on  the  contrary,  contend,  that  it 
is  for  my  Learned  Friend  to  show  that  it  is 
not  an  historical  republication: — such  it  pro 
fesses  to  be,  and  that  profession  it  is  for  him 
to  disprove.  The  profession  may  indeed  be 
a  "mask  :"  but  it  is  for  my  Friend  to  pluck 
off  the  mask,  and  expose  the  libeller,  before 
he  calls  upon  you  for  a  verdict  of  "guilty." 

If  the  general  lawfulness  of  such  republi- 
cations  be  denied,  then  I  must  ask  Mr.  At 
torney-General  to  account  for  the  long  im 
punity  which  English  newspapers  have  en 
joyed.  I  must  request  him  to  tell  you  vhy 
they  have  been  suffered  to  republish  all  the 
atrocious,  official  and  unofficial,  libels  which 
have  been  published  against  His  Majesty  for 
the  last  ten  years,  by  the  Brissots,  the  Marats, 
the  Dantons,  the  Robespierres,  the  Barreres, 
the  Talliens,  the  Reubells.  the  Merlins,  the 
Barras',  and  all  that  long  line  of  bloody  ty- 


*  The  junior  counsel  for  the  prosecution,  after 
wards  Lord  Tenterden.— ED. 


490 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


rants  who  oppressed  their  own  country,  and 
insulted  every  other  which  they  had  not  the 
power  to  rob.  What  must  be  the  answer? 
That  the  English  publishers  were  either  in 
nocent  if  their  motive  was  to  gratify  curiosity, 
or  praiseworthy  if  their  intention  was  to  rouse 
indignation  against  the  calumniators  of  their 
country.  If  any  other  answer  be  made,  I 
must  remind  my  Friend  of  a  most  sacred 
part  of  his  duty — the  duty  of  protecting  the 
honest  fame  of  those  who  are  absent  in  the 
service  of  their  country.  Within  these  few 
days.  \ve  have  seen  in  every  newspaper  in 
England,  a  publication,  called  the  Report  of 
Col.  Sebastiani,  in  which  a  gallant  British 
officer  (General  Stuart)  is  charged  with  writ 
ing  letters  to  procure  assassination.  The 
publishers  of  that  infamous  Report  are  not 
and  will  not  be  prosecuted,  because  their  in 
tention  is  not  to  libel  General  Stuart.  On  any 
other  principle,  why  have  all  our  newspapers 
been  suffered  to  circulate  that  most  atrocious 
of  all  libels  against  the  King  and  the  people  of 
England,  which  purports  to  be  translated 
from  the  Moniteur  of  the  9th  of  August, 
1802 ;  a  libel  against  a  Prince,  who  has  passed 
through  a  factious  and  stormy  reign  of  forty- 
three  years  without  a  single  imputation  on 
his  personal  character, — against  a  people 
who  have  passed  through  the  severest  trials 
of  national  virtue  with  unimpaired  glory, 
who  alone  in  the  world  can  boast  of  mutinies 
without  murder,  of  triumphant  mobs  without 
massacre,  of  bloodless  revolutions  and  of  civil 
wars  unstained  by  a  single  assassination  ; — 
that  most  impudent  and  malignant  libel, 
which  charges  such  a  King  of  such  a  people 
not  only  with  having  hired  assassins,  but 
with  being  so  shameless, — so  lost  to  all  sense 
of  character,  as  to  have  bestowed  on  these 
assassins,  if  their  murderous  projects  had 
succeeded,  the  highest  badges  of  public  ho 
nour, — the  rewards  reserved  for  statesmen 
and  heroes, — the  Order  of  the  Garter  j — the 
Order  which  was  founded  by  the  heroes  of 
Cre9y  and  Poitiers, — the  Garter  wrhich  was 
worn  by  Henry  the  Great  and  by  Gustavus 
Adolphus, — which  might  now  be  worn  by 
the  Hero*  who.  on  the  shores  of  Syria,  the 
ancient  theatre  of  English  chivalry,  has  re 
vived  the  renown  of  English  valour  and  of 
English  humanity, — that  unsullied  Garter, 
which  a  detestable  libeller  dares  to  say  is  to 
be  paid  as  the  price  of  murder. 

If  I  had  now  to  defend  an  English  pub 
lisher  for  the  republication  of  that  abominable 
libel,  what  must  I  have  said  on  his  defence  ? 
I  must  have  told  you  that  it  was  originally 
published  by  the  French  Government  in  their 
official  gazette, — that  it  was  republished  by 
the  English  editor  to  gratify  the  natural  cu 
riosity,  perhaps  to  rouse  the  just  resentment, 
of  his  English  readers.  I  should  have  con 
tended,  and,  I  trust,  with  success,  that  his 
republication  of  a  libel  was  not  libellous, — 
that  it  was  lawful, — that  it  was  laudable. 
All  that  would  be  important,  at  least  all  that 

*  Sir  Sydney  Smith.— ED. 


would  be  essential  in  such  a  defence  I  now 
state  to  you  on  behalf  of  Mr.  Peltier ;  and 
if  an  English  newspaper  may  safely  repub- 
lish  the  libels  of  the  French  Government 
against  His  Majesty,  I  shall  leave  you  to 
judge  whether  Mr.  Peltier,  in  similar  cir 
cumstances,  may  not,  with  equal  safety,  re- 
publish  the  libels  of  Chenier  against  the 
First  Consul.  On  the  one  hand  you  have  the 
assurances  of  Mr.  Peltier  in  the  context  that 
this  Ode  is  merely  a  republicatiori ;—  you 
have  also  the  general  plan  of  his  work,  with 
which  such  a  republication  is  perfectly  con 
sistent.  On  the  other  hand,  you  have  only  the 
suspicions  of  Mr.  Attorney-General  that  this 
Ode  is  an  original  production  of  the  Defendant. 

But  supposing  that  you  should  think  it  his 
production,  and  that  you  should  also  think  it 
a  libel, — even  in  that  event,  which  I  cannot 
anticipate,  I  am  not  left  without  a  defence. 
The  question  will  still  be  open  : — is  it  a  libel 
on  Buonaparte,  or  is  it  a  libel  on  Chenier  or 
Ginguene  1  This  is  not  an  information  for  a 
libel  on  Chenier:  and  if  you  should  think 
that  this  Ode  was  produced  by  Mr.  Peltier, 
and  ascribed  by  him  to  Chenier  for  the  sake 
of  covering  that  writer  with  the  odium  of 
Jacobinism,  the  Defendant  is  entitled  to  your 
verdict  of  "not  guilty."  Or  if  you  should 
believe  that  it  is  ascribed  to  Jacobinical  wri 
ters  for  the  sake  of  satirising  a  French  Jaco 
binical  faction,  you  must  also  in  that  cnse 
acquit  him.  Butler  puts  seditious  and  im 
moral  language  into  the  mouths  of  rebels 
and  fanatics;  but  Hud i bras  is  not  for  that 
reason  a  libel  on  morality  or  government. 
Swift,  in  the  most  exquisite  piece  of  irony  in 
the  world  (his  Argument  against  the  Aboli 
tion  of  Christianity),  uses  the  language  of 
those  shallow,  atheistical  coxcombs  whom 
his  satire  was  intended  to  scourge.  The 
scheme  of  his  irony  required  some  levity, 
and  even  some  profaneness of  language;  but 
nobody  was  ever  so  dull  as  to  doubt  whether 
Swift  meant  to  satirise  atheism  or  religion. 
In  the  same  manner  Mr.  Peltier,  when  he 
wrote  a  satire  on  French  Jacobinism,  was 
ompelled  to  ascribe  to  Jacobins  a  Jacobinical 
hatred  of  government.  He  was  obliged,  by 
dramatic  propriety,  to  put  into  their  mouths 
those  anarchical  maxims  which  are  com-', 
plained  of  in  this  Ode.  But  it  will  be  said, 
these  incitements  to  insurrection  are  here 
lirected  against  the  authority  of  Buonaparte. 
This  proves  nothing,  because  they  must  have 
been  so  directed,  if  the  Ode  was  a  satire  on 
Jacobinism.  French  Jacobins  must  inveigh 
against  Buonaparte,  because  he  exercises 
the  powers  of  government :  the  satirist  who 
attacks  them  must  transcribe  their  senti 
ments,  and  adopt  their  language. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say,  Gentlemen,  that  Mr. 
Peltier  feels  any  affection,  or  professes  any 
allegiance  to  Buonaparte.  If  I  were  to  say 
so,  he  would  disown  me.  He  would  disdain 
to  purchase  an  acquittal  by  the  profession  of 
sentiments  which  he  disclaims  and  abhors. 
Not  to  love  Buonaparte  is  no  crime.  The 
question  is  not  whether  Mr.  Peltier  loves  or 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


491 


hates  the  First  Consul,  but  whether  he  has  ' 
put  revolutionary  language  into  the  mouth  of 
Jacobins,  with  a  view  to  paint  their  incor 
rigible  turbulence,  and  to  exhibit  the  fruits 
of  Jacobinical  revolutions  to  the  detestation 
of  mankind. 

Now,  Gentlemen,  we  cannot  give  a  proba 
ble  answer  to  this  question  without  previously 
examining  two  or  three  questions  on  which 
the  answer  to  the  first  must  very  much  de 
pend.  Is  there  a  faction  in  France  which 
breathes  the  spirit,  and  is  likely  to  employ 
the  language  of  this  Ode?  Does  it  perfectly 
accord  with  their  character  and  views'?  Is 
it  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the  feelings, 
opinions,  and  wishes  of  Mr.  Peltier'?  If  these 
questions  can  be  answered  in  the  affirmative, 
then  I  think  you  must  agree  with  me,  that 
Mr.  Peltier  does  not  in  this  Ode  speak  his 
own  sentiments, — that  he  does  not  here  vent 
his  own  resentment  against  Buonaparte,  but 
that  he  personates  a  Jacobin,  and  adopts  his 
language  for  the  sake  of  satirising  his  prin 
ciples. 

These  questions,  Gentlemen,  lead  me  to 
those  political  discussions,  which,  generally 
speaking,  are  in  a  court  of  justice  odious  and 
disgusting.  Here,  however,  they  are  neces 
sary,  and  I  shall  consider  them  only  as  far  as 
the  necessities  of  this  cause  require. 

Gentlemen,  the  French  Revolution — I  must 
pause,  after  I  have  uttered  words  which  pre 
sent  such  an  overwhelming  idea.  But  I  have 
not  now  to  engage  in  an  enterprise  so  far 
beyond  my  force  as  that  of  examining  and 
judging  that  tremendous  revolution.     I  have 
only  to  consider  the  character  of  the  factions 
which  it  must   have   left  behind  it.     The 
French  Revolution   began  with    great   and 
fatal  errors.  These  errors  produced  atrocious 
crimes.     A  mild  and  feeble  monarchy  was 
succeeded  by  bloody  anarchy,  which  very 
shortly  gave   birth    to   military   despotism. 
France,  in  a  few  years,  described  the  whole 
circle  of  human  society.    All  this  was  in  the 
order  of  nature.     When  every  principle  of 
authority  and  civil  discipline, — when  every 
principle  which  enables  some  men  to  com 
mand,  and  disposes  others  to  obey,  was  ex 
tirpated  from  the  mind  by  atrocious  theories, 
and  still  more   atrocious   examples, — when 
every  old  institution  was  trampled  down  with 
contumely,  and  every  new  institution  covered 
in  its  cradle  with  blood, — when  the  principle 
of  property  itself,  the  sheet-anchor  of  society, 
was  annihilated, — when  in  the  persons  of  the 
new  possessors,  whom  the  poverty 'of  lan 
guage  obliges  us  to  call  proprietors,  it  was 
contaminated  in  its  source  by  robbery  and 
murder,    and   became    separated   from   the 
education  and  the  manners,  from  the  general 
presumption  of  superior  knowledge  and  more 
scrupulous  probity  which  form  its  only  libe 
ral  titles  to  respect, — when  the  people  were 
taught  to  despise  every  thing  old,  and  com 
pelled  to  detest  every  thing  new,  there  re 
mained  only  one  principle  strong  enough  to 
hold  society  together,  —  a  principle  utterly 
incompatible,  indeed,  with  liberty,  and  un 


friendly  to  civilization  itself,  —  a  tyrannical 
and  barbarous  principle,  but,  in  that  miser 
able  condition  of  human  affairs,  a  refuge 
from  still  more  intolerable  evils: — I  mean 
he  principle  of  military  power,  which  gains 
strength  from  that  confusion  and  bloodshed 
n  which  all  the  other  elements  of  society 
ire  dissolved,  and  which,  in  these  terrible 
(xtremities,  is  the  cement  that  preserves  it 
'rom  total  destruction.  Under  such  circum 
stances,  Buonaparte  usurped  the  supreme 
)ower  in  France  ; — I  say  usurped,  because  an 
llegal  assumption  of  power  is  an  usurpation. 
3ut  usurpation,  in  its  strongest  moral  sense, 
s  scarcely  applicable  to  a  period  of  lawless 
and  savage  anarchy.  The  guilt  of  military 
usurpation,  in  truth,  belongs  to  the  authors 
f  those  confusions  which  sooner  or  later 
ive  birth  to  such  an  usurpation.  Thus,  to 
use  the  words  of  the  historian,  "by  recent 
as  well  as  all  ancient  example,  it  became 
evident,  that  illegal  violence,  with  whatever 
pretences  it  may  be  covered,  and  whatever 
object  it  may  pursue,  must  inevitably  end  at 
last  in  the  arbitrary  and  despotic  govern 
ment  of  a  single  person.'7*  But  though  the 
government  of  Buonaparte  has  silenced  the 
Revolutionary  factions,  it  has  not  and  it  can 
not  have  extinguished  them.  No  human 
power  could  reTmpress  upon  the  minds  of 
men  all  those  sentiments  and  opinions  which 
the  sophistry  and  anarchy  of  fourteen  years 
had  obliterated.  A  faction  must  exist,  which 
breathes  the  spirit  of  the  Ode  now  before 
you . 

It  is,  I  know,  not  the  spirit  of  the  quiet 
and  submissive  majority  of  the  French  peo 
ple.  They  have  always  rather  suffered,  than 
acted  in,  the  Revolution.  Completely  ex 
hausted  by  the  calamities  through  which 
they  have  passed,  they  yield  to  any  power 
which  gives  them  repose.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  degree  of  oppression  which  rouses  men  to 
resistance;  but  there  is  another  and  a  greater 
which  wholly  subdues  and  unmans  them. 
It  is  remarkable  that  Robespierre  himself 
was  safe,  till  he  attacked  his  own  accom 
plices.  The  spirit  of  men  of  virtue  was 
broken,  and  there  was  no  vigour  of  character 
left  to  destroy  him,  but  in  those  daring  ruf 
fians  who  were  the  sharers  of  his  tyranny. 

As  for  the  wretched  populace  who  were 
made  the  blind  and  senseless  instrument  of 
so  many  crimes. — whose  frenzy  can  now  be 
reviewed  by  a  good  mind  with  scarce  any 
moral  sentiment  but  that  of  compassion, — 
that  miserable  multitude  of  beings,  scarcely 
human,  have  already  fallen  into  a  brutish 
forgetfulness  of  the  very  atrocities  which 
they  themselves  perpetrated  :  they  have  al 
ready  forgotten  all  the  acts  of  their  drunken 
fury.  If  you  ask  one  of  them,  who  destroyed 
that  magnificent  monument  of  religion  and 
art  1  or  who  perpetrated  that  massacre  ?  they 
stupidly  answer,  "The  Jacobins  !" — though 
he  who  gives  the  answer  was  probably  one 
of  these  Jacobins  himself :  so  that  a  traveller, 

*  Hume,  History  of  England,  vol.  vii.  p.  220. 


492 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ignorant  of  French  history,  might  suppose 
the  Jacobins  to  be  the  name  of  some  Tartar 
horde,  \vho?  after  laying  waste  France  for 
ten  years,  were  at  last  expelled  by  the  native 
inhabitants.  They  have  passed  from  sense 
less  rage  to  stupid  quiet :  their  delirium  is 
followed  by  lethargy. 

In  a  word,  Gentlemen,  the  great  body  of 
the  people  of  France  have  been  severely 
trained  in  those  convulsions  and  proscriptions 
which  are  the  school  of  slavery.  They  are 
capable  of  no  mutinous,  and  even  of  no  bold 
and  manly  political  sentiments :  and  if  this 
Ode  professed  to  paint  their  opinions,  it  would 
be  a  most,  unfaithful  picture.  But  it  is  other 
wise  with  those  who  have  been  the  actors 
and  leaders  in  the  scene  of  blood :  it  is  other 
wise  with  the  numerous  agents  of  the  most 
indefatigable,  searching,  multiform,  and  om- 
nipressnt  tyranny  that  ever  existed,  which 
pervaded  every  class  of  society. — which  had 
ministers  and  victims  in  every  village  in 
France. 

Some  of  them,  indeed, — the  basest  of  the 
race, — the  Sophists,  the  Rhetors,  the  Poet- 
laureates  of  murder, — who  were  cruel  only 
from  cowardice,  and  calculating  selfishness, 
are  perfectly  willing  to  transfer  their  venal 
pens  to  any  government  that  does  not  disdain 
their  infamous  support.  These  men,  repub 
licans  from  servility,  who  published  rhetorical 
panegyrics  on  massacre,  and  who  reduced 
plunder  to  a  system  of  ethics,  as  are  ready 
to  preach  slavery  as  anarchy.  But  the  more 
daring — I  had  almost  said  the  more  respect 
able — ruffians  cannot  so  easily  bend  their 
Leads,  under  the  yoke.  These  fierce  spirits 
have  not  lost 

"  The  unconquerable  will,  the  study  of  revenge, 
immortal  hate."* 

They  leave  the  luxuries  of  servitude  to  the 
mean  and  dastardly  hypocrites,  —  to  the 
Belialsand  Mammons  of  the  infernal  faction. 
They  pursue  their  old  end  of  tyranny  under 
their  old  pretext  of  liberty.  The  recollection 
of  their  unbounded  power  renders  every  in 
ferior  condition  irksome  and  vapid  :  and  their 
former  atrocities  form,  if  I  may  so  speak,  a 
sort  of  moral  destiny  which  irresistibly  im 
pels  them  to  the  perpetration  of  new  crimes. 
They  have  no  place  left  for  penitence  on 
earth:  they  labour  under  the  most  awful 
proscription  of  opinion  that  ever  wras  pro 
nounced  against  human  beings :  they  have 
cut  down  every  bridge  by  which  they  could 
retreat  into  the  society  of  men.  Awakened 
from  their  dreams  of  democracy, — the  noise 
subsided  that  deafened  their  ears  to  the  voice 
of  humanity, — the  film  fallen  from  their  eyes 
which  hid  from  them  the  blackness  of  their 
own  deeds, — haunted  by  the  memory  of 
their  inexpiable  guilt, — condemned  daily  to 
look  on  the  faces  of  those  whom  their  hand 
has  made  widows  and  orphans,  they  are 
goaded  arid  scourged  by  these  real  furies, 
and  hurried  into  the  tumult  of  new  crimes, 
to  drown  the  cries  of  remorse,  or,  if  they  be 

*  Paradise  Lost,  book  ii.— ED. 


too  depraved  for  remorse,  to  silence  the 
curses  of  mankind.  Tyrannical  power  is 
their  only  refuge  from  the  just  vengeance  of 
their  fellow  creatures  :  murder  is  their  only 
means  of  usurping  power.  They  have  no 
taste,  no  occupation,  no  pursuit,  but  power 
and  blood.  If  their  hands  are  tied,  they 
must  at  least  have  the  luxury  of  murderous 
projects.  They  have  drunk  too  deeply  of 
human  blood  ever  to  relinquish  their  cannibal 
appetite. 

Such  a  faction  exists  in  France  :  it  is  nu 
merous  ;  it  is  powerful ;  and  it  has  a  principle 
of  fidelity  stronger  than  any  that  ever  held 
together  a  society.  They  are  banded  together 
by  despair  of  forgiveness, — by  the  unanimous 
detestation  of  mankind.  They  are  now  con 
tained  by  a  severe  and  stern  government: 
but  they  still  meditate  the  renewal  of  insur 
rection  and  massacre ;  and  they  are  prepared 
to  renew  the  worst  and  most  atrocious  of 
their  crimes, — that  crime  against  posterity 
and  against  human  nature  itself, — that  crime 
of  which  the  latest  generations  of  mankind 
may  feel  the  fatal  consequences, — the  crime 
of  degrading  and  prostituting  the  sacred 
name  of  liberty.  I  must  own  that,  however 
paradoxical  it  may  appear,  I  should  almost 
think  not  worse,  but  more  meanly  of  them 
if  it  were  otherwise.  I  must  then  think  them 
destitute  of  that — I  will  not  call  it  courage. 
because  that  is  the  name  of  a  virtue — but  of 
that  ferocious  energy  Avhich  alone  rescues 
ruffians  from  contempt.  If  they  were  desti 
tute  of  that  which  is  the  heroism  of  murder 
ers,  they  wrould  be  the  lowest  as  well  as  the 
most  abominable  of  beings.  It  is  impossible 
to  conceive  any  thing  more  despicable  than 
wretches  who,  after  hectoring  and  .bullying1 
over  their  meek  and  blameless  sovereign, 
and  his  defenceless  family,  —  whom  they 
kept  so  long  in  a  dungeon  trembling  for  their 
existence, — whom  they  put  to  death  by  a 
slow  torture  of  three  years, — after  playing 
the  republicans  and  the  tyrannicides  to  wo 
men  and  children. — become  the  supple  and 
fawning  slaves  of  the  first  government  that 
knows  how  to  wield  the  scourge  with  a  firm 
hand. 

I  have  used  the  word  "Republican,"  be 
cause  it  is  the  name  by  which  this  atrocious 
faction  describes  itself.  The  assumption  of 
that  name  is  one  of  their  crimes.  They  are 
no  more  "Republicans"  than  "Royalists  :57 
they  are  the  common  enemies  of  all  human 
society. .  God  forbid,  that  by  the  use  of  that 
word,  I  should  be  supposed  to  reflect  on  the 
members  of  those  respectable  republican 
communities  which  did  exist  in  Europe  be 
fore  the  French  Revolution.  That  Revolution 
has  spared  many  monarchies,  but  it  has 
spared  no  republic  within  the  sphere  of  its 
destructive  energy.  One  republic  only  now 
exists  in  the  world — a  republic  of  English 
blood,  which  was  originally  composed  of  re 
publican  societies,  under  me  protection  of  a 
monarchy,  which  had  therefore  no  great  and 
perilous  change  in  their  internal  constitution 
to  effect,  and  of  which  (I  speak  it  with  plea- 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


493 


sure  and  pride),  the  inhabitants,  even  in  the 
convulsions  of  a  most  deplorable  separation, 
displayed  the  humanity  as  well  as  valour, 
•which,  I  trust,  I  may  say  they  inherited  from 
their  forefathers.  Nor  do  I  mean,  by  the 
use  of  the  word  "Republican,"  to  confound 
this  execrable  faction  with  all  those  who,  in 
the  liberty  of  private  speculation,  may  prefer 
a  republican  form  of  government.  I  own. 
that  after  much  reflection,  I  am  not  able  to 
conceive  an  error  more  gross  than  that  of 
those  who  believe  in  the  possibility  of  erect 
ing  a  republic  in  any  of  the  old  monarchical 
countries  of  Europe. — who  believe  that  in 
such  countries  an  elective  supreme  magis 
tracy  can  produce  any  thing  but  a  succession 
of  stern  tyrannies  and  bloody  civil  wars.  It 
is  a  supposition  which  is  belied  by  all  expe 
rience,  and  which  betrays  the  greatest  igno 
rance  of  the  first  principles  of  the  constitution 
of  society.  It  is  an  error  which  has  a  false 
appearance  of  superiority  over  vulgar  preju 
dice  •  it  is,  therefore,  too  apt  to  be  attended 
with  the  most  criminal  rashness  and  pre 
sumption,  and  too  easy  to  be  inflamed  into 
the  most  immoral  and  anti-social  fanaticism. 
But  as  long  as  it  remains  a  mere  quiescent 
error,  it  is  not  the  proper  subject  of  moral 
disapprobation. 

If  then,  Gentlemen,  such  a  faction,  falsely 
calling  itself  ••'Republican."  exists  in  France, 
let  us -consider  whether  this  Ode  speaks  their 
sentiments,  —  describes  their  character, — 
agrees  with  their  views.  Trying  it  by  the 
principle  I  have  stated,  I  think  you  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  concluding,  that  it  is  agree 
able  to  the  general  plan  of  this  publication 
to  give  an  historical  and  satirical  view  of 
the  Brutus'  and  brutes  of  the  Republic, — of 
those  who  assumed  and  disgraced  the  name 
of  Brutus,*  and  who,  under  that  name;  sat  as 
judges  in  their  mock  tribunals  with  pistols 
in  their  girdles,  to  anticipate  the  office  of  the 
executioner  on  those  unfortunate  men  whom 
they  treated  as  rebels,  for  resistance  to  Ro 
bespierre  and  Couthon. 

I  now  come  to  show  you,  that  this  Ode 
cannot  represent  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Peltier. 
He  is  a  French  Royalist ;  he  has  devoted  his 
talents  to  the  cause  of  his  King;  for  that 
cause  he  has  sacrificed  his  fortune  and 
hazarded  his  life ; — for  that  cause  he  is  pro 
scribed  and  exiled  from  his  country.  I  could 
easily  conceive  powerful  topics  of  Royalist 
invective  against  Buonaparte  :  and  if  Mr.  Pel 
tier  had  called  upon  Frenchmen  by  the 
memory  of  St.  Louis  and  Henry  the  Great, 
— by  the  memory  of  that  illustrious  family 
which  reigned  over  them  for  seven  centuries, 
and  with  whom  all  their  martial  renown  and 
literary  glory  are  so  closely  connected, — if  he 
had  adjured  them  by  the  spotless  name  of 
that  Louis  XVI.,  the  martyr  of  his  love  for 
his  people,  which  scarce  a  man  in  France 
can  now  pronounce  but  in  the  tone  of  pity 
and  veneration. — if  he  had  thus  called  upon 

*  A  Citizen  Brutus  was  President  of  the  Mili 
tary  Commission  at  Marseilles,  in  January,  1794. 


them  to  change  their  useless  regret  and  their 
barren  pity  into  generous  and  active  indig 
nation, — if  he  had  reproached  the  conquerors 
of  Europe  with  the  disgrace  of  being  the 
slaves  of  an  upstart  stranger, — if  he  had 
brought  before  their  minds  the  contrast  be 
tween  their  country  under  her  ancient  mo- 
narchs,  the  source  and  model  of  refinement 
in  manners  and  taste,  and  since  their  expul 
sion  the  scourge  and  opprobrium  of  humanity, 
— if  he  had  exhorted  them  to  drive  out  their 
ignoble  tyrants,  and  to  restore  their  native 
sovereign,  I  should  then  have  recognised  the 
voice  of  a  Royalist, — I  should  have  recog 
nised  language  that  must  have  flowed  from 
the  heart  of  Mr.  Peltier,  and  I  should  have 
been  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  it  was 
pointed  against  Buonaparte. 

But  instead  of  these,  or  similar  topics, 
what  have  we  in  this  Ode "?  On  the  suppo 
sition  that  it  is  the  invective  of  a  Royalist, 
how  is  it  to  be  reconciled  to  common  sense  ? 
What  purpose  is  it  to  serve  ?  To  whom  is  it 
addressed?  To  what  interests  does  it  ap 
peal?  What  passions  is  it  to  rouse?  If  it 
be  addressed  to  Royalists,  then  I  request, 
Gentlemen,  that  you  will  carefully  read  it, 
and  tell  me  whether,  on  that  supposition,  it 
can  be  any  thing  but  the  ravings  of  insanity, 
and  whether  a  commission  of  lunacy  be  not 
a  proceeding  more  fitted  to  the  author's  case, 
than  a  conviction  for  a  libel.  On  that  sup 
position.  I  ask  you  whether  it  does  not 
amount,  in  substance,  to  such  an  address  as 
the  following :— a  Frenchmen  !  Royalists!  I 
do  not  call  upon  you  to  avenge  the  murder 
of  your  innocent  sovereign,  the  butchery  of 
your  relations  and  friends,  or  the  disgrace 
and  oppression  of  your  country.  I  call  upon 
you  by  the  hereditary  right  of  Barras,  trans 
mitted  through  a  long  series  of  ages, — by 
the  beneficent  government  of  Merlin  and 
Reubell,  those  worthy  successors  of  Charle 
magne,  whose  authority  was  as  mild  as  it 
was  lawful, — I  call  upon  you  to  revenge  on 
Buonaparte  the  deposition  of  that  Directory 
who  condemned  the  far  greater  part  of  your 
selves  to  beggary  and  exile, — who  covered 
France  with  Bastiles  and  scaffolds. — who 
doomed  the  most  respectable  remaining 
members  of  their  community,  the  Piche- 
grus,  the  Barbe-Marbois',  the  Barthelemis, 
to  a  lingering  death  in  the  pestilential  wilds 
of  Guiana.  I  call  upon  yTou  to  avenge  on 
Buonaparte  the  cause  of  those  Councils  of 
Five  Hundred,  or  of  Two  Hundred,  of  Elders 
or  of  Youngsters, — those  disgusting  and  nau 
seous  mockeries  of  representative  assemblies, 
— those  miserable  councils  which  sycophant 
sophists  had  converted  into  machines  for 
fabricating  decrees  of  proscription  and  con 
fiscation. — which  not  only  proscribed  unborn 
thousands,  but,  by  a  refinement  and  innova 
tion  in  rapine,  visited  the  sins  of  the  children 
upon  the  fathers  and  beggared  parents,  not 
for  the  offences  but  for  the  misfortunes  of 
their  sons.  I  call  upon  you  to  restore  this 
Directory  and  these  Councils,  and  all  this 
horrible  profanation  of  the  name  of  a  repub- 
2R 


494 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


lie,  and  to  punish  those  who  delivered  you 
from  them.  I  exhort  you  to  reverence  the 
den  of  these  banditti  as  c  the  sanctuary  of 
the  laws/  and  to  lament  the  day  in  which 
this  intolerable  nuisance  was  abated  as  i  an 
unfortunate  day.'  Last  of  all,  I  exhort  you 
once  more  to  follow  that  deplorable  chimera, 
— the  first  lure  that  led  you  to  destruction, 
— the  sovereignty  of  the  people ;  although  I 
know,  and  you  have  bitterly  felt,  that  you 
never  were  so  much  slaves  in  fact,  as  since 
you  have  been  sovereigns  in  theory  !'"'  Let 
me  ask  Mr.  Attorney-General,  whether,  upon 
his  supposition.  I  have  not  given  you  a  faith 
ful  translation  of  this  Ode ;  and  I  think  I  may 
safely  repeat,  that,  if  this  be  the  language 
of  a  Royalist  addressed  to  Royalists,  it  must 
be  the  production  of  a  lunatic.  But,  on  my 
supposition,  every  thing  is  natural  and  con 
sistent.  You  have  the  sentiments  and  lan 
guage  of  a  Jacobin  : — it  is  therefore  probable, 
if  you  take  it  as  an  historical  republication 
of  a  Jacobin  piece;  it  is  just,  if  you  take  it 
as  a  satirical  representation  of  Jacobin  opi 
nions  and  projects. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  said,  that  this  is  the 
production  of  a  Royalist  writer,  who  assumes 
a  Republican  disguise  to  serve  Royalist  pur 
poses.  But  if  my  Learned  Friend  chooses 
that  supposition,  I  think  an  equal  absurdity 
returns  upon  him  in  another  shape.  We 
must  then  suppose  it  to  be  intended  to  ex 
cite  Republican  discontent  and  insurrection 
against  Buonaparte.  It  must  then  be  taken 
as  addressed  to  Republicans.  Would  Mr. 
Peltier,  in  that  case,  have  disclosed  his  name 
as  the  publisher  ?  Would  he  not  much  rather 
have  circulated  the  Ode  in  the  name  of 
Chenier,  without  prefixing  his  own,  which 
was  more  than  sufficient  to  warn  his  Jaco 
binical  readers  against  all  his  counsels  and 
exhortations.  If  "he  had  circulated  it  under 
the  name  of  Chenier  only,  he  would  indeed 
have  hung  out  Republican  colours ;  but  by 
prefixing  his  own,  he  appears  without  dis 
guise.  You  must  suppose  him  then  to  say : 
— "  Republicans !  I,  your  mortal  enemy  for 
fourteen  years,  whom  you  have  robbed  of 
his  all. — whom  you  have  forbidden  to  revisit 
his  country  under  pain  of  death, — who,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  has  unceas 
ingly  poured  ridicule  upon  your  follies,  and 
exposed  your  crimes  to  detestation, — who  in 
the  cause  of  his  unhappy  sovereign  braved 
your  daggers  for  three  years,  and  who  es 
caped,  almost  by  miracle,  from  your  assassins 
in  September, — who  has  since  been  con 
stantly  employed  in  warning  other  nations 
by  your  example,  and  in  collecting  the  evi 
dence  upon  which  history  will  pronounce 
your  condemnation, — I  who  at  this  moment 
deliberately  choose  exile  and  honourable 
poverty,  rather  than  give  the  slightest  mark 
of  external  compliance  with  your  abomina 
ble  institutions, — I  your  most  irreconcilable 
and  indefatigable  enemy,  offer  you  counsel 
which  you  know  can  only  be  a  snare  into 
which  I  expect  you  to  fall,  though  by  the 
mere  publication  of  my  name  I  have  suffi 


ciently  forewarned  you  that  I  can  have  no 
aim  but  that  of  your  destruction."  I  ask  you 
again,  Gentlemen,  is  this  common  sense  ?  Is 
it  not  as  clear,  from  the  name  of  the  author, 
that  it  is  not  addressed  to  Jacobins,  as,  from 
the  contents  of  the  publication,  that  it  is  not 
addressed  to  Royalists  ?  It  may  be  the  genu 
ine  work  of  Chenier;  for  the  topics  are  such 
as  he  would  employ :  it  may  be  a  satire  on 
Jacobinism;  for  the  language  is  well  adapted 
to  such  a  composition:  but  it  cannot  be  a 
Royalist's  invective  against  Buonaparte,  in 
tended  by  him  to  stir  up  either  Royalists  or 
Republicans  to  the  destruction  of  the  First 
Consul. 

I  cannot  conceive  it  to  be  necessary  that  I 
should  minutely  examine  this  Poem  to  con 
firm  my  construction.  There  are  one  or  two 
passages  on  which  I  shall  make  a  few  ob 
servations.  The  first  is  the  contrast  between 
the  state  of  England  and  that  of  France,  of 
which  an  ingenious  friend*  has  favoured  me 
with  a  translation,  which  I  shall  take  the 
liberty  of  reading  to  you : — 

"  Her  glorious  fabric  England  rears 

On  law's  fix'd  base  alone; 
Law's  guardian  pow'r  while  each  reveres, 
England  !  thy  people's  freedom  fears 
No  danger  from  the  throne. 

"  For  there,  before  almighty  law, 
High  birth,  high  place,  with  pious  awe, 

In  reverend  homage  bend  : 
There's  man's  free  spirit,  unconstrain'd, 
Exults,  in  man's  best  rights  maintain'd,— 
Rights,  which  by  ancient  valour  gained, 
From  age  to  age  descend. 

"  Britons,  by  no  base  fear  dismay'd, 

May  power's  worst  acts  arraign. 

Does  tyrant  force  their  rights  invade? 

They  call  on  law's  impartial  aid, 
Nor  call  that  aid  in  vain. 

"  Hence,  of  her  sacred  charter  proud, 
With  every  earihly  good  endow'd, 

O'er  subject  seas  unfurl'd, 
Britannia  waves  her  standard  wide  ; — 
Hence,  sees  her  freighted  navies  ride, 
Up  wealthy  Thames'  majestic  tide, 

The  wonder  of  the  world." 

Here,  at  first  sight,  you  may  perhaps  think 
that  the  consistency  of  the  Jacobin  character 
is  not  supported — that  the  Republican  dis 
guise  is  thrown  off, — that  the  Royalist  stands 
unmasked  before  you : — but,  on  more  consi 
deration,  you  will  find  that  such  an  inference 
would  be  too  hasty.  The  leaders  of  the 
Revolution  are  now  reduced  to  envy  that 
British  constitution  which,  in  the  infatuation 
of  their  presumptuous  ignorance,  they  once 
rejected  with  scorn.  They  are  now  slaves 
(as  themselves  confess)  because  twelve  years 
ago  they  did  not  believe  Englishmen  to  be 
free.  They  cannot  but  see  that  England  is 
the  only  popular  government  in  Europe;  and 
they  are  compelled  to  pay  a  reluctant  homage 
to  the  justice  of  English  principles.  The 
praise  of  England  is  too  striking  a  satire  on 
their  own  government  to  escape  them;  and 
I  may  accordingly  venture  to  appeal  to  all 


*  Mr.  Canning.— ED. 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


495 


those  who  know  any  thing  of  the  political 
circles  of  Paris,  whether  such  contrasts  be 
tween  France  and  England  as  that  which  I 
have  read  to  you  be  not  the  most  favourite 
topics  of  the  opponents  of  Buonaparte.  But 
in  the  very  next  stanza : — 

Cependant,  encore  affligee 
Par  1'odieuse  heredite, 
Londres  de  litres  surcharged, 
Londres  n'a  pas  tEgalite: — 

you  see  that  though  they  are  forced  to  render 
an  unwilling  tribute  to  our  liberty,  they  can 
not  yet  renounce  all  their  fantastic  and  de- 
pi  rable  chimeras.  They  endeavour  to  make 
a  compromise  between  the  experience  on 
which  they  cannot  shut  their  eyes,  and  the 
wretched  systems  to  which  they  still  cling. 
Fanaticism  is  the  most  incurable  of  all  men 
tal  diseases ;  because  in  all  its  forms, — reli 
gious,  philosophical,  or  political, — it  is  dis 
tinguished  by  a  sort  of  mad  contempt  for 
experience^  which  alone  can  correct  the  errors 
of  practical  judgment.  And  these  demo- 
cratical  fanatics  still  speak  of  the  odious 
principle  of  i:  hereditary  government ;"  they 
still  complain  that  we  have  not  '•'•equality:'1'' 
they  know  not  that  this  odious  principle  of 
inheritance  is  our  bulwark  against  tyranny, 
— that  if  we  had  their  pretended  equality 
we  should  soon  cease  to  be  the  objects  of 
their  envy.  These  are  the  sentiments  which 
you  would  naturally  expect  from  half-cured 
Juuatics:  but  once  more  I  ask  you,  whether 
they  can  be  the  sentiments  of  Mr.  Peltier'? 
Would  he  complain  that  we  have  too  much 
monarchy,  or  too  much  of  what  they  call 
'•'aristocracy'?"  If  he  has  any  prejudices 
against  the  English  government,  must  they 
not  be  of  an  entirely  opposite  kind? 

I  have  only  one  observation  more  to  make 
on  this  Poem.  It  relates  to  the  passage 
which  is  supposed  to  be  an  incitement  to 
assassination.  In  my  way  of  considering  the 
subject,  Mr.  Peltier  is  not  answerable  for 
that  passage,  Vhatever  its  demerits  may  be. 
It  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  Jacobin  ;  and  it 
will  not,  I  think,  be  affirmed,  that  if  it  were 
an  incitement  to  assassinate,  it  would  be 
very  unsuitable  to  his  character.  Experi 
ence,  and  very  recent  experience,  has  abun 
dantly  proved  how  widely  the  French  Re 
volution  has  blackened  men's  imaginations, 
— what  a  daring  and  desperate  cast  it  has 
given  to  their  characters, — how  much  it  has 
made  them  regard  the  most  extravagant  pro 
jects  of  guilt  as  easy  and  ordinary  expe 
dients, — and  to  what  a  horrible  extent  it  has 
familiarised  their  minds  to  crimes  which  be 
fore  were  only  known  among  civilized  na 
tions  by  the  history  of  barbarous  times,  or 
as  the  subject  of  poetical  fiction.  But.  thank 
God !  Gentlemen,  we  in  England  have  not 
learned  to  charge  any  man  with  inciting  to 
assassination, — not  even  a  member  of  that 
atrocious  sect  who  have  revived  political  as 
sassination  in  Christendom, — except  when 
we  are  compelled  to  do  so  by  irresistible 
evidence.  Where  is  that  evidence  here? 
in  general  it  is  immoral, — because  it  is  in 


decent, — to  speak  with  levity,  still  more  to 
anticipate  with  pleasure,  the  destruction  of 
any  human  being.  But  between  this  immo 
rality  and  the  horrible  crime  of  inciting  to 
assassination,  there  is  a  wide  interval  in 
deed.  The  real  or  supposed  author  of  this 
Ode  gives  you  to  understand  that  he  would 
hear  with  no  great  sorrow  of  the  destruction 
of  the  First  Consul.  But  surely  the  publica 
tion  of  that  sentiment  is  very  different  from 
an  exhortation  to  assassinate. 

But,  says  my  Learned  Friend,  why  is  the 
example  of  Brutus  celebrated  ?  Why  are  the 
French  reproached  with  their  baseness  in 
not  copying  that  example?  Gentlemen,  I 
have  no  judgment  to  give  on  the  act  of  Mar 
cus  Brutus.  I  rejoice  that  I  have  not:  I 
should  not  dare  to  condemn  the  acts  of  brave 
and  virtuous  men  in  extraordinary  and  ter 
rible  circumstances,  and  which  have  been, 
as  it  were,  consecrated  by  the  veneration  of 
so  many  ages.  Still  less  should  I  dare  to 
weaken  the  authority  of  the  most  sacred 
rules  of  duty,  by  praises  which  would  be 
immoral,  even  if  the  acts  themselves  were 
in  some  measure  justified  by  the  awful  cir 
cumstances  under  which  they  were  done.  I 
am  not  the  panegyrist  of  "  those  instances 
of  doubtful  public  spirit  at  which  morality  is 
perplexed,  reason  is  staggered,  and  from 
which  affrighted  nature  recoils."*  But 
whatever  we  may  think  of  the  act  of  Brutus. 
surely  my  Learned  Friend  will  not  contend 
that  every  allusion  to  it,  every  panegyric  on 
it,  which  has  appeared  for  eighteen  centu 
ries,  in  prose  and  verse,  is  an  incitement  to 
assassination.  From  the  '•'  corispiciuz  divina 
Philippica/amce."  down  to  the  last  schoolboy 
declamation,  he  will  find  scarce  a  work  of 
literature  without  such  allusions,  and  not 
very  many  without  such  panegyrics.  I  must 
say  that  he  has  construed  this  Ode  more  like 
an  Attorney-General  than  a  critic  in  poetry. 
According  to  his  construction,  almost  every 
fine  writer  in  our  language  is  a  preacher  of 
murder. 

Having  said  so  much  on  the  first  of  these 
supposed  libels,  I  shall  be  very  short  on  the 
two  that  remain  : — the  Verses  ascribed  to  a 
Dutch  Patriot,  and  the  Parody  of  the  Speech 
of  Lepidus. 

In  the  first  of  these,  the  piercing  eye  of  Mr. 
Attorney-General  has  again  discovered  an 
incitement  to  assassinate. — the  most  learned 
incitement  to  assassinate  that  ever  was  ad 
dressed  to  such  ignorant  ruffians  as  are  most 
likely  to  be  employed  for  such  purposes ! — 
in  an  obscure  allusion,  to  an  obscure,  and 
perhaps  fabulous,  part  of  Roman  history, — 
to  the  supposed  murder  of  Romulus,  about 
which  none  of  us  know  any  thing,  and  of 
which  the  Jacobins  of  Paris  and  Amsterdam 
probably  never  heard. 

But  the  Apotheosis : — here  my  Learned 
Friend  has  a  little  forgotten  himself: — he 
seems  to  argue  as  if  Apotheosis  always  pre  • 
supposed  death.  But  he  must  know,  that 

*  Burke,  Works,  (quarto,)  vol.  iv.  p.  427. 


496 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


Augustus,  and  even  Tiberius  and  Nero,  were 
deified  during  their  lives;  and  he  cannot 
have  forgotten  the  terms  in  which  one  of  the 
court-poets  of  Augustus  speaks  of  his  mas 
ter's  divinity : — 

Praescns  divus  habebitur 

Augustus,  adjectis  Britannia 

Imperis  — * 

If  any  modern  rival  of  Augustus  should 
choose  that  path  to  Olympus.  I  think  he  will 
find  it  more  steep  and  rugged  than  that  by 
which  Pollux  and  Hercules  climbed  to  the 
etherial  towers;  and  that  he  must  be  con 
tent  with  "'purpling  his  lips"  with  Burgundy 
on  earth,  as  he  has  very  little  chance  of  do 
ing  so  with  nectar  among  the  gods. 

The  utmost  that  can  seriously  be  made 
of  this  passage  is,  that  it  is  a  wish  for  a 
man's  death.  I  repeat,  that  I  do  not  contend 
for  the  decency  of  publicly  declaring  such 
wishes,  or  even  for  the  propriety  of  enter 
taining  them.  But  the  distance  between 
such  a  wish  and  a  persuasive  to  murder,  is 
immense.  Such  a  wish  for  a  man's  death  is 
very  often  little  more  than  a  strong,  though 
I  admit  not  a  very  decent,  way  of  expressing 
detestation  of  his  character. 

But  without  pursuing  this  argument  any 
farther,  I  think  myself  entitled  to  apply  to 
these  Verses  the  same  reasoning  which  I  have 
already  applied  to  the  first  supposed  libel  on 
Buonaparte.  If  they  be  the  real  composi 
tion  of  a  pretended  Dutch  Patriot,  Mr.  Pel 
tier  may  republish  them  innocently  :  if  they 
be  a  satire  on  such  pretended  Dutch  patriots, 
they  are  not  a  libel  on  Buonaparte.  Granting, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  they  did  con 
tain  a  serious  exhortation  to  assassinate,  is 
there  any  thing  in  such  an  exhortation  in 
consistent  with  the  character  of  these  pre 
tended  patriots  1  They  who  were  disaffected 
to  the  mild  and  tolerant  government  of  their 
flourishing  country,  because  it  did  not  ex 
actly  square  with  all  their  theoretical  whim 
sies, — who  revolted  from  that  administration 
as  tyrannical,  which  made  Holland  one  of 
the  wonders  of  the  world  for  protected  in 
dustry,  for  liberty  of  action  and  opinion,  and 
for  a  prosperity  which  I  may  venture  to  call 
the  greatest  victory  of  man  over  hostile  ele 
ments, — who  served  in  the  armies  of  Robe 
spierre,  under  the  impudent  pretext  of  giving 
liberty  to  their  own  country,  and  who  have, 
finally,  buried  in  the  same  grave  its  liberty, 
its  independence,  and  perhaps  its  national  ex 
istence, — such  men  are  not  entitled  to  much 
tenderness  from  a  political  satirist ;  and  he 
will  scarcely  violate  dramatic  propriety  if  he 
impute  to  them  any  language,  however  crimi 
nal  and  detestable.  They  who  could  not 
brook  the  authority  of  their  old,  lazy,  good- 
natured  government,  are  not  likely  to  endure 
with  patience  the  yoke  of  that  stern  domina 
tion  which  they  have  brought  upon  them 
selves,  and  which,  as  far  as  relates  to  them, 
is  only  the  just  punishment  of  their  crimes. 

I  know  nothing  more  odious  than  their 


*  Horace,  lib.  iii.  ode  5. — Ed. 


character,  unless  it  be  that  of  those  who 
invoked  the  aid  of  the  oppressors  of  Switzer 
land  to  be  the  deliverers  of  Ireland  !  The 
latter  guilt  has,  indeed,  peculiar  aggravations. 
In  the  name  of  liberty  they  were  willing  to 
surrender  their  country  into  the  hands  of 
tyrants,  the  most  lawless,  faithless,  and 
merciless  that  ever  scourged  Europe, — who. 
at  the  very  moment  of  the  negotiation,  were 
covered  with  the  blood  of  the  unhappy 
Swiss,  the  martyrs  of  real  independence  and 
of  real  liberty.  Their  success  would  have 
been  the  destruction  of  the  only  free  com 
munity  remaining  in  Europe, — of  England, 
the  only  bulwark  of  the  remains  of  Euro 
pean  independence.  Their  means  were  the 
passions  of  an  ignorant  and  barbarous  pea 
santry,  and  a  civil  war,  which  could  not  fail 
to  produce  all  the  horrible  crimes  and  horri 
ble  retaliations  of  the  last  calamity  that  can 
befall  society, — a  servile  revolt.  They  sought 
the  worst  of  ends  by  the  most  abominable 
of  means.  They  laboured  for  the  subjuga 
tion  of  the  world  at  the  expense  of  crimes 
and  miseries  which  men  of  humanity  and 
conscience  would  have  thought  too  great  a 
price  for  its  deliverance. 

The  last  of  these  supposed  libels,  Gentle 
men,  is  the  Parody  on  the  Speech  of  Lepi- 
dus.  in  the  Fragments  of  Sallust.  It  is 
certainly  a  very  ingenious  and  happy  parody 
of  an  original,  attended  with  some  historical 
obscurity  and  difficulty,  which  it  is  no  part 
of  our  present  business  to  examine.  This 
Parody  is  said  to  have  been  clandestinely 
placed  among  the  papers  of  one  of  the  most 
amiable  and  respectable  men  in  France, 
M.  Camille  Jourdan,  in  order  to  furnish  a 
pretext  for  involving  that  excellent  person  in 
a  charge  of  conspiracy.  This  is  said  to  have 
been  done  by  a  spy  of  Fouche.  Now,  Gen 
tlemen,  I  take  this  to  be  a  satire  of  Fouche, 
— on  his  manufacture  of  plots, — on  his  con 
trivances  for  the  destruction  of  innocent  and 
virtuous  men  ;  and  I  should  admit  it  to  be  a 
libel  on  Fouche,  if  it  were  possible  to  libel 
him.  I  own  that  I  should  like  to  see  Fouche 
appear  as  a  plaintiff,  seeking  reparation  for 
his  injured  character,  before  any  tribunal, 
safe  from  his  fangs, — where  he  had  not  the 
power  of  sending  the  judges  to  Guiana  or 
Madagascar.  It  happens  that  we  kno"\y 
something  of  the  history  of  M.  Fouche, 
from  a  very  credible  witness  against  him, — 
from  himself.  You  will  perhaps  excuse  me 
for  reading  to  you  some  passages  of  his  let 
ters  in  the  year  1793,  from  which  you  will 
judge  whether  any  satire  can  be  so  severe  as 
the  portrait  he  draws  of  himself : — "  Convin 
ced  that  there  are  no  innocent  men  in  this  in 
famous  city,"  (the  unhappy  city  of  Lyons), 
"but  those  who  are  oppressed  and  loaded 
with  irons  by  the  assassins  of  the  people," 
(he  means  the  murderers  who  were  con 
demned  to  death  for  their  crimes)  "  we  are 
on  our  guard  against  the  tears  of  repentance ! 
nothing  can  disarm  our  severity.  They  have 
not  yet  dared  to  solicit  the  repeal  of  your 
first  'decree  for  the  annihilation  of  the  city 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


497 


of  Lyons !  but  scarcely  anything  has  yet 
been  done  to  carry  it  into  execution."  (Pa 
thetic!)  "The  demolitions  are  too  slow. 
More  rapid  means  are  necessary  to  republi 
can  impatience.  The  explosion  of  the  mine, 
and  the  devouring  activity  of  the  flames,  can 
alone  adequately  represent  the  omnipotence 
of  the  people."  (Unhappy  populace,  always 
the  pretext,  the  instrument,  and  the  victim 
of  political  crimes  !)  "  Their  will  cannot  be 
checked  like  that  of  tyrants — it  ought  to 
have  the  effects  of  thunder!"*  The  next 
specimen  of  this  worthy  gentleman  which  I 
shall  give,  is  in  a  speech  to  the  Jacobin  Club 
of  Paris,  on  the  21st  of  December.  1793,  by 
his  worthy  colleague  in  the  mission  to  Ly 
ons,  Collot  d'Herbois: — "We  are  accused" 
(you,  Gentlemen,  will  soon  see  how  un 
justly)  "of  being  cannibals,  men  of  blood; 
but  it  is  in  counter-revolutionary  petitions, 
hawked  about  for  signature  by  aristocrats, 
that  this  charge  is  made  against  us.  They 
examine  with  the  most  scrupulous  atten 
tion  how  the  counter-revolutionists  are  put 
to  death,  and  they  affect  to  say,  that  they 
are  not  killed  at  one  stroke."  (He  speaks 
for  himself  and  his  colleague  Fouche,  and 
one  would  suppose  that  he  was  going  to 
deny  the  fact, — but  nothing  like  it.)  '-'Ah, 
Jacobins,  did  Chalier  die  at  the  first  stroke  ?" 
(This  Chalier  was  the  Marat  of  Lyons.)  "A 
drop  of  blood  poured  from  generous  veins 
goes  to  my  heart"  (humane  creature  ! ) ;  "  but 
I  have  no  pity  for  conspirators."  (He  how 
ever  proceeds  to  state  a  most  undeniable 
proof  of  his  compassion.)  "  We  caused  two 
hundred  to  be  shot  at  once,  and  it  is  charged 
upon  us  as  a  crime!"  (Astonishing!  that 
such  an  act  of  humanity  should  be  called  a 
crime  ! )  "  They  do  not  know  that  it  is  a  proof 
of  our  sensibility  I  When  twenty  criminals 
are  guillotined,  the  last  of  them  dies  twenty 
deaths :  but  those  two  hundred  conspirators 
perished  at  once.  They  speak  of  sensibility; 
we  also  are  full  of  sensibility !  The  Jacobins 
have  all  the  virtues !  They  are  compassionate , 
humane,  generous ! "  (This  is  somewhat  hard 
to  be  understood,  but  it  is  perfectly  explained 
by  what  follows;)  "but  they  reserve  these 
sentiments  for  the  patriots  who  are  their 
brethren,  which  the  aristocrats  never  will 
be."f 

The  only  remaining  document  with  which 
I  shall  trouble  you,  is  a  letter  from  Fouche 
to  his  amiable  colleague  Collot  d'Herbois, 
which,  as  might  be  expected  in  a  confiden 
tial  communication,  breathes  all  the  native 
tenderness  of  his  soul : — "  Let  us  be  terrible, 
that  we  may  run  no  risk  of  being  feeble  or 
cruel.  Let  us  annihilate  in  our  wrath,  at  a 
single  blow,  all  rebels,  all  conspirators,  all 
traitors,"  (comprehensive  words  in  his  voca 
bulary)  "  to  spare  ourselves  the  pain,  the 
long  agony,  of  punishing  like  kings  !"  (No 
thing  but  philanthropy  in  this  worthy  man's 
heart.)  "Let  us  exercise  justice  after  the 


*  Moniteur,  24th  November,  1793. 
t  Moniteur,  24th  December. 
63 


example  of  nature;  let  us  avenge  ourselves 
ike  a'people ;  let  us  strike  like  the  thunder 
bolt  ;  and  let  even  the  ashes  of  our  enemies 
disappear  from  the  soil  *of  liberty !  Let  the 
)erfidious  and  ferocious  English  be  attacked 
>om  every  side;  let  the  whole  republic 
brm  a  volcano  to  pour  devouring  lava  upon 
hem ;  may  the  infamous  island  which  pro 
duced  these  monsters,  who  no  longer  belong 
o  humanity,  be  for  ever  buried  under  the 
waves  of  the  ocean  !  Farewell,  my  friend  ! 
Tears  of  joy  stream  from  my  eyes"  (we 
shall  soon  see  for  what) ;  "  they  deluge  my 
soul."*  Then  follows  a  little  postscript, 
which  explains  the  cause  of  this  excessive 
joy,  so  hyperbolical  in  its  language,  and 
which  fully  justifies  the  indignation  of  the 
lumane  writer  against  the  "  ferocious  Eng- 
"ish,"  who  are  so  stupid  and  so  cruel  as  never 
:o  have  thought  of  a  benevolent  massacre, 
t)y  way  of  sparing  themselves  the  pain  of 
punishing  individual  criminals.  "  We  have 
only  one  way  of  celebrating  victory.  We 
send  this  evening  two  hundred  and  thirteen 
rebels  to  be  shot !" 

Such,  Gentlemen,  is  M.  Fouche,  who  is 
said  to  have  procured  this  Parody  to  be  mix 
ed  with  the  papers  of  my  excellent  friend 
Camille  Jourdan,  to  serve  as  a  pretext  for  his 
destruction.  Fabricated  plots  are  among  the 
most  usual  means  of  such  tyrants  for  suck 
purposes ;  and  if  Mr.  Peltier  intended  to 
tibel — shall  I  say  ?— Fouche  by  this  compo 
sition,  I  can  easily  understand  both  the  Pa 
rody  and  the  history  of  its  origin.  But  if  it 
be  directed  against  Buonaparte  to  serve 
Royalist  purposes,  I  must  confess  myself 
wholly  unable  to  conceive  why  Mr.  Peltier 
should  have  stigmatised  his  work,  and  de 
prived  it  of  all  authority  and  power  of  per 
suasion,  by  prefixing  to  it  the  infamous  name 
of  Fouche. 

On  the  same  principle  I  think  one  of  the 
observations  of  my  Learned  Friend,  on  the 
title  of  this  publication,  may  be  retorted  on 
him.  He  has  called  your  attention  to  the 
title, — "  L'Ambigu,  ou  Varietes  atroces  et 
amusantes."  Now,  Gentlemen,  I  must  ask 
whether,  had  these  been  Mr.  Peltier's  own  in 
vectives  against  Buonaparte,  he  would  him 
self  have  branded  them  as  "atrocious1?" 
But  if  they  be  specimens  of  the  opinions  and 
invectives  of  a  French  faction,  the  title  is 
very  natural,  and  the  epithets  are  perfectly 
intelligible.  Indeed  I  scarce  know  a  more 
appropriate  title  for  the  whole  tragi-comedy 
of  the  Revolution  than  that  of  "atrocious 
and  amusing  varieties." 

My  Learned  Friend  has  made  some  obsei 
vations  on  other  parts  of  this  publication,  to 
show  the  spirit  which  animates  the  author; 
but  they  do  not  seem  to  be  very  material  to 
the  question  between  us.  It  is  no  part  of  my 
case  that  Mr.  Peltier  has  not  spoken  with 
some  impoliteness, — with  some  flippancy, — 
with  more  severity  than  my  Learned  Friend 
may  approve,  of  factions  and  of  adminis- 

*  Moniteur,  25th  December. 
2R2 


498 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


trations  in  France.  Mr.'  Peltier  cannot  love 
the  Revolution,  or  any  government  that  has 
grown  out  of  it  and  maintains  it.  The  Re 
volutionists  have  destroyed  his  family;  they 
have  seized  his  inheritance ;  they  have  beg 
gared,  exiled,  and  proscribed  himself.  If  he 
did  not  detest  them  he  would  be  unworthy 
of  living ;  he  would  be  a  base  hypocrite  if  he 
were  to  conceal  his  sentiments.  But  I  must 
again  remind  you,  that  this  is  not  an  Informa 
tion  for  not  sufficiently  honouring  the  French 
Revolution, — for  not  showing  sufficient  reve 
rence  for  the  Consular  government.  These 
are  no  crimes  among  us.  England  is  not 
yet  reduced  to  such  an  ignominious  depend 
ence.  Our  hearts  and  consciences  are  not 
yet  in  the  bonds  of  so  wretched  a  slavery. 
This  is  an  Information  for  a  libel  on  Buona 
parte,  and  if  you  believe  the  principal  inten 
tion  of  Mr.  Peltier  to  have  been  to  republish 
the  writings  or  to  satirise  the  character  of 
other  individuals,  you  must  acquit  him  of  a 
libel  on  the  First  Consul. 

Here,  Gentlemen,  I  think  I  might  stop,  if  I 
had  only  to  consider  the  defence  of  Mr.  Pel 
tier.  I  trust  that  you  are  already  convinced 
of  his  innocence.  I  fear  I  have  exhausted 
your  patience,  as  I  am  sure  I  have  very  nearly 
exhausted  my  own  strength.  But  so  much 
seems  to  me  to  depend  on  your  verdict,  that  I 
cannot  forbear  from  laying  before  you  some 
considerations  of  a  more  general  nature. 

Believing  as  I  do  that  we  are  on  the  eve 
of  a  great  struggle, — that  this  is  only  the  first 
battle  between  reason  and  power, — that  you 
have  now  in  your  hands,  committed  to  your 
trust,  the  only  remains  of  free  discussion  in 
Europe,  now  confined  to  this  kingdom ;  ad 
dressing  you,  therefore,  as  the  guardians  of 
the  most  important  interests  of  mankind; 
convinced  that  the  unfettered  exercise  of 
reason  depends  more  on  your  present  verdict 
than  on  any  other  that  was  ever  delivered 
by  a  jury,  I  cannot  conclude  without  bring 
ing  before  you  the  sentiments  and  examples 
of  our  ancestors  in  some  of  those  awful  and 
perilous  situations  by  which  Divine  Provi 
dence  has  in  former  ages  tried  the  virtue  of 
the  English  nation.  We  are  fallen  upon 
times  in  which  it  behoves  us  to  strengthen 
our  spirits  by  the  contemplation  of  great  ex 
amples  of  constancy.  Let  us  seek  for  them 
in  the  annals  of  our  forefathers. 

The  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  may  be 
considered  as  the  opening  of  the  modern 
history  of  England,  especially  in  its  connec 
tion  with  the  modern  system  of  Europe, 
which  began  about  that  time  to  assume  the 
form  that  it  preserved  till  the  French  Revo 
lution.  It  was  a  very  memorable  period, 
the  maxims  of  which  ought  to  be  engraven 
on  the  head  and  heart  of  every  Englishman. 
Philip  II.,  at  the  head  of  the  greatest  empire 
then  in  the  world,  was  openly  aiming  at  uni 
versal  domination ;  and  his  project  was  so 
far  from  being  thought  chimerical  by  the 
wisest  of  his  contemporaries,  that  in  the  opi 
nion  of  the  great  Due  de  Sully  he  must  have 
been  successful;  "if,  by  a  most  singular 


combination  of  circumstances,  he  had  not  at 
the  same  time  been  resisted  by  two  such 
strong  heads  as  those  of  Henry  IV.  and 
Queen  Elizabeth."  To  the  most  extensive 
and  opulent  dominions,  the  most  numerous 
and  disciplined  armies,  the  most  renowned 
captains,  the  greatest  revenue,  he  added  also 
the  most  formidable  power  over  opinion. 
He  was  the  chief  of  a  religious  faction,  ani 
mated  by  the  most  atrocious  fanaticism,  and 
prepared  to  second  his  ambition  by  rebellion, 
anarchy,  and  regicide,  in  every  Protestant 
state.  Elizabeth  was  among  the  first  ob 
jects  of  his  hostility.  That  wise  and  mag 
nanimous  Princess  placed  herself  in  the  front 
of  the  battle  for  the  liberties  of  Europe. 
Though  she  had  to  contend  at  home  with 
his  fanatical  faction,  which  almost  occupied 


Ireland,  which  divided 


Scotland,  and  was 


not  of  contemptible  strength  in  England,  she 
aided  the  oppressed  inhabitants  of  the  Ne 
therlands  in  their  just  and  glorious  resistance 
to  his  tyranny ;  she  aided  Henry  the  Great  in 
suppressing  the  abominable  rebellion  which 
anarchical  principles  had  excited  and  Spanish 
arms  had  supported  in  France  j  and  after  a 
long  reign  of  various  fortune,  in  which  she  pre 
served  her  unconquered  spirit  through  great 
calamities,  and  still  greater  dangers,  she  at 
length  broke  the  strength  of  the  enemy,  and 
reduced  his  power  within  such  limits  as  to 
be  compatible  with  the  safety  of  England, 
and  of  all  Europe.  Her  only  effectual  ally 
was  the  spirit  of  her  people  :  and  her  policy 
flowed  from  that  magnanimous  nature  which 
in  the  hour  of  peril  teaches  better  lessons 
than  those  of  cold  reason.  Her  great  heart 
inspired  her  xvith  the  higher  and  a  nobler 
wisdom,  which  disdained  to  appeal  to  the 
low  and  sordid  passions  of  her  people  even 
for  the  protection  of  their  low  and  sordid 
interests ;  because  she  knew,  or  rather  she 
felt,  that  these  are  effeminate,  creeping,  cow 
ardly,  short-sighted  passions,  which  shrink 
from  conflict  even  in  defence  of  their  own 
mean  objects.  In  a  righteous  cause  she 
roused  those  generous  affections  of  her  people 
which  alone  teach  boldness,  constancy,  and 
foresight,  and  which  are  therefore  the  only 
safe  guardians  of  the  lowest  as  well  as  the 
highest  interests  of  a  nation.  In  her  me 
morable  address  to  her  army,  when  the  in 
vasion  of  the  kingdom  was  threatened  by 
Spain,  this  woman  of  heroic  spirit  disdained 
to  speak  to  them  of  their  ease  and  their 
commerce,  and  their  wealth  and  their  safety. 
No!  She  touched  another  chord; — she  spoke 
of  their  national  honour,  of  their  dignity  as 
Englishmen,  of  "  the  foul  scorn  that  Parma 
or  Spain  should  dare  to  invade  the  bor 
ders  of  her  realms!"  She  breathed  into 
them  those  grand  and  powerful  sentiments 
which  exalt  vulgar  men  into  heroes, — which 
led  them  into  Ithe  battle  of  their  country 
armed  with  holy  and  irresistible  enthusiasm, 
which  even  cover  with  their  shield  all  the 
ignoble  interests  that  base  calculation  and 
cowardly  selfishness  tremble  to  hazard,  but 
shrink  from  defending.  A  sort  of  prophetic 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


499 


instinct,  — if  I  may  so  speak, — seems  to  have 
revealed  to  her  the  importance  of  that  great 
instrument  for  rousing  and  guiding  the  minds 
of  men,  of  the  effects  of  which  she  had  had 
no  experience, — which,  since  her  time,  has 
changed  the  condition  of  the  world, — but 
which  few  modern  statesmen  have  tho 
roughly  understood  or  wisely  employed, — 
which  is  no  doubt  connected  with  many 
ridiculous  and  degrading  details, — which  has 
produced,  and  which  may  again  produce, 
terrible  mischiefs, — but  the  influence  of 
which  must  after  all  be  considered  as  the 
most  certain  effect  and  the  most  efficacious 
cause  of  civilization, — and  which,  whether  it 
be  a  blessing  or  a  curse,  is  the  most  power 
ful  engine  that  a  politician  can  move : — I 
mean  the  press.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  that, 
in  the  year  of  the  Armada,  Queen  Elizabeth 
caused  to  be  printed  the  first  Gazettes  that 
ever  appeared  in  England ;  and  I  own,  when 
I  consider  that  this  mode  of  rousing  a  na 
tional  spirit  was  then  absolutely  unexam 
pled, — that  she  could  have  no  assurance  of 
its  efficacy  from  the  precedents  of  former 
times, — 1  am  disposed  to  regard  her  having 
recourse  to  it  as  one  of  the  most  sagacious 
experiments, — one  of  the  greatest  discove 
ries  of  political  genius. — one  of  the  most 
striking  anticipations  of  future  experience, 
that  we  find  in  history.  I  mention  it  to  you, 
to  justify  the  opinion  that  I  have  ventured  to 
state,  of  the  close  connection  of  our  national 
spirit  with  our  press,  and  even  our  periodi 
cal  press.  I  cannot  quit  the  reign  of  Eliza 
beth  without  laying  before  you  the  maxims 
of  her  policy,  in  the  language  of  the  greatest 
and  wisest  of  men.  Lord  Bacon,  in  one  part 
of  his  discourse  on  her  reign,  speaks  thus  of 
her  support  of  Holland : — •'  But  let  me  rest 
upon  the  honourable  and  continual  aid  and 
relief  she  hath  given  to  the  distressed  and 
desolate  people .  of  the  Low  Countries  ;  a 
people  recommended  unto  her  by  ancient 
confederacy  and  daily  intercourse,  by  their 
cause  so  innocent,  and  their  fortune  so  la 
mentable  !;' — In  another  passage  of  the  same 
discourse,  he  thus  speaks  of  the  general 
system  of  her  foreign  policy,  as  the  protector 
of  Europe,  in  words  too  remarkable  to  re 
quire  any  commentary: — "Then  it  is  her 
government,  and  her  government  alone,  that 
hath  been  the  sconce  and  fort  of  all  Europe, 
which  hath  lett  this  proud  nation  from  over 
running  all.  If  any  state  be  yet  free  from 
his  factions  erected  in  the  bowels  thereof;  if 
there  be  any  state  wherein  this  faction  is 
erected  that  is  not  yet  fired  with  civil  trou 
bles;  if  there  be  any  state  under  his  pro 
tection  that  enjoyeth  moderate  liberty,  upon 
whom  he  tyrannizeth  not;  it  is  the  mercy 
of  this  renowned  Queen  that  standeth  be 
tween  them  and  their  misfortunes  !" 

The  next  great  conspirator  against  the 
rights  of  men  and  nations,  against  the  secu 
rity  and  independence  of  all  European  states, 
against  every  kind  and  degree  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  was  Louis  XIV.  In  his 
time  the  character  of  the  English  nation  was 


the  more  remarkably  displayed,  because  it 
was  counteracted  by  an  apostate  and  perfi 
dious  government.  During  great  part  of  his 
reign,  you  know  that  the  throne  of  England 
was  filled  by  princes  who  deserted  the 
cause  of  their  country  and  of  Europe, — 
who  were  the  accomplices  and  the  tools  of 
the  oppressor  of  the  world, — who  were 
even  so  unmanly,  so  unprincely,  so  base,  as 
to  have  sold  themselves  to  his  ambition, — 
who  were  content  that  he  should  enslave 
the  Continent,  if  he  enabled  them  to  enslave 
Great  Britain.  These  princes,  traitors  to  their 
own  royal  dignity  and  to  the  feelings  of  the 
generous  people  whom  they  ruled,  preferred 
the  condition  of  the  first  slave  of  Louis  XIV. 
to  the  dignity  of  the  first  freeman  of  Eng 
land.  Yet,  even  under  these  princes,  the 
feelings  of  the  people  of  this  kingdom  were 
displayed  on  a  most  memorable  occasion  to 
wards  foreign  sufferers  and  foreign  oppres 
sors.  The  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
threw  fifty  thousand  French  Protestants  on 
our  shores.  They  were  received,  as  I  trust 
the  victims  of  tyranny  ever  will  be  in  this 
land,  which  seems  chosen  by  Providence  to 
be  the  home  of  the  exile, — the  refuge  of  the 
oppressed.  They  were  welcomed  by  a  people 
high-spirited  as  well  as  humane,  who  did 
not  insult  them  by  clandestine  charity, — 
who  did  not  give  alms  in  secret  lest  their 
charity  should  be  detected  by  neighbouring 
tyrants!  No!  they  were  publicly  and  na 
tionally  welcomed  and  relieved.  They  were 
bid  to  raise  their  voice  against  their  oppres 
sor,  and  to  proclaim  their  wrongs  to  all  man 
kind.  They  did  so.  They  were  joined  in 
the  cry  of  just  indignation  by  every  English 
man  worthy  of  the  name.  It  was  a  fruitful 
indignation,  which  soon  produced  the  suc 
cessful  resistance  of  all  Europe  to  the  com 
mon  enemy.  Even  then,  when  Jeffreys 
disgraced  the  Bench  which  his  Lordship* 
now  adorns,  no  refugee  was  deterred  by 
prosecution  for  libel  from  giving  vent  to  his 
feelings, — from  arraigning  the  oppressor  in 
the  face  of  all  Europe. 

During  this  ignominious  period  of  our  his 
tory,  a  war  arose  on  the  Continent,  which 
cannot  but  present  itself  to  the  mind  on 
such  an  occasion  as  this, — the  only  war  that 
was  ever  made  on  the  avowed  ground  of  at 
tacking  a  free  press.  I  speak  of  the  invasion 
of  Holland  by  Louis  XIV.  The  liberties 
which  the  Dutch  gazettes  had  taken  in  dis 
cussing  his  conduct  were  the  sole  cause  of 
this  very  extraordinary  and  memorable  war, 
which  was  of  short  duration,  unprecedented 
in  its  avowed  principle,  and  most  glorious  in 
its  event  for  the  liberties  of  mankind.  That 
republic,  at  all  times  so  interesting  to  Eng 
lishmen, — in  the  worst  times  of  both  coun 
tries  our  brave  enemies, — in  their  best  times 
our  most  faithful  and  valuable  friends, — was 
then  charged  with  the  defence  of  a  free  press 
against  the  oppressor  of  Europe,  as  a  sacred 
trust  for  the  benefit  of  all  generations.  They 


Lord  Ellenborough.— ED. 


500 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


felt  the  sacredness  of  the  deposit ;  they  felt 
the  dignity  of  the  station  in  which  they  were 
placed:  and  though  deserted  by  the  un- 
English  Government  of  England,  they  as 
serted  their  own  ancient  character,  and  drove 
out  the  great  armies  and  great  captains  of 
the  oppressor  with  defeat  and  disgrace.  Such 
\vas  the  result  of  the  only  war  hitherto  avow 
edly  undertaken  to  oppress  a  free  country 
because  she  allowed  the  free  and  public  ex 
ercise  of  reason  : — and  may  the  God  of  Jus 
tice  and  Liberty  grant  that  such  may  ever 
be  the  result  of  wars  made  by  tyrants  against 
the  rights  of  mankind,  especially  of  those 
against  that  right  which  is  the  guardian  of 
every  other. 

This  war,  Gentlemen,  had  the  effect  of 
raising  up  from  obscurity  the  great  Prince 
of  Orange,  afterwards  King  William  III. — 
the  deliverer  of  Holland,  the  deliverer  of 
England,  the  deliverer  of  Europe, — the  only 
hero  who  was  distinguished  by  such  a  happy 
union  of  fortune  and  virtue  that  the  objects 
of  his  ambition  were  always  the  same  with 
the  interests  of  humanity, — perhaps,  the  only 
man  who  devoted  the  whole  of  his  life  ex 
clusively  to  the  service  of  mankind.  This 
most  illustrious  benefactor  of  Europe, — this 
u  hero  without  vanity  or  passion,7'  as  he  has 
been  justly  and  beautifully  called  by  a  vene 
rable  prelate,*  who  never  made  a  step  to 
wards  greatness  without  securing  or  advan 
cing  liberty,  who  had  been  made  Stadtholder 
of  Holland  for  the  salvation  of  his  own  coun 
try,  was  soon  after  made  King  of  England 
for  the  deliverance  of  ours.  When  the  peo 
ple  of  Great  Britain  had  once  more  a  govern 
ment  worthy  of  them,  they  returned  to  the 
feelings  and  principles  of  their  ancestors, 
and  resumed  their  former  station  and  their 
former  duties  as  protectors  of  the  indepen 
dence  of  nations.  The  people  of  England,  de 
livered  from  a  government  which  disgraced, 
oppressed,  and  betrayed  them,  fought  under 
William  as  their  forefathers  had  fought  under 
Elizabeth,  and  after  an  almost  uninterrupted 
struggle  of  more  than  twenty  years,  in  which 
they  were  often  abandoned  by  fortune,  but 
never  by  their  own  constancy  and  magna 
nimity,  they  at  length  once  more  defeated 
those  projects  of  guilty  ambition,  boundless 
aggrandisement,  and  universal  domination, 
which  had  a  second  time  threatened  to  over 
whelm  the  whole  civilized  world.  They 
rescued  Europe  from  being  swallowed  up  in 
the  gulf  of  extensive  empire,  which  the  ex 
perience  of  all  times  points  out  as  the  grave 
of  civilization, — where  men  are  driven  by 
violent  conquest  and  military  oppression  into 
lethargy  and  slavishness  of  heart, — where, 
after  their  arts  have  perished  with  the  men 
tal  vigour  from  which  they  spring,  they  are 
plunged  by  the  combined  power  of  effemi 
nacy  and  ferocity  into  irreclaimable  and 
hopeless  barbarism.  Our  ancestors  esta 
blished,  the  safety  of  their  own  country  by 
providing  for  that  of  others,  and  rebuilt  the 

*  Dr.  Shipley,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph. 


European  system  upon  such  firm  founda 
tions,  that  nothing  less  than  the  tempest  of  the 
French  Revolution  could  have  shaken  it. 

This  arduous  struggle  was  suspended  for 
a  short  time  by  the  Peace  of  Ryswick.  The 
interval  between  that  Treaty  and  the  War 
of  the  Succession  enables  us  to  judge  how 
our  ancestors  acted  in  a  very  peculiar  situa 
tion  which  requires  maxims  of  policy  very 
different  from  those  which  usually  govern 
states.  The  treaty  which  they  had  con 
cluded  was  in  truth  and  substance  only  a 
truce.  The  ambition  and  the  power  of  the 
enemy  were  such  as  to  render  real  peace 
impossible ;  and  it  was  perfectly  obvious  that 
the  disputed  succession  of  the  Spanish  mon 
archy  would  soon  render  it  no  longer  practica 
ble  to  preserve  even  the  appearance  of  amity. 
It  was  desirable,  however,  not  to  provoke 
the  enemy  by  unseasonable  hostility ;  but  it 
was  still  more  desirable, — it  was  absolutely 
necessary,  to  keep  up  the  national  jealousy 
and  indignation  against  him  who  was  soon 
to  be  their  open  enemy.  It  might  naturally 
have  been  apprehended  that  the  press  might 
have  driven  into  premature  war  a  prince 
who  not  long  before  had  been  violently  ex 
asperated  by  the  press  of  another  free  coun 
try.  I  have  looked  over  the  political  publi 
cations  of  that  time  with  some  care,  and  I 
can  venture  to  say.  that  at  no  period  were 
the  system  and  projects  of  Louis  XIV  ani 
madverted  on  with  more  freedom  and  bold 
ness  than  during  that  interval.  Our  ances 
tors,  and  the  heroic  Prince  who  governed 
them,  did  not  deem  it  wise  policy  to  disarm 
the  national  mind  for  the  sake  of  prolonging 
a  truce  : — they  were  both  too  proud  and  too 
wise  to  pay  so  great  a  price  for  so  small  a 
benefit. 

In  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a 
great  change  took  place  in  the  state  of  politi 
cal  discussion  in  this  country: — I  speak  of 
the  multiplication  of  newspapers.  I  know 
that  newspapers  are  not  very  popular  in  this 
place,  which  is.  indeed,  not  very  surprising, 
because  they  are  known  here  only  by  their 
faults.  Their  publishers  come  here  only  to 
receive  the  chastisement  due  to  their  of 
fences.  With  all  their  faults,  I  own,  I  can- 
not  help  feeling  some  respect  for  whatever 
is  a  proof  of  the  increased  curiosity  and  in 
creased  knowledge  of  mankind ;  and  I  can 
not  help  thinking,  that  if  somewhat  more 
indulgence  and  consideration  were  shown 
for  the  difficulties  of  their  situation,  it  might 
prove  one  of  the  best  correctives  of  their 
faults,  by  teaching  them  that  self-respect 
which  is  the  best  security  for  liberal  conduct 
towards  others.  But  however  that  may  be, 
it  is  very  certain  that  the  multiplication  of 
these  channels  of  popular  information  has 
produced  a  great  change  in  the  state  of  our 
domestic  and  foreign  politics.  At  home,  it 
has,  in  truth,  produced  a  gradual  revolution 
in  our  government.  By  increasing  the  num 
ber  of  those  who  exercise  some  sort  of  judg 
ment  on  public  affairs,  it  has  created  a  sub 
stantial  democracy,  infinitely  more  important 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


50 : 


than  those  democrat  ical  forms  which  have 
been  the  subject  of  so  much  contest.  So 
that  I  may  venture  to  say,  England  has  not 
only  in  its  forms  the  most  democratical  gov 
ernment  that  ever  existed  in  a  great  country, 
but,  in  substance,  has  the  most  democratical 
government  that  ever  existed  in  any  country; 
— if  the  most  substantial  democracy  be  that 
state  in  which  the  greatest  number  of  men 
feel  an  interest  and  express  an  opinion  upon 
political  questions,  and  in  which  the  greatest 
number  of  judgments  and  wills  concur  in  in 
fluencing  public  measures. 

The  same  circumstance  gave  great  addi 
tional  importance  to  our  discussion  of  conti 
nental  politics.  That  discussion  was  no 
longer,  as  in  the  preceding  century,  confined 
to  a  few  pamphlets,  written  and  read  only 
by  men  of  education  and  rank,  which  reach 
ed  the  multitude  very  slowly  and  rarely. 
In  newspapers  an  almost  daily  appeal  was 
made,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  judgment 
and  passions  of  almost  every  individual  in  the 
kingdom  upon  the  measures  and  principles 
not  only  of  his  own  country,  but  of  every 
state  in  Europe.  Under  such  circumstances, 
the  tone  of  these  publications  in  speaking  of 
foreign  governments  became  a  matter  of  im 
portance.  You  will  excuse  me,  therefore, 
if,  before  I  conclude,  I  remind  you  of  the 
general  nature  of  their  language  on  one  or  two 
very  remarkable  occasions,  and  of  the  bold 
ness  with  which  they  arraigned  the  crimes 
of  powerful  sovereigns,  without  any  check 
from  the  laws  and  magistrates  of  their  own 
country.  This  toleration,  or  rather  this  pro 
tection,  was  too  long  and  uniform  to  be  acci 
dental.  I  am,  indeed,  very  much  mistaken 
if  it  be  not  founded  upon  a  policy  which  this 
country  cannot  abandon  without  sacrificing 
her  liberty  and  endangering  her  national 
existence. 

The  first  remarkable  instance  which  I 
shall  choose  to  state  of  the  unpunished  and 
protected  boldness  of  the  English  press, — of 
the  freedom  with  which  they  animadverted 
on  the  policy  of  powerful  sovereigns,  is  on 
the  Partition  of  Poland  in  1772, — an  act  not 
perhaps  so  horrible  in  its  means,  nor  so  de 
plorable  in  its  immediate  effects,  as  some 
other  atrocious  invasions  of  national  inde 
pendence  which  have  followed  it,  but  the 
most  abominable  in  its  general  tendency 
and  ultimate  consequences  of  any  political 
crime  recorded  in  history,  because  it  was  the 
first  practical  breach  in  the  system  of  Eu 
rope. — the  first  example  of  atrocious  robbery 
Serpetrated  on  unoffending  countries,  which 
as  been  since  so  liberally  followed,  and 
which  has  broken  down  all  the  barriers  of 
habit  and  principle  that  guarded  defence 
less  states.  The  perpetrators  of  this  atro 
cious  crime  were  the  most  powerful  sove 
reigns  of  the  Continent,  whose  hostility  it 
certainly  was  not  the  interest  of  Great  Britain 
wantonly  to  incur.  They  were  the  most 
illustrious  princes  of  their  age  ;  and  some  of 
them  were  doubtless  entitled  to  the  highest 
praise  for  their  domestic  administration,  as 


well  as  for  the  brilliant  qualities  which  dis 
tinguished  their  character.  But  none  of 
these  circumstances, — no  dread  of  their  re 
sentment, — no  admiration  of  their  talents, — 
no  consideration  for  their  rank, — silenced  the 
animadversion  of  the  English  press.  Some 
of  you  remember, — all  of  you  know,  that  a 
loud  and  unanimous  cry  of  reprobation  and 
execration  broke  out  against  them  from  every 
part  of  this  kingdom.  It  was  perfectly  un 
influenced  by  any  considerations  of  our  own 
mere  national  interest,  which  might  perhaps 
be  supposed  to  be  rather  favourably  affected 
by  that  partition.  It  was  not,  as  in  some 
other  countries,  the  indignation  of  rival  rob 
bers,  who  were  excluded  from  their  share  of 
the  prey :  it  was  the  moral  anger  of  disinte 
rested  spectators  against  atrocious  crimes, — 
the  gravest  and  the  most  dignified  moral 
principle  which  the  God  of  Justice  has  im 
planted  in  the  human  heart, — that  one,  the 
dread  of  which  is  the  only  restraint  on  the 
actions  of  powerful  criminals,  and  the  pro 
mulgation  of  which  is  the  only  punishment 
that  can  be  inflicted  on  them.  It  is  a  re 
straint  which  ought  not  to  be  weakened  :  it 
is  a  punishment  which  no  good  man  can  de 
sire  to  mitigate.  That  great  crime  was 
spoken  of  as  it  deserved  in  England.  Rob 
bery  was  not  described  by  any  courtly  cir 
cumlocutions :  rapine  was  not  called  "poli 
cy:"  nor  was  the  oppression  of  an  innocent 
people  termed  a  "mediation"  in  their  do 
mestic  differences.  No  prosecutions. — no 
Criminal  Imormations  followed  the  liberty 
and  the  boldness  of  the  language  then  em 
ployed.  No  complaints  even  appear  to  have 
been  made  from  abroad ; — much  less  any 
insolent  menaces  against  the  free  constitu 
tion  which  protected  the  English  press. — 
The  people  of  England  were  too  long  known 
throughout  Europe  for  the  proudest  poten 
tate  to  expect  to  silence  our  press  by  such 
means. 

I  pass  over  the  second  partition  of  Poland 
in  1792  (you  all  remember  what  passed  on 
that  occasion — the  universal  abhorrence  ex 
pressed  by  every  man  and  every  writer  of 
every  party, — the  succours  that  were  pub 
licly  preparing  by  large  bodies  of  individuals 
of  all  parties  for  the  oppressed  Poles);  I 
hasten  to  the  final  dismemberment  of  that 
unhappy  kingdom,  which  seems  to  me  the 
most  striking  example  in  our  history  of  the 
habitual,  principled,  and  deeply-rooted  for 
bearance  of  those  who  administer  the  law 
towards  political  writers.  We  were  engaged 
in  the  most  extensive,  bloody,  and  dangerous 
war  that  this  country  ever  knew;  and  the 
parties  to  the  dismemberment  of  Poland 
were  our  allies,  and  our  only  powerful  and 
effective  allies.  We  had  every  motive  of 
policy  to  court  their  friendship :  every  reason 
of  state  seemed  to  require  that  we  should 
not  permit  them  to  be  abused  and  vilified 
by  English  writers.  What  was  the  fact? 
Did  any  Englishman  consider  himself  at 
liberty,  on  account  of  temporary  interests, 
however  urgent,  to  silence  those  feelings  of 


502 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


humanity  and  justice  which  guard  the  cer 
tain  and  permanent  interests  of  all  coun 
tries'?  You  all  remember  that  every  voice, 
and  every  pen,  and  every  press  in  England 
were  unceasingly  employed  to  brand  that 
abominable  robbery.  You  remember  that 
this  was  not  confined  to  private  writers,  but 
that  the  same  abhorrence  was  expressed  by 
every  member  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament 
who  was  not  under  the  restraints  of  ministe 
rial  reserve.  No  minister  dared  even  to 
blame  the  language  of  honest  indignation 
which  might  be  very  inconvenient  to  his 
most  important  political  projects;  and  I 
hope  I  may  venture  to  say,  that  no  English 
assembly  would  have  endured  such  a  sacri 
fice  of  eternal  justice  to  any  miserable  in 
terest  of  an  hour.  Did  the  Lawr-officers  of 
the  Crown  venture  to  come  into  a  court  of 
justice  to  complain  of  the  boldest  of  the 

nblications  of  that  time  ?  They  did  not. 
o  not  say  that  they  felt  any  disposition  to 
do  so  ] — I  believe  that  they  could  not.  But 
I  do  say,  that  if  they  had, — if  they  had 
spoken  of  the  necessity  of  confining  our 
political  writers  to  cold  narrative  and  un 
feeling  argument, — if  they  had  informed  a 
jury,  that  they  did  not  prosecute  history,  but 
invective, — that  if  private  writers  be  at  liberty 
at  all  to  blame  great  princes,  it  must  be  with 
moderation  and  decorum, — the  sound  heads 
and  honest  hearts  of  an  English  jury  would 
have  confounded  such  sophistry,  and  would 
have  declared,  by  their  verdict,  that  mode 
ration  of  language  is  a  relative  term,  which 
varies  with  the  subject  to  which  it  is  ap 
plied, — that  atrocious  crimes  are  not  to  be 
related  as  calmly  and  coolly  as  indifferent  or 
trifling  events, — that  if  there  be  a  decorum 
due  to  exalted  rank  and  authority,  there  is 
also  a  much  more  sacred  decorum  due  to 
virtue  and  to  human  nature,  which  would  be 
outraged  and  trampled  under  foot,  by  speak 
ing  of  guilt  in  a  lukewarm  language,  falsely 
called  moderate. 

Soon  after,  Gentlemen,  there  followed  an 
act,  in  comparison  with  which  all  the  deeds 
of  rapine  and  blood  perpetrated  in  the  world 
are  innocence  itself, — the  invasion  and  de 
struction  of  Switzerland, — that  unparalleled 
scene  of  guilt  and  enormity, — that  unpro 
voked  aggression  against  an  innocent  coun 
try,  which  had  been  the  sanctuary  of  peace 
and  liberty  for  three  centuries, — respected 
as  a  sort  of  sacred  territory  by  the  fiercest 
ambition, — raised,  like  its  own  mountains, 
beyond  the  region  of  the  storms  which  raged 
around  on  every  side, — the  only  warlike 
people  that  never  sent  forth  armies  to  dis 
turb  their  neighbours, — the  only  government 
that  ever  accumulated  treasures  without 
imposing  taxes, — an  innocent  treasure,  un 
stained  by  the  tears  of  the  poor,  the  inviolate 
patrimony  of  the  commonwealth,  which  at 
tested  the  virtue  of  a  long  series  of  magis 
trates,  but  which  at  length  caught  the  eye 
of  the  spoiler,  and  became  the  fatal  occasion 
of  their  ruin !  Gentlemen,  the  destruction 
of  such  a  country,—'-  its  cause  so  innocent, 


and  its  fortune  so  lamentable  !" — made  a 
deep  impression  on  the  people  of  England. 
I  will  ask  my  Learned  Friend,  if  we  had 
then  been  at  peace  with  the  French  republic, 
whether  we  must  have  been  silent  specta 
tors  of  the  foulest  crimes  that  ever  blotted 
the  name  of  humanity'? — whether  we  must, 
like  cowards  and  slaves,  have  repressed  the 
compassion  and  indignation  with  which  that 
horrible  scene  of  tyranny  had  filled  our 
hearts  ?  Let  me  suppose,  Gentlemen,  that 
Aloys  Reding,  who  has  displayed  in  our 
times  the  simplicity,  magnanimity,  and  piety 
of  ancient  heroes,  had,  after  his  glorious 
struggle,  honoured  this  kingdom  by  choosing 
it  as  his  refuge, — that,  after  perforaiiug  pro 
digies  of  valour  at  the  head  of  his  handful 
of  heroic  peasants  on  the  field  of  Morgarten 
(where  his  ancestor,  the  Landamman  Reding, 
had,  five  hundred  years  before,  defeated  the 
first  oppressors  of  Switzerland),  he  had  se 
lected  this  country  to  be  his  residence,  as 
the  chosen  abode  of  liberty,  as  the  ancient 
and  inviolable  asylum  of  the  oppressed, 
would  my  Learned  Friend  have  had  the 
boldness  to  have  said  to  this  hero,  "  that  he 
must  hide  his  tears'7  (the  tears  shed  by  a 
hero  over  the  ruins  of  his  country!)  "lest 
they  might  provoke  the  resentment  of  Reu- 
bell  or  Rapinat, — that  he  must  smother  the 
sorrow  and  the  anger  \vith  which  his  heart 
was  loaded, — that  he  must  breathe  his  mur 
murs  IOWT,  lest  they  might  be  overheard  by 
the  oppressor  !"  Would  this  have  been  the 
language  of  my  Learned  Friend  ?  I  know 
that  it  would  not.  I  know,  that  by  such  a 
supposition,  I  have  done  wrong  to  his  honour 
able  feelings — to  his  honest  English  heart. 
I  am  sure  that  he  knows  as  well  as  I  do,  that 
a  nation  which  should  thus  receive  the  op 
pressed  of  other  countries,  would  be  prepa 
ring  its  own  neck  for  the  yoke.  He  knows 
the  slavery  which  such  a  nation  would  de 
serve,  and  must  speedily  incur.  He  knows, 
that  sympathy  with  the  unmerited  sufferings 
of  others,  and  disinterested  anger  against 
their  oppressors,  are,  if  I  may  so  speak,  the 
masters  which  are  appointed  by  Providence 
to  teach  us  fortitude  in  the  defence  of  our 
own  rights, — that  selfishness  is  a  dastardly 
principle,  which  betrays  its  charge  and  flie$ 
from  its  post, — and  that  those  only  can  de 
fend  themselves  with  valour,  who  are  ani 
mated  by  the  moral  approbation  with  which 
they  can  survey  their  sentiments  towards 
others, — who  are  ennobled  in  their  own  eyes 
by  a  consciousness  that  they  are  fighting  for 
justice  as  well  as  interest, — a  consciousness 
which  none  can  feel,  but  those  who  have 
felt  for  the  wrongs  of  their  brethren.  These 
are  the  sentiments  which  my  Learned  Friend 
would  have  felt.  He  would  have  told  the 
hero: — "Your  confidence  is  not  deceived: 
this  is  still  that  England,  of  which  the  his 
tory  may,  perhaps,  have  contributed  to  fill 
your  heart  with  the  heroism  of  liberty. — 
Every  other  country  of  Europe  is  crouching 
under  the  bloody  tyrants  who  destroyed  your 
country:  we  are  unchanged.  We  are  still 


DEFENCE  OF  JEAN  PELTIER. 


503 


the  same  'people  which  received  with  open 
arms  the  victims  of  the  tyranny  of  Philip  II. 
and  Louis  XIV.  We  shall  not  exercise  a 
cowardly  and  clandestine  humanity.  Here 
we  are  not  so  dastardly  as  to  rob  you  of 
your  greatest  consolation  ; — here,  protected 
ty  a  free,  brave,  and  high-minded  people, 
you  may  give  vent  to  your  indignation, — you 
may  proclaim  the  crimes  of  your  tyrants, — 
you  may  devote  them  to  the  execration  of 
mankind.  There  is  still  one  spot  upon  earth 
in  which  they  are  abhorred,  without  being 
dreaded  !» 

I  am  aware,  Gentlemen,  that  I  have  al 
ready  abused  your  indulgence  :  but  I  must 
entreat  you  to  bear  with  me  for  a  short  time 
longer,  to  allow  me  to  suppose  a  case  which 
might  have  occurred,  in  which  you  will  see 
the  horrible  consequences  of  enforcing  rigor 
ously  principles  of  law,  which  I  cannot  con 
test,  against  political  writers.  We  might 
have  been  at  peaCe  with  France  during  the 
whole  of  that  terrible  period  which  elapsed 
between  August  1792  and  1794,  which  has 
been  usually  called  the  "  reign  of  Robes 
pierre  !" — the  only  series  of  crimes,  perhaps, 
in  history,  which,  in  spite  of  the  common 
disposition  to  exaggerate  extraordinary  facts, 
has  been  beyond  measure  under-rated  in 
public  opinion.  I  say  this,  Gentlemen,  after 
an  investigation,  which  I  think  entitles  me 
to  affirm  it  with  confidence.  Men's  minds 
were  oppressed  by  the  atrocity  and  the  mul 
titude  of  crimes;  their  humanity  and  their 
indolence  took  refuge  in  scepticism  from 
such  an  overwhelming  mass  of  guilt :  and 
the  consequence  was.  that  all  these  unparal 
leled  enormities,  though  proved,  not  only 
with  the  fullest  historical,  but  with  the  strict 
est  judicial  evidence,  were  at  the  time  only 
half-believed,  and  are  now  scarcely  half-re 
membered.  When  these  atrocities, — of  which 
the  greatest  part  are  as  little  known  to  the 
public  in  general  as  the  campaigns  of  Gen 
ghis  Khan,  but  are  still  protected  from  the 
scrutiny  of  men  by  the  immensity  of  those 
voluminous  records  of  guilt  in  which  they 
are  related,  and  under  the  mass  of  which 
they  will  lie  buried,  till  some  historian  be 
found  with  patience  and  courage  enough  to 
drag  them  forth  into  light,  for  the  shame,  in 
deed,  but  for  the  instruction  of  mankind, — 
which  had  the  peculiar  malignity,  through 
the  pretexts  with  which  they  were  covered, 
of  making  the  noblest  objects  of  human  pur 
suit  seem  odious  and  detestable, — which  had 
almost  made  the  names  of  liberty,  reforma 
tion,  and  humanity,  synonymous  with  anar- 
ehy,  robbery,  and  murder, — which  thus 
threatened  not  only  to  extinguish  every  prin 
ciple  of  improvement,  to  arrest  the  progress 
of  civilized  society,  and  to  disinherit  future 
generations  of  that  rich  succession  to  be  ex 
pected  from  the  knowledge  and  wisdom  of 
the  present,  but  to  destroy  the  civilization 
of  Europe  (which  never  gave  such  a  proof 
of  its  vigour  and  robustness,  as  in  being  able 
to  resist  their  destructive  power), — when  all 
these  horrors  were  acting  in  the  greatest  em 


pire  of  the  Continent,  I  will  ask  ray  Learned 
Friend,  if  we  had  then  been  at  peace  with 
France,  how  English  writers  were  to  relate 
them  so  as  to  escape  the  charge  of  libelling 
a  friendly  government  ? 

When  Robespierre,  in  the  debates  in  the 
National  Convention  on  the  mode  of  mur 
dering  their  blameless  sovereign,  objected  to 
the  formal  and  tedious  mode  of  murder 
called  a  "trial,"  and  proposed  to  put  him 
immediately  to  death  without  trial,  "  on  the 
principles  of  insurrection,'*' — because  to  doubt 
the  guilt  of  the  King  would  be  to  doubt  of 
the  innocence  of  the  Convention,  and  if  the 
King  were  not  a  traitor,  the  Convention  must 
be  rebels, — would  my  Learned  Friend  have 
had  an  English  writer  state  all  this  with 
"decorum  and  moderation  ?;J  Would  he 
have  had  an  English  writer  state,  that  though 
this  reasoning  was  not  perfectly  agreeable  to 
our  national  laws,  or  peihaps  to  our  national 
prejudices,  yet  it  was  not  for  him  to  make 
any  observations  on  the  judicial  proceedings 
of  foreign  states  ?  When  Marat,  in  the  same 
Convention,  called  for  two  hundred  and  se 
venty  thousand  heads,  must  our  English 
writers  have  said,  lhat  the  remedy  did,  in 
deed,  seem  to  their  weak  judgment  rather 
severe  ;  but  that  it  was  not  for  them  to  judge 
the  conduct  of  so  illustrious  an  assembly  as 
the  National  Convention,  or  the  suggestions 
of  so  enlightened  a  statesman  as  M.  Marat  ? 
When  that  Convention  resounded  with  ap 
plause  at  the  news  of  several  hundred  aged 
priests  being  thrown  into  the  Loire,  arid  par 
ticularly  at  the  exclamation  of  Carrier,  who 
communicated  the  intelligence  : — "  What  a 
revolutionary  torrent  is  the  Loire .'-'-' — when 
these  suggestions  and  narratives  of  murder, 
which  have  hitherto  been  only  hinted  and 
whispered  in  the  most  secret  cabals,  in  the 
darkest  caverns  of  banditti,  were  triumphant 
ly  uttered,  patiently  endured,  and  even  loud 
ly  applauded  by  an  assembly  of  seven  hun 
dred  men,  acting  in  the  sight  of  all  Europe, 
would  my  Learned  Friend  have  wished  that 
there  had  been  found  in  England  a  single 
writer  so  base  as  to  deliberate  upon  the  most 
safe,  decorous,  and  polite  manner  of  relating 
all  these  things  to  his  countrymen  ?  When 
Carrier  ordered  five  hundred  children  under 
fourteen  years  to  be  shot,  the  greater  part  of 
whom  escaped  the  fire  from  their  size, — 
when  the  poor  victims  ran  for  protection  to 
the  soldiers,  and  were  bayoneted  clinging 
round  their  knees,  would  my  Friend — But  I 
cannot  pursue  the  strain  of  interrogation;  it 
is  too  much !  It  would  be  a  violence  which 
I  cannot  practise  on  my  own  feelings:  it 
would  be  an  outrage  to  my  Friend ;  it  would 
be  an  affront  to  you ;  it  would  be  an  insult  to 
humanity. 

No !  better, — ten  thousand  times  better, 
would  it  be  that  every  press  in  the  world 
were  burnt, — that  the  very  use  of  letters 
were  abolished, — that  we  were  returned  to 
the  honest  ignorance  of  the  rudest  times, 
than  that  the  results  of  civilization  should  be 
made  subservient  to  the  purposes  of  barbar- 


504 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ism  ] — than  that  literature  should  be  employed 
to  teach  a  toleration  for  cruelty, — to  weaken 
moral  hatred  for  guilt, — to  deprave  and 
brutalise  the  human  mind.  I  know  that  I 
speak  my  Friend's  feelings  as  well  as  my 
own,  when  I  say,  God  forbid  that  the  dread 
of  any  punishment  should  ever  make  any 
Englishman  an  accomplice  in  so  corrupting 
his  countrymen, — a  public  teacher  of  de"- 
pravity  and  barbarity ! 

Mortifying  and  horrible  as  the  idea  is,  I 
must  remind  you,  Gentlemen,  that  even  at 
that  time,  even  under  the  reign  of  Robes 
pierre,  my  Learned  Friend,  if  he  had  then 
been  Attorney-General,  might  have  been 
compelled  by  some  most  deplorable  necessi 
ty,  to  have  come  into  this  Court  to  ask  your 
verdict  against  the  libellers  of  Barrere  and 
Collot  d'Herbois.  Mr.  Peltier  then  employed 
his  talents  against  the  enemies  of  the  human 
race,  as  he  has  uniformly  and  bravely  done. 
I  do  not  believe  that  any  peace,  any  political 
considerations,  any  fear  of  punishment,  would 
have  silenced  him.  He  has  shown  too  much 
honour  and  constancy,  and  intrepidity,  to  be 
shaken  by  such  circumstances  as  these.  My 
Learned  Friend  might  then  have  been  com 
pelled  to  have  filed  a  Criminal  Information 
jigainst  Mr.  Peltier,  for  '•'  wickedly  and  ma 
liciously  intending  to  vilify  and  degrade 
Maximilian  Robespierre,  President  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  of  the  French 
Republic!"  He  might  have  been  reduced 
to  the  sad  necessity  of  appearing  before  you 
to  belie  his  own  better  feelings  by  prose 
cuting  Mr.  Peltier  for  publishing  those  sen 
timents  which  my  Friend  himself  had  a  thou 
sand  times  felt,  and  a  thousand  times  ex 
pressed.  He  might  have  been  obliged  even 
to  call  for  punishment  upon  Mr.  Peltier,  for 
language  which  he  and  all  mankind  would 
for  ever  despise  Mr.  Peltier,  if  he  were  not 
to  employ.  Then  indeed,  Gentlemen,  we 
should  have  seen  the  last  humiliation  fall  on 
England ; — the  tribunals,  the  spotless  and 
venerable  tribunals  of  this  free  country,  re- 
duoed  to  be  the  ministers  of  the  vengeance 
of  Robespierre  !  What  could  have  rescued 
us  from  this  last  disgrace  ? — the  honesty  arid 
courage  of  a  jury.  They  would  have  de 
livered  the  judges  of  their  country  from  the 
dire  necessity  of  inflicting  punishment  on  a 
brave  and  virtuous  man,  because  he  spoke 
truth  of  a  monster.  They  would  have  de 
spised  the  threats  of  a  foreign  tyrant  as  their 
ancestors  braved  the  power  of  oppressors  at 
home. 

In  the  court  where  we  are  now  met,  Crom 
well  twice  sent  a  satirist  on  his  tyranny  to 
be  convicted  and  punished  as  a  libeller,  and 
in  this  court, — almost  in  sight  of  the  scaffold 
streaming  with  the  blood  of  his  Sovereign. — 
within  hearing  of  the  clash  of  his  bayonets 
which  drove  out  Parliaments  with  scorn  and 
contumely,— a  jury  twice  rescued  the  intrepid 


satirist*  from  his  fangs,  and  sent  out  with 
defeat  and  disgrace  the  Usurper's  Attorney- 
General  from  what  he  had  the  impudence  to 
call  his  court !  Even  then,  Gentlemen,  when 
all  law  and  liberty  were  trampled  under  the 
feet  of  a  military  banditti. — when  those  great 
crimes  were  perpetrated  in  a  high  place  and 
with  a  high  hand  against  those  who  were  the 
objects  of  public  veneration,  which  more 
than  any  thing  else  upon  earth  overwhelm 
the  minds  of  men,  break  their  spirits,  and 
confound  their  moral  sentiments,  obliterate 
the  distinctions  between  right  and  wrong  in 
their  understanding,  and  teach  the  multitude 
to  feel  no  longer  any  reverence  for  that  jus 
tice  which  they  thus  see  triumphantly  drag 
ged  at  the  chariot  wheels  of  a  tyrant, — even 
then,  when  this  unhappy  country,  triumphant 
indeed  abroad,  but  enslaved  at  home,  had  no 
prospect  but  that  of  a  long  succession  of 
tyrants  "  wading  through  slaughter  to  a 
throne," — even  then,  I  say.  when  all  seemed 
lost,  the  unconquerable  spirit  of  English 
liberty  survived  in  the  hearts  of  English 
jurors.  That  spirit  is.  I  trust  in  God,  not 
extinct :  and  if  any  modern  tyrant  were,  in 
the  plenitude  of  his  insolence,  to  hope  to 
overawe  an  English  jury,  I  trust  arid  I  believe 
that  they  would  tell  him  : — "  Our  ancestors 
braved  the  bayonets  of  Cromwell ; — we  bid 
defiance  to  yours.  Contempsi  Catilinoe  gla- 
dios  ; — non  pertimescam  tuos  !" 

What  could  be  such  a  tyrant's  means  of 
overawing  a  jury  ?  As  long  as  their  country- 
exists,  they  are  girt  round  with  impenetrable 
armour.  Till  the  destruction  of  their  country, 
no  danger  can  fall  upon  them  for  the  per 
formance  of  their  duty.  And  I  do  trust  that 
there  is  no  Englishman  so  unworthy  of  life 
as  to  desire  to  outlive  England.  But  if  any 
of  us  are  condemned  to  the  cruel  punishment 
of  surviving  our  country, — if  in  the  inscruta 
ble  counsels  of  Providence,  this  favoured 
seat  of  justice  and  liberty,  —  this  noblest 
work  of  human  wisdom  and  virtue,  be  des 
tined  to  destruction  (which  I  shall  not  be 
charged  with  national  prejudice  for  saying 
would  be  the  most  dangerous  wound  ever 
inflicted  on  civilization),  at  least  let  us  carry 
with  us  into  our  sad  exile  the  consolation 
that  we  ourselves  have  not  violated  the 
rights  of  hospitality  to  exiles, — that  we  have 
not  torn  from  the  altar  the  suppliant  who 
claimed  protection  as  the  voluntary  victim 
of  loyalty  and  conscience. 

Gentlemen,  I  now  leave  this  unfortunate 
gentleman  in  your  hands.  His  character  and 
his  situation  might  interest  your  humanity: 
but,  on  his  behalf,  I  only  ask  justice  from 
you.  I  only  ask  a  favourable  construction  of 
what  cannot  be  said  to  be  more  than  ambigu 
ous  language ;  and  this  you  will  soon  be  told 
from  the  highest  authority  is  a  part  of  justice. 

*  Lilburne. 


A  CHARGE  TO  THE  GRAND  JURY  OF  BOMBAY. 


505 


A  CHARGE, 

DELIVERED 

TO  THE  GRAND  JURY  OF  THE  ISLAND  OF  BOMBAY, 

ON  THE  20TH  OF  JULY,  1811. 


GENTLEMEN  6*F  THE  GRAND  JURY. 

The  present  calendar  is  unfortunately  re 
markable  for  the  number  and  enormity  of 
crimes.  To  what  cause  we  are  to  impute 
the  very  uncommon  depravity  which  has,  in 
various  forms,  during  the  last  twelvemonths, 
appeared  before  this  Court,  it  is  difficult,  and 
perhaps  impossible,  to  determine.  But  the 
length  of  this  calendar  may  probaby  be,  in  a 
great  measure,  ascribed  to  the  late  com 
mendable  disuse  of  irregular  punishment  at 
the  Office  of  Police  :  so  that  there  may  be 
not  so  much  an  increase  of  crimes  as  of  regu 
lar  trials. 

To  frame  arid  maintain  a  system  of  police, 
warranted  by  law.  vigorous  enough  for  pro 
tection,  and  with  sufficient  legal  restraints  to 
afford  a  security  against  oppression,  must  be 
owned  to  be  a  matter  of  considerable  diffi 
culty  in  the  crowded,  mixed,  and  shifting, 
population  of  a  great  Indian  sea-port.  It  is 
no  wonder,  then,  that  there  should  be  defects 
in  our  system,  both  in  the  efficacy  of  its 
regulations  and  in  the  legality  of  its  princi 
ples.  And  this  may  be  mentioned  with 
more  liberty,  because  these  defects  have 
originated  long  before  the  time  of  any  one 
now  in  authority ;  and  have  rather,  indeed, 
arisen  from  the  operation  of  time  and  chance 
on  human  institutions,  than  from  the  fault 
of  any  individual.  The  subject  has  of  late 
occupied  much  of  my  attention.  Govern 
ment  have  been  pleased  to  permit  me  to  lay 
my  thoughts  before  them. — a  permission  of 
which  I  shall  in  a  few  days  avail  myself; 
and  I  hope  that  my  diligent  inquiry  and  long 
reflection  may  contribute  somewhat  to  aid 
their  judgment  in  the  establishment  of  a 
police  which  may  be  legal,  vigorous,  and  un- 
oppressive. 

In  reviewing  the  administration  of  law  in 
this  place  since  I  have  presided  here,  two 
circumstances  present  themselves,  which 
appear  to  deserve  a  public  explanation. 

The  first  relates  to  the  principles  adopted 
by  the  Court  in  cases  of  commercial  insol 
vency. 

In  India,  no  law  compels  the  equal  distri 
bution  of  the  goods  of  an  insolvent  merchant : 
we  have  no  system  of  bankrupt  laws.  The 
consequence  is  too  well  known.  Every  mer 
cantile  failure  has  produced  a  disreputable 
scramble,  in  which  no  individual  could  be 
64 


blamed;  because,  if  he  were  to  forego  his 
rights,  they  would  not  be  sacrificed  to  equita 
ble  division,  but  to  the  claims  of  a  competitor 
no  better  entitled  than  himself.  A  few  have 
recovered  all,  and  the  rest  have  lost  all.  Nor 
was  this  the  worst.  Opulent  commercial 
houses,  either  present,  or  well  served  by 
vigilant  agents,  almost  always  foresaw  in 
solvency  in  such  time  as  to  secure  them 
selves.  But  old  officers,  widows,  and  orphans 
in  Europe,  could  know  nothing  of  the  decay 
ing  credit  of  their  Indian  bankers,  and  they 
had  no  agents  but  those  bankers  themselves: 
they,  therefore,  were  the  victims  of  every 
failure.  The  rich  generally  saved  what  was 
of  little  consequence  to  them,  and  the  poor 
almost  constantly  lost  their  all.  These  scenes 
have  frequently  been  witnessed  in  various 
parts  of  India  :  they  have  formerly  occurred 
here.  On  the  death  of  one  unfortunate  gen 
tleman,  since  I  have  been  here,  the  evil  was 
rather  dreaded  than  felt. 

Soon  after  my  arrival,  I  laid  before  the 
British  merchants  of  this  island  a  plan  for  the 
equal  distribution  of  insolvent  estates,  of 
which  accident  then  prevented  the  adoption. 
Since  that  time,  the  principle  of  the  plan  has 
been  adopted  in  several  cases  of  actual  or  of 
apprehended  insolvency,  by  a  conveyance  of 
the  whole  estate  to  trustees,  for  the  equal 
benefit  of  all  the  creditors.  Some  disposition 
to  adopt  similar  arrangements  appears  of  late 
to  manifest  itself  in  Europe.  And  certainly 
nothing  can  be  better  adapted  to  the  present 
dark  and  unquiet  condition  of  the  commer 
cial  world.  Wherever  they  are  adopted 
early,  they  are  likely  to  prevent  bankruptcy. 
A  very  intelligent  merchant  justly  observed 
to  me.  that,  under  such  a  system,  the  early 
disclosure  of  embarrassment  would  not  be 
attended  with  that  shame  and  danger  which 
usually  produce  concealment  and  final  ruin. 
In  all  cases,  and  at  every  period,  such  ar 
rangements  would  limit  the  evils  of  bank 
ruptcy  to  the  least  possible  amount.  It 
cannot,  therefore,  be  matter  of  wonder  that 
a  court  of  justice  should  protect  such  a  sys 
tem  with  all  the  weight  of  their  opinion,  and 
to  the  utmost  extent  of  their  legal  power. 

I  by  no  means  presume  to  blame  those 
creditors  who,  on  the  first  proposal  of  this 
experiment,  withheld  their  consent,  and  pre 
ferred  the  assertion  of  their  legal  rights. 
2S 


506 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


They  had.  I  dare  say,  been  ill  used  by  their 
debtors.  \vho  might  personally  be  entitled  to 
no  indulgence  from.  them.  It  is  too  much  to 
require  of  men.  that,  under  the  influence  of 
cruel  disappointment  and  very  just  resent 
ment,  they  should  estimate  a  plan  of  public 
utility  in  the  same  manner  with  a  dispassion 
ate  and  disinterested  spectator.  But  experi 
ence  and  reflection  will  in  time  teach  them, 
that,  in  seeking  to  gratify  a  just  resentment 
against  a  culpable  insolvent,  they,  in  fact, 
direct  their  hostility  against  the  unoffending 
and  helpless  part  of  their  fellow-creditors. 

One  defect  in  this  voluntary  system  of 
bankrupt  laws  must  be  owned  to  be  consi 
derable  :  it  is  protected  by  no  penalties  against 
the  fraudulent  concealment  of  property. — 
There  is  no  substitute  for  such  penalties,  but 
the  determined  and  vigilant  integrity  of  trus 
tees.  I  have,  therefore,  with  pleasure,  seen 
that  duty  undertaken  by  European  gentle 
men  of  character  and  station.  Besides  the 
great  considerations  of  justice  and  humanity 
to  the  creditors,  I  will  confess  that  I  am  gra 
tified  by  the  interference  of  English  gentle 
men  to  prevent  the  fall  of  eminent  or  ancient 
commercial  families  among  the  natives  of 
India.* 

The  second  circumstance  which  I  think 
myself  now  bound  to  explain,  relates  to  the 
dispensation  of  penal  law. 

Since  my  arrival  here,  in  May,  1804,  the 
punishment  of  death  has  not  been  inflicted 
by  this  Court.  Now,  the  population  subject 
to  our  jurisdiction,  either  locally  or  person 
ally,  cannot  be  estimated  at  less  than  two 
hundred  thousand  persons.  Whether  any 
evil  consequence  has  yet  arisen  from  so  unu 
sual, — and  in  the  British  dominions  unexam 
pled, — a  circumstance  as  the  disuse  of  capi 
tal  punishment,  for  so  long  a  period  as  seven 
yeans,  among  a  population  so  considerable,  is 
a  question  which  you  are  entitled  to  ask,  and 
to  which  I  have  the  means  of  affording  you 
a  satisfactory  answer. 

The  criminal  records  go  back  to  the  year 
1756.  From  May,  1756,  to  May,  1763,  the 
capital  convictions  amounted  to  one  hundred 
and  forty-one ;  and  the  executions  were 
forty-seven.  The  annual  average  of  persons 
who  suffered  death  was  almost  seven ;  and 
the  annual  average  of  capital  crimes  ascer 
tained  to  have  been  perpetrated  was  nearly 
twenty.  From  May,  1804,  to  May,  1811, 
there  have  been  one  hundred  and  nine  capi- 

*..."!  am  persuaded  that  your  feelings  would 
have  entirely  accorded  with  mine  ;  convinced  that, 
both  as  jurors  and  as  private  gentlemen,  you  will 
always  consider  yourselves  as  intrusted,  in  this  re 
mote  region  of  the  earth,  with  the  honour  of  that 
beloved  country,  which,  I  trust,  becomes  more 
dear  to  you,  as  I  am  sure  it  does  to  me,  during 
every  new  moment  of  absence  ;  that,  in  your  in 
tercourse  with  each  other  as  well  as  with  the  na 
tives  of  India,  you  will  keep  unspotted  the  ancient 
character  of  the  British  nation, — renowned  in  every 
age,  and  in  no  age  more  than  the  present,  for  va 
lour,  for  justice,  for  humanity,  and  generosity, — 
for  every  virtue  which  supports,  as  well  as  for 
every  talent  and  accomplishment  which  adorns 
human  society." — Charge,  21st  July,  1805. — ED. 


tal  convictions.  The  annual  average,  there 
fore,  of  capital  crimes,  legally  proved  to  have 
been  perpetrated  during  that  period,  is  be 
tween  fifteen  arid  sixteen.  During  this  period 
there  has  been  no  capital  execution.  But  as 
the  population  of  this  island  has  much  more 
than  doubled  during  the  last  fifty  years,  the 
annual  average  of  capital  convictions  during 
the  last  seven  years  ought  to  have  been  forty, 
in  order  to  show  the  same  proportion  of  cri 
minality  with  that  of  the  first  seven  years. 
Between  1756  and  1763,  the  military  force 
was  comparatively  small :  a  few  factories  or 
small  ports  only  depended  on  this  govern 
ment.  Between  1804  and  1811.  five  hundred 
European  officers,  and  probably  four  thousand 
European  soldiers,  were  scattered  over  ex 
tensive  territories.  Though  honour  and  mo 
rality  be  powerful  aids  of  law  with  respect 
to  the  first  class,  and  military  discipline  with 
respect  to  the  second,  yet  it  might  have  been 
expected,  as  experience  has  proved,  that  the 
more  violent  enormities  would  be  perpetrated 
by  the  European  soldiery — uneducated  and 
sometimes  depraved  as  many  of  them  must 
originally  be, — often  in  a  state  of  mischiev 
ous  idleness,  —  commanding,  in  spite  of  all 
care,  the  means  of  intoxication,  and  corrupt 
ed  by  contempt  for  the  feelings  and  rights 
of  the  natives  of  this  country.  If  these  cir 
cumstances  be  considered,  it  will  appear  that 
the  capital  crimes  committed  during  the  last 
seven  years,  with  no  capital  execution,  have, 
in  proportion  to  the  population,  not  been 
much  more  than  a  third  of  those  committed 
jn  the  first  seven  years,  notwithstanding  the 
infliction  of  death  on  forty-seven  persons. 
The  intermediate  periods  lead  to  the  same 
results.  The  number  of  capital  crimes  in 
any  one  of  these  periods  does  not  appear  to 
be  diminished  either  by  the  capital  execu 
tions  of  the  same  period,  or  of  that  imme 
diately  preceding:  they  bear  no  assignable 
proportion  to  each  other. 

In  the  seven  years  immediately  preceding 
the  last,  which  were  chiefly  in  the  presidency 
of  my  learned  predecessor,  Sir  William  Syer, 
there  was  a  remarkable  diminution  of  capital 
punishments.  The  average  fell  from  about 
four  in  each  year,  which  was  that  of  the 
seven  years  before  Sir  William  Syer,  to  somfe- 
what  less  than  two  in  each  year.  Yet  the 
capital  convictions  were  diminished  about 
one-third. 

"The  punishment  of  death  is  principally 
intended  to  prevent  the  more  violent  and 
atrocious  crimes.  From  May,  1797,  there 
were  eighteen  convictions  for  murder,  of 
which  I  omit  two,  as  of  a  very  particular 
kind.  In  that  period  there  were  twelve 
capital  executions.  From  May,  1804,  to 
May,  1811,  there  were  six  convictions  for 
murder,*  omitting  one  which  W7as  considered 


*  ...  "The  truth  seems  to  be,  as  I  observed 
to  you  on  a  former  occasion,  that  the  natives  of 
India,  though  incapable  of  the  crimes  which  arise 
from  violent  passions,  are,  beyond  every  other 
people  of  the  earth,  addicted  to  those  vices  which 
proceed  from  the  weakness  of  natural  feeling,  and 


CHARGE  TO  THE  GRAND  JURY  OF  BOMBAY. 


507 


by  the  jury  as  in  substance  a  case  of  man 
slaughter  with  some  aggravation.  The  mur 
ders  in  the  former  period  were,  therefore, 
very  nearly  as  three  to  one  to  those  in  the 
latter,  in  which  no  capital  punishment  was 
inflicted.  From  the  number  of  convictions, 
I  of  course  exclude  those  cases  where  the 
prisoner  escaped;  whether  he  owed  his 
safety  to  defective  proof  of  his  guilt,  or  to  a 
legal  objection.  This  cannot  affect  the  just 
ness  of  a  comparative  estimate,  because  the 
proportion  of  criminals  who  escape  on  legal 
objections  before  courts  of  tjie  same  law, 
must,  in  any  long  period,  be  nearly  the  same. 
But  if  the  two  cases. — one  where  a  formal 
verdict  of  murder,  with  a  recommendation 
to  mercy,  was  intended  to  represent  an  ag 
gravated  manslaughter;  and  the  other  of  a 
man  who  escaped  by  a  repugnancy  in  the 
indictment,  where,  however,  the  facts  were 
more  near  manslaughter  than  murder, — be 
added,  then  the  murders  of  the  last  seven 
years  will  be  eight,  while  those  of  the  former 
seven  years  will  be  sixteen. 

"  This  small  experiment  has.  therefore, 
been  made  without  any  diminution  of  the 
security  of  the  lives  and  properties  of  men. 
Two  hundred  thousand  men  have  been 
governed  for  seven  years  without  a  capital 
punishment,  and  without  any  increase  of 
crimes.  If  any  experience  has  been  acquired, 
it  has  been  safely  and  innocently  gained.  It 
was,  indeed,  impossible  that  the  trial  could 
ever  have  done  harm.  It  was  made  on  no 
avowed  principle  of  impunity  or  even  lenity. 
It  was  in  its  nature  gradual,  subject  to  cau 
tious  reconsideration  in  every  new  instance, 
and  easily  capable  of  being  altogethe  r  changed 
on  the  least  appearance  of  danger.  Though 
the  general  result  be  rather  remarkable,  yet 
the  usual  maxims  which  regulate  judicial 
discretion  have  in  a  very  great  majority  of 
cases  been  pursued.  The  instances  of  de- 


the  almost  total  absence  of  moral  restraint.  This 
observation  may,  in  a  great  measure,  account  for 
that  most  aggravated  species  of  child-murder  which 
prevails  among  them.  They  are  not  actively 
cruel ;  but  they  are  utterly  insensible.  They  have 
less  ferocity,  perhaps,  than  most  other  nations  ; 
but  they  have  still  less  compassion.  Among  them, 
therefore,  infancy  has  lost  its  natural  shield.  The 
paltry  temptation  of  getting  possession  of  the  few 
gold  and  silver  ornaments,  with  which  parents  in 
this  country  load  their  infants,  seems  sufficient  to 
lead  these  timid  and  mild  beings  to  destroy  a  child 
without  pity,  without  anger,  without  fear,  without 
remorse,  with  little  apprehension  of  punishment, 
and  with  no  apparent  shame  on  detection." — 
Charge,  19th  April,  1806.— ED. 


viation  from  those  maxims  scarcely  amount 
to  a  twentieth  of  the  whole  convictions. 

I  have  no  doubt  of  the  right  of  society  to 
inflict  the  punishment  of  death  on  enormous 
crimes,  wherever  an  inferior  punishment  is 
not  sufficient.  I  consider  it  as  a  mere  modi 
fication  of  the  right  of  self-defence,  which 
may  as  justly  be  exercised  in  deterring  from 
attack,  as  in  repelling  it.  I  abstain  from  the 
discussions  in  which  benevolent  and  enlight 
ened  men  have,  on  more  sober  principles, 
endeavoured  to  show  the  wisdom  of,  at  least, 
confining  the  punishment  of  death  to  the 
highest  class  of  crimes.  I  do  not  even  pre 
sume  in  this  place  to  give  an  opinion  regard 
ing  the  attempt  which  has  been  made  by 
one*  whom  I  consider  as  among  the  wisest 
and  most  virtuous  men  of  the  present  age,  to 
render  the  letter  of  our  penal  law  more  con 
formable  to  its  practice.  My  only  object  is 
to  show  that  no  evil  has  hitherto  resulted 
from  the  exercise  of  judicial  discretion  in 
this  Court.  I  speak  with  the  less  reserve, 
because  the  present  sessions  are  likely  to 
afford  a  test  which  will  determine  whether  I 
have  been  actuated  by  weakness  or  by  firm 
ness, — by  fantastic  scruples  and  irrational 
feelings,  or  by  a  calm  and  steady  view  to 
what  appeared  to  me  the  highest  interests 
of  society.! 

I  have  been  induced  to  make  these  ex 
planations  by  the  probability  of  this  being 
the  last  time  of  my  addressing  a  grand  jury 
from  this  place.  His  Majesty  has  been  gra 
ciously  pleased  to  approve  of  my  return  to 
Great  Britain,  which  the  state  of  my  health 
has  for  some  time  rendered  very  desirable. 
It  is  therefore  probable,  though  not  certain, 
that  I  may  begin  my  voyage  before  the  next 
sessions. 

In  that  case,  Gentlemen,  I  now  have  the 
honour  to  take  my  leave  of  you,  with  those 
serious  thoughts  that  naturally  arise  at  the 
close  of  every  great  division  of  human  life, 
— with  the  most  ardent  and  unmixed  wishes 
for  the  welfare  of  the  community  with  which 
I  have  been  for  so  many  years  connected  by 
an  honourable  tie. — and  with  thanks  to  you, 
Gentlemen,  for  the  assistance  which  many 
of  you  have  often  afforded  me  in  the  dis 
charge  of  duties,  which  are  necessary,  in 
deed,  and  sacred,  but  which,  to  a  single 
judge,  in  a  recent  court,  and  small  society, 
are  peculiarly  arduous,  invidious,  and  painful. 

*  Sir  Samuel  Romilly. — ED. 

t  Alluding  to  the  impending  trial  of  a  native  ar 
tillery-man  for  murder,  who  was  eventually  exe 
cuted. — ED. 


508 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


SPEECH 


ON 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA  TO  THE  KINGDOM  OF  SARDINIA. 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  ON  THE  27TH  OF  APRIL,  1815.* 


MR.  SPEAKER, — I  now  rise,  pursuant  to 
my  notice,  to  discharge  the  most  arduous, 
and  certainly  the  most  painful,  public  duty 
which  I  have  ever  felt  myself  called  upon  to 
perform.  I  have  to  bring  before  the  House, 
probably  for  its  final  consideration,  t  .e  case 
of  Genoa,  which,  in  various  forms  of  pro 
ceedings  and  stages  of  progress,  has  already 
occupied  a  considerable  degree  of  our  at 
tention.  All  these  previous  discussions  of 
this  great  question  of  faith  and  justice,  have 
been  hitherto  of  necessity  almost  confined  to 
one  side.  When  my  Honourable  Friendf 
moved  for  papers  on  this  subject,  the  reason 
ing  was  only  on  this  side  of  the  House.  The 
gentlemen  on  the  opposite  side  professedly 
abstained  from  discussion  of  the  merits  of 
the  case,  because  they  alleged  that  discus 
sion  was  then  premature,  and  that  a  disclo 
sure  of  the  documents  necessary  to  form  a 
right  judgment,  would  at  that  period  have 
been  injurious  to  the  public  interest.  In 
what  that  danger  consisted,  or  how  such  a 
disclosure  would  have  been  more  inconve 
nient  on  the  22d  of  February  than  on  the 
27th  of  April,  they  will  doubtless  this  day 

*  On  the  general  reverses  that  befell  the  arms 
of  France  in  the  spring  of  1814,  and  the  conse 
quent  withdrawal  of  her  troops  from  Italy,  Lord 
William  Bentinck  was  instructed  to  occupy  the 
territories  of  the  republic  of  Genoa,  "  without 
committing  his  Court  or  the  Allies  with  respect 
to  their  ultimate  disposition."  Of  the  proclama 
tion  which  he  issued  upon  the  occasion  of  carrying 
these  orders  into  effect,  dated  March  14th,  Lord 
Castlereagh  had  himself  observed,  that  "  an  ex 
pression  or  two,  taken  separately,  might  create  an 
impression  that  his  views  of  Italian  liberation  went 
to  the  form  of  the  government,  as  well  as  to  the 
expulsion  of  the  French."  On  the  success  of  the 
military  movement,  the  General  reported  that  he 
had,  "  in  consequence  of  the  unanimous  desire  of 
the  Genoese  to  return  to  their  ancient  state,"  pro 
claimed  the  old  form  of  government.  That  this 
desire  was  unjustly  thwarted,  and  that  these  ex 
pectations,  fairly  raised  by  Lord  William  Ben- 
tinck's  proclamation,  had  been  wrongfully  disap 
pointed  bv  the  final  territorial  settlement  of  the 
Allies  at  Paris,  it  was  the  scope  of  this  speech  to 
prove.  For  the  papers  referred  to,  see  Hansard's 
Parliamentary  Debates,  vol.  xxx.  p.  387  ;  and  for 
the  Resolutions  moved,  ibid.,  p.  932. — ED. 

t  Mr.  Lambton  (afterwards  Earl  of  Durham) 
had  on  the  22d  of  February  made  a  motion  for 
papers  connected  with  the  case  of  Genoa,  on 
which  occasion  Sir  James  Mackintosh  had  sup 
ported  him. — ED, 


explain.  I  have  in  vain  examined  the  papers 
for  an  explanation  of  it.  It  was  a  serious  as 
sertion,  made  on  their  Ministerial  responsi 
bility,  and  absolutely  requires  to  be  satisfac 
torily  established.  After  the  return  of  the 
Noble  Lord*  from  Vienna,  the  discussion 
was  again  confined  to  one  side,  by  the  singu 
lar  course  which  he  thought  fit  to  adopt. 
When  my  Honourable  Friendf  gave  notice 
of  a  motion  for  all  papers  respecting  those 
arrangements  at  Vienna,  which  had  been 
substantially  completed,  the  Noble  Lord  did 
not  intimate  any  intention  of  acceding  to  the 
motion.  He  suffered  it  to  proceed  as  if  it 
were  to  be  adversely  debated,  and  instead 
of  granting  the  papers,  so  that  they  might  be 
in  the  possession  of  every  member  a  suffi 
cient  time  for  careful  perusal  and  attentive 
consideration,  he  brought  out  upon  us  in  the 
middle  of  his  speech  a  number  of  documents, 
which  had  been  familiar  to  him  for  six 
months,  but  of  which  no  private  member  of 
the  House  could  have  known  the  existence. 
It  was  impossible  for  us  to  discuss  a  great 
mass  of  papers,  of  which  we  had  heard  ex 
tracts  once  read  in  the  heat  and  hurry  of  de 
bate.  For  the  moment  we  were  silenced  by 
this  ingenious  stratagem:  the  House  was 
taken  by  surprise.  They  were  betrayed  into 
premature  applause  of  that  of  which  it  was 
absolutely  impossible  that  they  should  be 
competent  judges.  It  might  be  thought  to 
imply  a  very  unreasonable  distrust  in  the 
Noble  Lord  of  his  own  talents,  if  it  were 
not  much  more  naturally  imputable  to  his 
well-grounded  doubts  of  the  justice  of  his 
cause. 

I  have  felt,  Sir,  great  impatience  to  bring  the 
question  to  a  final  hearing,  as  soon  as  every 
member  possessed  that  full  information  in 
which  alone  1  well  knew  that  my  strength 
must  consist.  The  production  of  the  papers 
has  occasioned  some  delay ;  but  it  has  been 
attended  also  with  some  advantage  to  me, 
which  I  ought  to  confess.  It  has  given  me 
an  opportunity  of  hearing  in  another  place 
a  most  perspicuous  and  forcible  statement 
of  the  defence  of  Ministers.! — a  statement 
which,  without  disparagement  to  the  talents 
of  the  Noble  Lord,  I  may  venture  to  consider 


*  Viscount  Castlereagh. — ED. 

t  Mr.  Whitbread.— ED. 

t  By  Earl  Bathurst,  in  the  House  of  Lords.— ED. 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


509 


as  containing  the  whole  strength  of  their 
case.  After  listening  to  that  able  statement, 
— after  much  reflection  for  two  months, — 
after  the  most  anxious  examination  of  the 
papers  before  us,  I  feel  myself  compelled  to 
adhere  to  my  original  opinion,  and  to  bring 
before  the  House  the  forcible  transfer  of  the 
Genoese  territory  to  the  foreign  master  whom 
the  Genoese  people  most  hate, — a  transfer 
stipulated  for  by  British  ministers,  and  exe 
cuted  by  British  troops, — as  an  act  by  which 
the  pledged  faith  of  this  nation  has  been 
forfeited;  the  rules  of  justice  have  been  vio 
lated,  the  fundamental  principles  of  Euro 
pean  policy  have  been  shaken,  and  the  odious 
claims  of  conquest  stretched  to  an  extent 
unwarranted  by  a  single  precedent  in  the 
good  times  of  Europe.  On  the  examination 
of  these  charges,  I  entreat  gentlemen  to  enter 
with  a  disposition  which  becomes  a  solemn 
and  judicial  determination  of  a  question  which 
affects  the  honour  of  their  country, — certain 
ly  without  forgetting  that  justice  which  is 
due  to  the  King's  Ministers,  whose  character 
it  does  most  deeply  import. 

I  shall  not  introduce  into  this  discussion 
any  of  the  practical  questions  which  have 
arisen  out  of  recent  and  terrible  events.* 
They  may,  like  other  events  in  history,  sup 
ply  argument  or  illustration ;  but  I  shall  in 
substance  argue  the  case,  as  if  I  were  again 
speaking  on  the  22d  of  February,  without 
any  other  change  than  a  tone  probably  more 
.subdued  than  would  have  been  natural  dur 
ing  that  short  moment  of  secure  and  almost 
triumphant  tranquillity. 

For  this  transaction,  and  for  our  share  in 
all  the  great  measures  of  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  the  Noble  Lord  has  told  that  he  is 
"  pre-eminently  responsible."  I  know  not 
in  what  foreign  school  he  may  have  learnt 
such  principles  or  phrases;  but  however 
much  his  colleagues  may  have  resigned  their 
discretion  to  him,  I  trust  that  Parliament  will 
not  suffer  him  to  relieve  them  from  any  part 
of  their  responsibility.  I  shall  not  now  in 
quire  on  what  principle  of  constitutional  law 
the  whole  late  conduct  of  Continental  nego 
tiations  by  the  Noble  Lord  could  be  justified. 
A  Secretary  of  State  has  travelled  over  Europe 
with  the  crown  and  sceptre  of  Great  Britain, 
exercising  the  royal  prerogatives  without  the 
possibility  of  access  to  the  Crown,  to- give 
advice,  and  to  receive  commands,  and  con 
cluding  his  country  by  irrevocable  acts,  with 
out  communication  with  the  other  responsi 
ble  advisers  of  the  King.  I  shall  not  now  ex 
amine  into  the  nature  of  what  our  ancestors 
would  have  termed  an  "accroachment"  of 
royal  power,— an  offence  described  indeed 
with  dangerous  laxity  in  ancient  times,  but, 
as  an  exercise  of  supreme  power  in  another 
mode  than  by  the  forms,  and  under  the  re 
sponsibility  prescribed  by  law,  undoubtedly 
tending  to  the  subversion  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  British  monarchy. 

In  all  the  preliminary  discussions  of  this  sub- 

*  Napoleon's  return  from  Elba.— ED. 


ject,  the  Noble  Lord  has  naturally  laboured 
to  excite  prejudice  against  his  opponents. 
He  has  made  a  liberal  use  of  the  common 
places  of  every  Administration,  against  every 
Opposition;  and  he  has  assailed  us  chiefly 
through  my  Honourable  Friend  (Mr.  Whit- 
bread)  with  language  more  acrimonious  and 
contumelious  than  is  very  consistent  with 
his  recommendations  of  decorum  and  mode 
ration.  He  speaks  of  our  "foul  calumnies;" 
though  calumniators  do  not  call  out  as  we  did 
for  inquiry  and  for  trial.  He  tells  us  "that 
our  discussions  inflame  nations  more  than 
they  correct  governments ;" — a  pleasant  anti 
thesis,  which  I  have  no  doubt  contains  the 
opinion  entertained  of  all  popular  discus 
sion  by  the  sovereigns  and  ministers  of  abso 
lute  monarchies,  under  whom  he  has  lately 
studied  constitutional  principles.  Indeed, 
Sir,  I  do  not  wonder  that,  on  his  return  to 
this  House,  he  should  have  been  provoked 
into  some  forgetfulness  of  his  usual  modera 
tion  : — after  long  familiarity  with  the  smooth 
and  soft  manners  of  diplomatists,  it  is  natural 
that  he  should  recoil  from  the  turbulent  free 
dom  of  a  popular  assembly.  But  let  him  re 
member,  that  to  the  uncourtly  and  fearless 
turbulence  of  this  House  Great  Britain  owes  a 
greatness  and  power  so  much  above  her  natu 
ral  resources,  and  that  rank  among  nations 
which  gave  him  ascendency  and  authority 
in  the  deliberations  of  assembled  Europe : — 
"Sic  fortis  Etruria  crevit !  "  By  that  plain 
ness  and  roughness  of  speech  which  wounded 
the  nerves  of  courtiers,  this  House  has  forced 
kings  and  ministers  to  respect  public  liberty 
at  home  and  to  observe  public  faith  abroad. 
He  complains  that  this  should  be  the  first 
place  where  the  faith  of  this  country  is  im 
pugned  : — I  rejoice  that  it  is.  It  is  because 
the  first  approaches  towards  breach  of  faith 
are  sure  of  being  attacked  here,  that  there  is 
so  little  ground  for  specious  attack  on  our 
faith  in  other  places.  It  is  the  nature  and 
essence  of  the  House  of  Commons  to  be  jeal 
ous  and  suspicious,  even  to  excess,  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  conduct  of  the' Execu 
tive  Government  may  affect  that  dearest  of 
national  interests — the  character  of  the  nation 
for  justice  and  faith.  What  is  destroyed  by 
the  slightest  speck  of  corruption  can  never 
be  sincerely  regarded  unless  it  be  watched 
with  jealous  vigilance. 

In  questions  of  policy,  where  inconveni 
ence  is  the  worst  consequence  of  error,  and 
where  much  deference  may  be  reasonably 
paid  to  superior  information,  there  is  much 
room  for  confidence  beforehand  and  for  in 
dulgence  afterwards:  but  confidence  respect 
ing  a  point  of  honour  is  a  disregard  of  honour. 
Never,  certainly,  was  there  an  occasion  when 
these  principles  became  of  more  urgent  ap 
plication  than  during  the  deliberations  of  the 
Congress  of  Vienna.  Disposing,  as  they  did, 
of  rights  and  interests  more  momentous  than 
were  ever  before  placed  at  the  disposal  of  a 
human  assembly,  is  it  fit  that  no  channel 
should  be  left  open  by  which  they  may  learn 
the  opinion  of  the  public  respecting  theii 
2  s  2 


510 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


councils,  and  the  feelings  which  their  mea 
sures  have  excited  from  Norway  to  Anda 
lusia?  Were  these  princes  and  ministers 
really  desirous,  in  a  situation  of  tremendous 
responsibility,  to  bereave  themselves  of  the 
guidance,  and  release  their  judgments  from 
the  control,  which  would  arise  from  some 
knowledge  of  the  general  sentiments  of  man 
kind  ?  Were  they  so  infatuated  by  absolute 
power  as  to  wish  they  might  never  hear  the 
public  judgments  till  their  system  was  un 
alterably  established,  and  the  knowledge 
could  no  longer  be  useful?  It  seems  so. 
There  was  only  one  assembly  in  Europe 
from  whose  free  discussions  they  might  have 
learnt  the  opinions  of  independent  men, — 
only  one  in  which  the  grievances  of  men 
and  nations  might  have  been  published  with 
any  effect.  The  House  of  Commons  was 
the  only  body  which  represented  in  some 
sort  the  public  opinions  of  Europe  j  and  the 
discussions  which  might  have  conveyed  that 
opinion  to  the  Sovereigns  at  Vienna,  seem, 
from  the  language  of  the  Noble  Lord,  to  have 
been  odious  and  alarming  to  them.  Even  in 
that  case  we  have  one  consolation: — those 
who  hate  advice  most,  always  need  it  most. 
If  our  language  was  odious,  it  must  in  the 
very  same  proportion  have  been  necessary  ; 
and  notwithstanding  all  the  abuse  thrown 
upon  it  may  have  been  partly  effectual.  De 
nial  at  least  proves  nothing; — we  are  very 
sure  that  if  we  had  prevented  any  evil,  we 
should  only  have  been  the  more  abused. 

Sir,  I  do  not  regret  the  obloquy  with  which 
we  have  been  loaded  during  the  present  ses 
sion  : — it  is  a  proof  that  we  are  following, 
though  with  unequal  steps,  the  great  men 
wholiave  filled  the  same  benches  before  us. 
It  was  their  lot  to  devote  themselves  to  a 
life  of  toilsome,  thankless,  arid  often-  unpopu 
lar  opposition,  with  no  stronger  allurement 
to  ambition  than  a  chance  of  a  few  months 
of  office  in  half  a  century,  and  with  no  other 
inducement  to  virtue  than  the  faint  hope  of 
limiting  and  mitigating  evil, — always  certain 
that  the  merit  would  never  be  acknowledged, 
and  generally  obliged  to  seek  for  the  best 
proof  of  their  services  in  the  scurrility  with 
which  they  were  reviled.  To  represent 
them  as  partisans  of  a  foreign  nation,  for 
whom  they  demanded  justice,  was  always 
one  of  the  most  effectual  modes  of  exciting 
a  vulgar  prejudice  against  them .  When  Mr. 
Burke  and  Mr.  Fox  exhorted  Great  Britain 
to  be  wise  in  relation  to  America,  and  just 
towards  Ireland,  they  were  called  Ameri 
cans  and  Irishmen.  But  they  considered  it 
as  the  greatest  of  all  human  calamities  to  be 
unjust ; — they  thought  it  worse  to  inflict  than 
to  suffer  wrong:  and  they  rightly  thought 
themselves  then  most  truly  Englishmen, 
when  they  most  laboured  to  dissuade  England 
from  tyranny.  Afterwards,  when  Mr.  Burke, 
with  equal  disinterestedness  as  I  firmly  be 
lieve,  and  certainly  with  sufficient  zeal,  sup 
ported  the  administration  of  Mr.  Pitt,  and 
the  war  against  the  Revolution,  he  did  not 
restrain  the  freedom  which  belonged  to  his 


generous  character.  Speaking  of  that  very 
alliance  on  which  all  his  hopes  were  found 
ed,  he  spoke  of  it.  as  I  might  speak  (if  I  had 
his  power  of  language)  of  the  Congress  at 
Vienna: — "There  can  be  no  tie  of  honour 
in  a  society  for  pillage."  He  was  perhaps 
blamed  for  indecorum;  but  no  one  ever 
made  any  other  conclusion  from  his  language, 
than  that  it  proved  the  ardour  of  his  attach 
ment  to  that  cause  which  he  could  not  en 
dure  to  see  dishonoured. 

The  Noble  Lord  has  charged  us,  Sir,  with 
a  more  than  unusual  interference  in  the 
functions  of  the  monarchy  and  with  the 
course  of  foreign  negotiations.  He  has  not 
indeed  denied  the  right  of  this  House  to  in 
terfere  : — he  will  not  venture  to  deny  "  that 
this  House  is  not  only  an  accuser  of  compe 
tence  to  criminate,  but  a  council  of  weight 
and  wisdom  to  advise."*  He  incautiously, 
indeed,  "  said  that  there  was  a  necessary 
collision  between  the  powers  of  this  House 
and  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown."  It 
would  have  been  more  constitutional  to  have 
said  that  there  was  a  liability  to  collision, 
and  that  the  deference  of  each  for  the  other 
has  produced  mutual  concession,  compro 
mise,  and  co-operation,  instead  of  collision. 
It  has  been,  in  fact,  by  the  exercise  of  the 
great  Parliamentary  function  of  counsel,  that 
in  the  best  times  of  our  history  the  House  of 
Commons  has  suspended  the  exercise  of  its 
extreme  powers.  Respect  for  its  opinion 
has  rendered  the  exertion  of  its  authority 
needless.  It  is  not  true  that  the  interpo 
sition  of  its  advice  respecting  the  conduct  of 
negotiations,  the  conduct  of  war,  or  the  terms 
of  peace,  has  been  more  frequent  of  late 
than  in  former  times : — the  contrary  is  the 
truth.  From  the  earliest  periods,  and  during 
the  most  glorious  reigns  in  our  history,  its 
counsel  has  been  proffered  and  accepted  on 
the  highest  questions  of  peace  and  war.  The 
interposition  was  necessarily  even  more  fre 
quent  and  more  rough  in  these  early  times, — 
when  the  boundaries  of  its  authority  were 
undefined, — when  its  principal  occupation 
was  a  struggle  to  assert  and  fortify  its  rights, 
and  when  it  was  sometimes  as  important  to 
establish  the  legality  of  a  power  by  exercise 
as  to  exercise  "it  well, — than  in  these  more; 
fortunate  periods  of  defined  and  acknowledg 
ed  right,  when  a  mild  and  indirect  intimation 
of  its  opinion  ought  to  preclude  the  necessity 
of  resorting  to  those  awful  powers  with 
which  it  is  wisely  armed.  But  though  these 
interpositions  of  Parliament  were  more  fre 
quent  in  ancient  times,— partly  from  the  ne 
cessity  of  asserting  contested  rights, — and 
more  rare  in  recent  periods, — partly  from 
the  more  submissive  character  of  the  House, 
— they  are  wanting  at  no  time  in  number 
enough  to  establish  the  grand  principle  of 
the  constitution,  that  Parliament  is  the  first 
council  of  the  King  in  war  as  well  as  in 
peace.  This  great  principle  has  been  acted 

*  Burke,  A  Representation  to  His  Majesty, 
&c.— ED. 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


511 


on  by  Parliament  in  the  best  times: — it  has 
been  reverenced  by  the  Crown  in  the  worst. 
A  short  time  before  the  Revolution  it  marked 
a  struggle  for  the  establishment  of  liberty  : 
— a  short  time  after  the  Revolution  it  proved 
the  secure  enjoyment  of  liberty.  The  House 
of  Commons  did  not  suffer  Charles  II.  to  be 
tray  his  honour  and  his  country,  without 
constitutional  warning  to  choose  a  better 
course  5*  its  first  aid  to  William  III.  was  by 
counsels  relating  to  vvar.t  When,  under  the 
influence  of  other  feelings,  the  House  rather 
thwarted  than  aided  their  great  Deliverer, 
even  the  party  in  it  most  hostile  to  liberty 
carried  the  rights  of  Parliament  as  a  political 
council  to  the  utmost  constitutional  limit, 
when  they  censured  the  treaty  of  Partition 
as  having  been  passed  under  the  Great  Seal 
during  the  session  of  Parliament,  and  "  with 
out  the  advice  of  the  same.';J  During  the 
War  of  the  Succession,  both  Houses  repeat 
edly  counselled  the  Crown  on  the  conduct 
of  the  war,§ — on  negotiation  with  our  allies, 
— and  even  on  the  terms  of  peace  with  the 
enemy.  But  what  needs  any  further  enume 
rations  ?  Did  not  the  vote  of  this  House  put 
an  end  to  the  American  War  1 

Even,  Sir,  if  the  right  of  Parliament  to  ad 
vise  had  not  been  as  clearly  established  as 
the  prerogative  of  the  Crown  to  make  war 
or  peace, — if  it  had  not  been  thus  constantly 
exercised, — if  the  wisest  and  best  men  had 
not  been  the  first  to  call  it  forth  into  action, 
we  might  reasonably  have  been  more  for 
ward  than  our  ancestors  to  exercise  this 
great  right,  because  we  contemplate  a  sys 
tem  of  political  negotiation,  such  as  our  an 
cestors  never  saw.  All  former  Congresses 
were  assemblies  of  the  ministers  of  bellige 
rent  Powers  to  terminate  their  differences  by 
treaty, — to  define  the  rights  and  decide  on 
the  pretensions  which  had  given  rise  to  war, 
or  to  make  compensation  for  the  injuries 
which  had  been  suffered  in  the  course  of  it. 
The  firm  and  secure  system  of  Europe  ad 
mitted  no  rapid,  and  few  great  changes  of 
power  and  possession.  A  few  fortresses  in 
Flanders,  a  province  on  the  frontiers  of 
France  and  Germany,  were  generally  the  ut 
most  cessions  earned  by  the  most  victorious 
wars,  and  recovered  by  the  most  important 
treaties.  Those  who  have  lately  compared 
the  transactions  at  Vienna  with  the  Treaty 
of  Westphalia, — which  formed  the  code  of 
the  Empire,  and  an  era  in  diplomatic  history, 
— which  terminated  the  civil  wars  of  re 
ligion,  not  only  in  Germany,  but  throughout 
Christendom,  and  which  removed  all  that 
danger  with  which,  for  more  than  a  century, 
the  power  of  the  House  of  Austria  had  threat 
ened  the  liberties  of  Europe, — will  perhaps 


*  Commons'  Addresses,  15th  of  March,  1627; 
29th  of  March,  1677;  25th  of  May,  1677;  30th 
of  December,  1680. 

t  24th  of  April,  1689,  (advising  a  declaration  of 
war). 

\  21st  of  March,  1701. 

$  27th  of  November.  1705  ;  22d  of  December, 
1707  3d  of  March,  1709  ;  18th  of  February,  1710. 


feel  some  surprise  when  they  are  reminded 
that,  except  secularising  a  few  Eeclesi-.istica1 
principalities,  that  renowned  and  memorable 
treaty  ceded  only  Alsace  to  France  and  part 
of  Pomerania  to  Sweden, — that  its  stipula 
tions  did  not  change  the  political  condition  of 
half  a  million  of  men, — that  it  affected  no  pre 
tension  to  dispose  of  any  territory  but  that  of 
those  who  were  parties  to  it, — and  that  not 
an  acre  of  land  was  ceded  without  the  express 
and  formal  consent  of  its  legal  sovereign.* 
Far  other  were  the  pretensions,  and  indeed 
the  performances,  of  the  ministers  assembled 
in  congress  at  Vienna.  They  met  under  the 
modest  pretence  of  carrying  into  effect  the 
thirty-second  article  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  :t 
but  under  colour  of  this  humble  language,  they 
arrogated  the  power  of  doing  that,  in  com 
parison  with  which  the  whole  Treaty  of  Paris 
was  a  trivial  convention,  and  which  made  the 
Treaty  of  Westphalia  appear  no  more  than 
an  adjustment  of  parish  boundaries.  They 
claimed  the  absolute  disposal  of  every  terri 
tory  which  had  been  occupied  by  France  and 
her  vassals,  from  Flanders  to  Livonia,  and 
from  the  Baltic  to  the  Po.  Over  these,  the 
finest  countries  in  the  world,  inhabited  by 
twelve  millions  of  mankind. — under  pretence 
of  delivering  whom  from  a  conqueror  they 
had  taken  up  arms, — they  arrogated  to  them 
selves  the  harshest  rights  of  conquest.  It  is 
true  that  of  this  vast  territory  they  restored, 
or  rather  granted,  a  great  part  to  its  ancient 
sovereigns.  But  these  sovereigns  were  always 
reminded  by  some  new  title,  or  by  the  dis 
posal  of  some  similarly  circumstanced  neigh 
bouring  territory,  that  they  owed  their  resto 
ration  to  the  generosity,  or  at  most  to  the 
prudepce  of  the  Congress,  and  that  they 
were  not  entitled  to  require  it  from  its  jus 
tice.  They  came  in  by  a  new  tenure  : — they 
were  the  feudatories  of  the  new  corporation 
of  kings  erected  at  Vienna,  exercising  joint 
powrer  in  effect  over  all  Europe,  consisting  in 
form  of  eight  or  ten  princes,  but  in  substance 
of  three  great  military  Powers, — the  spoilers 
of  Poland,  the  original  invaders  of  the  Eu 
ropean  constitution, — sanctioned  by  the  sup- 
Eort  of  England,  and  checked,  however 
sebly,  by  France  alone.  On  these  three 
Powers,  whose  reverence  for  national  inde 
pendence  and  title  to  public  confidence  were 
so  firmly  established  by  the  partition  of  Po 
land,  the  dictatorship  of  Europe  has  fallen. 
They  agree  that  Germany  shall  have  a  fede 
ral  constitution, — that  Switzerland  shall  go 
vern  herself, — that  unhappy  Italy  shall,  as 
they  say,  be  composed  of  sovereign  states : — 

*  This  is  certainly  true  respecting  Pomerania 
and  Alsace  :  whether  the  Ecclesiastical  principali 
ties  were  treated  with  so  much  ceremony  may  be 
more  doubtful,  and  it  would  require  more  research 
to  ascertain  it  than  can  now  be  applied  to  the  ob 
ject. 

t  "  All  the  Powers  engaged  on  either  side  in 
the  present  war,  shall,  within  the  space  of  two 
months,  send  plenipotentiaries  to  Vienna  for  the 
purpose  of  regulating  in  general  congress  the  ar 
rangements  which  are  to  complete  the  provisions 
of  the  present  treaty." 


512 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


but  it  is  all  by  grant  from  these  lords  para 
mount.  Their  will  is  the  sole  title  to  domi 
nion, — the  universal  tenure  of  sovereignty. 
A  single  acre  granted  on  such  a  principle  is, 
in  truth,  the  signal  of  a  monstrous  revolu 
tion  in  the  system  of  Europe.  Is  the  House 
of  Commons  to  remain  silent,  when  such  a 
principle  is  applied  in  practice  to  a  large  part 
of  the  Continent,  and  proclaimed  in  right 
over  the  whole  ?  Is  it  to  remain  silent  when 
it  has  heard  the  King  of  Sardinia,  at  the  mo 
ment  when  he  received  possession  of  Genoa 
from  a  British  garrison,  and  when  the  British 
commander  stated  himself  to  have  made  the 
transfer  in  consequence  of  the  decision  at 
Vienna,  proclaim  to  the  Genoese,  that  he  took 
possession  of  their  territory  "  in  concurrence 
with  the  wishes  of  the  principal  Powers  of 
Europe  ?" 

It  is  to  this  particular  act  of  the  Con 
gress,  Sir,  that  I  now  desire  to  call  the  atten 
tion  of  the  House,  not  only  on  account  of  its 
own  atrocity,  but  because  it  seems  to  repre 
sent  in  miniature  the  whole  system  of  that 
body. — to  be  a  perfect  specimen  of  their 
new  public  law.  and  to  exemplify  every  prin 
ciple  of  that  code  of  partition  which  they 
are  about  to  establish  on  the  ruins  of  that 
ancient  system  of  national  independence  and 
balanced  power,  which  gradually  raised  the 
nations  of  Europe  to  the  first  rank  of  the 
human  race.  I  contend  that  all  the  parties 
to  this  violent  trarisfer;  and  more  especially 
the  British  Government,  have  been  guilty  of 
perfidy, — have  been  guilty  of  injustice  ;  and  I 
shall  also  contend,  that  the  danger  of  these 
violations  of  faith  and  justice  is  much  increas 
ed,  when  they  are  considered  as  examples  of 
those  principles  by  which  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  arrogate  to  themselves  the  right  of 
regulating  a  considerable  portion  of  Europe. 

To  establish  the  breach  of  faith.  I  must 
first  ask. — What  did  Lord  William  Bentinck 
promise,  as  commander-in-chief  of  His  Ma 
jesty's  troops  in  Italy,  by  his  Proclamations 
of  the  14th  of  March  and  26th  of  April, 
1814?  The  first  is  addressed  to  the  people 
of  Italy.  It  offers  them  the  assistance  of 
Great  Britain  to  rescue  them  from  the  iron 
yoke  of  Buonaparte.  It  holds  out  the  ex 
ample  of  Spain,  enabled,  by  the  aid  of  Great 
Britain,  to  rescue  '-her  independence," — of 
the  neighbouring  Sicily,  "  which  hastens  to 
resume  her  ancient  splendour  among  inde 
pendent  nations.  .  .  Holland  is  about  to  obtain 
the  same  object.  .  .  Warriors  of  Italy,  you 
are  invited  to  vindicate  your  own  rights,  and 
to  be  free  !  Italy,  by  our  united  efforts,  shall 
become  what  she  was  in  her  most  prosperous 
periods,  and  what  Spain  now  is!" 

Now,  Sir,  I  do  contend  that  all  the  powers 
of  human  ingenuity  cannot  give  two  senses 
to  this  Proclamation  :  I  defy  the  wit  of  man 
to  explain  it  away.  Whether  Lord  William 
Bentinck  had  the  power  to  promise  is  an  after 
question : — what  he  did  promise,  can  be  no 
question  at  all.  He  promised  the  aid  of  Eng 
land  to  obtain  Italian  independence.  He 
promised  to  assist  the  Italians  in  throwing  off 


a  yoke, — in  escaping  from  thraldom. — in  es 
tablishing  liberty, — in  asserting  rights. — in 
obtaining  independence.  Every  term  of 
emancipation  known  in  human  language  is 
exhausted  to  impress  his  purpose  on  the  heart 
of  Italy.  I  do  not  now  inquire  whether  the 
generous  warmth  of  this  language  may  not 
require  in  justice  some  understood  limita 
tion  : — perhaps  it  may.  But  can  independ 
ence  mean  a  transfer  to  the  yoke  of  the 
most  hated  of  foreign  masters'?  Were  the 
Genoese  invited  to  spill  their  blood,  not 
merely  for  a  choice  of  tyrants,  but  to  earn 
the  right  of  wearing  the  chains  of  the  rival 
and  the  enemy  of  two  centuries  ?  Are  the 
references  to  Spain,  to  Sicily,  and  to  Holland 
mere  frauds  on  the  Italians,—"  words  full  of 
sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing?"  If  not, 
can  they  mean  less  than  this, — that  those 
countries  of  Italy  which  were  independent 
before  the  war.  shall  be  independent  again  ? 
These  words,  therefore,  were  at  least  ad 
dressed  to  the  Genoese  : — suppose  them  to 
be  limited,  as  to  any  other  Italians ;— suppose 
the  Lombards,  or,  at  that  time,  the  Neapoli 
tans,  to  be  tacitly  excluded.  Addressed  to 
the  Genoese,  they  either  had  no  meaning,  or 
they  meant  their  ancient  independence. 

Did  the  Genoese  act  upon  these  promises'? 
What  did  they  do  in  consequence  of  that 
first  Proclamation  of  the  14th  of  March,  from 
Leghorn,  addressed  to  all  the  Italians,  but 
applicable  at  least  to  the  Genoese,  and  ne 
cessarily  understood  by  that  people  as  com 
prehending  them'?  I  admit  that  the  pro 
mises  were  conditional'  and  to  render  them 
conclusive,  it  was  necessary  for  the  Genoese 
to  fulfil  the  condition : — I  contend  that  they 
did.  I  shall  not  attempt  again  to  describe 
the  march  of  Lord  William  Bentinck  from 
Leghorn  to  Genoa,  which  has  already  been 
painted  by  my  Honourable  and  Learned 
Friend*  with  all  the  chaste  beauties  of  his 
moral  and  philosophical  eloquence  :  my  duty 
confines  me  to  the  dry  discussion  of  mere 
facts.  The  force  with  which  Lord  William 
Bentinck  left  Leghorn  consisted  of  about 
three  thousand  English,  supported  by  a  mot 
ley  band  of  perhaps  five  thousand  Sicilians, 
Italians,  and  Greeks,  the  greater  part  of  whom 
had  scarcely  ever  seen  a  shot  fired.  At  tjie 
head  of  this  force,  he  undertook  a  long  march 
through  one  of  the  most  defensible  countries 
of  Europe,  against  a  city  garrisoned  or  de 
fended  by  seven  thousand  French  veterans, 
and  which  it  would  have  required  twenty- 
five  thousand  men  to  invest,  according  to  the 
common  rules  of  military  prudence.  Now, 
Sir,  I  assert,  without  fear  of  contradiction, 
that  such  an  expedition  would  have  been 
an  act  of  frenzy,  unless  Lord  William  Ben 
tinck  had  the  fullest  assurance  of  the  good 
will  and  active  aid  of  the  Genoese  people. 
The  fact  sufficiently  speaks  for  itself.  I  can 
not  here  name  the  high  military  authority  on 
which  my  assertion  rests;  but  I  defy  the 
Right  Honourable  Gentlemen,  with  all  their 


*  Mr.  Homer.— ED. 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


513 


means  of  commanding  military  information, 
to  contradict  me.  I  know  they  will  not  ven 
ture.  In  the  first  place,  then,  I  assume,  that 
the  British  general  would  not  have  begun  his 
advance  without  assurance  of  the  friendship 
of  the  Genoese,  and  that  he  owes  his  secure 
and  unmolested  march  to  the  influence  of 
the  same  friendship — supplying  his  army, 
and  deterring  his  enemies  from  attack.  He 
therefore,  in  truth,  owed  his  being  before 
the  walls  of  Genoa  to  Genoese  co-operation. 
The  city  of  Genoa,  which,  in  1799,  had  been 
defended  by  Massena  for  three  months,  fell 
to  Lord  William  Bentinck  in  two  clays.  In 
two  days  seven  thousand  French  veterans 
laid  down  their  arms  to  three  thousand  Bri 
tish  soldiers,  encumbered  rather  than  aided 
by  the  auxiliary  rabble  whom  I  have  de 
scribed.  Does  any  man  in  his  senses  be 
lieve,  that  the  French  garrison  could  have 
been  driven  to  such  a  surrender  by  any 
cause  but  their  fear  of  the  Genoese  people  ? 
I  have  inquired,  from  the  best  military  au 
thorities  accessible  to  me,  what  would  be 
the  smallest  force  with  which  the  expedi 
tion  might  probably  have  been  successful, 
if  the  population  had  been — I  do  not  say 
enthusiastically, — but  commonly  hostile  to 
the  invaders : — I  have  been  assured,  that  it 
could  not  have  been  less  than  twenty-five 
thousand  men.  Here,  again,  I  venture  to 
challenge  contradiction.  If  none  can  be 
given,  must  I  not  conclude  that  the  known 
friendship  of  the  Genoese  towards  the  British, 
manifested  after  the  issue  of  the  Proclama 
tion,  and  in  no  part  created  by  it,  was  equiva 
lent  to  an  auxiliary  force  of  seventeen  thou 
sand  msnl  Were  not  the  known  wishes  of 
the  people,  acting  on  the  hopes  of  the  British, 
and  on  the  fears  of  the  French,  the  chief 
cause  of  the  expulsion  of  the  French  from 
the  Genoese  territory?  Can  Lord  William 
Bentinck's  little  army  be  considered  as  more 
than  auxiliaries  to  the  popular  sentiment  ?  If 
a  body  of  four  thousand  Genoese  had  joined 
Lord  William,  on  the  declared  ground  of  his 
Proclamation,  all  mankind  would  have  ex 
claimed  that  the  condition  was  fulfilled,  and 
the  contract  indissoluble.  Is  it  not  the  height 
of  absurdity  to  maintain  that  a  manifesta 
tion  of  public  sentiment,  which  produced  as 
much  benefit  to  him  as  four  times  that  force, 
is  not  to  have  the  same  effect.  A  ship  which 
is  in  sight  of  a  capture  is  entitled  to  her 
share  of  the  prize,  though  she  neither  had 
nor  could  have  fired  a  shot,  upon  the  plain 
principle  that  apprehension  of  her  approach 

Srobably  contributed  to  produce  the  surren- 
er.  If  apprehension  of  Genoese  hostility 
influenced  the  French  garrison, — if  assu 
rance  of  Genoese  friendship  encouraged  the 
British  army,  on  what  principle  do  you  de 
fraud  the  Genoese  of  their  national  inde 
pendence, — the  prize  which  you  promised 
them,  and  which  they  thus  helped  to  wrest 
from  the  enemy  ? 

In  fact,  I  am  well  informed.  Sir,  that  there 
was  a  revolt  in  the  city,  which  produced  the 
surrender, — that    Buonaparte's    statue   had 
65 


been  overthrown  with  every  mark  of  indig 
nity, — and  that  the  French  garrison  was  on 
the  point  of  being  expelled,  even  if  the  be 
siegers  had  not  appeared.  But  I  am  not 
obliged  to  risk  the  case  upon  the  accuracy 
of  that  information.  Be  it  that  the  Genoese 
complied  with  Lord  Wellesley's  wise  instruc 
tion,  to  avoid  premature  revolt :  I  affirm  that 
Lord  William  Bentinck's  advance  is  positive 
evidence  of  an  understanding  with  the  Geno 
ese  leaders;  that  there  would  have  been 
such  evidence  in  the  advance  of  any  judi 
cious  officer,  but  most  peculiarly  in  his,  who 
had  been  for  three  years  negotiating  in  Upper 
Italy,  and  was  well  acquainted  with  the  pre 
valent  impatience  of  the  French  yoke.  I 
conceive  it  to  be  self-evident,  that  if  the 
Genoese  had  believed  the  English  army  to 
be  advancing  in  order  to  sell  them  to  Sar 
dinia,  they  would  not  have  favoured  the  ad 
vance.  I  think  it  demonstrable,  that  to  their 
favourable  disposition  the  expedition  owed 
its  success.  And  it  needs  no  proof  that  they 
favoured  the  English,  because  the  English 
promised  them  the  restoration  of  independ 
ence.  The  English  have,  therefore,  broken 
faith  with  them :  the  English  have  defrauded 
them  of  solemnly-promised  independence: 
the  English  have  requited  their  co-operation, 
by  forcibly  subjecting  them  to  the  power  of 
the  most  odious  of  foreign  masters.  On  the 
whole,  I  shall  close  this  part  of  the  question 
with  challenging  all  the  powers  of  human 
ingenuity  to  interpret  the  Proclamation  as 
any  thing  but  a  promise  of  independence  to 
such  Italian  nations  as  were  formerly  inde 
pendent,  and  would  now  co-operate  for  the 
recovery  of  |heir  rights.  I  leave  to  the  Gen 
tlemen  on  tne  other  side  the  task  of  convin 
cing  the  House  that  the  conduct  of  the  Ge 
noese  did  not  co-operate  towards  success, 
though  without  it  success  was  impossible. 

But  we  have  been  told  that  Lord  William 
Bentinck  was  not  authorised  to  make  such  a 
promise.  It  is  needless  for  me  to  repeat  my 
assent  to  a  truth  so  trivial,  as  that  no  political 
negotiation  is  naturally  within  the  province 
of  a  military  commander,  and  that  for  such 
negotiations  he  must  have  special  authority. 
At  the  same  time  I  must  observe,  that  Lord 
William  Bentinck  was  not  solely  a  military 
commander,  and  could  not  be  considered  by 
the  Italians  in  that  light.  In  Sicily  his  po 
litical  functions  had  been  more  important 
than  his  military  command.  From  1811  to 
1814  he  had,  with  the  approbation  of  his 
Government,  performed  the  highest  acts  of 
political  authority  in  that  island  :  and  he  had, 
during  the  same  period,  carried  on  the  secret 
negotiations  of  the  British  Government  with 
all  Italians  disaffected  to  France.  To  the 
Italians,  then,  he  appeared  as  a  plenipoten 
tiary  j  and  they  had  a  right  to  expect  that 
his  Government  would  ratify  his  acts  and 
fulfil  his  engagements.  In  fact,  his  special 
authority  was  full  and  explicit.  Lord  Wei 
lesley's  Instructions  of  the  21st  of  October 
and  27th  of  December,  1811,  speak  with  the 
manly  firmness  which  distinguishes  that 


514 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


great  statesman  as  much  as  his  command  ing 
character  and  splendid  talents.  His  mean 
ing  is  always  precisely  expressed : — he  leaves 
himself  no  retreat  from  his  engagements  in 
the  ambiguity  and  perplexity  of  an  unintel 
ligible  style.  The  principal  object  of  these 
masterly  despatches  is  to  instruct  Lord  Wil 
liam  Bentinck  respecting  his  support  of  any 
eventual  effort  of  the  Italian  states  to  rescue 
Italy.  They  remind  him  of  the  desire  of  the 
Prince  Regent  to  afford  every  practicable  as 
sistance  to  the  people  of  Italy  in  any  such 
effort.  They  convey  so  large  a  discretion, 
that  it  is  thought  necessary  to  say, — "  In  all 
arrangements  respecting  the  expulsion  of  the 
enemy,  your  Lordship  will  not  fail  to  give 
due  consideration  to  our  engagements  with 
the  courts  of  Sicily  and  Sardinia."  Lord  Wil 
liam  Bentinck  had  therefore  powers  which 
would  have  extended  to  Naples  and  Pied 
mont,  unless  they  had  been  specially  ex- 
cepted.  On  the  19th  of  May,  1812,  Lord 
Castlereagh  virtually  confirms  the  same  ex 
tensive  and  confidential  powers.  On  the  4th 
of  March  preceding.  Lord  Liverpool  had, 
indeed,  instructed  Lord  William  Bentinck 
to  employ  a  part  of  his  force  in  a  diversion 
in  favour  of  Lord  Wellington,  by  a  descent 
on  the  eastern  coast  of  Spain.  This  diver 
sion  doubtless  suspended  the  negotiations 
with  the  patriotic  Italians,  and  precluded  for 
a  time  the  possibility  of  affording  them  aid. 
But  so  far  from  withdrawing  Lord  William 
Bentinck's  political  power,  in  Italy,  they  ex 
pressly  contemplate  their  revival: — "This 
operation  would  leave  the  question  respect 
ing  Italy  open  for  further  consideration,  if 
circumstances  should  subsequently  render 
the  prospect  there  more  inviting."  The 
despatches  of  Lord  Bathurst,  from  March 
1812  to  December  1813,  treat  Lord  William 
Bentinck  as  still  in  possession  of  those  ex 
tensive  powers  originally  vested  in  him  by 
the  despatch  of  Lord  Wellesley.  Every 
question  of  policy  is  discussed  in  these  des 
patches,  not  as  with  a  mere  general, — not 
even  as  with  a  mere  ambassador,  but  as 
with  a  confidential  minister  for  the  Italian 
Department.  The  last  despatch  is  that  which 
closes  with  the  remarkable  sentence,  which 
is,  in  my  opinion,  decisive  of  this  whole 
question: — "Provided  it  be  clearly  with  the 
entire  concurrence  of  the  inhabitants,  you 
may  take  possession  of  Genoa  in  the  name 
of  His  Sardinian  Majesty."  Now  this  is,  in 
effect,  tantamount  to  an  instruction  not  to 
transfer  Genoa  to  Sardinia  without  the  con 
currence  of  the  inhabitants.  It  is  a  virtual  in 
struction  to  consider  the  wishes  of  the  people 
of  Genoa  as  the  rule  and  measure  of  his  con 
duct:  it  is  more — it  is  a  declaration  that  he 
had  no  need  of  any  instruction  to  re-establish 
Genoa,  if  the  Genoese  desired  it.  That  re- 
establishment  was  provided  for  by  his  origi 
nal  instructions :  only  the  new  project  of  a 
transfer  to  a  foreign  sovereign  required  new 
ones.  Under  his  original  instructions,  then, 
thus  ratified  by  a  long  series  of  succeeding 
despatches  from  a  succession  of  ministers, 


did  Lord  William  Bentinck  issue  the  Procla 
mation  of  the  14th  of  March. 

Limitations  there  were  in  the  original  in 
structions: — Sicily  and  Sardinia  were  ex- 
cepted.  New  exceptions  undoubtedly  arose, 
in  the  course  of  events,  so  plainly  within  the 
principle  of  the  original  exceptions  as  to  re 
quire  no  specification.  Every  Italian  pro 
vince  of  a  sovereign  with  whom  Great  Britain 
had  subsequently  contracted  an  alliance  was. 
doubtless,  as  much  to  be  excepted  out  of 
general  projects  of  revolt  for  Italian  inde 
pendence  as  those  which  had  been  subject 
to  the  Allied  Sovereigns  in  1811.  A  British 
minister  needed  no  express  instructions  to 
comprehend  that  he  was  to  aid  no  revolt 
against  the  Austrian  Government  in  their 
former  province  of  Lombardy.  The  change 
of  circumstances  sufficiently  instructed  him. 
But  in  what  respect  were  circumstances 
changed  respecting  Genoa?  The  circum 
stances  of  Genoa  were  the  same  as  at  the 
time  of  Lord  Wellesley's  instructions.  The 
very  last  despatches  (those  of  Lord  Bathurst, 
of  the  28th  of  December,  1813,)  had  pointed 
to  the  Genoese  territory  as  the  scene  of  mili 
tary  operations,  without  any  intimation  that 
the  original  project  was  not  still  applicable 
there,  unless  the  Genoese  nation  should 
agree  to  submit  to  the  King  of  Sardinia.  I 
contend,  therefore,  that  the  original  instruc 
tion  of  Lord  Wellesley,  which  authorised  the 
promise  of  independence  to  every  part  of  the 
Italian  peninsula  except  Naples  and  Pied 
mont,  was  still  in  force,  wherever  it  was  not 
manifestly  limited  by  subsequent  engage 
ments  with  the  sovereigns  of  other  countries, 
similar  to  our  engagements  with  the  sove 
reigns  of  Naples  and  Piedmont, — that  no 
such  engagement  existed  respecting  the  Ge 
noese  authority, — and  that  to  the  Genoese 
people  the  instruction  of  Lord  Wellesley  was 
as  applicable  as  on  the  day  when  that  in 
struction  was  issued. 

The  Noble  Lord  may  then  talk  as  he 
pleases  of  "disentangling  from  the  present 
question  the  question  of  Italy,"  to  which  on 
a  former  occasion  he  applied  a  phraseology 
so  singular.  He  cannot  "  disentangle  these 
questions:" — they  are  inseparably  blended. 
The  Instructions  of  1811  authorised  the  pro 
mise  of  independence  to  all  Italians,  except 
the  people  of  Naples  and  Piedmont.  The 
Proclamation  of  the  14th  of  March  1814  pro 
mised  independence  to  all  Italians,  with  the 
manifestly  implied  exception  of  those  \vho 
had  been  the  subjects  of  Powers  who  were 
now  become  the  allies  of  Great  Britain.  A 
British  general,  fully  authorised,  promised 
independence  to  those  Italians  who,  like  the 
Genoese,  had  not  been  previously  the  sub 
jects  of  an  ally  of  Britain,  and  by  that  pro 
mise,  so  authorised,  his  Government  is  in 
violably  bound. 

But  these  direct  instructions  were  not  all. 
He  was  indirectly  authorised  by  the  acts  and 
language  of  his  own  Government  and  of  the 
other  great  Powers  of  Europe.  He  was  au 
thorised  to  re-establish  the  republic  of  Ge- 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


515 


noa,  because  the  British  Government  in  the 
Treaty  of  Amiens  had  refused  to  acknow 
ledge  its  destruction.  He  was  authorised  to 
believe  that  Austria  desired  the  re-establish 
ment  of  a  republic  whose  destruction  that 
Government  in  1808  had  represented  as  a 
cause  of  war.  He  was  surely  authorised  to 
consider  that  re-establishment  as  conform 
able  to  the  sentiments  of  the  Emperor  Alex 
ander,  who  at  the  same  time  had,  on  account 
of  the  annexation  of  Genoa  to  France,  re 
fused  even  at  the  request  of  Great  Britain  to 
continue  his  mediation  between  her  and  a 
Power  capable  of  such  an  outrage  on  the 
rights  of  independent  nations.  Where  was 
Lord  William  Bentinck  to  learn  the  latest 
opinions  of  the  Allied  Powers'?  If  he  read 
the  celebrated  Declaration  of  Frankfort,  he 
there  found  an  alliance  announced  of  which 
the  object  was  the  restoration  of  Europe. 
Did  restoration  mean  destruction'?  Perhaps 
before  the  14th  of  March, — certainly  before 
the  26th  of  April, — he  had  seen  the  first  ar 
ticle  of  the  Treaty  of  Chaumont,  concluded 
on  the  1st  of  March, — 

"  Dum  curae  ambiguae,  dum  spes  incerta  futuri,"* 

in  which  he  found  the  object  of  the  war  de 
clared  by  the  assembled  majesty  of  confe 
derated  Europe  to  be  "  a  general  peace  under 
which  the  rights  and  liberties  of  all  nations 
may  be  secured" — words  eternally  honour 
able  to  their  authors  if  they  were  to  be  ob 
served — more  memorable  still  if  they  were 
to  be  openly  and  perpetually  violated !  Be 
fore  the  26th  of  April  he  had  certainly  pe 
rused  these  words,  which  no  time  will  efface 
from  the  records  of  history  :  for  he  evidently 
adverts  to  them  in  the  preamble  of  his  Pro 
clamation,  and  justly  considers  them  as  a 
sufficient  authority,  if  he  had  no  other,  to 
warrant  its  provisions.  "Considering,"  says 
he,  "  that  the  general  desire  of  the  Genoese 
nation  seems  to  be,  to  return  to  their  ancient 
government,  and  considering  that  the  desire 
seems  to  be  conformable  to  the  principles 
recognised  by  the  High  Allied  Powers  of  re 
storing  to  all  their  ancient  rights  and  privi 
leges."  In  the  work  of  my  celebrated  friend, 
Mr.  Gentz,  of  whom  I  can  never  speak  with 
out  regard  and  admiration,  On  the  Balance 
of  Power,  he  would  have  found  the  incor 
poration  of  Genoa  justly  reprobated  as  one 
of  the  most  unprincipled  acts  of  French 
tyranny;  and  he  would  have  most  reason 
ably  believed  the  sentiments  of  the  Allied 
Powers  to  have  been  spoken  by  that  emi 
nent  person — now,  if  I  am  not  misinformed, 
the  Secretary  of  that  Congress,  on  whose 
measures  his  writings  are  the  most  severe 
censure. 

But  that  Lord.  William  Bentinck  did  be 
lieve  himself  to  have  offered  independence 
to  the  Genoese, — that  he  thought  himself 
directly  and  indirectly  authorised  to  make 
such  an  offer, — and  that  he  was  satisfied 
that  the  Genoese  had  by  their  co-operation 


id.  lib.  viii. — ED. 


performed  their  part  of  the  compact,  are 
facts  which  rest  upon  the  positive  and  pre 
cise  testimony  of  Lord  William  Bentinck 
himself.  I  call  upon  him  as  the  best  inter 
preter  of  his  own  language,  and  the  most 
unexceptionable  witness  to  prove  the  co 
operation  of  the  Genoese.  Let  this  Procla 
mation  of  the  26th  of  April  be  examined : — 
it  is  the  clearest  commentary  on  that  of  the 
14th  of  March.  It  is  the  most  decisive  testi 
mony  to  the  active  aid  of  the  Genoese  people. 
On  the  26th  of  April  he  bestows  on  the  peo 
ple  of  Genoa  that  independence  which  he 
had  promised  to  all  the  nations  of  Italy  (with 
the  implied  exception,  already  often  enough 
mentioned),  on  condition  of  their  aiding  to 
expel  the  oppressor.  He,  therefore,  under 
stood  his  own  Proclamation  to  be  such  a 
promise  of  independence :  he  could  not  doubt 
but  that  he  was  authorised  to  make  it:  and 
he  believed  that  the  Genoese  were  entitled 
to  claim  the  benefit  of  it  by  their  performance 
of  its  condition. 

This  brings  me  to  the  consideration  of 
this  Proclamation,  on  which  I  should  have 
thought  all  observation  unnecessary,  unless 
I  had  heard  some  attempts  made  by  the 
Noble  Lord  to  explain  it  away,  and  to  repre 
sent  it  as  nothing  but  the  establishment  of  a 
provisional  government.  I  call  on  any  mem 
ber  of  the  House  to  read  that  Proclamation, 
and  to  say  whether  he  can  in  common  hon 
our  assent  to  such  an  interpretation.  The 
Proclamation,  beyond  all  doubt,  provides  for 
two  perfectly  distinct  objects : — the  establish 
ment  of  a  provisional  government  till  the  1st 
of  January  1815,  and  the  re-establishment 
of  the  ancient  constitution  of  the  republic, 
with  certain  reforms  and  modifications,  from 
and  after  that  period.  Three-fourths  of  the 
Proclamation  have  no  reference  whatever  to 
a  provisional  government; — the  first  sentence 
of  the  preamble,  and  the  third  and  fourth  ar 
ticles  only,  refer  to  that  object :  but  the  larger 
paragraph  of  the  preamble,  and  four  articles 
of  the  enacting  part,  relate  to  the  re-esta 
blishment  of  the  ancient  constitution  alone. 
"  The  desire  of  the  Genoese  nation  was  to 
return  to  their  ancient  government,  under 
which  they  had  enjoyed  independence  :" — 
was  this  relating  to  a  provisional  govern 
ment1?  Did  "  the  principles  recognised  by  the 
High  Allied  Powers"  contemplate  only  the 
establishment  of  provisional  governments? 
Did  provisional  governments  imply  "resto 
ring  to  all  their  ancient  rights  and  privi 
leges'?"  Why  should  the  ancient  constitu 
tion  be  re-established — the  very  constitution 
given  by  Andrew  Doria  when  he  delivered 
his  country  from  a  foreign  yoke. — if  nothing 
was  meant  but  a  provisional  government, 
preparatory  to  foreign  slavery  ?  Why  was 
the  government  to  be  modified  according  to 
the  general  wish,  the  public  good,  and  the 
spirit  of  Doria's  constitution,  if  nothing  was 
meant  beyond  a  temporary  administration, 
till  the  Allied  Powers  could  decide  on  what 
vassal  they  were  to  bestow  Genoa  ?  But  I 
may  have  been  at  first  mistaken,  and  time 


516 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


may  have  rendered  my  mistake  incorrigible. 
Let  every  gentleman,  before  he  votes  on  this 
question,  calmly  peruse  the  Proclamation  of 
the  26th  of  April,  and  determine  for  himself 
whether  it  admits  of  any  but  one  construc 
tion.  Does  it  not  provide  for  a  provisional 
government  immediately,  and  for  the  esta 
blishment  of  the  ancient  constitution  here 
after; — the  provisional  government  till  the 
1st  of  January,  1815,  the  constitution  from 
the  1st  of  January,  1815'?  The  provisional 
government  is  in  its  nature  temporary,  and  a 
limit  is  fixed  to  it.  The  constitution  of  the 
republic  is  permanent,  and  no  term  or  limit 
is  prescribed  beyond  which  it  is  not  to  en 
dure.  It  is  not  the  object  of  the  Proclama 
tion  to  establish  the  ancient  constitution  as 
a  provisional  government.  On  the  contrary, 
the  ancient  constitution  is  not  to  be  esta 
blished  till  the  provisional  government  ceases 
to  exist.  So  distinct  are  they,  that  the  mode 
of  appointment  to  the  supreme  powers  most 
materially  differs.  Lord  William  Bentinck 
nominates  the  two  colleges,  who  compose 
the  provisional  government.  The  two  col 
leges  wrho  are  afterwards  to  compose  the 
permanent  government  of  the  republic,  are 
to  be  nominated  agreeably  to  the  ancient  con 
stitution.  Can  it  be  maintained  that  the  in 
tention  was  to  establish  two  successive  pro 
visional  governments  1  For  what  conceivable 
reason?-  Even  in  that  case,  why  engage  in 
the  laborious«and  arduous  task  of  reforming 
an  ancient  constitution  for  the  sake  of  a 
second  provisional  government  which  might 
not  last  three  weeks  ?  And  what  constitu 
tion  wTas  more  unfit  for  a  provisional  govern 
ment, — what  was  more  likely  to  indispose 
the  people  to  all  farther  change,  and  above 
all,  to  a  sacrifice  of  their  independence,  than 
the  ancient  constitution  of  the  republic,  which 
revived  all  their  feelings  of  national  dignity, 
and  seemed  to  be  a  pledge  trial  they  were 
once  more  to  be  Genoese"?  In  short.  Sir,  I 
am  rather  fearful  that  I  shall  be  tfiought  to 
have  overlaboured  a  point  so  extremely  clear. 
But  if  I  have  dwelt  too  long  upon  this  Pro 
clamation,  and  examined  it  too  minutely,  it 
is  not  because  I  think  it  difficult,  but  because 
I  consider  it  is  decisive  of  the  whole  ques 
tion.  If  Lord  William  Bentinck  in  that  Pro 
clamation  bestowed  on  the  people  of  Genoa 
their  place  among  nations,  and  the  govern 
ment  of  their  forefathers,  it  must  havei)een 
because  he  deemed  himself  authorised  to 
make  that  establishment  by  the  repeated 
instructions  of  the  British  Government,  and 
by  the  avowed  principles  and  solemn  acts  of 
the  Allied  Powers,  and  because  he  felt  bound 
to  make  it  by  his  own  Proclamation  of  the 
14th  of  March,  combined  with  the  acts  done 
by  the  Genoese  nation,  in  consequence  of 
that  Proclamation.  I  think  I  have  proved  that 
he  did  so, — that  he  believed  himself  to  have 
done  so,  and  that  the  people  of  Genoa  be 
lieved  it  likewise. 

Perhaps,  however,  if  Lord  William  Ben 
tinck  had  mistaken  his  instructions,  and  had 
acted  without  authority;  he  might  have  been 


disavowed,  and  his  acts  might  have  been 
annulled  ?  I  doubt  whether,  in  such  a  case, 
any  disavowal  would  have  been  sufficient. 
Wherever  another  people,  in  consequence 
of  the  acts  of  our  agent  whom  they  had  good 
reason  to  trust,  have  done  acts  which  they 
cannot  recall.  I  do  not  conceive  the  possibility 
of  a  just  disavowal  of  such  an  agent's  acts. 
Where  one  party  has  innocently  and  reason 
ably  advanced  too  far  to  recede,  justice  cuts 
off  the  other  also  from  retreat.  But,  at  all 
events,  the  disavowal,  to  be  effectual,  must 
have  been  prompt,  clear,  and  public.  Where 
is  the  disavowal  here  ?  Where  is  the  public 
notice  to  the  Genoese,  that  they  were  de 
ceived  ?  Did  their  mistake  deserve  no  cor 
rection,  even  on  the  ground  of  compassion  ? 
I  look  in  vain  through  these  Papers  for  any 
such  act.  The  Noble  Lord's  letter  of  the  30th 
of  March  was  the  first  intimation  which  Lord 
William  Bentinck  received  of  any  change 
of  system  beyond  Lombardy.  It  contains 
only  a  caution  as  to  future  conduct  j  and  it 
does  not  hint  an  intention  to  cancel  any  act 
done  on  the  faith  of  the  Proclamation  of  the 
14th  of  March.  The  allusion  to  the  same 
subject  in  the  letter  of  the  3d  of  April,  is 
liable  to  the  very  same  observation,  and 
being  inserted  at  the  instance  of  the  Duke 
of  Campochiaro,  was  evidently  intended  only 
to  prevent  the  prevalence  of  such  ideas  of 
Italian  liberty  as  were  inconsistent  with  the 
accession  then  proposed  to  the  territory  of 
Naples.  It  certainly  could  not  have  been 
supposed  by  Lord  William  Benlinck  to  apply 
to  Genoa ;  for  Genoa  was  in  his  possession 
on  the  26th,  when  he  issued  the  Proclama 
tion,  wrhich  he  never  could  have  published 
if  he  had  understood  the  despatch  in  that 
sense. 

The  Noble  Lord's  despatch  of  the  6th  of 
May  is,  Sir,  in  my  opinion,  fatal  to  his  argu 
ment.  It  evidently  betrays  a  feeling  that 
acts  had  been  done,  to  create  in  the  Genoese 
a  hope  of  independence :  yet  it  does  not  direct 
these  acts  to  "be  disavowed ; — it  contains  no 
order  speedily  to  undeceive  the  people.  It 
implies  that  a  deception  had  been  practised ; 
and  instead  of  an  attempt  to  repair  it,  there 
is  only  an  injunction  not  to  repeat  the  faulit. 
No  expressions  are  to  be  used  which  may  prt- 
judge  the  fate  of  Genoa.  Even  then  that  fate 
remained  doubtful.  So  far  from  disavowal, 
the  Noble  Lord  proposes  the  re-establishment 
of  Genoa,  though  with  some  curtailment  of 
territory,  to  M.  Pareto,  who  maintained  the 
interests  of  his  country  with  an  ability  and 
dignity  worthy  of  happier  success. 

And  the  Treaty  of  Paris  itself,  far  from  a 
disavowal,  is,  on  every  principle  of  rational 
construction,  a  ratification  and  adoption  of 
the  act  of  Lord  William  Bentinck.  The  6th 
article  of  that  Treaty  provides  that  "Italy, 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  country  which  is  to 
revert  to  Austria,  shall  be  composed  of  sove 
reign  states."  Now,  Sir,  I  desire  to  know 
the  meaning  of  this  provision.  I  can  conceive 
only  three  possible  constructions.  Either 
that  every  country  shall  have  «ome  sove- 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


517 


reign,  or,  in  other  words,  some  government : 
— it  will  not  be  said  that  so  trivial  a  propo 
sition  required  a  solemn  stipulation.  Or  that 
there  is  to  be  more  than  one  sovereign : — 
that  was  absolutely  unnecessary:  Naples,  the 
States  of  the  Church,  and  Tuscany,  already 
existed.  Or,  thirdly,  that  the  ancient  sove 
reign  states  shall  be  re-established,  except 
the  country  which  reverts  to  Austria  : — this, 
and  this  only,  was  an  intelligible  and  import 
ant  object  of  stipulation,  "it  is  the  most 
reasonable  of  the  only  three  possible  con 
structions  of  these  words.  The  phrase  "  sove 
reign  states"  seems  to  have  been  preferred 
to  that  of  '-'sovereigns,7'  because  it  compre 
hended  republics  as  well  as  monarchies. 
According  to  this  article,  thus  understood, 
the  Powers  of  Europe  had  by  the  Treaty  of 
Paris  (to  speak  cautiously)  given  new  hopes 
to  the  Genoese  that  they  were  again  to  be  a 
nation. 

But,  according  to  every  principle  of  jus 
tice,  it  is  unnecessary  to  carry  the  argument 
so  far.  The  act  of  an  agent,  if  not  disavowed 
in  reasonable  time,  becomes  the  act  of  the 
principal.  When  a  pledge  is  made  to  a  peo 
ple — such  as  was  contained  in  the  Procla 
mations  of  the  14th  of  March  and  26th  of 
April — it  can  be  recalled  only  by  a  disavowal 
equally  public. 

On  the  policy  of  annexing  Genoa  to  Pied 
mont,  Sir,  I  have  very  little  to  say.  That  it 
was  a  compulsory,  and  therefore  an  unjust 
union,  is,  in  my  view  of  the  subject,  the  cir 
cumstance  which  renders  it  most  impolitic. 
It  seems  a  bad  means  of  securing  Italy 
against  France,  to  render  a  considerable  part 
of  the  garrison  of  the  Alps  so  dissatisfied 
with  their  condition,  that  they  must  consider 
every  invader  as  a  deliverer.  But  even  if 
the  annexation  had  been  just,  I  should  have 
doubted  whether  it  was  desirable.  Informer 
times,  the  House  of  Savoy  might  have  been 
the  guardians  of  the  Alps : — at  present,  to 
treat  them  as  such,  seems  to  be  putting  the 
keys  of  Italy  into  hands  too  weak  to  hold 
them.  Formerly,  the  conquest  of  Genoa  and 
Piedmont  were  two  distinct  operations: — 
Genoa  did  not  necessarily  follow  the  fate  of 
Turin.  In  the  state  of  things  created  by  the 
Congress,  a  French  army  has  no  need  of 
separately  acting  against  the  Genoese  terri 
tory: — it  must  fall  with  Piedmont.  And 
what  is  still  more  strange,  it  is  bound  to  the 
destinies  of  Piedmont  by  the  same  Congress 
which  has  wantonly  stripped  Piedmont  of  its 
natural  defences.  The  House  of  Sardinia  is 
stripped  of  great  part  of  its  ancient  patri 
mony: — apart  of  Savoy  is,  for  no  conceivable 
reason,  given  to  France.  The  French  are 
put  in  possession  of  the  approaches  and  out 
posts  of  the  passes  of  Mont  Cenis :  they  are 
brought  a  campaign  nearer  to  Italy.  At  this 
very  moment  they  have  assembled  an  army 
at  Chambery,  which,  unless  Savoy  had  been 
wantonly  thrown  to  them,  they  must  have 
assembled  at  Lyons.  You  impose  on  the 
House  of  Savoy  the  defence  of  a  longer  line 
of  Alps  with  one  hand,  and  you  weaken  the 


lefence  of  that  part  of  the  line  which  covers 
heir  capital  with  the  other.  But  it  is  per- 
ectly  sufficient  for  me,  in  the  present  case, 
f  the  policy  is  only  doubtful,  or  the  interests 
mly  slight.  The  laxest  moralist  will  not, 
ublicly  at  least,  deny,  that  more  advantage 
s  lost  by  the  loss  of  a  character  for  good 
aith  than  can  be  gained  by  a  small  improve 
ment  in  the  distribution  of  territory.  Perhaps, 
ndeed,  this  annexation  of  Genoa  is  the  only 
nstance  recorded  in  history  of  great  Powers 
laving  (to  say  no  more)  brought  their  faith 
ind  honour  into  question  without  any  of  the 
ligher  temptations  of  ambition, — with  no 
jetter  inducement  than  a  doubtful  advantage 
n  distributing  territory  more  conveniently, 
— unless,  indeed,  it  can  be  supposed  that 
they  are  allured 'by  the  pleasures  of  a  tri- 
imph  over  the  ancient  principles  of  justice, 
and  of  a  parade  of  the  new  maxims  of  con 
venience  which  are  to  regulate  Europe  in 
heir  stead. 

I  have  hitherto  argued  this  case  as  if  the 
mmorality  of  the  annexation  had  arisen 
solely  from  the  pledge  made  to  the  Genoese 
lation.  I  have  argued  it  as  if  the  Proclama 
tion  of  Lord  William  Bentinck  had  been  ad 
dressed  to  a  French  province,  on  which  there 
could  be  no  obligation  to  confer  independence, 
if  there  were  no  promise  to  do  so.  For  the 
sake  of  distinctness,  I  have  hitherto  kept  out 
of  view  that  important  circumstance,  which 
would,  as  I  contend,  without  any  promise, 
have  of  itself  rendered  a  compulsory  annexa 
tion  unjust.  Anterior  to  all  promise,  inde 
pendent  of  all  pledged  faith,  I  conceive  that 
Great  Britain  could  rot  morally  treat  the 
Genoese  territory  as  a  mere  conquest,  which 
she  might  hold  as  a  province,  or  cede  to 
another  power,  at  her  pleasure.  In  the  year 
1797,  when  Genoa  was  conquered  by  France 
(then  at  war  with  England),  under  pretence 
of  being  revolutionised,  the  Genoese  republic 
was  at  peace  with  Great  Britain  ;  and  conse 
quently,  in  the  language  of  the  law  of  nations, 
they  were  "friendly  states."  Neither  the 
substantial  conquest  in  1797,  nor  the  formal 
union  of  1805.  had  ever  been  recognised  by 
this  kingdom. '  When  the  British  commander, 
therefore,  entered  the  Genoese  territory  in 
1814,  he  entered  the  territory  of  a  friend  in 
the  possession  of  an  enemy.  Supposing  him. 
by  his  own  unaided  force,  to  have  conquered 
it  from  the  enemy,  can  it  'be  inferred  that  he 
conquered  it  from  the  Genoese  people "?  He 
had  rights  of  conquest  against  the  French : 
— but  what  right  of  conquest  would  accrue 
from  their  expulsion,  against  the  Genoese  ? 
How  could  we  be  at  war  with  the  Genoese  ? 
— not  as  with  the  ancient  republic  of  Genoa, 
which  fell  when  in  a  state  of  amity  with  us, 
— not  as  subjects  of  France,  because  we  had 
never  legally  and  formally  acknowledged 
their  subjection  to  that  Power.  There  could 
be  no  right  of  conquest  against  them,  be 
cause  there  was  neither  the  state  of  war, 
nor  the  right  of  war.  Perhaps  the  Powers 
of  the  Continent,  which  had  either  expressly 
or  tacitly  recognised  the  annexation  of  Genoa 
2T 


518 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


in  their  treaties  with  France,  might  consist 
ently  treat  these  Genoese  people  as  mere 
French  subjects,  and  consequently  the  Ge 
noese  territory  as  a  French  province,  con 
quered  from  the  French  government,  which 
as  regarded  them  had  become  the  sovereign 
of  Genoa.  But  England  stood  in  no  such 
position  : — in  her  eye  the  republic  of  Genoa 
still  of  right  subsisted.  She  had  done  no  act 
which  implied  the  legal  destruction  of  a 
commonwealth,  with  which  she  had  had  no 
war,  nor  cause  of  war.  Genoa  ought  to  have 
been  regarded  by  England  as  a  friendly 
state,  oppressed  for  a  time  by  the  common 
enemy,  and  entitled  to  re-assume  the  exer 
cise  of  her  sovereign  rights  as  soon  as  that 
enemy  was  driven  from  her  territory  by  a 
friendly  force.  Voluntary,  much  more  cheer 
ful,  union, — zealous  co-operation, — even  long 
submission, — might  have  altered  the  state 
of  belligerent  rights  : — none  of  these  are  here 
pretended.  In  such  a  case,  I  contend,  that, 
according  to  the  law  of  nations,  anterior  to 
all  promises,  and  independent  of  all  pledged 
faith,  the  republic  of  Genoa  was  restored  to 
the  exercise  of  her  sovereignty,  which,  in 
our  eyes,  she  had  never  lost,  by  the  expul 
sion  of  the  French  from  her  soil. 

These,  Sir,  are  no  reasonings  of  mine :  I 
read  them  in  the  most  accredited  works  on 
public  law,  delivered  long  before  any  events 
of  our  time  were  in  contemplation,  and  yet 
as  applicable  to  this  transaction,  as  if  they 
had  been  contrived  for  it.  Vattel,  in  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  chapters  of  his 
third  book,  has  stated  fully  and  clearly 
those  principles  respecting  the  application 
of  the  jus  postliminii  to  the  case  of  states, 
which  he  had  taken  from  his  eminent  prede 
cessors,  or  rather  which  they  and  he  had 
discovered  to  be  agreeable  to  the  plainest 
dictates  of  reason,  and  which  they  have 
transcribed  from  the  usage  of  civilized  na 
tions.  I  shall  not  trouble  the  House  with 
the  passages,*  unless  I  see  some  attempt  to 

*  "  When  a  nation,  a  people,  a  state,  has  been 
entirely  subjugated,  whether  a  revolution  can  give 
it  the  right  of  Postliminium  ?  To  which  we  an 
swer,  that  if  the  conquered  state  has  not  assented 
to  the  new  subjection,  if  it  did  not  yield  volun 
tarily,  if  it  only  ceased  to  resist  from  inability,  if 
the  conqueror  has  not  yet  sheathed  the  sword  to 
wield  the  sceptre  of  a  pacific  sovereign, — such  a 
state  is  only  conquered  and  oppressed,  and  when 
the  arms  of  an  ally  deliver  it,  returns  without 
doubt  to  its  first  state.  Its  ally  cannot  become  its 
conqueror  ;  he  is  a  deliverer,  who  can  have  a  right 
only  to  compensation  for  his  services."  .  ..."  If 
the  last  conqueror,  not  being  an  ally  of  the  state, 
claims  a  right  to  retain  it  under  his  authority  as  the 
prize  of  victory,  he  puts  himself  in  the  place  of 
the  conqueror,  and  becomes  the  enemy  of  the  op 
pressed  state.  That  state  may  legitimately  resist 
him,  and  avail  herself  of  a  favourable  occasion  to 
recover  her  liberty.  A  state  unjustly  oppressed 
ought  to  be  re-established  in  her  rights  by  the 
conqueror  who  delivers  her  from  the  oppressor." 
Whoever  carefully  considers  the  above  passage 
will  observe,  that  it  is  intended  to  be  applicable  to 
two  very  distinct  cases ; — that  of  deliverance  by 
an  ally,  where  the  duty  of  restoration  is  strict  and 
precise, — and  that  of  deliverance  by  a  state  unal- 


reconcile  them  with  the  annexation  of  Genoa. 
I  venture  to  predict  no  such  attempts  will  be 
hazarded.  It  is  not  my  disposition  to  over 
rate  the  authority  of  this  class  of  writers,  or 
to  consider  authority  in  any  case  as  a  substi 
tute  for  reason.  But  these  eminent  writers 
were  at  least  necessarily  impartial.  Their 
weight,  as  bearing  testimony  to  general  sen 
timent  and  civilized  usage,  receives  a  new 
accession  from  every  statesman  who  appeals 
to  their  writings,  and  from  every  year  in 
which  no  contrary  practice  is  established  or 
hostile  principles  avowed.  Their  works  are 
thus  attested  by  successive  generations  to  be 
records  of  the  customs  of  the  best  times,  and 
depositories  of  the  deliberate  arid  permanent 
judgments  of  the  more  enlightened  part  of 
mankind.  Add  to  this,  that  their  authority 
is  usually  invoked  by  the  feeble,  and  despised 
by  those  who  are  strong  enough  to  need  no 
aid  from  moral  sentiment,  and  to  bid  defiance 
to  justice.  I  have  never  heard  their  princi 
ples  questioned,  but  by  those  whose  flagitious 
policy  they  had  by  anticipation  condemned. 

Here,  Sir,  let  me  for  a  moment  lower  the 
claims  of  my  argument,  and  abandon  some 
part  of  the  ground  which  I  think  it  practica 
ble  to  maintain.  If  I  were  to  admit  that  the 
pledge  here  is  not  so  strong,  nor  the  duty  of 
re-establishing  a  rescued  friend  so  imperious 
as  I  have  represented,  still  it  must  be  ad 
mitted  to  me,  that  it  was  a  promise,  though 
perhaps  not  unequivocal,  to  perform  that 
which  was  moral  and  right,  whether  within 
the  sphere  of  strict  duty  or  not.  Either  the 
doubtful  promise,  or  the  imperfect  duty, 
might  singly  have  been  insufficient :  but, 
combined,  they  reciprocally  strengthen  each 
other.  The  slightest  promise  to  do  what  was 
before  a  duty,  becomes  as  binding  as  much 
stronger  words  to  do  an  indifferent  act : — 
strong  assurances  that  a  man  will  do  what  it 
is  right  for  him  to  do  are  not  required.  A 
slight  declaration  to  such  an  effect  is  believed 
by  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed,  and  there 
fore  obligatory  on  those  by  whom  it  is  uttered. 
Was  it  not  natural  and  reasonable  for  the 
people  of  Genoa  to  believe,  on  the  slenderest 
pledges,  that  such  a  country  as  England, 
with  which  they  had  never  had  a  difference, 
would  avail  herself  of  a  victory,  due  at  lea£t 
in  part  to  their  friendly  sentiments,  in  ordeV 
to  restore  them  to  that  independence  of 
which  they  had  been  robbed  by  her  enemy 
and  theirs, — by  the  general  oppressor  of 
Europe. 

I  shall  not  presume  to  define  on  invariable 
principles  the  limits  of  the  right  of  conquest. 


lied,  but  not  hostile,  where  in  the  opinion  of  the 
writer  the  re-establishment  of  the  oppressed  nation 
is  at  least  the  moral  duty  of  the  conqueror,  though 
arising  only  from  our  common  humanity,  and 
from  the  amicable  relation  which  subsists  between 
all  men  and  all  communities,  till  dissolved  by 
wrongful  oppression.  It  is  to  the  latter  case  that 
the  strong  language  in  the  second  part  of  the 
above  quotation  is  applied.  It  seems  very  difficult, 
and  it  has  not  hitherto  been  attempted,  to  resist  the 
application  to  the  case  of  Genoa. 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


519 


It  is  founded,  like  every  right  of  war,  on  a 
regard  to  security, — the  object  of  all  just 
war.  The  modes  in  which  national  safety 
may  be  provided  for, — by  reparation  for  in- 
salt, — by  compensation  for  injury, — by  ces 
sions  and  by  indemnifications, — vary  in  such 
important  respects,  according  to  the  circum 
stances  of  various  cases,  that  it  is  perhaps 
impossible  to  limit  them  by  an  universal 
principle.  In  the  case  of  Norway,*  I  did 
not  pretend  to  argue  the  question  upon 
grounds  so  high  as  those  which  were  taken 
by  some  writers  on  public  law.  These  wri 
ters,  who  for  two  centuries  have  been  quoted 
as  authorities  in  all  the  controversies  of  Eu 
rope,  with  the  moderate  and  pacific  Grotius 
at  their  head,  have  all  concurred  in  treating 
it  as  a  fundamental  principle,  that  a  defeated 
sovereign  may  indeed  cede  part  of  his  do 
minions  to  the  conqueror,  but  that  he  there 
by  only  abdicates  his  own  sovereignty  over 
the  ceded  dominion. — that  the  consent  of  the 
people  is  necessary  to  make  them  morally 
subject  to  the  authority  of  the  conqueror. 
Without  renouncing  this  limitation  of  the 
rights  of  conquest,  founded  on  principles  so 
generous,  and  so  agreeable  to  the  dignity  of 
human  nature,  I  was  content  to  argue  the 
cession  of  Norway, — as  I  am  content  to  argue 
the  cession  of  Genoa. — on  lower  and  hum 
bler,  but  perhaps  safer  grounds.  Let  me 
waive  the  odious  term  '•'  rights," — let  me 
waive  the  necessity  of  any  consent  of  a  peo 
ple,  express  or  implied,  to  legitimate  the 
cession  of  their  territory :  at  least  this  will 
not  be  denied, — that  to  unite  a  people  by 
force  to  a  nation  against  whom  they  enter 
tain  a  strong  antipathy,  is  the  most  probable 
means  of  rendering  the  community  unhappy, 
— of  making  the  people  discontented,  and 
the  sovereign  tyrannical.  But  there  can  be 
no  right  in  any  governor,  whether  he  derives 
his  power  from  conquest,  or  from  any  other 
source,  to  make  the  governed  unhappy : — all 
the  rights  of  all  governors  exist  only  to  make 
the  governed  happy.  It  may  be  disputed 
among  some,  whether  the  rights  of  govern 
ment  be  from  the  people ;  but  no  man  can 
doubt  that  they  are  for  the  people.  Such  a 
forcible  union  is  an  immoral  and  cruel  exer 
cise  of  the  conqueror's  power ;  and  as  soon 
as  that  concession  is  made,  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  discuss  whether  it  be  within  his 
right, — in  other  words,  whether  he  be  forbid 
den  by  any  law  to  make  it. 

But  if  every  cession  of  a  territory  against 
the  deliberate  and  manifest  sense  of  its  in 
habitants  be  a  harsh  and  reprehensible  abuse 
of  conquest,  it  is  most  of  all  culpable, — it  be 
comes  altogether  atrocious  and  inhuman, 
where  the  antipathy  was  not  the  feeling  of 
the  moment,  or  the  prejudice  of  the  day,  but 
a  profound  sentiment  of  hereditary  repug 
nance  and  aversion,  which  has  descended 
from,  generation  to  generation, — has  mingled 


*  On  Mr.  Charles  Wynn's  motion  (May  12th, 
1814,)  condemnatory  of  its  forced  annexation  to 
Sweden.— ED. 


with  every  part  of  thought  and  action, — and 
has  become  part  of  patriotism  itself.  Such 
is  the  repugnance  of  the  Genoese  to  a  union 
with  Piedmont :  and  such  is  commonly  the 
peculiar  horror  which  high-minded  nations 
feel  of  the  yoke  of  their  immediate  neigh 
bours.  The  feelings  of  Norway  towards 
Sweden, — of  Portugal  towards  Spain, — arid 
in  former  and  less  happy  times  of  Scotland 
towards  England. — are  a  few  out  of  innu 
merable  examples.  There  is  nothing  either 
unreasonable  or  unnatural  in  this  state  of 
national  feelings.  With  neighbours  there 
are  most  occasions  of  quarrel;  with  them 
there  have  been  most  wars ;  from  them  there 
has  been  most  suffering: — of  them  there  is 
most  fear.  The  resentment  of  wrongs,  and 
the  remembrance  of  victory,  strengthen  our 
repugnance  to  those  who  are  most  usually 
our  enemies.  It  is  not  from  illiberal  preju 
dice,  but  from  the  constitution  of  human 
nature,  that  an  Englishman  animates  his  pa 
triotic  affections,  and  supports  his  national 
pride,  by  now  looking  back  on  victories  over 
Frenchmen, — on  Cressy  and  Agincourt,  on 
Blenheim  and  Minden, — as  our  posterity  will 
one  day  look  back  on  Salamanca  and  Vitto- 
ria.  The  defensive  principle  ought  to  be  the 
strongest  where  the  danger  is  likely  most 
frequently  to  arise.  What,  then,  will  the 
House  decide  concerning  the  morality  of 
compelling  Genoa  to  submit  to  the  yoke  of 
Piedmont, — a  state  which  the  Genoese  have 
constantly  dreaded  and  hated,  and  against 
which  their  hatred  was  sharpened  by  con 
tinual  apprehensions  for  their  independence  ? 
Whatever  construction  may  be  attempted  of 
Lord  William  Bentinck's  Proclamations, — 
whatever  sophistry  may  be  used  successful 
ly,  to  persuade  you  that  Genoa  was  disposa 
ble  as  a  conquered  territory,  will  you  affirm 
that  the  disposal  of  it  to  Piedmont  was  a  just 
and  humane  exercise  of  your  power  as  a 
conqueror  ? 

It  is  for  this  reason,  among  others,  that  I 
detest  and  execrate  the  modern  doctrine  of 
rounding  territory,  and  following  natural 
boundaries,  and  melting  down  small  states 
into  masses,  and  substituting  lines  of  defence, 
and  right  and  left  flanks,  instead  of  justice 
and  the  law  of  nations,  and  ancient  posses 
sion  and  national  feeling. — the  system  of 
Louis  XIV.  and  Napoleon,  of  the  spoilers  of 
Poland,  and  of  the  spoilers  of  Norway  and 
Genoa, — the  system  which  the  Noble  Lord, 
when  newly  arrived  from  the  Congress,  and 
deeply  imbued  with  its  doctrines,  in  the 
course  of  his  ample  and  elaborate  invective 
against  the  memory  and  principles  of  ancient 
Europe,  defined  in  two  phrases  so  character 
istic  of  his  reverence  for  the  rights  of  nations, 
and  his  tenderness  for  their  feelings,  that 
they  ought  not  easily  to  be  forgotten, — when 
he  told  us,  speaking  of  this  very  antipathy 
of  Genoa  to  Piedmont,  '-'that  great  questions 
are  not  to  be  influenced  by  popular  impres 
sions/'  and  "that  a  people  may  be  happy 
without  independence."  The  principal  fea 
ture  of  this  new  system  is  the  incorporation 


520 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  neighbouring,  and  therefore  hostile  com 
munities.  The  system  of  justice  reverenced 
the  union  of  men  who  had  long  been  mem 
bers  of  the  same  commonwealth,  because 
they  had  all  the  attachments  and  antipathies 
which  grow  out  of  that  fellow- ship  : — the  sys 
tem  of  rapine  tears  asunder  those  whom  na 
ture  has  joined,  and  compels  those  to  unite 
whom  the  contests  of  ages  have  rendered  ir 
reconcilable. 

And  if  all  this  had  been  less  evident,  \vould 
no  aggravation  of  this  act  have  arisen  from 
the  peculiar  nature  of  the  general  war  of 
Europe  against  France "?  It  \vas  a  war  in 
which  not  only  the  Italians,  but  every  peo 
ple  in  Europe,  were  called  by  their  sove 
reigns  to  rise  for  the  recovery  of  their  inde 
pendence.  It  was  a  revolt  of  the  people 
against  Napoleon.  It  owed  its  success  to  the 
spirit  of  popular  insurrection.  The  principle 
of  a  war  for  the  restoration  of  independence, 
was  a  pledge  that  each  people  was  to  be  re 
stored  to  its  ancient  territory.  The  nations 
of  Europe  accepted  the  pledge,  and  shook 
off  the  French  yoke.  But  was  it  fora  change 
of  masters'?  Was  it  that  three  Foreign  Min 
isters  at  Paris  might  dispose  of  the  Genoese 
territory  ? — was  it  for  this  that  the  youth  of 
P^urope  had  risen  in  arms  from  Moscow  to 
the  Rhine  ? 

Ergo  pari  voto  gessisti  bella  juvenfua? 

Tu  quoque  pro  dominis  et  Poinpeiana  fuisti 

Nori  Romana  maims  !* 

The  people  of  Europe  were,  it  seems, 
roused  to  war,  not  to  overthrow  tyranny,  but 
to  shift  it  into  new  hands, — not  to  re-esta 
blish  the  independence  arid  restore  the  an 
cient  institutions  of  nations,  but  to  strengthen 
the  right  flank  of  one  great  military  power, 
arid  to  cover  the  left  flank  of  another.  This, 
at  least,  was  not  the  war  for  the  success  of 
which  I  offered  my  most  ardent  prayers.  I 
prayed  for  the  deliverance  of  Europe,  not 
for  its  transfer  to  other  lords, — for  the  resto 
ration  of  Europe,  by  which  all  men  must 
have  understood  at  least  the  re-establish 
ment  of  that  ancient  system,  and  of  those 
wise  principles,  under  which  it  had  become 
great  and  prosperous.  I  expected  the  re- 
establishment  of  every  people  in  those  terri 
tories,  of  which  the  sovereignty  had  been 
lost  by  recent  usurpation, — of  every  people 
who  had  been  an  ancient  member  of  the 
family  of  Europe, — of  every  people  who  had 
preserved  the  spirit  and  feelings  which  con 
stitute  a  nation, — and,  above  all,  of  every 
people  wTho  had  lost  their  territory  or  their 
independence  under  the  tyranny  which  the 
Allies  had  taken  up  arms  to  overthrow.  I 
expected  a  reverence  for  ancient  bounda 
ries, — a  respect  for  ancient  institutions, — 
certainly  without  excluding  a  prudent  regard 
to  the  new  interests  and  opinions  which  had 
taken  so  deep  a  root  that  they  could  not  be 
torn  up  without  incurring  the  guilt  and  the 
mischief  of  the  most  violent  innovation. 


*  Pharsalia,  lib.  ix.— ED. 


The  very  same  reasons,  indeed,  both  of 
morality  and  policy  (since  I  must  comply  so 
far  with  vulgar  usage  as  to  distinguish  what 
cannot  be  separated)  bound  the  Allied  Sove 
reigns  to  respect  the  ancient  institutions,  and 
to  regard  the  new  opinions  and  interests  of 
nations.  The  art  of  all  government,  not 
tyrannical,  whatever  may  be  its  form,  is  to 
conduct  mankind  by  their  feelings.  It  is 
immoral  to  disregard  the  feelings  of  the  go 
verned,  because  it  renders  them  miserable. 
It  is,  and  it  ought  to  be,  dangerous  to  disre 
gard  these  feelings,  because  bold  and  intelli 
gent  men  will  always  consider  it  as  a  mere 
question  of  prudence,  whether  they  ought  to 
obey  governments  which  counteract  the  only 
.purpose  for  which  they  all  exist.  The  feel 
ings  of  men  are  most  generally  wounded  by 
any  violence  to  those  ancient  institutions 
under  which  these  feelings  have  been 
formed,  the  national  character  has  been 
moulded,  and  to  which  all  the  habits  and 
expectations  of  life  are  adapted.  It  was 
well  said  by  Mr.  Fox,  that  as  ancient  institu 
tions  have  been  sanctioned  by  a  far  greater 
concurrence  of  human  judgments  than  mo 
dern  laws  can  be,  they  are.  upon  democratic 
principles,  more  respectable.  But  new  opin 
ions  and  new  interests,  and  a  new  arrange 
ment  of  society,  which  has  given  rise  to  other 
habits  and  hopes,  also  excite  the  strongest 
feelings,  which,  in  proportion  to  their  force 
and  extent,  claim  the  regard  of  all  moral 
policy. 

As  it  was  doubtless  the  policy  of  the  Allies 
to  consider  the  claims  of  ancient  possession 
as  sacred,  as  far  as  the  irrevocable  changes 
of  the  political  system  would  allow,  the  con 
siderate  part  of  mankind  did,  I  believe,  hope 
that  they  would  hail  the  long-continued  and 
recently-lost  sovereignty  of  a  territory  as 
generally  an  inviolable  right,  and  that,  as 
they  could  not  be  supposed  wanting  in  zeal 
for  restoring  the  sovereignty  of  ancient  reign 
ing  families,  so  they  would  guard  that  re- 
establishment,  and  render  it  respectable  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world,  by  the  impartiality 
with  which  they  re-established  also  those 
ancient  and  legitimate  governments  of  a  re 
publican  form,  which  had  fallen  in  the  gene 
ral  slavery  of  nations.  We  remembered  thit 
republics  and  monarchies  were  alike  called 
to  join  in  the  war  against  the  French  Revo 
lution,  not  for  forms  of  government,  but  for 
the  existence  of  social  order.  We  hoped 
that  Austria — to  select  a  striking  example — 
would  not  pollute  her  title  to  her  ancient  do 
minion  of  Lombardy.  by  blending  it  with  the 
faithless  and  lawless  seizure  of  Venice.  So 
little  republican  territory  was  to  be  restored, 
that  the  act  of  justice  was  to  be  performed, 
and  the  character  of  impartiality  gained,  at 
little  expense; — even  if  such  expense  be 
measured  by  the  meanest  calculations  of 
the  most  vulgar  politics.  Other  vacant  terri 
tory  remained  at  the  disposal  of  the  Con 
gress  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  policy.  The 
sovereignity  of  the  Ecclesiastical  territories 
might  be  fairly  considered  as  lapsed:  no 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


521 


reigning  family  could  have  any  interest  in 
it } — no  people  could  be  attached  to  such  a 
rule  of  nomination  to  supreme  power.  And 
in  fact,  these  Principalities  had  lost  all  pride 
of  independence  and  all  consciousness  of 
national  existence.  Several  other  territories 
of  Europe  had  been  reduced  to  a  like  condi 
tion.  Ceded,  perhaps,  at  first  questionably, 
they  had  been  transferred  so  often  from 
master  to  master. — they  had  been  so  long 
in  a  state  of  provincial  degradation,  that  no 
violence  could  be  offered  to  their  feelings 
by  any  new  transfer  or  partition.  They 
were,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  splinters  thrown 
off  from  nations  in  the  shocks  of  warfara 
during  two  centuries;  arid  they  lay  like  stakes 
on  the  board,  to  be  played  for  at  the  terrible 
game  which  had  detached  them,  and  to 
satisfy  the  exchanges  and  cessions  by  which 
it  is  usually  closed. 

Perhaps  the  existence  of  such  detached 
members  is  necessary  to  the  European  sys 
tem  ;  but  thsy  are  in  themselves  great  evils. 
They  are  amputated  and  lifeless  members, 
which,  as  soon  as  they  lose  the  vital  princi 
ple  of  national  spirit,  no  longer  contribute 
aught  to  the  vigour  and  safety  of  the  whole 
living  system.  From  them  is  to  be  expected 
no  struggle  against  invasion. — no  resistance 
to  the  designs  of  ambition,  —no  defence  of 
their  country.  Individuals,  but  no  longer  a 
nation,  they  are  the  ready  prey  of  every 
candidate  for  universal  monarchy,  who  soon 
compels  their  passive  inhabitants  to  fight  for 
his  ambition,  as  they  would  not  fight  against 
it,  and  to  employ  in  enslaving  other  nations, 
that  courage  which  they  had  no  noble  in 
terest  to  exert  in  defence  of  their  own. — 
Why  should  I  seek  examples  of  this  truth  in 
former  times'?  What  opened  Europe  to  the 
first  inroads  of  the  French  armies  ? — not,  I 
will  venture  to  say,  the  mere  smallness  of 
the  neighbouring  states:  for  if  every  one  of 
them  had  displayed  as  much  national  spirit 
in  1794,  as  the  smallest  states  of  Switzerland 
did  in  1798,  no  French  army  could  ever  have 
left  the  territory  of  France, — but  the  unhappy 
course  of  events,  which  had  deprived  Flan 
ders,  and  the  Electorates,  and  Lombardy,  of 
all  national  spirit.  Extinguished  as  this  spirit 
was  by  the  form  of  government  in  some  of 
these  countries,  and  crushed  by  a  foreign 
yoke  in  others. — without  the  pride  of  liberty, 
which  bestows  the  highest  national  spirit  on 
the  smallest  nations,  or  the  pride  of  power, 
which  sometimes  supplies  its  place  in  mighty 
empires,  or  the  consciousness  of  self-depend 
ence,  without  which  there  is  no  nationality, 
— they  first  became  the  prey  of  France,  and 
afterwards  supplied  the  arms  with  which  she 
almost  conquered  the  world.  To  enlarge  this 
dead  part  of  Europe, — to  enrich  it  by  the 
accession  of  countries  renowned  for  their 
public  feelings, — to  throw  Genoa  into  the 
same  grave  with  Poland,  with  Venice,  with 
Finland,  and  with  Norway. — is  not  the  policy 
of  those  who  would  be  the  preservers  or  re 
storers  of  the  European  commonwealth. 

It  is  not  the  principle  of  the  Balance  of 
66 


Power,  but  one  precisely  opposite.  The 
system  of  preserving  some  equilibrium  of 
power, — of  preventing  any  state  from  be 
coming  too  great  for  her  neighbours,  is  a 
system  purely  defensive,  and  directed  to 
wards  the  object  of  universal  preservation. 
It  is  a  system  which  provides  for  the  secu 
rity  of  all  states  by  balancing  the  force  and 
opposing  the  interests  of  great  ones.  The 
independence  of  nations  is  the  end,  the  ba 
lance  of  power  is  only  the  means.  To 
destroy  independent  nations,  in  order  to 
strengthen  the  balance  of  power,  is  a  most 
extravagant  sacrifice  of  the  end  to  the  means. 
This  inversion  of  all'  the  principles  of  the 
ancient  and  beautiful  system  of  Europe,  is 
the  fundamental  maxim  of  what  the  Noble 
Lord,  enriching  our  language  with  foreign 
phrases  as  well  as  doctrines,  calls  '-'a  repar 
tition  of  power.'7  In  the  new  system,  small 
states  are  annihilated  by  a  combination  of 
great  ones: — in  the  old,  small  states  were 
secured  by  the  mutual  jealousy  of  the  great. 

The  Noble  Lord  very  consistently  treats 
the  re-establishment  of  small  states  as  an 
absurdity.  This  single  tenet  betrays  the 
school  in  which  he  has  studied.  Undoubt 
edly,  small  communities  are  an  absurdity, 
or  rather  their  permanent  existence  is  an  im 
possibility,  on  his  new  system.  They  could 
have  had  no  existence  in  the  continual  con 
quests  of  Asia ; — they  were  soon  destroyed 
amidst  the  turbulence  of  the  Grecian  con 
federacy: — they  must  be  sacrificed  on  the 
system  of  rapine  established  at  Vienna. — 
Nations  powerful  enough  to  defend  them 
selves,  may  subsist  securely  in  most  tolera 
ble  conditions  of  society:  but  states  too 
small  to  be  safe  by  their  own  strength,  can 
exist  only  where  they  are  guarded  by  the 
equilibrium  of  force,  and  the  vigilance  which 
watches  over  its  preservation.  When  the 
Noble  Lord  represents  small  states  as  inca 
pable  of  self-defence,  he  in  truth  avows  that 
he  is  returned  in  triumph  from  the  destruc 
tion  of  that  system  of  the  Balance  of  Power, 
of  which  indeed  great  empires  were  the 
guardians,  but  of  which  the  perfect  action  was 
indicated  by  the  security  of  feebler  common 
wealths.  Under  this  system,  no  great  viola 
tion  of  national  independence  had  occurred 
from  the  first  civilization  of  the  European 
states  till  the  partition  of  Poland.  The  safety 
of  the  feeblest  states,  under  the  authority  of 
justice,  was  so  great,  that  there  seemed  little 
exaggeration  in  calling  such  a  society  the 
'•commonwealth"  of  ^Europe.  Principles, 
which  stood  in  the  stead  of  laws  and  magis 
trates,  provided  for  the  security  of  defence 
less  communities,  as  perfectly  as  the  safety 
of  the  humblest  individual  is  maintained  in  a 
well-ordered  commonwealth.  Europe  can 
no  longer  be  called  a  commonwealth,  when 
her  members  have  no  safety  but  in  their 
strength. 

In  truth,  the  Balancing  system  is  itself 
only  a  secondary  guard  of  national  indepen 
dence.  The  paramount  principle — the  mov 
ing  power,  without  which  all  such  machinery 
2x2 


522 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


would  be  perfectly  inert,  is  national  spirit. 
The  love  of  country,  the  attachment  to  laws 
and  government,  and  even  to  soil  and  scene 
ry,  the  feelings  of  national  glory  in  arms  and 
arts,  the  remembrances  of  common  triumph 
and  common  suffering,  with  the  mitigated 
but  not  obliterated  recollection  of  common 
enmity,  and  the  jealousy  of  dangerous  neigh 
bours, — all  are  instruments  employed  by  na 
ture  to  draw  more  closoly  the  bands  of  affec 
tion  that  bind  us  to  our  country  and  to  each 
other.  This  is  the  only  principle  by  which 
sovereigns  can,  in  the  hour  of  danger,  rouse 
the  minds  of  their  subjects: — without  it  the 
policy  of  the  Balancing  system  would  be 
impotent. 

The  Congress  of  Vienna  seems,  indeed,  to 
have  adopted  every  part  of  the  French  sys 
tem,  except  that  they  have  transferred  the 
dictatorship  of  Europe  from  an  individual  to 
a  triumvirate.  One  of  the  grand  and  parent 
errors  of  the  French  Revolution  was  the  fatal 
opinion  that  it  was  possible  for  human  skill 
to  make  a  government.  It  was  an  error  too 
generally  prevalent,  not  to  be  excusable. — 
The  American  Revolution  had  given  it  a  fal 
lacious  semblance  of  support ;  though  no 
event  in  history  more  clearly  showed  its 
falsehood.  The  system  of  laws,  and  the 
frame  of  society  in  North  America,  remain 
ed  after  the  Revolution,  and  remain  to  this 
day,  fundamentally  the  same  as  they  ever 
were.  The  change  in  America,  like  the 
change  in  1688,  was  made  in  defence  of 
legal  right,  not  in  pursuit  of  political  improve 
ment  ;  and  it  was  limited  by  the  necessity 
of  self-defence  which  produced  it.  The 
whole  internal  order  remained,  which  had 
always  been  essentially  republican.  The 
somewhat  slender  tie  which  loosely  joined 
these  republics  to  a  monarchy,  was  easily 
and  without  violence  divided.  But  the  error 
of  the  French  Revolutionists  was,  in  1789, 
the  error  of  Europe.  From  that  error  we 
have  been  long  reclaimed  by  fatal  experi 
ence.  We  know,  or  rather  we  have  seen 
and  felt,  that  a  government  is  not,  like  a 
machine  or  a  building,  the  work  of  man  ; 
that  it  is  the  work  of  i,ature,  like  the  nobler 
productions  of  the  vegetable  and  animal 
world,  which  man  may  improve,  and  damage, 
and  even  destroy,  but  which  he  cannot  cre 
ate.  We  have  long  learned  to  despise  the 
ignorance  or  the  hypocrisy  of  those  who 
speak  of  giving  a  free  constitution  to  a  peo 
ple,  and  to  exclaim  with  a  great  living  poet — 

"  A  gift  of  that  which  never  can  be  given 

By  all  the  blended  powers  of  earth  and  heaven !" 

We  have,  perhaps, — as  usual, — gone  too 
near  to  the  opposite  error,  and  we  do  not 
make  sufficient  allowances 'for  those  dread 
ful  cases — though  we  must  not  call  them 
desperate. — where,  in  long  enslaved  coun 
tries,  we  must  either  humbly  and  cautiously 
labour  to  lay  some  foundations  from  which 
the  fabric  of  liberty  may  slowly  rise,  or  ac 
quiesce  in  the  doom  of  perpetual  bondage. 

But  though  we  no  longer  dream  of  making 


governments,  the  confederacy  of  kings  seem 
to  feel  no  doubt  of  their  own  power  to  nii.ke 
nations.  Yet  the  only  reason  why  it  is  im 
possible  to  make  a  government  is,  because 
it  is  impossible  to  make  a  nation.  A  govern 
ment  cannot  be  made,  because  its  whole 
spirit  and  principles  arise  from  the  chaiacter 
of  the  nation.  There  would  be  no  difficulty 
in  framing  a  government,  if  the  habits  of  a 
people  could  be  changed  by  a  lawgiver; — if 
he  could  obliterate  their  recollections,  trans 
fer  their  attachment  and  reverence,  extin 
guish  their  animosities,  and  correct  those 
sentiments  which,  being  at  variance  with  his 
opinions  of  public  interest,  he  calls  preju 
dices.  Now,  this  is  precisely  the  power 
which  our  statesmen  at  Vienna  have  arro 
gated  to  themselves.  They  not  only  form 
nations,  but  the}'  compose  them  of  elements 
apparently  the  most  irreconcilable.  They 
made  one  nation  out  of  Norway  and  Sweden : 
they  tried  to  make  another  out  of  Prussia 
and  Saxony.  They  have,  in  the  present 
case,  forced  together  Piedmont  and  Genoa 
to  form  a  nation  which  is  to  guard  the  ave 
nues  of  Italy,  and  to  be  one  of  the  main 
securities  of  Europe  against  universal  mo 
narchy. 

It  w^as  not  the  pretension  of  the  ancient 
system  to  form  states, — to  divide  territory 
according  to  speculations  of  military  conve 
nience. — and  to  unite  and  dissolve  nations 
better  than  the  course  of  events  had  done 
before.  It  was  owned  to  be  still  more  diffi 
cult  to  give  a  new  constitution  to  Europe, 
than  to  form  a  new  constitution  for  a  single 
state.  The  great  statesmen  of  former  times 
did  not  speak  of  their  measures  as  the  Noble 
Lord,  did  about  the  incorporation  of  Belgium 
with  Holland  (against  which  I  say  nothing), 
'•'as  a  great  improvement  in  the  system  of 
Europe/'  That  is  the  language  only  of 
those  who  revolutionise  that  system  by  a 
partition  like  that  of  Poland,  by  the  establish 
ment  of  the  Federation  of  the  Rhine  at  Paris, 
or  by  the  creation  of  new  states  at  Vienna. 
The  ancient  principle  was  to  preserve  all 
those  states  which  had  been  founded  by 
time  and  nature, — which  were  animated  by 
national  spirit,  and  distinguished  by  the  Di 
versity  of  character  which  gave  scope  to 
every  variety  of  talent  and  virtue, — whose 
character  had  been  often  preserved,  and 
whose  nationality  had  been  even  created,  by 
those  very  irregularities  of  frontier  and  in 
equalities  of  strength,  of  which  a  shallow 
policy  complains;  —  to  preserve  all  those 
states,  down  to  the  smallest,  first,  by  their 
own  national  spirit,  and,  secondly,  by  that 
mutual  jealousy  which  made  every  great 
power  the  opponent  of  the  dangerous  ambi 
tion  of  every  other.  Its  object  was  to  pre 
serve  nations,  as  living  bodies  produced  by 
the  hand  of  nature — not  to  form  artificial  dead 
machines,  called  "states,"  by  the  words  and 
parchment  of  a  diplomatic  act.  Under  this 
ancient  system,  which  secured  the  weak  by 
the  jealousy  of  the  strong,  provision  was  made 
alike  for  the  permanency  of  civil  institutions. 


ON  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  GENOA. 


523 


the  stability  of  governments,  the  progressive 
leformation  of  laws  and  constitutions. — for 
combining  the  general  quiet  with  the  high 
est  activity  and  energy  of  the  human  mind, 
• — for  uniting  the  benefits  both  of  rivalship 
and  of  friendship  between  nations, — for  cul 
tivating  the  moral  sentiments  of  men,  by  the 
noble  spectacle  of  the  long  triumph  of  jus 
tice  in  the  security  of  the  defenceless, — and. 
finally,  for  maintaining  uniform  civilization 
by  the  struggle  as  well  as  union  of  all  the 
moral  and  intellectual  combinations  which 
compose  that  vast  and  various  mass.  It 
effected  these  noble  purposes,  riot  merely  by 
securing  Europe  against  one  master,  but  by 
securing  her  against  any  union  or  conspiracy 
of  sovereignty,  which,  as  long  as  it  lasts,  is 
in  no  respect  better  than  the  domination  of 
an  individual.  The  object  of  the  new  sys 
tem  is  to  crush  the  weak  by  the  combination 
of  the  strong. — to  subject  Europe,  in  the  first 
place,  to  an  oligarchy  of  sovereigns,  and  ulti 
mately  to  swallow  it  up  in  the  gulf  of  uni 
versal  monarchy,  in  which  civilization  has 
always  perished,  with  freedom  of  thought, 
with  controlled  power,  with  national  cha 
racter  and  spirit,  with  patriotism  and  emu 
lation, — in  a  word,  with  all  its  characteristic 
attributes,  and  with  all  its  guardian  princi 
ples. 

I  am  content,  Sir,  that  these  observations 
should  be  thought  wholly  unreasonable  by 
those  new  masters  of  civil  wisdom,  who  tell 
us  that  the  whole  policy  of  Europe  consists 
in  strengthening  the  right  flank  of  Prussia, 
and  the  left  flank  of  Austria, — who  see  in 
that  wise  and  venerable  system,  long  the 
boast  and  the  safeguard  of  Europe,  only  the 
millions  of  souls  to  be  given  to  one  Power, 
or  the  thousands  of  square  miles  to  be  given 
to  another, — who  consider  the  frontier  of  a 
river  as  a  better  protection  for  a  country  than 
the  love  of  its  inhabitants, — and  who  pro 
vide  for  the  safety  of  their  states  by  wound 
ing  the  pride  and  mortifying  the  patriotic  af 
fection  of  a  people,  in  order  to  fortify  a  line 
of  military  posts.  To  such  statesmen  I  will 
apply  the  words  of  the  great  philosophical 
orator,  who  so  long  vainly  laboured  to  incul 
cate  wisdom  in  this  House  : — "  All  this,  I 
know  well  enough,  will  sound  wild  and  chi 
merical  to  the  profane  herd  of  those  vulgar 
and  mechanical  politicians  who  have  no  place 
among  us ;  a  sort  of  people  who  think  that 
nothing  exists  but  what  is  gross  and  material ; 
and  who.  therefore,  far  from  being  qualified 
to  be  directors  of  the  great  movement  of  em 
pire,  are  not  fit  to  turn  a  wheel  in  the  ma 
chine.  But  to  men  truly  initiated  and  right 
ly  taught,  these  ruling  and  master  principles, 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  such  men  as  I  have 
mentioned,  have  no  substantial  existence, 
are  in  truth  every  thing,  and  all  in  all." 
This  great  man,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life, 
and  when  his  opinions  were  less  popular, 
was  often  justly  celebrated  for  that  spirit  of 
philosophical  prophecy  wrhich  enabled  him 
early  to  discern  in  their  causes  all  the  mis 
fortunes  which  the  leaders  of  the  French 


Revolution  were  to  bring  on  the  world  by 
their  erroneous  principles  of  reformation, — 
"quod  ille  pene  solus  Romanorum  animo 
vidit,  ingenio  complexus  est,  eloquentia  illu- 
minavit:"  but  it  has  been  remembered,  that 
his  foresight  was  not  limited  to  one  party  or 
to  one  source  of  evil.  In  one  of  his  immortal 
writings,* — of  which  he  has  somewhat  con 
cealed  the  durable  instruction  by  the  tempo 
rary  title, — he  clearly  enough  points  out  the 
first  scene  of  partition  and  rapine — the  in 
demnifications  granted  out  of  the  spoils  of 
Germany  in  1802: — "I  see,  indeed,  a  fund 
from  whence  equivalents  will  be  proposed. 
It  opens  another  Iliad  of  woes  to  Europe." 

The  policy  of  a  conqueror  is  to  demolish, 
to  erect  on  new  foundations,  to  bestow  new 
names  on  authority,  and  to  render  every 
power  around  him  as  new  as  his  own.  The 
policy  of  a  restorer  is  to  re-establish,  to 
strengthen,  cautiously  to  improve,  and  to 
seem  to  recognise  and  confirm  even  that 
which  necessity  compels  him  to  establish 
ane\v.  But,  in  our  times,  the  policy  of  the 
avowed  conqueror  has  been  adopted  by  the 
pretended  restorers.  The  most  minute  par 
ticulars  of  the  system  of  Napoleon  are  re 
vived  in  the  acts  of  those  who  overthrew  his 
power.  Even  English  officers,  when  they 
are  compelled  to  carry  such  orders  into  exe 
cution,  become  infected  by  the  spirit  of  the 
system  of  which  they  are  doomed  to  be  the 
ministers.  I  cannot  read  without  pain  and 
shame  the  language  of  Sir  John  Dalrymple's 
Despatch, — language  which  I  lament  as  in 
consistent  with  the  feelings  of  a  British  offi 
cer,  and  with  the  natural  prejudices  of  a 
Scotch  gentleman.  I  wish  that  he  had  not 
adopted  the  very  technical  language  of  Jaco 
bin  conquest, — "  the  downfall  of  the  aristo 
cracy,"  and  "the  irritation  of  the  priests." 
I  do  not  think  it  very  decent  to  talk  with 
levity  of  the  destruction  of  a  sovereignty  ex 
ercised  for  six  centuries  by  one  of  the  most 
ancient  and  illustrious  bodies  of  nobility  in 
Europe. 

Italy  is,  perhaps,  of  all  civilized  countries, 
that  which  affords  the  most  signal  example 
of  the  debasing  power  of  provincial  depend 
ence,  and  of  a  foreign  yoke.  With  independ 
ence,  and  with  national  spirit,  they  have  lost, 
if  not  talent,  at  least  the  moral  and  dignified 
use  of  talent,  which  constitutes  its  only 
worth.  Italy  alone  seemed  to  derive  some 
hope  of  independence  from  those  convul 
sions  which  had  destroyed  that  of  other 
nations.  The  restoration  of  Europe  annihi 
lated  the  hopes  of  Italy : — the  emancipation 
of  other  countries  announced  her  bondage. 
Stern  necessity  compelled  us  to  suffer  the 
re-establishment  of  foreign  masters  in  the 
greater  part  of  that  renowned  and  humiliated 
country.  But  as  to  Genoa,  our  hands  were 
unfettered ;  we  were  at  liberty  to  be  just,  or, 
if  you  will,  to  be  generous.  We.  had  in  our 
hands  the  destiny  of  the  last  of  that  great 
body  of  republics  which  united  the  ancient 


*  Second  Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace,— ED. 


524 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


and  the  modern  world. — the  children  and 
heirs  of  Roman  civilisation,  who  spread  com 
merce,  and  with  it  refinement,  liberty,  and 
humanity  over  Western  Europe,  and  whose 
history  has  lately  been  rescued  from  obli 
vion,  and  disclosed  to  our  times,  by  the 
greatest  of  living  historians.*  I  hope  I  shall 
not  be  thought  fanciful  when  I  say  that 
Genoa,  whose  greatness  was  founded  on  na 
val  power,  and  which,  in  the  earliest  ages, 
gave  the  almost  solitary  example  of  a  com 
mercial  gentry, — Genoa,  the  remnant  of 
Italian  liberty,  and  the  only  remaining  hope 
of  Italian  independence,  had  peculiar  claims 
— to  say  no  more — on  the  generosity  of  the 
British  nation.  How  have  these  claims  been 
satisfied  ?  She  has  been  sacrificed  to  a  fri 
volous,  a  doubtful,  perhaps  an  imaginary, 
speculation  of  convenience.  The  most  odi 
ous  of  foreign  yokes  has  been  imposed  upon 
her  by  a  free  state, — by  a  people  whom  she 
never  injured, — after  she  had  been  mocked 
by  the  re-appearance  of  her  ancient  govern 
ment,  and  by  all  the  ensigns  and  badges  of 
her  past  glory.  And  after  all  this,  she  has 
been  told  to  be  grateful  for  the  interest  which 
the  Government  of  England  has  taken  in  her 
fate.  By  this  confiscation  of  the  only  Italian 
territory  which  was  at  the  disposal  of  justice, 
the  doors  of  hope  have  been  barred  on  Italy 
for  ever.  No  English  general  can  ever  again 
deceive  Italians. 

Will  the  House  decide  that  all  this  is  right  ? 
— That  is  the  question  which  you  have  now 
to  decide.  To  vote  with  me,  it  is  not  neces 
sary  to  adopt  my  opinions  in  their  full  extent. 
All  who  think  that  the  national  faith  has 
been  brought  into  question, — all  who  think 
that  there  has  been  an  unprecedented  ex 
tension,  or  an  ungenerous  exercise  of  the 
rights  of  conquest, — are,  I  humbly  conceive, 

*  Sismondi. 


bound  to   express  their  disapprobation   by 
their  votes.     We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  new 
war. — perhaps  only  the  first  of  a  long  series, 
— in  which  there  must  be  conquests  and  ces 
sions,  and  there  may  be  hard  and  doubtful 
exertions  of  rights  in  their  best  state  suffi 
ciently  odious: — I  call  upon  the  House  1o 
interpose  their  council  for  the  future  in  the 
form  of  an  opinion  regarding  the  past.     I 
hope  that  I  do  not  yield  to  any  illusive  feel- 
i  ings   of  national   vanity,  when   I   say  that 
this  House  is  qualified  to  speak  the  senti- 
|  ments  of  mankind,  and  to  convey  them  with 
authority  to  cabinets  and    thrones.     Single 
among  representative  assemblies,  this  House 
is  now  in  the  seventh  century  of  its  recorded 
!  existence.     It  appeared  with  the  first  dawn 
I  of  legal  government.     It  exercised  its  high 
est  powers  under  the  most  gloricus  princes. 
|  It  survived  the  change  of  a  religion,  and  the 
I  extinction  of  a  nobility, — the  fall  of  Royal 
j  Houses,  and  an  age  of  civil  war.     Depressed 
for  a  moment  by  the  tyrannical  power  which 
is  the   usual  growth  of  civil  confusions,   it 
revived  with  the  first  glimpse  of  tranquillity, 
— gathered  strength  from  the  intrepidity  of 
religious  reformation, — grew  with  the  know 
ledge,  and  flourished  with  the  progressive 
wealth  of  the  people.     After  having  expe 
rienced  the  excesses  of  the  spirit  of  liberty 
during  the  Civil  War,  and  of  the  spirit  of  loy 
alty  at  the  Restoration,  it  was  at  length  finally 
established  at  the  glorious  era  of  the  Revolu 
tion  ]  and  although  since  that  immortal  event 
it  has  experienced  little  change  in  its  formal 
I  constitution,  and  perhaps  no  accession  of  le- 
I  gal  power,  it  has  gradually  cast  its  roots  deep 
i  and  wide,  blending  itself  with  every  branch 
I  of  the  government,  and  every  institution  of 
society,  and  has,  at  length,  become  the  grand 
est  example  ever  seen  among  men  of  a  solid 
and  durable  representation  of  the  people  of 
a  mighty  empire. 


-|g  SPEECH  •     ; 

ON  MOVING  FOR  A  COMMITTEE  TO  INQUIRE  INTO 

THE  STATE  OE  THE  CRIMINAL  LAW, 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  ON  THE  SD  MARCH,  1819.* 


MR.  SPEAKER, — I  now  rise,  in  pursuance  of 
the  notice  which  I  gave,  to  bring  before  the 

*  This  speech  marks  an  epoch  in  the  progress 
of  the  reformation  of  the  Criminal  Law,  inasmuch 
as  the  motion  with  which  it  concluded,  though  op 
posed  by  Lord  Castlereagh,  with  all  the  force  of 
the  Government,  under  cover  of  a  professed  en 
largement  of  its  principle,  was  carried  by  a  ma 
jority  of  nineteen  in  a  House  of  two  hundred  and 
seventy-five  members. — ED. 


House  a  motion  for  the  appointment  of  a  Se 
lect  Committee  "  to  consider  of  so  much  of  the 
Criminal  Laws  as  relates  to  Capital  Punish 
ment  in  Felonies,  and  to  report  their  obser 
vations  and  opinions  thereon  to  the  House." 
And  I  should  have  immediately  proceeded 
to  explain  the  grounds  and  objects  of  such 
a  motion,  which  is  almost  verbatim  the  same 
as  a  resolution  entered  on  the  Journals  in  the 
year  1770,  when  authority  was  delegated  to 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  THE  CRIMINAL  LAW. 


525 


a  committee  for  the  same  purpose, — I  should 
have  proceeded.  I  say,  to  state  at  once  why 
I  think  such  an  inquiry  necessary,  had  it 
not  been  for  some  concessions  made  by  the 
Noble  Lord*  last  night,  which  tend  much  to 
narrow  the  grounds  of  difference  between 
us,  and  to  simplify  the  question  before  the 
House.  If  I  considered  the  only  subject  of 
discussion  to  be  that  which  exists  between 
the  Noble  Lord  and  mysslf,  it  would  be  re 
duced  to  this  narrow  compass; — namely, 
whether  the  Noble  Lord's  proposal  or  mine 
be  the  more  convenient  for  the  conduct  of 
the  same  inquiry;  but  as  every  member 
in  this  House  is  a  party  to  the  question,  I 
must  make  an  observation  or  two  on  the 
Noble  Lord's  statements. 

If  I  understood  him  rightly,  he  confesses 
that  the  growth  of  crime,  and  the  state  of 
the  Criminal  Law  in  this  country,  call  for  in 
vestigation,  and  proposes  that  these  subjects 
shall  be  investigated  by  a  Select  Committee: 
— this  I  also  admit  to  be  the  most  expedient 
course.  He  expressly  asserts  also  his  dispo 
sition  to  make  the  inquiry  as  extensive  as  I 
wish  it  to  be.  As  far,  therefore,  as  he  is 
concerned,  I  am  relieved  from  the  necessity 
of  proving  that  an  inquiry  is  necessary,  that 
the  appointment  of  a  Select  Committee  is 
the  proper  course  of  proceeding  in  it,  and  that 
such  inquiry  ought  to  be  extensive.  I  arn 
thus  brought  to  the  narrower  question,  Whe 
ther  the  committee  of  the  Noble  Lord,  or 
that  which  I  propose,  be  the  more  conve 
nient  instrument  for  conducting  an  inquiry 
into  the  special  subject  to  which  my  motion 
refers?  I  shall  endeavour  briefly  to  show, 
that  the  mode  of  proceeding  proposed  by 
him,  although  embracing  another  and  very 
fit  subject  of  inquiry,  must  be  considered  as 
precluding  an  inquiry  into  that  part  of  the 
Criminal  Law  which  forms  the  subject  of 
my  motion,  for  two  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  Sir,  it  is  physically  im 
possible  ;  and,  having  stated  that,  I  may  per 
haps  dispense  with  the  necessity  of  adding 
more.  We  have  heard  from  an  Honourable 
Friend  of  mine.t  whose  authority  is  the 
highest  that  can  be  resorted  to  on  this  sub 
ject,  that  an  inquiry  into  the  state  of  two  or 
three  jails  occupied  a  committee  during  a 
whole  session.  My  Honourable  Friend, f  a 
magistrate  of  the  city,  has  stated  that  an  in 
quiry  into  the  state  of  the  prisons  of  the 
Metropolis,  occupied  during  a  whole  session 
the  assiduous  committee  over  which  he  pre 
sided.  When,  therefore,  the  Noble  Lord 
refers  to  one  committee  not  only  the  state  of 
the  Criminal  Law,  but  that  of  the  jails,  of 
transportation,  and  of  that  little  adjunct  the 
hulks,  he  refers  to  it  an  inquiry  which  it  can 
never  conduct  to  an  end  ; — he  proposes,  as 
my  Honourable  Friend§  has  said,  to  institute 
an  investigation  which  must  outlive  a  Parlia 
ment.  The  Noble  Lord  has  in  fact  acknow- 

*  Viscount  Castlereagh. — ED. 

t  The  Honourable  Henry  Grey  Bennet. — ED. 

t  Alderman  Waithman. — ED. 

§  Mr.  Bennet. — ED. 


ledged,  by  his  proposed  subdivision,  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  one  committee  to 
inquire  into  all  the  subjects  which  he  would 
refer  to  it.  And  this  impossibility  he  would 
evade  by  an  unconstitutional  violation  of  the 
usages  of  the  House;  as  you,  Sir,  with  the 
authority  due  to  your  opinions,  have  declared 
the  proposition  for  subdividing  a  committee 
to  be.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  in  accordance 
with  ancient  usage,  propose  that  the  House 
shall  itself  nominate  these  separate  commit 
tees. 

My  second  objection  is.  Sir,  that  the  Noble 
Lord's  notice,  and  the  order  made  by  the 
House  yesterday  upon  it,  do  not  embrace  the 
purpose  which  I  have  in  view.  To  prove 
this,  I  might  content  myself  with  a  reference 
to  the  very  words  of  the  instruction  under 
which  his  proposed  committee  is  to  proceed. 
It  is  directed  "to  inquire  into  the  state  and 
description  of  jails,  and  other  places  of  con 
finement,  and  into  the  best  method  of  pro 
viding  for  the  reformation,  as  well  as  for  the 
safe  custody  and  punishment  of  offenders." 
Now,  what  is  the  plain  meaning  of  those  ex 
pressions?  Are  they  not  the  same  offenders, 
whose  punishment  as  well  as  whose  refor 
mation  and  safe  custody  is  contemplated  ? 
And  does  not  the  instruction  thus  directly 
exclude  the  subject  of  Capital  Punishment. 
The  matter  is  too  plain  to  be  insisted  on  ; 
but  must  not  the  meaning,  in  any  fair  and 
liberal  construction,  be  taken  to  be  that  the 
committee  is  to  consider  the  reformation  and 
safe  custody  of  those  offenders  of  whom  im 
prisonment  forms  the  whole  or  the  greatest 
part  of  the  punishment  ?  It  would  be  absurd 
to  suppose  that  the  question  of  Capital  Pun 
ishment  should  be  made  an  inferior  branch 
of  the  secondary  question  of  imprisonments, 
and  that  the  great  subject  of  Criminal  Law 
should  skulk  into  the  committee  under  the 
cover  of  one  vague  and  equivocal  word.  On 
these  grounds,  Sir,  I  have  a  right  to  say  that 
there  is  no  comparison  as  to  the  convenience 
or  the  efficacy  of  the  two  modes  of  proceed 
ing. 

Let  us  now  see  whether  my  proposition 
casts  a  greater  censure  on  the  existing  Jaws 
than  his.  Every  motion  for  inquiry  assumes 
that  inquiry  is  necessary, — that  some  evil 
exists,  which  may  be  remedied.  The  mo 
tion  of  the  Noble  Lord  assumes  thus  much  ; 
mine  assumes  no  more :  it  casts  no  reflection 
on  the  law,  or  on  the  magistrates  by  whom 
it  is  administered. 

With  respect  to  the  question  whether  Se 
condary  Punishments  should  be  inquired 
into  before  we  dispose  of  the  Primary,  I 
have  to  say,  that  in  proposing  the  Present 
investigation,  I  have  not  been  guided  by  my 
own  feelings,  nor  have  I  trusted  entirely  to 
my  own  judgment.  My  steps  have  been 
directed  and  assured  by  former  examples. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  notable  one  in 
1750,  when,  in  consequence  of  the  alarm 
created  by  the  increase  of  some  species  of 
crimes,  a  committee  was  appointed  "to  ex 
amine  into  and  consider  the  state  of  the  laws 


526 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


relating  to  felonies,  and  to  report  to  the  House 
their  opinion  as  to  the  defects  of  those  laws, 
and  as  to  the  propriety  of  amending  or  re 
pealing  them."  What  does  the  Noble  Lord 
say  to  this  large  reference. — this  ample  dele 
gation, — this  attack  on  the  laws  of  our  ances 
tors  ?  Was  it  made  in  bad  times,  by  men  of 
no  note,  and  of  indifferent  principles'?  I  will 
mention  the  persons  of  whom  the  committee 
was  composed : — they  were,  Mr.  Pelham, 
then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer ;  Mr.  Pitt, 
afterwards  Lord  Chatham ;  Mr.  George 
Grenville,  afterwards  Lord  Grenville;  Mr. 
Lyttletori  and  Mr.  Charles  Townsend,  after 
wards  Secretaries  of  State ;  and  Sir  Dudley 
Ryder,  the  Attorney-General,  afterwards 
Chief  Justice  of  England.  Those  great 
lawyers  and  statesmen  will,  at  least,  not  be 
accused  of  having  been  rash  theorists,  or, 
according  to  the  new  word,  l  ultra-philoso 
phers."  But  it  will  be  thought  remarkable 
that  those  great  men,  who  were,  in  liberality, 
as  superior  to  some  statesmen  of  the  present 
day.  as  in  practical  wisdom  they  were  not 
inferior  to  them,  found  two  sessions  neces 
sary  for  the  inquiry  into  which  they  had  en 
tered.  The  first  resolution  to  which  those 
eminent  and  enlightened  individuals  agreed, 
was,  "that  it  was  reasonable  to  exchange 
the  punishment  of  death  for  some  other  ade 
quate  punishment."  Such  a  resolution  is  a 
little  more  general  and  extensive  than  that 
which  I  shall  venture  to  propose ; — such  a 
resolution,  however,  did  that  committee, 
vested  with  the  powers  which  I  have  already 
described,  recommend  to  the  adoption  of 
the  House.  One  circumstance,  not  neces 
sarily  connected  with  my  present  motion,  I 
will  take  the  liberty  of  mentioning : — to  that 
committee  the  credit  is  due  of  having  first 
denounced  the  Poor-laws  as  the  nursery  of 
crime.  In  this  country  pauperism  and  crime 
have  always  advanced  in  parallel  lines,  and 
with  equal  steps.  That  committee  imputed 
much  evil  to  the  divisions  among  parishes  on 
account  of  the  maintenance  of  the  poor.  That 
committee  too.  composed  of  practical  men  as  it 
was,  made  a  statement  which  some  practical 
statesmen  of  the  present  day  will  no  doubt 
condemn  as  too  large ; — namely,  "  that  the 
increase  of  crime  was  in  a  great  measure  to 
be  attributed  to  the  neglect  of  the  education 
of  the  children  of  the  poor."  A.  bill  was 
brought  in,  founded  on  the  resolutions  of  the 
committee,  and  passed  this  House.  It  was 
however  negatived  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
although  not  opposed  by  any  of  the  great 
names  of  that  day, — by  any  of  the  lumina 
ries  of  that  House.  Lord  Hardwicke,  for  in 
stance,  did  not  oppose  a  bill,  the  principal 
object  of  which  was  the  substitution  of  hard 
labour  arid  imprisonment  for  the  punishment 
of  death. 

In  1770,  another  alarm,  occasioned  by  the 
increase  of  a  certain  species  of  crime,  led  to 
the  appointment,  on  the  27th  of  November 
in  that  year,  of  another  committee  of  the 
same  kind,  of  which  Sir  Charles  Saville,  Sir 
William  Meredith,  Mr.  Fox,  Mr.  Serjeant 


Glynn,  Sir  Charles  Bunbury,  and  others,  were 
members.  To  that  committee  the  reference 
was  nearly  the  same  as  that  which  I  am  now 
proposing;  though  mine  be  the  more  con 
tracted  one.  That  committee  was  occupied 
for  two  years  with  the  branch  of  the  general 
inquiry  which  the  Noble  Lord  proposes  to 
add  to  the  already  excessive  labours  of  an 
existing  committee.  In  the  second  session 
they  brought  their  report  to  maturity  j  and, 
on  that  report,  a  bill  was  introduced  for  the 
repeal  of  eight  or  ten  statutes,  which  bill 
passed  the  House  of  Commons  without  op 
position.  I  do  not  mean  to  enter  into  the 
minute  history  of  that  bill,  which  was  thrown 
out  in  the  House  of  Lords.  It  met  with  no 
hostility  from  the  great  ornaments  of  the 
House  of  Lords  of  that  day,  Lord  Camden 
and  Lord  Mansfield  ;  but  it  was  necessarily 
opposed  by  others,  whom  I  will  not  name,  and 
whose  names  will  be  unknown  to  posterity. 
Sir,  it  is  upon  these  precedents  that  I  have 
formed,  and  that  I  bring  forward  my  motion. 
I  have  shown,  that  the  step  I  proposed  to 
take  accords  with  the  usage  of  Parliament 
in  the  best  of  times,  but  that  if  we  follow  the 
plan  recommended  by  the  Noble  Lord,  we 
cannot  effect  the  purpose  which  we  have  in. 
view  without  evading  or  violating  the  usage 
of  Parliament.  Accepting,  therefore,  his 
concession,  that  a  committee  ought  to  be 
appointed  for  this  investigation,  here  I  might 
take  my  stand,  and  challenge  him  to  drive 
me  from  this  giound,  which,  with  all  his 
talents,  he  would  find  some  difficulty  in 
doing.  But  I  feel  that  there  is  a  great  differ 
ence  between  our  respective  situations ;  and 
that,  although  he  last  night  contented  him 
self  with  stating  the  evils  which  exist,  with 
out  adverting  to  the  other  essential  part  of 
my  proposal  for  a  Parliamentary  inquiry, — 
namely,  the  probability  of  a  remedy,— I  must 
take  a  different  course.  Although  I  cannot 
say  that  I  agree  with  my  Honourable  Friend, 
who  says  that  a  Select  Committee  is  not  the 
proper  mode  of  investigating  this  subject, 
yet  I  agree  with  him  that  there  are  two 
things  necessary  to  justify  an  investigation, 
whether  by  a  committee,  or  in  any  other 
manner : — the  first  is,  the  existence  of  an 
evil;  the  second  is,  the  probability  of  \a. 
remedy.  Far,  therefore,  from  treating  the 
sacred  fabric  reared  by  our  ancestors  more 
lightly,  I  approach  it  more  reverently  than 
does  the  Noble  Lord.  I  should  not  have 
dared,  merely  on  account  of  the  number  of 
offences,  to  institute  an  inquiry  into  the  state 
of  the  Criminal  Law,  unless,  while  I  saw  the 
defects,  I  had  also  within  view,  not  the  cer 
tainty  of  a  remedy  (for  that  would  be  too 
much  to  assert),  but  some  strong  probability, 
that  the  law  may  be  rendered  more  effi 
cient,  and  a  check  be  given  to  that  which 
has  alarmed  all  good  men, — the  increase  of 
crime.  While  I  do  what  I  think  it  was  the 
bounden  duty  of  the  Noble  Lord  to  have 
done,  I  trust  I  shall  not  be  told  that  I  am  a 
rash  speculator, — that  I  am  holding  out  im 
punity  to  criminals,  or  foreshadowing  what 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  THE  CRIMINAL  LAW. 


527 


he  is  pleased  to  call  "  a  golden  age  for 
crime."  Sir  Dudley  Ryder,  at  the  head  of 
the  criminal  jurisprudence  of  the  country, 
and  Serjeant  Glynn,  the  Recorder  of  London, 
— an  office  that  unhappily  has  the  most  ex 
tensive  experience  of  the  administration  of 
Criminal  Law  in  the  world, — both  believed 
a  remedy  to  the  evil  in  question  to  be  prac 
ticable,  and  recommended  it  as  necessary: 
arid  under  any  general  reprobation  which 
the  Noble  Lord  may  apply  to  such  men,  I 
shall  not  be  ashamed  to  be  included. 

I  must  now,  Sir,  mention  what  my  object 
is  not,  in  order  to  obviate  the  misapprehen 
sions  of  over-zealous  supporters,  and  the 
misrepresentations  of  desperate  opponents. 
I  do  not  propose  to  form  a  new  criminal  code. 
Altogether  to  abolish  a  system  of  law,  admi 
rable  in  its  principle,  interwoven  with  the 
habits  of  the  English  people,  and  under 
which  they  have  long  and  happily  lived,  is  a 

E  reposition  very  remote  from  my  notions  of 
igislation,  and  would  be  too  extravagant  and 
ridiculous  to  be  for  a  moment  listened  to. 
Neither  is  it  my  intention  to  propose  the 
abolition  of  the  punishment  of  death.  I  hold 
the  right  of  inflicting  that  punishment  to  be 
a  part  of  the  rights  of  self-defence,  with 
which  society  as  well  as  individuals  are  en 
dowed.  I  hold  it  to  be,  like  all  other  pun 
ishments,  an  evil  when  unnecessary,  but, 
like  any  other  evil  employed  to  remedy  a 
greater  evil,  capable  of  becoming  a  good. 
Nor  do  I  wish  to  take  away  the  right  of  par 
don  from,  the  Crown.  On  the  contrary,  my 
object  is,  to  restore  to  the  Crown  the  practical 
use  of  that  right,  of  which  the  usage  of 
modern  times  has  nearly  deprived  it. 

The  declaration  may  appear  singular,  but 
I  do  not  aim  at  realising  any  universal  prin 
ciple.  My  object  is,  to  bring  the  letter  of 
the  law  more  near  to  its  practice, — to  make 
the  execution  of  the  law  form  the  rule,  and 
the  remission  of  its  penalties  the  exception. 
Although  I  do  not  expect  that  a  system  of 
law  can  be  so  graduated,  that  it  can  be  ap 
plied  to  every  case  without  the  intervention 
of  a  discretionary  power,  I  hope  to  see  an 
effect  produced  on  the  vicious,  by  the  steady 
manner  in  which  the  law  shall  be  enforced. 
The  main  part  of  the  reform  which  I  should 
propose  would  be,  to  transfer  to  the  statute 
book  the  improvements  which  the  wisdom 
of  modern  times  has  introduced  into  the  prac 
tice  of  the  law.  But  I  must  add,  that  even 
in  the  case  of  some  of  that  practice  with 
which  the  feelings  of  good  men  are  not  in  uni 
son,  I  should  propose  such  a  reform  as  would 
correct  that  anomaly.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest 
evils  which  can  befall  a  country  when  the 
Criminal  Law  and  the  virtuous  feeling  of  the 
community  are  in  hostility  to  each  other. 
They  cannot  be  long  at  variance  without  in 
jury  to  one, — perhaps  to  both.  One  of  my 
objects  is  to  approximate  them  ; — to  make 
good  men  the  anxious  supporters  of  the 
Criminal  Law,  and  to  restore,  if  it  has  been 
injured,  that  zealous  attachment  to  the  law 
in  general,  which,  even  in  the  most  tempes- 


tuous  times  of  our  history,  has  distinguished 
the  people  of  England  among  the  nations  of 
the  world. 

Having  made  these  few  general  remarks, 
I  will  now,  Sir,  enter  into  a  few  illustrative 
details.     It  is  not  my  intention  to  follow  the 
Noble  Lord  in  his  inquiry  into  the  causes  of 
the  increase   of    crimes.     I  think   that  his 
statement  last  night  was  in  the  main  just  and 
candid.    I  agree  with  him,  that  it  is  consola 
tory  to  remark,  that  the  crimes  in  which  so 
rapid  an  increase  has  been  observable,  are 
not  those  of  the  blackest  die,  or  of  the  most 
ferocious  character;  thai  they  are  not  those 
which  would  the  most  deeply  stain  and  dis 
honour  the  ancient  moral  character  of  Eng 
lishmen  ;  that  they  are  crimes  against  pro 
perty  alone,  and  are  to  be  viewed   as  the 
result  of  the  distresses,  rather  than  of  the 
depravity  of  the  community.     I  also  firmly 
believe,  that  some  of  the  causes  of  increased 
crime  are  temporary.     But  the  Noble  Lord 
and  I,  while  we  agree  in  this  proposition,  are 
thus  whimsically   situated: — he   does  not 
think  that  some  of  these  causes  are  tempo 
rary  which  I  conceive  to  be  so;  vihile,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  sets  down  some  as  tem 
porary,  which   I   believe  to  be  permanent. 
As  to  the  increase  of  forgery,  for  example 
[which  I  mention  only  by  way  of  illustra 
tion),  I  had  hoped  that  when  cash  payments 
should  be  restored,  that  crime  would  be  di 
minished.     But  the  Noble   Lord  has  taken 
pains  to  dissipate  that  delusion,  by  asserting 
:hat  the  withdrawal  of  such  a  mass  of  paper 
Vom  circulation  would  be  attended  with  no 
such  beneficial  consequences.     According  to 
lira,  the  progress  of  the  country  in  manu 
factures  and  wealth,  is  one  of  the  principal 
causes  of  crime.    But  is  our  progress  in  manu- 
actures  and  wealth  to  be  arrested?     Does 
:he  Noble  Lord  imagine,  that  there  exists  a 
permanent  and  augmenting  cause  of  crime, 
— at  once  increasing  with  our  prosperity,  and 
undermining   it    through  its  effects  on   the 
Tiorals  of  the  people.     According  to  him,  the 
increase  of  great  cities  would  form  another 
?ause  of  crime.     This  cause,  at  least,  can 
not  diminish,  for  great  cities  are  the  natural 
consequences   of  manufacturing  and    com 
mercial   greatness.     In   speaking,  however, 
)f  the  population  of  London,  he  has  fallen 
nto  an  error.    Although  London  is  positively 
arger  now  than  it  was  in   1700,  it  is  rela- 
ively  smaller: — although  it  has  since  that 
ime  become  the  greatest  commercial  city 
in  Europe. — the  capital  of  an  empire  whose 
colonies  extend   over   every  quarter  of  the 
world, — London  is  not  so  populous  now,  with 
reference   to   the   population   of  the  whole 
kingdom,  as  it  was  in  the  reign  of  William  III. 
It  is  principally  to  those  causes  of  crime, 
which  arise  out  of  errors  in  policy  or  legisla 
tion,  that  I  wish  to  draw  the  attention  of 
Parliament.     Among  other  subjects,  it  may 
be  a  question  whether  the  laws  for  the  pro 
tection  of  the  property  called  "game,"  have 
not  created  a  clandestine  traffic  highly  injuri 
ous  to  the  morals  of  the  labouring  classes.   I 


528 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


am  happy  to  find  that  that  subject  is  to  be 
taken  up  by  my  Honourable  Friend  the 
Member  for  Hertfordshire,*  who  will  draw 
to  it  the  attention  which  every  proposition  of 
his  deserves.  A  smuggling  traffic  of  another 
species,  although  attended  with  nearly  the 
same  effects,  has  been  fostered  by  some  of 
the  existing  laws  relating  to  the  revenue.  I 
would  propose  no  diminution  of  revenue,  for 
unfortunately  we  can  spare  none  :  but  there 
are  some  taxes  which  produce  no  revenue, 
and  which  were  never  intended  to  produce 
any,  but  which  are,  nevertheless,  very  detri 
mental.  The  cumbrous  system  of  draw 
backs,  and  protecting  duties,  is  only  a  bounty 
on  smuggling.  Poachers  and  smugglers  are 
the  two  bodies  from  which  malefactors  are 
principally  recruited.  The  state  which  does 
not  seek  to  remedy  these  diseases,  is  guilty 
of  its  own  destruction. 

Another  subject  I  must  mention:  for, 
viewing  it  as  I  do,  it  would  be  unpardonable 
to  omit  it.  On  examining  the  summary  of 
crimes  which  has  been  laid  on  the  table,  it 
appears  that  it  was  in  1808  that  the  great 
increase  of  crime  took  place.  The  number 
of  crimes  since  that  time  has  never  fallen 
below  the  number  of  that  year:  although 
subsequent  years  have  varied  among  one 
another.  But  it  is  extremely  remarkable, 
and  is,  indeed,  a  most  serious  and  alarming 
fact,  that  the  year  1808  was  precisely  the 
period  when  the  great  issues  of  the  Bank  of 
England  began.  As  it  has  been  observed 
in  the  '•  Letter  to  the  Right  Honourable  Mem 
ber  for  the  University  of  Oxford,"!  a  work 
which  has  been  already  mentioned  in  this 
House  (the  author;  of  which,  although  he 
has  concealed  his  name,  cannot  conceal  his 
talents,  and  his  singular  union  of  ancient 
learning  with  modern  science),  it  was  at  that 
time  that  pauperism  and  poor  rates  increased. 
Pauperism  and  crime,  as  I  have  before  said. 
go  hand  in  hand.  Both  were  propelled  by 
the  immense  issues  of  Bank  paper  in  1808. 
By  those  issues  the  value  of  the  one-pound 
note  was  reduced  to  fourteen  shillings.  Every 
labourer,  by  he  knew  not  what  mysterious 
power, — by  causes  which  he  could  not  dis 
cover  or  comprehend. — found  his  wages  di 
minished  at  least  in  the  proportion  of  a  third. 
No  enemy  had  ravaged  the  country  ]  no  in 
clement  season  had  blasted  the  produce  of 
the  soil ;  but  his  comforts  were  curtailed, 
and  his  enjoyments  destroyed  by  the  opera 
tion  of  the  paper  system,  which  was  to  him 
like  the  workings  of  a  malignant  fiend,  that 
could  be  traced  only  in  their  effects.  Can 
any  one  doubt  that  this  diminution  of  the 
income  of  so  many  individuals,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest  classes  of  society,  was 
one  of  the  chief  sources  of  the  increase  of 
crime "? 

There  is  one   other   secondary  cause  of 
crime,  which  I  hope  we  have  at  length  se- 

*  The  Honourable  Thomas  Brand. — ED. 
t  The  Right  Honourable  Robert  Peel.— ED. 
$  The  Rev.  Edward  Copleston  (now  Bishop  of 
LlandafD— ED. 


riously  determined  to  remove  • — I  mean  the 
state  of  our  prisons.  They  never  were  fitted 
for  reformation  by  a  wise  system  of  disci 
pline  :  but  that  is  now  become  an  inferior 
subject  of  complaint.  Since  the  number  of 
criminals  have  out-grown  the  size  of  our 

Cons,  comparatively  small  offenders  have 
n  trained  in  them  to  the  contemplation 
of  atrocious  crime.  Happily  this  terrible 
source  of  evil  is  more  than  any  other  within 
our  reach.  Prison  discipline  may  fail  in  re 
forming  offenders  :  but  it  is  our  own  fault  if 
it  further  corrupts  them. 

But  the  main  ground  which  I  take  is  this, — 
that  the  Criminal  Law  is  not  so  efficacious  as 
it  might  be,  if  temperate  and  prudent  altera 
tions  in  it  were  made.  It  is  well  known  that 
there  are  two  hundred  capital  felonies  on  the 
statute  book:  but  it  may  not  be  so  familiar 
to  the  House!  that  by  the  Returns  for  London 
and  Middlesex,  it  appears  that  from  1749  to 
1819,  a  term  of  seventy  years,  there  are  only 
twenty-five  sorts  of  felonies  for  which  any 
individuals  have  been  executed.  So  that 
there  are  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  capital 
felonies  respecting  which  the  punishment  or 
dained  by  various  statutes  has  not  been  in 
flicted.  In  the  thirteen  years  since  1805,  it 
appears  that  there  are  only  thirty  descrip 
tions  of  felonies  on  which  there  have  been 
any  capital  convictions  throughout  England 
and  Wales.  So  that  there  are  a  hundred  and 
seventy  felonies  created  by  law,  on  which 
not  one  capital  conviction  has  taken  place. 
This  rapidly  increasing  discordance  between 
the  letter  and  the  practice  of  the  Criminal 
Law,  arose  in  the  best  times  of  our  history, 
and,  in  my  opinion,  out  of  one  of  its  most 
glorious  and  happy  events.  As  I  take  it,  the 
most  important  consequence  of  the  Revolu 
tion  of  1688,  was  the  establishment  in  this 
country  of  'a  Parliamentary  government. 
That  event,  however,  has  been  attended  by 
one  inconvenience — the  unhappy  facility  af 
forded  to  legislation.  Every  Member  of  Par 
liament  has  had  it  in  his  power  to  indulge 
his  whims  and  caprices  on  that  subject :  and 
if  he  could  not  do  any  thing  else,  he  could 
create  a  capital  felony !  The  anecdotes 
which  I  have  heard  of  this  shameful  ami 
injurious  facility,  I  am  almost  ashamed  to 
repeat.  Mr.  Burke  once  told  me,  that  orna 
certain  occasion,  when  he  was  leaving  the 
House,  one  of  the  messengers  called  him 
back,  and  on  his  saying  that  he  was  going  on 
urgent  business,  replied,  "  Oh  !  it  will  not 
keep  you  a  single  moment,  it  is  only  a  felony 
without  benefit  of  clergy  !"  He  also  assured 
me,  that  although,  as  may  be  imagined,  from 
his  political  career,  he  wras  not  often  entitled 
to  ask  favour  from  the  ministry  of  the  day, 
he  was  persuaded  that  his  interest  was  at 
any  time  good  enough  to  obtain  their  assent 
to  the  creation  of  a  felony  without  benefit 
of  clergy.  This  facility  of  granting  an  in 
crease  of  the  severity  of  the  law  to  every 
proposer,  with  the  most  impartial  disregard 
of  political  considerations, — this  unfortunate 
facility,  arose  at  a  time  when  the  humane 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  THE  CRIMINAL  LAW. 


529 


feelings  of  the  country  were  only  yet  ripen 
ing  amidst  the  diffusion  of  knowledge .  Hence 
originated  the  final  separation  between  the 
letter  and  the  practice  of  the  law ;  for  both 
the  government  and  the  nation  revolted  from 
the  execution  of  laws  which  were  regarded, 
not  as  the  results  of  calm  deliberation  or 
consummate  wisdom,  but  rather  as  the  fruit 
of  a  series  of  perverse  and  malignant  acci 
dents,  impelling  the  adoption  of  temporary 
and  short-sighted  expedients.  The  reve 
rence,  therefore,  generally  due  to  old  esta 
blishments,  cannot  belong  to  such  laws. 

This  most  singular,  and  most  injurious  op 
position  of  the  legislative  enactments,  and 
their  judicial  enforcement,  has  repeatedly 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  distinguished  in 
dividual,  who  unites  in  himself  every  quality 
that  could  render  him  one  of  the  greatest 
ornaments  of  this  House,  and  whom,  as  he 
is  no  longer  a  member,  I  may  be  permitted 
to  name, — I  mean  Sir  William  Grant, — a  man 
who  can  never  be  mentioned  by  those  who 
know  him  without  the  expression  of  their 
admiration  —  a  man  who  is  an  honour,  not 
merely  to  the  profession  which  he  has  adorn 
ed  but  to  the  age  in  which  he  lives — a  man 
who  is  at  once  the  greatest  master  of  reason 
and  of  the  power  of  enforcing  it, — whose 
sound  judgment  is  accompanied  by  the  most 
perspicuous  comprehension, — whose  views, 
especially  on  all  subjects  connected  with 
legislation,  or  the  administration  of  the  law, 
are  directed  by  the  profoundest  wisdom, — 
whom  no  one  ever  approaches  without  feel 
ing  his  superiority, — who  only  wants  the  two 
vices  of  ostentation  and  ambition  (vices  con 
temned  by  the  retiring  simplicity  and  noble 
modesty  of  his  nature)  to  render  his  high 
talents  and  attainments  more  popularly  at 
tractive.  We  have  his  authority  for  the 
assertion,  that  the  principle  of  the  Criminal 
Law  is  diametrically  opposite  to  its  practice. 
On  one  occasion  particularly,  when  his  atten 
tion  was  called  to  the  subject,  he  declared  it 
to  be  impossible  "  that  both  the  law  and  the 
practice  could  be  right ;  that  the  toleration 
of  such  discord  wras  an  anomaly  that  ought 
to  be  removed }  and  that,  as  the  law  might 
be  brought  to  an  accordance  with  the  prac 
tice,  but  the  practice  could  never  be  brought 
to  an  accordance  with  the  law,  the  law 
ought  to  be  altered  for  a  wiser  and  more 
humane  system."  At  another  time,  the  same 
eminent  individual  used  the  remarkable  ex 
pression,  "  that  during  the  last  century,  there 
had  been  a  general  confederacy  of  prosecu 
tors,  witnesses,  counsel,  juries,  judges,  arid 
the  advisers  of  the  Crown,  to  prevent  the 
execution  of  the  Criminal  Law."  Is  it  fitting 
that  a  system  should  continue  which  the 
whole  body  of  the  intelligent  community 
combine  to  resist,  as  a  disgrace  to  our  nature 
and  nation  ? 

Sir,  I  feel  that  I  already  owe  much  to  the 
indulgence  of  the  House,  and  I  assure  you 
that  I  shall  be  as  concise  as  the  circum 
stances  of  the  case,  important  as  it  confess 
edly  is,  will  allow ;  and  more  especially  in 
67 


the  details  attendant  upon  it.  The  Noble 
Lord  last  night  dwelt  much  upon  the  conse 
quences  of  a  transition  from  war  to  peace  in 
the  multiplication  of  crimes;  but,  upon  con 
sulting  experience,  I  do  not  find  that  his 
position  is  borne  out.  It  is  not  true  that 
crime  always  diminishes  during  a  state  of 
war,  or  that  it  always  increases  after  its  con 
clusion.  In  the  Seven-Years'  War,  indeed, 
the  number  of  crimes  was  augmented, — 
decreasing  after  its  termination.  They  were 
more  numerous  in  the  seven  years  preceding 
the  American  War.  and  continued  to  advance, 
not  only  during  tnose  hostilities,  but,  I  am 
ready  to  admit,  after  the  restoration  of  peace. 
It  is,  however,  quite  correct  to  state,  that 
there  was  no  augmentation  of  crime  which 
much  outran  the  "progress  of  population  until 
within  about  the  last  twenty,  and  more  es 
pecially  within  the  last  ten  years  ]  and  that 
the  augmentation  which  has  taken  place  is 
capable  of  being  accounted  for,  without  any 
disparagement  to  the  ancient  and  peculiar 
probity  of  the  British  character. 

As  to  the  variations  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  administration  of  the  law,  with 
respect  to  the  proportion  of  the  executions 
to  the  convictions,  some  of  them  have  cer 
tainly  been  remarkable.  Under  the  various 
administrations  of  the  supreme  office  of  the 
law,  down  to  the  time  of  Lord  Thurlow,  the 
proportion  of  executions  to  convictions  was 
for  the  most  part  uniform.  Lord  Rosslyn 
was  the  first  Chancellor  under  whose  admi 
nistration  a  great  diminution  of  executions, 
as  compared  with  convictions,  is  to  be  re 
marked  ;  and  this  I  must  impute,  not  only  to 
the  gentle  disposition  of  that  distinguished 
lawyer,  but  to  the  liberality  of  those  princi 
ples  which,  however  unfashionable  they  may 
now  have  become,  were  entertained  by  his 
early  connexions.  Under  Lord  Rosslyn's 
administration  of  the  law,  the  proportion  of 
executions  was  diminished  to  one  in  eight, 
one  in  nine,  and  finally  as  low  as  one  in 
eleven. 

But,  Sir,  to  the  Noble  Lord's  argument, 
grounded  on  the  diminution  in  the  number 
of  executions,  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words. 
If  we  divide  crimes  into  various  sorts,  sepa 
rating  the  higher  from  the  inferior  offences, 
we  shall  find,  that  with  respect  to  the  smaller 
felonies,  the  proportion  of  executions  to  con 
victions  has  been  one  in  twenty,  one  in  thirty, 
and  in  one  year,  only  one  in  sixty.  In  the 
higher  felonies  (with  the  exception  of  bur 
glary  and  robbery,  which  are  peculiarly  cir 
cumstanced)  the  law  has  been  uniformly 
executed.  The  Noble  Lord's  statement, 
therefore,  is  applicable  only  to  the  first-men 
tioned  class;  and  a  delusion  would  be  the 
result  of  its  being  applied  unqualifiedly  to 
the  whole  criminal  code. 

For  the  sake  of  clearness,  I  will  divide 
the  crimes  against  which  our  penal  code 
denounces  capital  punishments  into  three 
classes.  In  the  first  of  these  I  include  mur 
der,  and  murderous  offences,  or  such  offences 
as  are  likely  to  lead  to  murder,  such  as  shoot- 
2U 


530 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


ing  or  stabbing,  with  a  view  to  the  malicious 
destruction  of  human  life : — in  these  cases 
the  law  is  invariably  executed.  In  the  se 
cond  class  appear  arson,  highway-robbery, 
piracy,  and  other  offences,  to  the  number  of 
nine  or  ten,  which  it  is  not  necessary,  and 
which  it  would  be  painful,  to  specify : — on 
these,  at  present,  the  law  is  carried  into 
effect  in  a  great  many  instances.  In  these 
two  first  divisions  I  will  admit,  for  the  pre 
sent,  that  it  would  be  unsafe  to  propose  any 
alteration.  Many  of  the  crimes  compre 
hended  in  them  ought  to  be  punished  with 
death.  Whatever  attacks  the  life  or  the 
dwelling  of  man  deserves  such  a  punish 
ment  ;  and  I  am  persuaded  that  a  patient  and 
calm  investigation  would  remove  the  objec 
tions  of  a  number  of  well-meaning  persons 
who  are  of  a  contrary  opinion.* 

But  looking  from  these  offences  at  the  head 
of  the  criminal  code  to  the  other  extremity 
of  it,  I  there  find  a  third  class  of  offences, — 
some  connected  with  frauds  of  various  kinds, 
but  others  of  the  most  frivolous  and  fantastic 
description, — amounting  in  number  to  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty,  against  which  the 
punishment  of  death  is  still  denounced  by 
the  law.  although  never  carried  into  effect. 
Indeed,  it  would  be  most  absurd  to  suppose 
that  an  execution  would  in  such  cases  be 
now  tolerated,  when  one  or  two  instances 
even  in  former  times  excited  the  disgust  and 
horror  of  all  good  men.  There  can  be  no 
doubt — even  the  Noble  Lord,  I  apprehend, 
will  not  dispute — that  such  capital  felonies 
should  be  expunged  from  our  Statute  Book 
as  a  disgrace  to  it.  Can  any  man  think,  for 
instance,  that  such  an  offence  as  that  of 
cutting  down  a  hop  vine  or  a  young  tree  in  a 
gentleman's  pleasure  ground  should  remain 
punishable  with  death  ?  The  "  Black  Act," 
as  it  is  called,  alone  created  about  twenty- 
one  capital  felonies, — some  of  them  of  the 
most  absurd  description.  Bearing  particular 
weapons,  —  having  the  face  blackened  at 
night, — and  being  found  disguised  upon  the 
high  road, — were  some  of  them.  So  that  if 
a  gentleman  is  going  to  a  masquerade,  and 
is  obliged  to  pass  along  a  highway,  he  is 
liable,  if  detected,  to  be  hanged  without 
benefit  of  clergy  !  Who,  again,  can  endure 
the  idea  that  a  man  is  exposed  to  the  punish 
ment  of  death  for  such  an  offence  as  cutting 
the  head  of  a  fish-pond  ?  Sir.  there  are  many 
more  capital  felonies  of  a  similar  nature, 
which  are  the  relics  of  barbarous  times,  and 
which  are  disgraceful  to  the  character  of  a 
thinking  and  enlightened  people.  For  such 
offences  punishments  quite  adequate  and 
sufficiently  numerous  would  remain.  It  is 
undoubtedly  true,  that  for  the  last  seventy 
years  no  capital  punishment  has  been  inflict 
ed  for  such  offences ;  the  statutes  denouncing 
them  are  therefore  needless.  And  I  trust  I 
shall  never  live  to  see  the  day  when  any 

*  This  passage  is  left  intact  on  account  of  the 
momentous  nature  of  its  subject-matter,  but  the 
speaker  has  evidently  been  here  too  loosely  re 
ported.— ED. 


member  of  this  House  will  rise  and  maintain 
that  a  punishment  avowedly  needless  ought 
to  be  continued. 

The  debatable  ground  on  this  subject  is 
afforded  by  a  sort  of  middle  class  of  offences, 
consisting  of  larcenies  and  frauds  of  a  hei 
nous  kind,  although  not  accompanied  with 
violence  and  terror.  It  is  no  part  of  my  pro 
posal  to  take  away  the  discretion  which  is 
reposed  in  the  judicial  authorities  respecting 
these  offences.  Nothing  in  my  mind  would 
be  more  imprudent  than  to  establish  an  un- 
deviating  rule  of  law, — a  rule  that  in  many 
cases  would  have  a  more  injurious  and  un 
just  operation  than  can  easily  be  imagined. 
I  do  not,  therefore,  propose  in  any  degree  to 
interfere  with  the  discretion  of  the  judges,  in 
cases  in  which  the  punishment  of  death 
ought,  under  certain  aggravated  circum 
stances,  to  attach,  but  only  to  examine  whe 
ther  or  not  it  is  fit  that  death  should  remain 
as  the  punishment  expressly  directed  by  the 
law  for  offences,  which  in  its  administration 
are  never,  even  under  circumstances  of  the 
greatest  aggravation,  more  severely  pun 
ished  than  with  various  periods  of  trans 
portation. 

It  is  impossible  to  advert  to  the  necessity 
of  reforming  this  part  of  the  law,  without 
calling  to  mind  the  efforts  of  that  highly 
distinguished  and  universally  lamented  indi 
vidual,  by  whom  the  attention  of  Parliament 
was  so  often  roused  to  the  subject  of  our 

Eenal  code.  Towards  that  excellent  man  I 
3lt  all  the  regard  which  a  friendship  of 
twenty  years'  duration  naturally  inspired, 
combined  with  the  respect  which  his  emi 
nently  superior  understanding  irresistibly 
claimed.  But  I  need  not  describe  his  me 
rits  ;  to  them  ample  justice  has  been  already 
done  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  Empire, 
seconded  by  the  opinion  of  all  the  good  men 
of  all  nations, — and  especially  by  the  eulo- 
gium  of  the  Honourable  Member  for  Bram- 
ber,*  whose  kindred  virtues  and  kindred 
eloquence  enable  him  justly  to  appreciate 
the  qualities  of  active  philanthropy  and  pro 
found  wisdom.  I  trust  the  House  will  bear 
with  me  if,  while  touching  on  this  subject,  I 
cannot  restrain  myself  from  feebly  express 
ing  my  admiration  for  the  individual  by  wh^se 
benevolent  exertions  it  has  been  consecrated. 
There  was,  it  is  well  known,  an  extraordinary 
degree  of  original  sensibility  belonging  to  the 
character  of  my  lamented  Friend,  combined 
with  the  greatest  moral  purity,  and  inflexi 
bility  of  public  principle  :  but  yet,  with  these 
elements,  it  is  indisputably  true,  that  his 
conduct  as  a  statesman  was  always  con 
trolled  by  a  sound  judgment,  duly  and  de 
liberately  weighing  every  consideration  of 
legislative  expediency  and  practical  policy. 
This  was  remarkably  shown  in  his  exertions 
respecting  the  criminal  code.  In  his  endea 
vours  to  rescue  his  country  from  the  disgrace 
arising  out  of  the  character  of  that  code,  he 
never  indulged  in  any  visionary  views ; — he 

*  Mr.  Wilberforce— ED. 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  THE  CRIMINAL  LAW. 


531 


was  at  once  humane  and  just, — generous  and 
wise.  With  all  that  ardour  of  temperament 
with  which  he  unceasingly  pursued  the  pub 
lic  good,  never  was  there  a  reformer  more 
circumspect  in  his  means, — more  prudent  in 
his  end ; — and  yet  all  his  propositions  were 
opposed.  In  one  thing,  however,  he  suc 
ceeded, — he  redeemed  his  country  from  a 
great  disgrace,  by  putting  a  stop  to  that  ca 
reer  of  improvident  and  cruel  legislation, 
which,  from  session  to  session  was  multiply 
ing  capital  felonies.  Sir,  while  private  virtue 
and  public  worth  are  distinguished  among 
men,  the  memory  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  will 
remain  consecrated  in  the  history  of  hu 
manity.  According  to  the  views  of  my  la 
mented  Friend,  the  punishment  of  death 
ought  not  to  attach  by  law  to  any  of  those 
offences  for  which  transportation  is  a  suffi 
cient  punishment,  and  for  which,  in  the  ordi 
nary  administration  of  the  law  by  the  judges, 
transportation  alone  is  inflicted.  In  that  view 
I  entirely  concur. 

I  will  not  now  enter  into  any  discussion 
of  the  doctrine  of  Dr.  Paley  with  respect  to 
the  expediency  of  investing  judges  with  the 
power  of  inflicting  death  even  for  minor 
offences,  where,  in  consequence  of  the  cha 
racter  of  the  offence  and  of  the  offender, 
some  particular  good  may  appear  to  be  pro 
mised  from  the  example  of  such  a  punish 
ment  on  a  mischievous  individual.  The 
question  is,  whether  the  general  good  de 
rived  by  society  from  the  existence  of  such 
a  state  of  the  law  is  so  great  as  to  exceed 
the  evil.  And  I  may  venture  to  express  my 
conviction,  that  the  result  of  such  an  inquiry 
as  that  which  I  propose  will  be  to  show,  that 
the  balance  of  advantage  is  decidedly  against 
the  continuance  of  the  existing  system.  The 
late  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common 
Pleas,*  whose  authority  is  undoubtedly  en 
titled  •  to  great  consideration  in  discussing 
this  question,  expressed  an  opinion,  that  if 
the  punishment  of  death  for  certain  crimes 
were  inflicted  only  in  one  case  out  of  sixty, 
yet  that  the  chance  of  having  to  undergo 
such  a  punishment  mast  serve  to  impose  an 
additional  terror  on  the  ill-disposed,  and  so 
operate  to  prevent  the  commission  of  crime. 
But  I,  On  the  contrary,  maintain  that  such  a 
terror  is  not  likely  to  arise  out  of  this  mode 
of  administering  the  law.  I  am  persuaded 
that  a  different  result  must  ensue ;  because 
this  difference  in  the  punishment  of  the 
same  offence  must  naturally  encourage  a 
calculation  in  the  mind  of  a  person  disposed 
to  commit  crime,  of  the  manifold  chances 
of  escaping  its  penalties.  It  must  also  ope 
rate  on  a  malefactor's  mind  in  diminution 
of  the  terrors  of  transportation.  Exulting 
at  his  escape  from  the  more  dreadful  inflic 
tion,  joy  and  triumph  mast  absorb  his  facul 
ties,  eclipsing  and  obscuring  those  appre 
hensions  and  regrets  writh  which  he  would 
otherwise  have  contemplated  the  lesser 
penalty,  and  inducing  him,  like  Cicero,  to 


*  Sir  Vicary  Gibbs.— ED. 


consider  exile  as  a  refuge  rather  than  as  a 
punishment.  In  support  of  this  opinion  I 
will  quote  the  authority  of  one  who,  if  I 
cannot  describe  him  as  an  eminent  lawyer, 
all  will  agree  was  a  man  deeply  skilled  in 
human  nature,  as  well  as  a  most  active  and 
experienced  magistrate, — I  allude  to  the  cele 
brated  Henry  Fielding.  In  a  work  of  his, 
published  at  the  period  when  the  first  Parlia 
mentary  inquiry  of  this  nature  was  in  pro- 
ress,  entituled  ':  A  Treatise  on  the  Causes  of 
!rime,"  there  is  this  observation : — "A  single 
pardon  excites  a  greater  degree  of  hope  in 
the  minds  of  criminals  than  twenty  execu 
tions  excite  of  fear."  Now  this  argument  I 
consider  to  be  quite  analagous  to  that  which 
I  have  just  used  with  reference  to  the  opinion 
of  the  late  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common 
Pleas,  because  the  chance  of  escape  from 
death,  in  either  case,  is  but  too  apt  to  dis 
lodge  all  thought  of  the  inferior  punishments. 
But,  Sir,  another  most  important  considera 
tion  is,  the  effect  which  the  existing  system 
of  law  has  in  deterring  injured  persons  from 
commencing  prosecutions,  and  witnesses 
from  coming  forward  in  support  of  them. 
The  chances  of  escape  are  thus  multiplied 
by  a  system  which,  wrhile  it  discourages  the 
prosecutor,  increases  the  temptations  of  the 
offender.  The  better  part  of  mankind,  in 
those  grave  and  reflecting  moments  which 
the  prosecution  for  a  capital  offence  must 
always  bring  with  it,  frequently  shrink  from 
the  task  imposed  on  them.  The  indisposi 
tion  to  prosecute  while  the  laws  continue  so 
severe  is  matter  of  public  notoriety.  This 
has  been  evinced  in  various  cases.  It  is  not 
long  since  an  act  of  George  II.,  for  preserving 
bleaching-grounds  from  depredation,  was 
repealed  on  the  proposition  of  Sir  Samuel 
Romilly,  backed  by  a  petition  from  the  pro 
prietors  of  those  grounds,  who  expressed 
their  unwillingness  to  prosecute  while  the 
law  continued  so  severe,  and  who  repre 
sented  that  by  the  impunity  thus  given  to 
offenders,  their  property  was  left  compara 
tively  unprotected.  An  eminent  city  banker 
has  also  been  very  recently  heard  to  declare 
in  this  House,  that  bankers  frequently  de 
clined  to  prosecute  for  the  forgery  of  their 
notes  in  consequence  of  the  law  which  de 
nounced  the  punishment  of  death  against 
such  an  offence.  It  is  notorious  that  the 
concealment  of  a  bankrupt's  effects  is  very 
seldom  prosecuted,  because  the  law  pro 
nounces  that  to  be  a  capital  offence :  it  is 
undoubtedly,  however,  a  great  crime,  and 
would  not  be  allowed  to  enjoy  such  com 
parative  impunity  were  the  law  less  severe. 
There  is  another  strong  fact  on  this  sub 
ject,  to  which  I  may  refer,  as  illustrating 
the  general  impression  respecting  the  Crimi 
nal  Law  j — I  mean  the  Act  which  was  passed 
in  1812,  by  which  all  previous  enactments 
of  capital  punishments  for  offences  against 
the  revenue  not  specified  in  it  were  repealed. 
That  Act  I  understand  was  introduced  at  the 
instance  of  certain  officers  of  the  revenue. 
And  why  ? — but  because  from  the  excessive 


532 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


severity  of  the  then  existing  revenue  laws, 
the  collectors  of  the  revenue  themselves 
found  that  they  were  utterly  inefficient.  But 
I  have  the  highest  official  authority  to  sus 
tain  my  view  of  the  criminal  code.  I  have 
the  authority  of  the  late  Chief  Baron  of  the 
Exchequer,  Sir  Archibald  Macdonald,  who, 
when  he  held  the  office  of  Attorney-General, 
which  he  discharged  with  so  much  honour 
to  himself,  and  advantage  to  the  country, 
distinctly  expressed  his  concurrence  in  the 
opinion  of  Lord  Bacon  that  great  penalties 
deadened  the  force  of  the  laws. 

The  House  will  still  bear  in  mind,  that  I 
do  not  call  for  the  entire  abolition  of  the 
punishment  of  death,  but  only  for  its  aboli 
tion  in  those  cases  in  which  it  is  very  rarely, 
and  ought  never  to  be,  carried  into  effect. 
In  those  cases  I  propose  to  institute  other, 
milder,  but  more  invariable  punishments. 
The  courts  of  law  should,  in  some  cases,  be 
armed  with  the  awful  authority  of  taking 
away  life:  but  in  order  to  render  that  au 
thority  fully  impressive,  I  am  convinced  that 
the  punishment  of  death  should  be  abolished 
where  inferior  punishments  are  not  only  ap 
plicable,  but  are  usually  applied.  Nothing 
indeed  can,  in  my  opinion,  be  more  injurious 
than  the  frequency  with  which  the  sentence 
of  death  is  at  the  present  time  pronounced 
from  the  judgment-seat,  with  all  the  so 
lemnities  prescribed  on  such  an  occasion, 
when  it  is  evident,  even  to  those  against 
whom  it  is  denounced,  that  it  will  never  be 
carried  into  effect.  Whenever  that  awful 
authority, — the  jurisdiction  over  life  and 
death,  is  disarmed  of  its  terrors  by  such  a 
formality,  the  law  is  deprived  of  its  benefi 
cent  energy,  and  society  of  its  needful  de 
fence. 

Sir  William  Grant,  in  a  report  of  one  of 
his  speeches  which  I  have  seen,  observes, 
"  that  the  great  utility  of  the  punishment  of 
death  consists  in  the  horror  which  it  is  natu 
rally  calculated  to  excite  against  the  crimi 
nal  ;  and  that  all  penal  laws  ought  to  be  in 
unison  with  the  public  feeling ;  for  that  when 
they  are  not  so,  and  especially  when  they 
are  too  severe,  the  influence  of  example  is 
lost,  sympathy  being  excited  towards  the 
criminal,  while  horror  prevails  against  the 
law."  Such  indeed  was  also  the  impression 
of  Sir  William  Blackstone,  of  Mr.  Fox,  and 
of  Mr.  Pitt.  It  is  also  the  opinion  of  Lord 
Grenville,  expressed  in  a  speech*  as  dis 
tinguished  for  forcible  reasoning,  profound 
wisdom,  and  magnificent  eloquence,  as  any 
that  I  have  ever  heard. 

It  must  undoubtedly  happen,  even  in  the 
best  regulated  conditions  of  society,  that  the 
laws  will  be  sometimes  at  variance  with  Ihe 
opinions  and  feelings  of  good  men.  But 
that,  in  a  country  like  Great  Britain,  they 
should  remain  permanently  in  a  state  not 
less  inconsistent  with  obvious  policy  than 
with  the  sentiments  of  all  the  enlightened 

*  Since  published  by  Mr.  Basil  Montagu,  in  his 
Collections  On  the  Punishment  of  Death. — ED. 


and  respectable  classes  of  the  community,  is 
indeed  scarcely  credible.  I  should  not  be 
an  advocate  for  the  repeal  of  any  law  be 
cause  it  happened  to  be  in  opposition  to 
temporary  prejudices:  but  I  object  to  the 
laws  to  which  I  have  alluded,  because  they 
are  inconsistent  with  the  deliberate  and  per 
manent  opinion  of  the  public.  In  all  nations 
an  agreement  between  the  laws  and  the 
general  feeling  of  those  who  are  subject  to 
them  is  essential  to  their  efficacy :  but  this 
agreement  becomes  of  unspeakable  impor 
tance  in  a  country  in  which  the  charge  of 
executing  the  laws  is  committed  in  a  great 
measure  to  the  people  themselves. 

I  know  not  how  to  contemplate,  without 
serious  apprehension,  the  consequences  that 
may  attend  the  prolongation  of  a  system  like 
the  present.  It  is  my  anxious  desire  to  re 
move,  before  they  become  insuperable,  the 
impediments  that  are  already  in  the  way  of 
our  civil  government.  My  object  is  to  make 
the  laws  popular, — to  reconcile  them  with 
public  opinion,  and  thus  to  redeem  their 
character.  It  is  to  render  the  execution  of 
them  easy, — the  terror  of  them  overwhelm 
ing, — the  efficacy  of  them  complete, — that  I 
implore  the  House  to  give  to  this  subject  their 
most  grave  consideration.  I  beg  leave  to  re 
mind  them,  that  Sir  William  Blackstone  has 
already  pointed  out  the  indispensable  neces 
sity  under  which  juries  frequently  labour  of 
committing,  in  estimating  the  value  of  stolen 
property,  what  he  calls  "  pious  perjuries." 
The  resort  to  this  practice  in  one  of  the 
wisest  institutions  of  the  country,  so  clearly 
indicates  the  public  feeling,  that  to  every 
wise  statesman  it  must  afford  an  instructive 
lesson.  The  just  and  faithful  administration 
of  the  laxv  in  all  its  branches  is  the  great 
bond  of  society, — the  point  at  which  autho 
rity  and  obedience  meet  most  nearly.  If 
those  who  hold  the  reins  of  government,  in 
stead  of  attempting  a  remedy,  content  them 
selves  with  vain  lamentations  at  the  growth 
of  crime, — if  they  refuse  to  conform  the  laws 
to  the  opinions  and  dispositions  of  the  public 
mind,  that  growth  must  continue  to  spread 
among  us  a  just  alarm. 

With  respect  to  petitions  upon  this  sub 
ject,  I  have  reason  to  believe  that,  in  a  few 
days,  many  will  be  presented  from  a  body 
of  men  intimately  connected  with  the  ad 
ministration  of  the  Criminal  Law, — I  mean 
the  magistracy  of  the  country, — praying  for 
its  revision.  Among  that  body  I  understand 
that  but  little  difference  of  opinion  prevails, 
and  that  when  their  petitions  shall  be  pre 
sented,  they  will  be  found  subscribed  by 
many  of  the  most  respectable  individuals 
in  the  empire  as  to  moral  character,  enlight 
ened  talent,  and  general  consideration.  I 
did  not,  however,  think  it  right  to  postpone 
my  motion  for  an  inquiry  so  important  until 
those  petitions  should  be  actually  laid  on 
the  table.  I  should,  indeed,  have  felt  ex 
treme  regret  if  the  consideration  of  this  ques 
tion  had  been  preceded  by  petitions  drawn 
up  and  agreed  to  at  popular  and  tumultuary 


ON  THE  STATE  OF  THE  CRIMINAL  LAW. 


533 


assemblies.  No  one  can  be  more  unwilling 
than  myself  to  see  any  proceeding  that  can 
in  the  slightest  degree  interfere  with  the 
calm,  deliberate,  and  dignified  consideration 
of  Parliament,  more  especially  on  a  subject 
of  this  nature.' 

The  Petition  from  the  City  of  London, 
however,  ought  to  be  considered  in  another 
light,  and  is  entitled  to  peculiar  attention. 
It  proceeds  from  magistrates  accustomed  to 
administer  justice  in  a  populous  metropolis, 
and  who  necessarily  possess  very  great  ex 
perience.  It  proceeds  from  a  body  of  most 
respectable  traders — men  peculiarly  exposed 
to  those  depredations  against  which  Capital 
Punishment  is  denounced.  An  assembly  so 
composed,  is  one  of  weight  and  dignity;  and 
its  representations  on  this  subject  are  enti 
tled  to  the  greater  deference,  inasmuch  as 
the  results  of  its  experience  appear  to  be  in 
direct  opposition  to  its  strongest  prejudices. 
The  first  impulse  of  men  whose  property  is 
attacked,  is  to  destroy  those  by  whom  the 
attack  is  made :  but  the  enlightened  traders 
of  London  perceive,  that  the  weapon  of 
destruction  which  our  penal  code  affords,  is 
ineffective  for  its  purpose ;  they  therefore, 
disabusing  themselves  of  vulgar  prejudice, 
call  for  the  revision  of  that  code. 

Another  Petition  has  been  presented  to  the 
House  wThich  I  cannot  pass  over  without  no 
tice  :  I  allude  to  one  from  that  highly  merito 
rious  and  exemplary  body  of  men — the  Qua 
kers.  It  has,  I  think,  been  rather  hardly 
dealt  by;  and  has  been  described  as  con 
taining  very  extravagant  recommendations ; 
although  the  prayer  writh  which  it  concludes 
is  merely  for  such  a  change  in  the  Criminal 
Law  as  may  be  consistent  with  the  ends  of 
justice.  The  body  of  the  Petition  certainly 
deviates  into  a  speculation  as  to  the  future 
existence  of  some  happier  condition  of  so 
ciety,  in  which  mutual  goodwill  may  render 
severe  punishments  unnecessary.  But  this 


is  a  speculation  in  which,  however  unsanc- 
tioned  by  experience,  virtuous  and  philoso 
phical  men  have  in  all  ages  indulged  them 
selves,  and  by  it  have  felt  consoled  for  the 
evils  by  which  they  have  been  surrounded. 
The  hope  thus  expressed,  has  exposed  these 
respectable  Petitioners  to  be  treated  with 
levity :  but  they  are  much  too  enlightened 
not  to  know  that  with  such  questions  states 
men  and  lawyers,  whose  arrangements  and 
regulations  must  be  limited  by  the  actual 
state  and  the  necessary  wants  of  a  commu 
nity,  have  no  concern.  And  while  I  make 
these  remarks,  I  cannot  but  request  the 
House  to  recollect  what  description  of  people 
it  is  to  whom  I  apply  them, — a  people  who 
alone  of  all  the  population  of  the  kingdom 
send  neither  paupers  to  your  parishes,  nor 
criminals  to  your  jails, — a  people  who  think 
a  spirit  of  benevolence  an  adequate  security 
to  mankind  (a  spirit  which  certainly  wants 
but  the  possibility  of  its  being  universal  to 
constitute  the  perfection  of  our  nature) — a 
people  who  have  ever  been  foremost  in  un 
dertaking  and  promoting  every  great  and 
good  work, — who  were  among  the  first  to 
engage  in  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade, 
and  who,  by  their  firm  yet  modest  perseve 
rance,  paved  the  way  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  that  incalculable  benefit  to  humanity. 
Recollecting  all  this,  and  recollecting  the 
channel  through  which  this  Petition  was  pre 
sented  to  the  House,*  I  consider  it  to  be  en 
titled  to  anything  but  disrespect.  The  aid 
of  such  a  body  must  always  be  a  source  of 
encouragement  to  those  who  are  aiming  at 
any  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  human 
beings;  and  on  this  occasion  it  inspires  me, 
not  only  with  perfect  confidence  in  the  good 
ness  of  my  cause,  but  with  the  greatest 
hopes  of  its  success. 


ED. 


It  had  been  presented  by  Mr.  Wilberforce. — 
2u  2 


534 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


HI  SPEECH  -   ,    •       ; 

ON  MR.  BROUGHAM'S  MOTION  FOR  AN  ADDRESS  TO  THE  CROWN, 

WITH  REFERENCE  TO  THE  TRIAL  AND  CONDEMNATION  OF 

THE  REV.  JOHN  SMITH,  OF  DEMERAEA, 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  ON  THE  IST  OF  JUNE,  1824.* 


MR.  SPEAKER, — Even  if  I  had  not  been 
loudly  called  upon,  and  directly  challenged 
by  the  Honourable  Gentleman,  t — even  if  his 
accusations,  now  repeated  after  full  conside 
ration,  did  not  make  it  my  duty  to  vindicate 
the  Petition  which  I  had  the  honour  to  pre 
sent  from  unjust  reproach,  I  own  that  I  should 
have  been  anxious  to  address  the  House  on 
this  occasion ;  not  to  strengthen  a  case  al 
ready  invincible,  but  to  bear  my  solemn  tes 
timony  against  the  most  unjust  and  cruel 
abuse"  of  power,  under  a  false  pretence  of 


*  The  Rev.  John  Smith,  an  Independent  mi 
nister,  had  been  sent  out  to  Demerara  in  the  year 
1816  by  the  London  Missionary  Society.  The 
exemplary  discharge  of  his  sacred  functions  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  that  colony  for  six  years,  amid 
difficulties  which  are  said  to  have  distinguished 
Demerara  even  among  all  her  sister  slave  colo 
nies,  had  so  far  impaired  his  health,  that  he  was, 
by  medical  advice,  on  the  point  of  leaving  the 
country  for  a  more  salubrious  climate,  when,  in 
the  month  of  August,  1823,  a  partial  insurrection 
of  the  negroes  in  his  neighbourhood  proved  the 
means  of  putting  a  period  alike  to  his  labours  and 
his  life.  The  rising  was  not  of  an  extensive  or 
organised  character,  and  was,  in  fact,  suppressed 
immediately,  with  little  loss  of  life  or  property. 
Its  suppression  was,  however,  immediately  fol 
lowed  by  the  establishment  of  martial  law,  and 
the  arrest  of  Mr.  Smith  as  privy  beforehand  to 
the  plot.  As  the  evidence  in  support  of  this 
charsre  had  necessarily  to  be  extracted  for  the  most 
part  from  prisoners  trembling  for  their  own  lives, 
incurable  suspicion  would  seem  to  attach  to  the 
whole  of  it ;  though  candour  must  admit,  on  a 
careful  consideration  of  the  whole  circumstances, 
including  the  sensitive  feelings  and  ardent  tempe 
rament  of  the  accused,  that  it  was  not  impossible 
that  he  had  been  made  the  involuntary  depositary 
of  the  confidence  of  his  flock.  It  was  not  till  he 
had  been  in  prison  for  nearly  two  months  that  Mr. 
Smith,  on  the  14th  of  October,  was  brought  to 
trial  before  a  court-martial.  After  proceedings 
abounding  in  irregularities,  which  lasted  for  six 
weeks,  he  was  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to 
death,  but  was  recommended  to  the  mercy  of  the 
Crown.  He  died  in  prison  on  the  6th  of  February 
following,  awaiting  the  result.  Sir  James  Mack 
intosh  had  presented,  at  an  earlier  period  of  the 
session,  the  appeal  of  the  London  Missionary  So- 
«ciety  on  behalf  of  his  memory  and  his  widow. 
The  present  speech  was  delivered  in  support  of 
Mr.  Brougham's  motion  for  an  Address  to  the 
Crown  on  the  subject. — ED. 

t  Mr.  Wilmot  Horton,  who  conducted  the  de 
fence  of  the  authorities  at  Demerara. — ED. 


law,  that  has  in  our  times  dishonoured  any 
portion  of  the  British  empire.  I  am  sorry 
that  the  Honourable  Gentleman,  after  so  long 
an  interval  for  reflection,  should  have  this 
night  repeated  those  charges  against  the 
London  Missionary  Society,  which  when  he 
first  made  them  I  thought  rash,  and  which  I 
am  now  entitled  to  treat  as  utterly  ground 
less.  I  should  regret  to  be  detained  by  them 
for  a  moment,  from  the  great  question  of  hu 
manity  and  justice  before  us,  if  I  did  not  feel 
that  they  excite  a  prejudice  against  the  case 
of  Mr.  Smith,  and  that  the  short  discussion 
sufficient  to  put  them  aside,  leads  directly 
to  the  vindication  of  the  memory  of  that  op 
pressed  man. 

The  Honourable  Gentleman  calls  the  Lon 
don  Missionary  Society  "  bad  philosophers," 
— by  which,  I  presume,  he  means  bad  rea- 
soners, — because  they  ascribe  the  insurrec 
tion  partly  "  to  the  long  and  inexplicable 
delay  of  the  government  of  Demerara  in 
promulgating  the  instructions  favourable  to 
the  slave  population;"  and  because  he, 
adopting  one  of  the  arguments  of  that  speech 
by  which  the  deputy  judge-advocate  dis 
graced  his  office,  contends  that  a  partial  re 
volt  cannot  have  arisen  from  a  general  cause  • 
of  discontent, — a  position  belied  by  the 
whole  course  of  history,  and  which  is  founded 
upon  the  absurd  assumption,  that  one  part 
of  a  people,  from  circumstances  sometimes 
easy,  sometimes  very  hard  to  be  discovered, 
may  not  be  more  provoked  than  others  by 
grievances  common  to  all.  So  inconsistent, 
indeed,  is  the  defence  of  the  rulers  of  De 
merara  with  itself,  that  in  another  part  of  the 
case  they  represent  a  project  for  an  universal 
insurrection  as  having  been  formed,  and 
ascribe  its  being,  in  fact,  confined  to  the  east 
coast,  to  unaccountable  accidents.  Paris,  the 
ringleader,  in  what  is  called  his  "  confession," 
(to  be  found  in  the  Demerara  Papers,  No.  II., 
p.  21,)  says,  "The  whole  colony  was  to  have 
risen  on  Monday;  and  I  cannot  account  for 
the  reasons  why  only  the  east  rose  at  the 
time  appointed."  So  that,  according  to  this 
part  of  their  own  evidence,  they  must  aban 
don  their  argument,  and  own  the  discontent 
to  have  been  as  general  as  the  grievance. 

Another  argument  against  the  Society's 


CASE  OF  MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


535 


Petition,  is  transplanted  from  the  same  nur 
sery  of  weeds.  It  is  said,  that  cruelty  can 
not  have  contributed  to  this  insurrection,  be 
cause  the  leaders  of  the  revolt  were  persons 
little  likely  to  have  been  cruelly  used,  being 
among  the  most  trusted  of  the  slaves.  Those 
who  employ  so  gross  a  fallacy,  must  be  con 
tent  to  be  called  worse  reasoners  than  the 
London  Missionary  Society.  It  is,  indeed, 
one  of  the  usual  common-places  in  all  cases 
of  discontent  and  tumult ;  but  it  is  one  of  the 
most  futile.  The  moving  cause  of  most  in 
surrections,  and  in  the  opinion  of  two  great 
men  (Sully  and  Burke)  of  all,  is  the  distress 
of  the  great  body  of  insurgents ;  but  the  ring 
leaders  are  generally,  and  almost  necessa 
rily,  individuals  who,  being  more  highly  en 
dowed  or  more  happily  situated,  are  raised 
above  the  distress  which  is  suffered  by  those 
of  whom  they  take  the  command. 

But  the  Honourable  Gentleman's  principal 
charge  against  the  Petition,  is  the  allegation 
contained  in  it,  "  that  the  life  of  no  white 
man  was  voluntarily  taken  away  by  the 
slaves."  When  I  heard  the  confidence  with 
which  a  confutation  of  this  averment  was 
announced,  I  own  I  trembled  for  the  accu 
racy  of  the  Petition.  But  what  was  my  as 
tonishment,  when  I  heard  the  attempt  at 
confutation  made  !  In  the  Demerara  Papers. 
No.  II.,  there  is  an  elaborate  narrative  of  an 
attack  on  the  house  of  Mrs.  Walrand,  by  the 
insurgents,  made  by  that  lady,  or  for  her — a 
caution  in  statements  which  the  subsequent 
parts  of  these  proceedings  prove  to  be  neces 
sary  in  Demerara.  The  Honourable  Gentle 
man  has  read  the  narrative,  to  show  that  two 
lives  were  unhappily  lost  in  this  skirmish; 
and  this  he  seriously  quotes  as  proving  the 
inaccuracy  of  the  Petition.  Does  he  believe. 
— can  he  hope  to  persuade  the  House,  that 
the  Petitioners  meant  to  say,  that  there  was 
an  insurrection  without  fighting,  or  skirmishes 
without  death  ?  The  attack  and  defence  of 
houses  and  posts  are  a  necessary  part  of  all 
revolts;  and  deaths  are  the  natural  conse 
quences  of  that,  as  well  as  of  every  species 
of  warfare.  The  revolt  in  this  case  was, 
doubtless,  an  offence ;  the  attack  on  the 
house  was  a  part  of  that  offence:  the  de 
fence  was  brave  and  praiseworthy.  The  loss 
of  lives  is  deeply  to  be  deplored ;  but  it  was 
inseparable  from  all  such  unhappy  scenes : 
it  could  riot  be  the  "voluntary  killing,"  in 
tended  to  be  denied  in  the  Petition.  The 
Governor  of  Demerara,  in  a  despatch  to  Lord 
Bathurst.  makes  the  same  statement  with 
the  Petition  : — "  I  have  not."  he  says,  "  heard 
of  one  while  who  was  deliberately  murder 
ed  :"  yet  he  was  perfectly  aware  of  the  fact 
which  has  been  so  triumphantly  displayed 
to  the  House.  "At  plantation  Nabaclis, 
where  the  whites  were  on  their  guard,  two 
out  of  three  were  killed  in  the  defence  of 
their  habitations."  The  defence  was  legiti 
mate,  and  the  deaths  lamentable :  but  as  the 
Governor  distinguishes  them  from  murder, 
so  do  the  Society.  They  deny  that  there 
was  any  killing  in  cold  blood.  They  did  not 


mean  to  deny, — any  more  than  to  affirm — 
(for  the  Papers  which  mention  the  fact  were 
printed  since  their  Petition  was  drawn  up), 
that  there  was  killing  in  battle,  when  each 
party  were  openly  struggling  to  destroy  their 
antagonists  and  to  preserve  themselves.  The 
Society  only  denies  that  this  insurrection  was 
dishonoured  by  those  murders  of  the  unof 
fending  or  of  the  vanquished,  which  too  fre 
quently  attend  the  revolts  of  slaves.  The 
Governor  of  Demerara  agrees  with  them; 
the  whole  facts  of  the  case  support  them ; 
and  the  quotation  of  the  Honourable  Gentle 
man  leaves  their  denial  untouched.  The  re 
volt  was  absolutely  unstained  by  excess. 
The  killing  of  whites,  even  in  action,  was  so 
small  as  not  to  appear  in  the  trial  of  Mr. 
Smith,  or  in  the  first  accounts  laid  before  us. 
I  will  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  "killing  in 
action"  may  not,  in  a  strictly  philosophical 
sense,  be  called  "voluntary."  It  is  enough 
for  me,  that  no  man  will  call  it  calm,  need 
less,  or  deliberate. 

This  is  quite  sufficient  to  justify  even  the 
words  of  the  Petition.  The  substance  of  it 
is  now  more  than  abundantly  justified  by  the 
general  spirit  of  humanity  which  pervaded 
the  unhappy  insurgents, — by  the  unparal 
leled  forbearance  and  moderation  which 
characterised  the  insurrection.  On  this  part 
of  the  subject,  so  important  to  the  general 
question,  as  well  as  to  the  character  of  the 
Petition  for  accuracy,  the  London  Missionary 
Society  appeal  to  the  highest  authority,  that 
of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Austin,  not  a  missionary 
or  a  Methodist,  but  the  chaplain  of  the  colo 
ny,  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  England, 
who  has  done  honour  even  to  that  Church, 
so  illustrious  through  the  genius  and  learn 
ing  and  virtue  of  many  of  her  clergy,  by  his 
Christian  charity, — by  his  inflexible  princi 
ples  of  justice. — by  his  intrepid  defence  of 
innocence  against  all  the  power  of  a  govern 
ment,  and  against  the  still  more  formidable 
prejudices  of  an  alarmed  and  incensed  com 
munity.  No  man  ever  did  himself  more 
honour  by  the  admirable  combination  of 
strength  of  character  with  sense  of  duty; 
which  needed  nothing  but  a  larger  and  more 
elevated  theatre  to  place  him  among  those 
who  will  be  in  all  ages  regarded  by  mankind 
as  models  for  imitation  and  objects  of  reve 
rence.  That  excellent  person, — speaking  of 
Mr.  Smith,  a  person  with  whom  he  was  pre 
viously  unacquainted,  a  minister  of  a  differ 
ent  persuasion,  a  missionary,  considered  by 
many  of  the  established  clergy  as  a  rival,  if 
not  an  enemy,  a  man  then  odious  to  the  body 
of  the  colonists,  whose  good-will  must  have 
been  so  important  to  Mr.  Austin's  comfort, — 
after  declaring  his  conviction  of  the  perfect 
innocence  and  extraordinary  merit  of  the 
persecuted  missionary,  proceeds  to  bear  tes 
timony  to  the  moderation  of  the  insurgents, 
and  to  the  beneficent  influence  of  Mr.  Smith, 
in  producing  that  moderation,  in  language, 
far  warmer  and  bolder  than  that  of  the  Peti- 
|  tion.  "I  feel  no  hesitation  in  declaring," 
i  says  he,  "from  the  intimate  knowledge  which 


536 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


my  most  anxious  inquiries  have  obtained, 
that  in  the  late  scourge  which  the  hand  of 
an  all-wise  Creator  has  inflicted  on  this  ill- 
fated  country,  nothing  hut  those  religious 
impressions  which,  under  Providence,  Mr. 
Smith  has  been  instrumental  in  fixing, — no 
thing  but  those  principles  of  the  Gospel  of 
Peace,  which  he  had  been  proclaiming,  could 
have  prevented  a  dreadful  effusion  of  blood 
here,  and  saved  the  lives  of  those  very  per 
sons  who  are  now,  I  shudder  to  write  it, 
seeking  his  life." 

And  here  I  beg  the  House  to  weigh  this 
testimony.  It  is  not  only  valuable  from  the 
integrity,  impartiality,  and  understanding  of 
the  witness,  but  from  his  opportunities  of 
acquiring  that  intimate  knowledge  of  facts 
on  which  he  rests  his  opinion.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Secret  Commission  of  Inquiry 
established  on  this  occasion,  which  was 
armed  with  all  the  authority  of  government, 
and  which  received  much  evidence  relating 
to  this  insurrection  not  produced  on  the  trial 
of  Mr.  Smith. 

This  circumstance  immediately  brings  me 
to  the  consideration  of  the  hearsay  evidence 
illegally  received  against  Mr.  Smith.  I  do 
not  merely  or  chiefly  object  io  it  on  grounds 
purely  technical,  or  as  being 'inadmissible 
by  the  law  of  England.  I  abstain  from  taking 
any  part  in  the  discussions  of  lawyers  or  phi 
losophers,  with  respect  to  the  wisdom  of  our 
rules  of  evidence ;  though  I  think  that  there 
is  more  to  be  said  for  them  than  the  inge 
nious  objectors  are  aware  of.  What  I  com 
plain  of  is,  the  admission  of  hearsay,  of  the 
vaguest  sort,  under  circumstances  where 
such  an  admission  was  utterly  abomina 
ble.  In  what  I  am  about  to  say,  I  shall  not 
quote  from  the  Society's  edition  of  the  Trial, 
but  from  that  which  is  officially  before  the 
House:  so  that  I  may  lay  aside  all  that  has 
been  said  on  the  superior  authority  of  the 
latter.  Mr.  Austin,  when  examined  in 
chief,  stated,  that  though  originally  prepos 
sessed  against  Mr.  Smith,  yet.  in  the  course 
of  numerous  inquiries,  he  could  not  see  any 
circumstances  which  led  to  a  belief  that  Mr. 
Smith  had  bean,  in  any  degree,  instrumental 
in  the  insurrection  ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
when  he  (Mr.  Austin)  said  to  the  slaves,  that 
bloodshed  had  not  marked  the  progress  of 
their  insurrection,  their  answer  was : — "  It  is 
contrary  to  the  religion  we  profess"  (which 
had  been  taught  to  them  by  Mr.  Smith) : — 
"  we  cannot  give  life,  and  therefore  we  will 
not  take  it."  This  evidence  of  the  innocence 
of  Mr.  Smith,  and  of  the  humanity  of  the 
slaves,  appears  to  have  alarmed  the  impartial 
judge-advocate ;  and  he  proceeded,  in  his 
cross-examination,  to  ask  Mr.  Austin  whether 
any  of  the  negroes  had  ever  insinuated,  that 
their  misfortunes  were  occasioned  by  the 
prisoner's  influence  over  them,  or  by  the 
doctrines  he  taught  them?  Mr.  Austin, 
understanding  this  question  to  refer  to  what 
passed  before  the  Committee,  appears  to 
have  respectfully  hesitated  about  the  pro 
priety  of  disclosing  these  proceedings ;  upon 


which  the  Court,  in  a  tone  of  discourtesy 
and  displeasure,  which  a  reputable  advocate 
for  a  prisoner  would  not  have  used  towards 
such  a  witness  in  this  country,  addressed 
the  following  illegal  and  indecent  question 
to  Mr.  Austin  : — "  Can  you  take  it  upon 
yourself  to  swear  that  you  do  not  recollect 
any  insinuations  of  that  sort  at  the  Board  of 
Evidence  1"  How  that  question  came  to  be 
waived,  does  not  appear  in  the  official  copy. 
It  is  almost  certain,  however,  from  the  pur 
port  of  the  next  question,  that  the  Society's 
Report  is  correct  in  supplying  this  defect, 
and  that  Mr.  Austin  still  doubted  its  sub 
stantial  propriety,  and  continued  to  resent 
its  insolent  form.  He  was  actually  asked, 
"  whether  he  heard,  before  the  Board  of  Evi 
dence,  any  negro  imputing  the  cause  of  re 
volt  to  the  prisoner ?"  He  answered,  "  Yes :" 
— and  the  inquiry  is  pursued  no  further.  I 
again  request  the  House  to  bear  in  mind,  that 
this  question  and  answer  rest  on  the  autho 
rity  of  the  official  copy  ;  and  I  repeat,  that  I 
disdain  to  press  ti*3  legal  objection  of  its 
being  hearsay  "evidence,  and  to  contend,  that 
to  put  such  a  question  and  receive  such  an 
answer,  were  acts  of  mere  usurpation  in  any 
English  tribunal. 

Much  higher  matter  arises  on  this  part  of 
the  evidence.  Fortunately  for  the  interests 
of  truth,  we  are  now  in  possession  of  the 
testimony  of  the  negroes  before  the  Board 
of  Inquiry  wrhich  is  adverted  to  in  this  ques 
tion,  and  which,  be  it  observed,  was  wholly 
unknown  to  the  unfortunate  Mr.  Smith.  We 
naturally  ask,  why  these  negroes  themselves 
were  riot  produced  as  witnesses,  if  they  were 
alive  ;  or,  if  they  were  executed,  how  it  hap 
pened  that  none  of  the  men  who  gave  such 
important  evidence  before  the  Board  of  In 
quiry  were  preserved  to  bear  testimony 
against  him  before  the  Court-martial  ?  Why 
were  they  content  with  the  much  weaker 
evidence  actually  produced?  Why  were 
they  driven  to  the  necessity  of  illegally 
obtaining,  through 'Mr.  Austin,  what  they 
might  have  obtained  from  his  informants  ? 
The  reason  is  plain  : — they  disbelieved  the 
evidence  of  the  negroes,  who  threw  out  the 
"  insinuations."  or  "  imputations."  That 
might  have  been  nothing;  but  they  kneiv 
that  all  mankind  would  have  rejected  that 
pretended  evidence  with  horror.  They  knew 
that  the  negroes,  to  whom  their  question 
adverted,  had  told  a  tale  to  the  Board  of 
Evidence,  in  comparison  with  which  the 
story  of  Titus  Oates  was  a  model  of  proba 
bility,  candour,  and  truth.  One  of  them 
(Sandy)  said,  that  Mr.  Smith  told  him,  though 
not  a  member  of  his  congregation,  nor  even 
a  Christian,  "that  a  good  thing  was  come 
for  the  negroes,  and  that  if  they  did  not  seek 
for  it  now,  the  whites  would  trample  upon 
them,  and  upon  their  sons  and  daughters,  to 
eternity."*  Another  (Paris)  says,  "  that  all 
the  male  whites  (except  the  doctors  and 
missionaries)  were  to  be  murdered,  and  all 

*  Demerara  Papers,  No.  II.  p.  26. 


CASE  OF  MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


537 


the  females  distributed  among  the  insur 
gents  j  that  one  of  their  leaders  was  to  be  a 
king,  another  to  be  a  governor,  and  Mr. 
Smith  to  be  emperor  j*  that  on  Sunday,  the 
17th  of  August,  Mr.  Smith  administered  the 
sacrament  to  several  leading  negroes,  and  to 
Mr.  Hamilton,  the  European  overseer  of  the 
estate  Le  Ressouvenir ;  that  he  swore  the 
former  on  the  Bible  to  do  him  no  harm  when 
they  had  conquered  the  country,  and  after 
wards  blessed  their  revolt,  saying,  "Go;  as 
you  have  begun  in  Christ,  you  must  end  in 
Christ  !;;t  All  this  the  prosecutor  concealed, 
with  the  knowledge  of  the  Court.  While 
they  asked,  whether  Mr.  Austin  had  heard 
statements  made  against  Mr.  Smith  before 
the  Board  of  Evidence,  they  studiously  con 
cealed  all  those  incredible,  monstrous,  im 
possible  fictions  which  accompanied  these 
statements,  and  which  would  have  annihi 
lated  their  credit.  Whether  the  question 
was  intended  to  discredit  Mr.  Austin,  or  to 
prejudice  Mr.  Smith,  it  was,  in  either  case, 
an  atrocious  attempt  to  take  advantage  of 
the  stories  told  by  the  negroes,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  screen  them  from  scrutiny, 
contradiction,  disbelief,  and  abhorrence.  If 
these  men  could  have  been  believed,  would 
they  not  have  been  produced  on  the  trial  1 
Paris,  indeed,  the  author  of  this  horrible  fa 
brication,  charges  Bristol,  Manuel,  and  Azor, 
three  of  the  witnesses  afterwards  examined 
on  the  trial  of  Mr.  Smith,  with  having  been 
parties  to  the  dire  and  execrable  oath:  not 
one  of  them  alludes  to  such  horrors ;  all 
virtually  contradict  them.  Yet  this  Court- 
martial  sought  to  injure  Mr.  Austin,  or  to 
contribute  to  the  destruction  of  Mr.  Smith. 
by  receiving  as  evidence  a  general  state 
ment  of  what  was  said  by  those  whom  they 
could  not  believe,  whom  they  durst  not  pro 
duce,  and  who  were  contradicted  by  their 
own  principal  witnesses.  —  who,  if  their 
whole  tale  had  been  brought  into  view,  would 
have  been  driven  out  of  any  court  with  shouts 
of  execration. 

I  cannot  yet  leave  this  part  of  the  subject. 
It  deeply  affects  the  character  of  the  whole 
transaction.  It  shows  the  general  terror, 
which  was  so  powerful  as  to  stimulate  the 
slaves  to  the  invention  of  such  monstrous 
falsehoods.  It  throws  light  on  that  species 
of  skill  with  which  the  prosecutors  kept 
back  the  absolutely  incredible  witnesses,  and 
brought  forward  only  those  who  were  dis 
creet  enough  to  tell  a  more  plausible  story, 
and  on  the  effect  which  the  circulation  of 
the  fictions,  which  were  too  absurd  to  be 
avowed,  must  have  had  in  exciting  the  body 
of  the  colonists  to  the  most  relentless  ani 
mosity  against  the  unfortunate  Mr.  Smith. 
It  teaches  us  to  view  with  the  utmost  jea 
lousy  the  more  guarded  testimony  actually 
produced  against  him,  which  could  not  be 
exempt  from  the  influence  of  the  same  fears 
and  prejudices.  It  authorises  me  to  lay  a 

*  Demarara  Papers,  No.  II.  p.  30. 
t  Ibid.  p.  41. 

68 


much  more  than  ordinary  stress  on  every 
defect  of  the  evidence;  because,  in  such 
circumstances,  I  am  warranted  in  affirming 
that  whatever  was  not  proved,  could  not  have 
been  proved. 

But  in  answer  to  all  this,  we  are  asked  by 
the  Honourable  Gentleman,  "Would  Presi 
dent  Wray  have  been  a  party  to  the  admission 
of  improper  evidence  V'  Now,  Sir,  I  wish 
to  say  nothing  disrespectful  of  Mr.  Wray ; 
and  the  rather,  because  he  is  well  spoken 
of  by  those  whose  good  opinion  is  to  be  re 
spected.  We  do  not  know  that  he  may  not 
have  dissented  from  every  act  of  this  Court- 
martial.  I  should  heartily  rejoice  to  hear 
that  it  was  so :  but  I  am  aware  we  can 
never  know  whether  he  did  or  not.  The 
Honourable  Gentleman  unwarily  asks,  — 
li  Would  not  Mr.  Wray  have  publicly  pro 
tested  against  illegal  questions'?"  Does  he 
not  know,  or  has  he  forgotten,  that  every 
member  of  a  court-martial  is  bound  by  oath 
not  to  disclose  its  proceedings'?  But  really, 
Sir,  I  must  say  that  the  character  of  no  man 
can  avail  against  facts : — -  Tolle  e  causa 
nomen  Catonis."  Let  character  protect  ac- 
cuied  men,  when  there  is  any  defect  in  the 
evidence  of  their  guilt:  let  it  continue  to 
yield  to  them  that  protection  which  Mr. 
Smith,  in  his  hour  of  danger,  did  not  receive 
from  the  tenor  of  his  blameless  and  virtu 
ous  life  :  let  it  be  used  for  mercy,  not  for 
severity.  Let  it  never  be  allowed  to  aid  a 
prosecutor,  or  to  strengthen  the  case  of  an 
accuser.  Let  it  be  a  shield  to  cover  the 
accused  :  but  let  it  never  be  converted  into 
a  dagger,  by  which  he  is  to  be  stabbed  to 
the  heart.  Above  all,  let  it  not  be  used  to 
destroy  his  good  name,  after  his  life  has  been 
taken  away. 

The  question  is.  as  has  been  stated  by  the 
Honourable  Gentleman,  whether,  on  a  review 
of  the  whole  evidence,  Mr.  Smith  can  be 
pronounced  to  be  guilty  of  the  crimes  charg 
ed  against  him,  and  for  which  he  was  con 
demned  to  death.  That  is  the  fact  on  which 
issue  is  to  be  joined.  In  trying  it,  I  can  lay 
my  hand  on  my  heart,  and  solemnly  declare, 
upon  my  honour,  or  whatever  more  sacred 
sanction  there  be,  that  I  believe  him  to  have 
been  an  innocent  and  virtuous  man, — ille 
gally  tried,  unjustly  condemned  to  death, 
and  treated  in  a  manner  which  would  be 
disgraceful  to  a  civilized  government  in  the 
case  of  the  worst  criminal.  I  heartily  rejoice 
that  the  Honourable  Gentleman  has  been 
manly  enough  directly  to  dissent  from  my 
Honourable  Friend's  motion, — that  the  case 
is  to  be  fairly  brought  to  a  decision, — and 
that  no  attempt  is  to  be  made  to  evade  a  de 
termination,  by  moving  the  previous  question. 
That,  of  all  modes  of  proceeding,  I  should 
most  lament.  Some  may  think  Mr.  Smith 
guilty ;  others  will  agree  with  me  in  thinking 
him  innocent ;  but  no  one  can  doubt  that  it 
would  be  dishonourable  to  the  Grand  Jury 
of  the  Empire,  to  declare  that  they  will  not 
decide,  when  a  grave  case  is  brought  before 
them,  whether  a  British  subject  has  been 


538 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


lawfully  or  unlawfully  condemned  to  death. 
We  still  observe  that  usage  of  our  forefathers, 
according  to  which  the  House  of  Commons, 
at  the  commencement  of  every  session  of 
Parliament,  nominates  a  grand  committee  of 
justice  ;  and  if,  in  ordinary  cases,  other  modes 
of  proceeding  have  been  substituted  in  prac 
tice  for  this  ancient  institution,  we  may  at 
least  respect  it  as  a  remembrancer  of  our 
duty>  which  points  out  one  of  the  chief  ob 
jects  of  the  original  establishment.  All  eva 
sion  is  here  refusal  j  and  a  denial  of  justice 
in  Parliament,  more  especially  in  an  inquest 
for  blood,  would  be  a  fatal  and  irreparable 
breach  in  the  English  constitution. 

The  question  before  us  resolves  itself  into 
several  questions,  relating  to  every  branch 
and  stage  of  the  proceedings  against  Mr. 
Smith  :  —  Whether  the  Court-martial  had 
jurisdiction  ?  whether  the  evidence  against 
him  was  warranted  by  law,  or  sufficient  in 
fact  ?-  whether  the  sentence  was  just,  or  the 
punishment  legal?  These  questions  are  so 
extensive  and  important,  that  I  cannot  help 
wishing  they  had  not  been  still  further  en 
larged  and  embroiled  by  the  introduction  of 
matter  wholly  impertinent  to  any  of  them. 

To  what  purpose  has  the  Honourable  Gen 
tleman  so  often  told  us  that  Mr.  Smith  was 
an  "enthusiast  ?"  It  would  have  been  well 
if  he  had  given  us  some  explanation  of  the 
sense  in  which  he  uses  so  vague  a  term.  If 
he  meant  by  it  to  denote  the  prevalence  of 
those  disorderly  passions,  which,  whatever 
De  their  source  or  their  object,  always  dis- 
mrb  the  understanding,  and  often  pervert  the 
moral  sentiments,  we  have  clear  proof  that 
it  did  not  exist  in  Mr.  Smith,  so  far  as  to 
produce  the  first  of  these  unfortunate  effects : 
and  it  is  begging  the  whole  question  in  dis 
pute,  to  assert  that  it  manifested  itself  in  him 
by  the  second  and  still  more  fatal  symptom. 
There  is,  indeed,  another  temper  of  mind 
called  enthusiasm,  which,  though  rejecting 
the  authority  neither  of  reason  nor  of  virtue, 
triumphs  over  all  the  vulgar  infirmities  of 


apostolical 

fices, — which  devotes  the  ease,  the  pleasure, 
the  interest,  the  ambition,  the  life  of  the 
generous  enthusiast,  to  the  service  of  his  fel 
low-men.  If  Mr.  Smith  had  not  been  sup 
ported  by  an  ardent  zeal  for  the  cause  of  God 
and  man,  he  would  have  been  ill  qualified 
for  a  task  so  surrounded  by  disgust,  by  ca 
lumny,  by  peril,  as  that  of  attempting  to 
pour  instruction  into  the  minds  of  unhappy 
slaves.  Much  of  this  excellent  quality  was 
doubtless  necessary  for  so  long  enduring  the 
climate  and  the  government  of  Demerara. 

I  am  sorry  that  the  Honourable  Gentleman 
should  have  deigned  to  notice  any  part  of 
the  impertinent  absurdities  with  which  the 
Court  have  suffered  their  minutes  to  be  en 
cumbered,  and  which  have  no  more  to  do 
with  this  insurrection  than  with  the  Popish 
Plot.  What  is  it  to  us  that  a  misunderstand 
ing  occurred,  three  or  four  years  ago,  between 


Mr.  Smith  and  a  person  called  Captain  or 
Doctor  Macturk,  whom  he  had  the  misfor 
tune  to  have  for  a  neighbour, — a  misunder 
standing  long  antecedent  to  this  revolt,  and 
utterly  unconnected  with  any  part  of  it !  It 
was  inadmissible  evidence ;  and  if  it  had  been 
otherwise,  it  proved  nothing  but  the  character 
of  the  witness, — of  the  generous  Macturk ; 
who,  having  had  a  trifling  difference  with 
his  neighbour  five  years  ago,  called  it  to 
mind  at  the  moment  when  that  neighbour's 
life  was  in  danger.  Such  is  the  chivalrous 
magnanimity  of  Dr.  Macturk  !  If  I  were 
infected  by  classical  superstition,  I  should 
forbid  such  a  man  to  embark  in  the  same 
vessel  with  me.  I  leave  him  to  those  from 
whom,  if  we  may  trust  his  name  or  his  man 
ners,  he  may  be  descended ;  and  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  he  deserves,  as  well  as 
they,  to  be  excluded  from  the  territory  of 
Christians. 

I  very  sincerely  regret,  Sir,  that  the  Ho 
nourable  Gentleman,  by  quotations  from  Mr. 
Smith's  manuscript  journal,  should  appear  to 
give  any  countenance  or  sanction  to  the  de 
testable  violation  of  all  law,  humanity,  and 
decency,  by  which  that  manuscript  was  pro 
duced  in  evidence  against  the  writer.  I  am 
sure  that,  when  his  official  zeal  has  some 
what  subsided,  he  will  himself  regret  that 
he  appealed  to  such  a  document.  That 
which  is  unlawfully  obtained  cannot  be  fairly 
quoted.  The  production  of  a  paper  in  evi 
dence,  containing  general  reflections  and 
reasonings,  or  narratives  of  fact,  not  relating 
to  any  design,  or  composed  to  compass  any 
end,  is  precisely  the  iniquity  perpetrated  by 
Jeffreys,  in  the  case  of  Sidney.  M'hich  has 
since  been  reprobated  by  all  lawyers,  and 
which  has  been  solemnly  condemned  by  the 
legislature  itself.  I  deny,  without  fear  of 
contradiction  from  any  one  of  the  learned 
lawyers  who  differ  from  me  in  this  debate, 
that  such  a  paper  has  been  received  in  evi 
dence,  since  that  abominable  trial,  by  any 
body  of  men  calling  themselves  a  court  of 
justice.  Is  there  a  single  line  in  the  extracts 
produced  which  could  have  been  written  to 
forward  the  insurrection  ?  I  defy  any  man 
to  point  it  out  ?  Could  it  be  admissible  evi 
dence  on  any  other  ground'?  I  defy  any 
lawyer  to  maintain  it ;  for,  if  it  were  to  Be 
said  that  it  manifests  opinions  and  feelings 
favourable  to  negro  insurrection,  and  which 
rendered  probable  the  participation  of  Mr. 
Smith  in  this  revolt,  (having  first  denied  the 
fact,)  I  should  point  to  the  statute  reversing 
the  attainder  of  Sidney,  against  whom  the 
like  evidence  was  produced  precisely  under 
the  same  pretence.  Nothing  can  be  more 
decisive  on  this  point  than  the  authority  of  a 
great  judge  and  an  excellent  writer.  "Had 
the  papers  found  in  Sidney's  closets,"  says 
Mr.  Justice  Foster,  "  been  plainly  relative  to 
the  other  treasonable  practices  charged  in 
the  indictment,  they  might  have  been  read 
in  evidence  against  him,  though  not  publish 
ed.  The  papers  found  on  Lord  Preston  were 
written  in  prosecution  of  certain  determined 


CASE  OF  MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


539 


purposes  which  were  treasonable,  and  then 
(namely,  at  the  time  of  writing)  in  the  con 
templation  of  the  offenders."  But  the  iniquity 
in  the  case  of  Sidney  vanishes,  in  comparison 
with  that  of  this  trial.  Sidney's  manuscript 
was  intended  for  publication :  it  could  not  be 
said  that  its  tendency,  when  published,  was 
not  to  excite  dispositions  hostile  to  the  bad 
government  which  then  existed ;  it  was  per 
haps  in  strictness  indictable  as  a  seditious 
libel.  The  journal  of  Mr.  Smith  was  meant 
for  no  human  eyes :  it  was  seen  by  none  ] 
only  extracts  of  it  had  been  sent  to  his  em 
ployers  in  England, — as  inoffensive,  doubt 
less,  as  their  excellent  instructions  required. 
In  the  midst  of  conjugal  affection  and  confi 
dence,  it  was  withheld  even  from  his  wife. 
It  consisted  of  his  communings  with  his 
own  mind,  or  the  breathings  of  his  thoughts 
towards  his  Creator;  it  was  neither  addressed 
nor  communicated  to  any  created  being. 
That  such  a  journal  should  have  been  drag 
ged  from  its  sacred  secrecy  is  an  atrocity — I 
repeat  it — to  which  I  know  no  parallel  in  the 
annals  of  any  court  that  has  professed  to  ob 
serve  a  semblance  of  justice. 

I  dwell  on  this  circumstance,  because  the 
Honourable  Gentleman,  by  his  quotation,  has 
compelled  me  to  do  so,  and  because  the  ad 
mission  of  this  evidence  shows  the  temper 
of  the  Court.  For  I  think  the  extracts  pro 
duced  are,  in  truth,  favourable  to  Mr.  Smith  ] 
and  I  am  entitled  to  presume  that  the  whole 
journal,  withheld  as  it  is  from  us, — withheld 
from  the  Colonial  Office,  though  circulated 
through  the  Court  to  excite  West  Indian  pre 
judices  against  Mr.  Smith, — would,  in  the 
eyes  of  impartial  men,  have  been  still  more 
decisively  advantageous  to  his  cause.  How. 
indeed,  can  I  think  otherwise'?  What,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  judge-advocate,  is  the 
capital  crime  of  this  journal  ?  It  is,  that  in 
it  the  prisoner  "  avows  he  feels  an  aversion 
to  slavery ! !"  He  was  so  depraved,  as  to  be 
an  enemy  of  that  admirable  institution  !  He 
was  so  lost  to  all  sense  of  morality,  as  to  be 
dissatisfied  with  the  perpetual  and  unlimited 
subjection  of  millions  of  reasonable  creatures 
to  the  will,  and  caprice,  and  passions  of  other 
men !  This  opinion,  it  is  true,  Mr.  Smith 
shared  with  the  King,  Parliament,  and  peo 
ple  of  Great  Britain, — with  all  wise  and  good 
men,  in  all  ages  and  nations  :  still,  it  is  stated 
by  the  judge-advocate  as  if  it  were  some  im 
moral  paradox,  which  it  required  the  utmost 
effrontery  to  "  avow."  One  of  the  passages 
produced  in  evidence,  and  therefore  thought 
either  to  be  criminal  in  itself,  or  a  proof  of 
criminal  intention,  well  deserves  attention : 
— "  While  writing  this,  my  very  heart  flut 
ters  at  the  almost  incessant  cracking  of  the 
whip  !"  As  the  date  of  this  part  of  the  jour 
nal  is  the  22d  of  March  1819,  more  than  four 
years  before  the  insurrection,  it  cannot  be 
so  distorted  by  human  ingenuity  as  to  be 
brought  to  bear  on  the  specific  charges  which 
the  Court  had  to  try.  What,  therefore,  is 
the  purpose  for  which  it  is  produced  1  They 
overheard;  as  it  were,  a  man  secretly  com 


plaining  to  himself  of  the  agitation  produced 
in  his  bodily  frame  by  the  horrible  noise  of 
a  whip  constantly  resounding  on  the  torn  and 
bloody  backs  of  his  fellow-creatures.  As  ha 
does  not  dare  to  utter  them  to  any  other,  the  j 
must  have  been  unaffected,  undesigning. 
almost  involuntary  ejaculations  of  feeling 
The  discovery  of  them  might  have  recalled 
unhardened  men  from  practices  of  which 
they  had  thus  casually  perceived  the  impres 
sion  upon  an  uncorrupted  heart.  It  could 
hardly  have  been  supposed  that  the  most 
practised  negro-driver  could  have  blamed 
them  more  severely  than  by  calling  them 
effusions  of  weak  and  womanish  feelings. 
But  it  seemed  good  to  the  prosecutors  of  Mr. 
Smith  to  view  these  complaints  in  another 
light.  They  regard  "  the  fluttering  of  his 
heart  at  the  incessant  cracking  of  the  whip," 
as  an  overt  act  of  the  treason  of  "  abhorring 
slavery."  They  treat  natural  compassion, 
and  even  its  involuntary  effects  on  the  bodily 
frame,  as  an  offence.  Such  is  the  system  of 
their  society,  that  they  consider  every  man 
who  feels  pity  for  sufferings,  or  indignation 
against  cruelty,  as  their  irreconcilable  enemy. 
Nay,  they  receive  a  secret  expression  of 
those  feelings  as  evidence  against  a  man  on 
trial  for  his  life,  in  what  they  call  a  court  of 
justice.  My  Right  Honourable  Friend*  has, 
on  a  former  occasion,  happily  characterised 
the  resistance,  which  has  not  been  obscurely 
threatened,  against  all  measures  for  mitiga 
ting  the  evils  of  slavery,  as  a  "  rebellion  for 
the  whip."  In  the  present  instance  we  see 
how  sacred  that  instrument  is  held, — how 
the  right  to  use  it  is  prized  as  one  of  the 
dearest  of  privileges, — and  in  what  manner 
the  most  private  murmur  against  its  severest 
inflictions  is  brought  forward  as  a  proof,  that 
he  who  breathes  it  must  be  prepared  to 
plunge  into  violence  and  blood. 

In  the  same  spirit,  conversations  are  given 
in  evidence,  long  before  the  revolt,  wholly 
unconnected  with  it,  and  held  with  ignorant 
men,  who  might  easily  misunderstand  or 
misremember  them }  in  which  Mr.  Smith  is 
supposed  to  have  expressed  a  general  and 
speculative  opinion,  that  slavery  never  could 
be  mitigated,  and  that  it  must  die  a  violent 
death.  These  opinions  the  Honourable  Gen 
tleman  calls  "  fanatical."  Does  he  think  Dr. 
Johnson  a  fanatic,  or  a  sectary,  or  a  Metho 
dist,  or  an  enemy  of  established  authority  ? 
But  he  must  know  from  the  most  amusing 
of  books,  that  Johnson,  when  on  a  visit  to 
Oxford,  perhaps  when  enjoying  lettered  hos 
pitality  at  the  table  of  the  Master  of  Univer 
sity  College, t  proposed  as  a  toast,  "  Success 
to  the  first  revolt  of  negroes  in  the  West  In 
dies  !"  He  neither  meant  to  make  a  jest  of 
such  matters,  nor  to  express  a  deliberate 
wish  for  an  event  so  full  of  horror,  but  merely 
to  express  in  the  strongest  manner  his  honest 
hatred  of  slavery.  For  no  man  ever  more  de 
tested  actual  oppression;  though  his  Tory 

*  Mr.  Canning. — ED. 

t  Dr.  Wetherell,  father  of  the  Solicitor- General. 


540 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


prejudices  hindered  him  from  seeing  the 
value  of  those  liberal  institutions  which  alone 
secure  society  from  oppression.  This  justice 
will  be  universally  done  to  the  aged  moralist, 
who  knew  slavery  only  as  a  distant  evil, — 
whose  ears  were  never  wounded  by  the 
cracking  of  the  whip.  Yet  all  the  casual 
expressions  of  the  unfortunate  Mr.  Smith,  in 
the  midst  of  dispute,  or  when  he  was  fresh 
from  the  sight  of  suffering,  rise  up  against 
him  as  legal  proof  of  settled  purposes  and 
deliberate  designs. 

On  the  legality  of  the  trial,  Sir,  the  im 
pregnable  speech  of  my  Learned  Friend*  has 
left  me  little  if  any  thing  to  say.  The  only 
principle  on  which  the  law  of  England  tole 
rates  what  is  called  "martial  law,"  is  neces 
sity;  its  introduction  can  be  justified  only  by 
necessity ;  its  continuance  requires  precisely 
the  same  justification  of  necessity;  and  if 
it  survives  the  necessity,  in  which  alone  it 
rests,  for  a  single  minute,  it  becomes  in 
stantly  a  mere  exercise  of  lawless  violence. 
When  foreign  invasion  or  civil  war  renders 
it  impossible  for  courts  of  law  to  sit,  or  to 
enforce  the  execution  of  their  judgments,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  find  some  rude  sub 
stitute  for  them,  and  to  employ  for  that  pur 
pose  the  military,  which  is  the  only  remain 
ing  force  in  the  community.  While  the  laws 
are  silenced  by  the  noise  of  arms,  the  rulers 
of  the  armed  force  must  punish,  as  equitably 
as  they  can,  those  crimes  which  threaten 
their  own  safety  and  that  of  society ;  but  no 
longer; — every  moment  beyond  is  usurpa 
tion.  As  soon  as  the  laws  can  act,  every 
other  mode  of  punishing  supposed  crimes  is 
itself  an  enormous  crime.  If  argument  be 
not  enough  on  this  subject, — if,  indeed,  the 
mere  statement  be  not  the  evidence  of  its  own 
truth,  I  appeal  to  the  highest  and  most  vene 
rable  authority  known  to  our  lav/.  "  Martial 
law,"  says  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  "is not  a  law, 
but  something  indulged  rather  than  allowed, 
as  a  law.  The  necessity  of  government, 
order,  and  discipline  in  an  army,  is  that  only 
which  can  give  it  countenance.  l  Necessitas 
enim,  quod  cogit,  defend  it.'  Secondly,  this 
indulged  law  is  only  to  extend  to  members 
of  the  army,  or  to  those  of  the  opposite  army, 
and  never  may  be  so  much  indulged  as  to  be 
exercised  or  executed  upon  others.  Thirdly, 
the  exercise  of  martial  law  may  not  be  per 
mitted  in  time  of  peace,  when  the  king's 
courts  are"  (or  may  be)  "  open."t  The  illus 
trious  Judge  on  this  occasion  appeals  to  the 
Petition  of  Right,  which,  fifty  years  before, 
had  declared  all  proceedings  by  martial  law, 
in  time  of  peace,  to  be  illegal.  He  carries 
the  principle  back  to  the  cradle  of  English 
liberty,  and  quotes  the  famous  reversal  of 
the  attainder  of  the  Earl  of  Kent,  in  the  first 
year  of  Edward  III.,  as  decisive  of  the  prin 
ciple,  that  nothing  but  the  necessity  arising 
from  the  absolute  interruption  of  civil  judi 
cature  by  arms,  can  warrant  the  exercise  of 

*  Mr.  Brougham. — ED. 

t  History  of  the  Common  Law,  chap.  xi. 


what  is  called  martial  law.  Wherever,  and 
whenever,  they  are  so  interrupted,  and  as 
long  as  the  interruption  continues,  necessity 
justifies  it. 

No  other  doctrine  has  ever  been  maintain 
ed  in  this  country,  since  the  solemn  Parlia 
mentary  condemnation  of  the  usurpations  of 
Charles  I.,  which  he  was  himself  compelled 
to  sanction  in  the  Petition  of  Right.  In  none 
of  the  revolutions  or  rebellions  which  have 
since  occurred  has  martial  la\v  been  exer 
cised,  however  much,  in  some  of  them,  the 
necessity  might  seem  to  exist.  Even  in 
those  most  deplorable  of  all  commotions, 
which  tore  Ireland  in  pieces,  in  the  last  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century, — in  the  midst  of 
ferocious  revolt  and  cruel  punishment, — at 
the  very  moment  of  legalising  these  martial 
jurisdictions  in  1799,  the  very  Irish  statute, 
which  was  passed  for  that  purpose,  did 
homage  to  the  ancient  and  fundamental 
principles  of  the  law,  in  the  very  act  of  de 
parting  from.  them.  The  Irish  statute  39 
Geo.  III.  c.  2,  after  reciting  "  that  martial  law 
had  been  successfully  exercised  to  the  restora 
tion  of  peace,  so  far  as  to  permit  the  course  of 
the  common  law  partially  to  take  place,  but 
that  the  rebellion  continued  to  rage  in  con 
siderable  parts  of  the  kingdom,  whereby  it 
has  become  necessary  for  Parliament  to  in 
terpose,"  goes  on  to  enable  the  Lord  Lieu 
tenant  "  to  punish  rebels  by  courts-martial." 
This  statute  is  the  most  positive  declaration, 
that  where  the  common  law  can  be  exer 
cised  in  some  parts  of  the  country,  martial 
law  cannot  be  established  in  others,  though 
rebellion  actually  prevails  in  those  others, 
without  an  extraordinary  interposition  of  the 
supreme  legislative  authority  itself. 

I  have  already  quoted  from  Sir  Matthew 
Hale  his  position  respecting  the  two-fold 
operation  of  martial  law  ; — as  it  affects  the 
army  of  the  power  which  exercises  it,  and 
as  it  acts  against  the  army  of  the  enemy. 
That  great  Judge,  happily  unused  to  stand 
ing  armies,  and  reasonably  prejudiced  against 
military  jurisdiction,  does  not  pursue  his  dis 
tinction  through  all  its  consequences,  and 
assigns  a  ground  for  the  whole,  which  will 
support  only  one  of  its  parts.  "The  neces 
sity  of  order  and  discipline  in  an  army,"  isL 
according  to  him,  the  reason  why  the  laW 
tolerates  this  departure  from  its  most  valu 
able  rules;  but  this  necessity  only  justifies 
the  exercise  of  martial  law  over  the  army 
of  our  own  state.  One  part  of  it  has  since 
been  annually  taken  out  of  the  common  law, 
and  provided  for  by  the  Mutiny  Act,  which 
subjects  the  military  offences  of  soldiers 
only  to  punishment  by  military  courts,  even 
in  time  of  peace.  Hence  we  may  now  be 
said  annually  to  legalise  military  law ;  which, 
however,  differs  essentially  from  martial  law, 
in  being  confined  to  offences  against  military 
discipline,  and  in  not  extending  to  any  per 
sons  but  those  who  are  members  of  the 
army. 

Martial  law  exercised  against  enemies  or 
rebels  cannot  depend  on  the  same  principle ; 


CASE  OF  MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


541 


for  it  is  certainly  not  intended  to  enforce  or 
preserve  discipline  among  them.  It  seems 
to  me  to  be*  only  a  more  regular  and  conve 
nient  mode  of  exercising  the  right  to  kill  in 
war, — a  right  originating  in  self-defence, 
and  limited  to  those  cases  where  such  kill 
ing  is  necessary,  as  the  means  of  insuring 
that  end.  Martial  law  put  in  force  against 
rebels,  can  only  be  excused  as  a  mode  of 
more  deliberately  and  equitably  selecting 
the  persons  from  whom  quarter  ought  to  be 
withheld,  in  a  case  where  all  have  forfeited 
their  claim  to  it.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a 
sort  of  better  regulated  decimation,  founded 
upon  choice,  instead  of  chance,  in  order  to 
provide  for  the  safety  of  the  conquerors,  with 
out  the  horrors  of  undistinguished  slaughter : 
it  is  justifiable  only  where  it  is  an  act  of 
mercy.  Thus  the  matter  stands  by  the  law 
of  nations.  But  by  the  law  of  England,  it 
cannot  be  exercised  except  where  the  juris 
diction  of  courts  of  justice  is  interrupted  by 
violence.  Did  this  necessity  exist  at  Deme- 
rara  on  the  13th  of  October,  1823.  Was  it 
on  that  day  impossible  for  the  courts  of  law 
to  try  offences  ?  It  is  clear  that,  if  the  case 
be  tried  by  the  law  of  England,  and  unless 
an  affirmative  answer  can  be  given  to  these 
questions  of  fact,  the  Court-martial  had  no 
legal  power  to  try  Mr.  Smith. 

Now,  Sir,  I  must  in  the  first  place  remark, 
that  General  Murray  has  himself  expressly 
waived  the  plea  of  necessity,  and  takes  merit 
to  himself  for  having  brought  Mr.  Smith  to 
trial  before  a  court-martial,  as  the  most  pro 
bable  mode  of  securing  impartial  justice, — 
a  statement  which  would  be  clearly  an  at 
tempt  to  obtain  commendation  under  false 
pretences,  if  he  had  no  choice,  and  was 
compelled  by  absolute  necessity  to  recur  to 
martial  law: — "In  bringing  this  man  (Mr. 
Smith)  to  trial,  under  present  circumstances, 
I  have  endeavoured  to  secure  to  him  the 
advantage  of  the  most  cool  and  dispassionate 
consideration,  by  framing  a  court  entirely  of 
officers  of  the  army,  who,  having  no  interests 
in  the  country,  are  without  the  bias  of  pub 
lic  opinion,  which  is  at  present  so  violent 
against  Mr.  Smith.15*  This  paragraph  I  con 
ceive  to  be  an  admission,  and  almost  a  boast, 
that  the  trial  by  court-martial  was  a  matter 
of  choice,  arid  therefore  not  of  necessity; 
and  I  shall  at  present  say  nothing  more  on 
it,  than  earnestly  to  beseech  the  House  to 
remark  the  evidence  which  it  affords  of  the 
temper  of  the  colonists,  and  to  bear  in  mind 
the  inevitable  influence  of  that  furious  tem 
per  on  the  prosecutors  who  conducted  the 
accusation. — on  the  witnesses  who  supported 
it  by  their  testimony, — on  the  officers  of  the 
Court-martial,  who  could  have  no  other  asso 
ciates  or  friends  but  among  these  prejudiced 
and  exasperated  colonists.  With  what  sus 
picion  and  jealousy  ought  we  not  to  regard 
such  proceedings.'?  What  deductions  ought 
to  be  made  from  the  evidence  ?  How  little 

*  General  Murray  (Governor  of  Demerara)  to 
Earl  Bathurst,  21st  of  October,  1823. 


can  we  trust  the  fairness  of  the  prosecutors, 
or  the  impartiality  of  the  judges?  What 
hope  of  acquittal  could  the  most  innocent 
prisoner  entertain  ?  Such,  says  in  substance 
Governor  Murray,  was  the  rage  of  the  in 
habitants  of  Demerara  against  the  unfortu 
nate  Mr.  Smith,  that  his  only  chance  of  im 
partial  trial  required  him  to  be  deprived  of 
all  the  safeguards  which  are  the  birthright 
of  British  subjects,  and  to  be  tried  by  a  judi 
cature  which  the  laws  and  feelings  of  his 
country  alike  abhor. 

But  the  admission  of  Governor  Murray, 
though  conclusive  against  him,  is  riot  ne 
cessary  to  the  argument ;  for  my  Learned 
Friend  has  already  demonstrated  that,  in 
fact,  there  was  no  necessity  for  a  court-mar 
tial  on  the  13th  of  October.  From  the  31st 
of  August,  it  appears  by  General  Murray's 
letters,  that  no  impediment  existed  to  the  or 
dinary  course  of  law ;  "  no  negroes  were  in 
arms;  no  war  or  battle's  sound  was  heard" 
through  the  colony.  There  remained,  in 
deed,  a  few  runaways  in  the  forests  behind  ; 
but  we  know,  from  the  best  authorities,* 
that  the  forests  were  never  free  from  bodies 
of  these  wretched  and  desperate  men  in 
those  unhappy  settlements  in  Guiana, — 
where,  under  every  government,  rebellion 
has  as  uniformly  sprung  from  cruelty,  as 
pestilence  has  arisen  from  the  marshes.  Be 
fore  the  4th  of  September,  even  the  detach 
ment  which  pursued  the  deserters  into  the 
forest  had  returned  into  the  colony.  For 
six  weeks,  then,  before  the  Court-martial 
was  assembled,  and  for  twelve  weeks  before 
that  Court  pronounced  sentence  of  death  on 
Mr.  Smith,  all  hostility  had  ceased,  no  ne 
cessity  for  their  existence  can  be  pretended, 
and  every  act  which  they  did  was  an  open 
and  deliberate  defiance  of  the  law  of  Eng 
land. 

Where,  then,  are  we  to  look  for  any  colour 
of  law  in  these  proceedings'?  Do  they  de 
rive  it  from  the  Dutch  law  ?  I  have  dili 
gently  examined  the  Roman  law,  which  is 
the  foundation  of  that  system,  and  the  writ 
ings  of  those  most  eminent  jurists  who  have 
contributed  so  much  to  the  reputation  of 
Holland  : — I  can  find  in  them  no  trace  of  any 
such  principle  as  martial  law.  Military  law, 
indeed,  is  clearly  defined ;  and  provision  is 
made  for  the  punishment  by  military  judges 
of  the  purely  military  offences  of  soldiers. 
But  to  any  power  of  extending  military  juris 
diction  over  those  who  are  not  soldiers,  there 
is  not  an  allusion.  I  will  not  furnish  a  sub 
ject  for  the  pleasantries  of  my  Right  Honour 
able  Friend,  or  tempt  him  into  a  repetition 
of  his  former  innumerable  blunders,  by 
naming  the  greatest  of  these  jurists  ;t  lest  his 
date,  his  occupation,  and  his  rank  might  be 
again  mistaken ;  and  the  venerable  President 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Holland  might  be 
once  more  called  a  "  clerk  of  the  States* 


*  See  Stedman,  Bolingbroke,  &c. 
t  Bynkershoek, —  of  whose  professional  rank 
Mr.  Canning  had  professed  ignorance. — ED. 
2V 


542 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


General."  "Persecutio  militis,"  says  that 
learned  person,  "  pertinet  ad  judicem  miJita- 
rem  quando  delictum  sit  militare,  et  ad  judi 
cem  communem  quando  delictum  sit  com 
mune."  Far  from  supposing  it  to  be  pos 
sible,  that  those  who  were  not  soldiers  could 
ever  be  triable  by  military  courts  for  crimes 
not  military,  he  expressly  declares  the  law 
and  practice  of  the  United  Provinces  to  be, 
that  even  soldiers  are  amenable,  for  ordi 
nary  offences  against  society,  to  the  court  of 
Holland  and  Friesland,  of  which  he  was  long 
the  chief.  The  law  of  Holland,  therefore, 
does  not  justify  this  trial  by  martial  law. 

Nothing  remains  but  some  law  of  the 
colony  itself.  Where  is  it  ?  It  is  not  al 
leged  or  alluded  to  in  any  part  of  this  trial. 
We  have  heard  nothing  of  it  this  evening. 
So  unwilling  was  I  to  believe  that  this  Court- 
martial  would  dare  to  act  without  some  pre 
tence  of  legal  authority,  that  I  suspected  an 
authority  for  martial  law  would  be  dug  out 
of  some  dark  corner  of  a  Guiana  ordinance. 
I  knew  it  was  neither  in  the  law  of  England, 
nor  in  that  of  Holland ;  and  I  now  believe 
that  it  does  not  exist  even  in  the  law  of  De- 
merara.  The  silence  of  those  who  are  in 
terested  in  producing  it,  is  not  my  only  rea 
son  for  this  belief.  I  happen  to  have  seen 
the  instructions  of  the  States-General  to  their 
Governor  of  Demerara,  in  November,  1792, — 
probably  the  last  ever  issued  to  such  an  offi 
cer  by  that  illustrious  and  memorable  as 
sembly.  They  speak  at  large  of  councils  of 
war,  both  for  consultation  and  for  judicature. 
They  authorise  these  councils  to  try  the  mili 
tary  offences  of  soldiers ;  and  therefore,  by 
an  inference  which  is  stronger  than  silence, 
authorise  us  to  conclude  that  the  governor 
had  no  power  to  subject  those  who  were  not 
soldiers  to  their  authority. 

The  result,  then,  is,  that  the  law  of  Hol 
land  does  not  allow  what  is  called  "martial 
law  "  in  any  case ;  and  that  the  law  of  Eng 
land  does  not  allow  it  without  a  necessity, 
which  did  not  exist  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Smith. 
If,  then,  martial  law  is  not  to  be  justified  by 
the  law  of  England,  or  by  the  law  of  Holland, 
or  by  the  law  of  Demerara,  what  is  there  to 
hinder  me  from  affirming,  that  the  members 
of  this  pretended  court  had  no  more  right  to 
try  Mr.  Smith  than  any  other  fifteen  men  on 
the  face  of  the  earth, — that  their  acts  were 
nullities,  and  their  meeting  a  conspiracy, — 
that  their  sentence  was  a  direction  to  com 
mit  a  crime, — that,  if  it  had  been  .obeyed,  it 
would  not  have  been  an  execution,  but  a 
murder, — and  that  they,  and  all  other  parties 
engaged  in  it,  must  have  answered  for  it  with 
their  lives. 

I  liope,  Sir,  no  man  will,  in  this  House,  un 
dervalue  that  part  of  the  case  which  relates 
to  the  illegality  of  the  trial.  I  should  be 
sorry  to  hear  any  man  represent  it  as  an  in 
ferior  question,  whether  we  are  to  be  go 
verned  by  law  or  by  will.  Every  breach  of 
law,  under  pretence  of  attaining  what  is  cal 
led  "substantial  justice,"  is  a  step  towards 
reducing  society  under  the  authority  of  arbi 


trary  caprice  and  lawless  force.  As  in  many 
other  cases  of  evil-doing,  it  is  not  the  imme 
diate  effect,  but  the  example  (which  is  the 
larger  part  of  the  consequences  of  every  act), 
which  is  most  mischievous.  If  we  listen  to 
any  language  of  this  sort,  we  shall  do  our 
utmost  to  encourage  governors  of  colonies  to 
discover  some  specious  pretexts  of  present 
convenience  for  relieving  themselves  alto 
gether*  and  as  often  as  they  wish,  from  the 
restraints  of  law.  In  spite  of  every  legal 
check,  colonial  administrators  are  already 
daring  enough,  from  the  physical  impedi 
ments  which  render  it  nearly  impossible  to 
reduce  their  responsibility  to  practice.  If 
we  encourage  them  to  proclaim  martial  law 
without  necessity,  we  shall  take  away  all 
limitations  from  their  power  in  this  depart 
ment  ;  for  pretences  of  convenience  can  sel 
dom  be  wanting  in  a  state  of  society  which 
presents  any  temptation  to  abuse  of  power. 

But  I  am  aware,  Sir.  that  I  have  under 
taken  to  maintain  the  innocence  of  Mr.  Smith; 
as  well  as  to  show  the  unlawfulness  and  nulli 
ty  of  the  proceedings  against  him.  I  am 
relieved  from  the  necessity  of  entering  at 
large  into  the  facts  of  his  conduct,  by  the  ad 
mirable  and  irresistible  speech  of  my  Learned 
Friend,  who  has  already  demonstrated  the 
virtue  and  innocence  of  this  unfortunate 
Gentleman,  who  died  the  martyr  of  his  zeal 
for  the  diffusion  of  religion,  humanity,  and 
civilization,  among  the  slaves  of  Demerara. 
The  Honourable  Gentleman  charges  him 
with  a  want  of  discretion.  Perhaps  it  may 
be  so.  That  useful  quality,  which  Swift 
somewhere  calls  "an  alderman-like  virtue," 
is  deservedly  much  in  esteem  among  those 
who  are  "wise  in  their  generation,"  and  to 
whom  the  prosperity  of  mis  world  belongs ; 
but  it  is  rarely  the  attribute  of  heroes  and  of 
martyrs, — of  those  who  voluntarily  suffer  for 
faith  or  freedom, — who  perish  on  the  scaffold 
in  attestation  of  their  principles ; — it  does  not 
animate  men  to  encounter  that  honourable 
death  which  the  colonists  of  Demerara  were 
so  eager  to  bestow  on  Mr.  Smith. 

On  the  question  of  actual  innocence,  the 
Honourable  Gentleman  has  either  bewildered 
himself,  or  found  it  necessary  to  attempt  to 
bewilder  his  audience,  by  involving  the  casje 
in  a  labyrinth  of  words,  from  which  I  shall 
be  able  to  extricate  it  by  a  very  few  anfy 
short  remarks.  The  question  is,  not  whether 
Mr.  Smith  was  wanting  in  the  highest  vigi 
lance  and  foresight,  but  whether  he  was 
guilty  of  certain  crimes  laid  to  his  charge  ? 
The  first  charge  is,  that  he  promoted  discon 
tent  and  dissatisfaction  among  the  slaves, 
"intending  thereby  to  excite  revolt."  The 
Court-martial  found  him  guilty  of  the  fact, 
but  not  of  the  intention ;  thereby,  in  com 
mon  sense  and  justice,  acquitting  him.  The 
second  charge  is,  that,  on  the  17th  of  August, 
he  consulted  with  Quamina  concerning  the 
intended  rebellion;  and,  on  the  19th  and 
20th,  during  its  progress,  he  aided  and  as 
sisted  it  by  consulting  and  corresponding 
with  Quamina,  an  insurgent.  The  Court- 


CASE  OF  MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


543 


martial  found  him  guilty  of  the  acts  charged 
on  the  17th  and  20th,  but  acquitted  him  of 
that  charged  on  the  19th.  But  this  charge 
is  abandoned  by  the  Honourable  Gentleman, 
and,  as  far  as  I  can  learn,  will  not  be  sup 
ported  by  any  one  likely  to  take  a  part  in 
this  debate.  On  the  fourth  charge,  which, 
in  substance,  is,  that  Mr.  Smith  olid  not  en 
deavour  to  make  Quamina  prisoner  on  the 
the  20th  of  August, — the  Court-martial  have 
found  him  guilty.  But  I  will  not  waste  the 
time  of  the  House,  by  throwing  away  a  single 
word  upon  an  accusation  which  I  am  per 
suaded  no  man  here  will  so  insult  his  own 
reputation  as  to  vindicate. 

The  third  charge,  therefore,  is  the  only  one 
which  requires  a  moment's  discussion.  It 
imputes  to  Mr.  Smith,  that  he  previously 
knew  of  the  intended  revolt,  and  did  not 
communicate  his  knowledge  to  the  proper 
authorities.  It  depends  entirely  on  the  same 
evidence  which  was  produced  in  support  of 
the  second.  It  is  an  offence  analogous  to 
what,  in  our  law,  is  denominated  "mis 
prision"  of  treason  j  and  it  bears  the  same  re 
lation  to  an  intended  revolt  of  slaves  against 
their  owners,  which  misprision  in  England 
bears  to  high  treason.  To  support  this  charge, 
there  should  be  sufficient  evidence  of  such 
'a  concealment  as  would  have  amounted 
to  misprision,  if  a  revolt  of  slaves  against 
their  private  masters  had  been  high  treason. 
Now,  it  had  been  positively  laid  down  by 
all  the  judges  of  England,  that  "one  who  is 
told  only,  in  general,  that  there  will  be  a 
rising,  without  persons  or  particulars,  is  not 
bound  to  disclose. ';*  Concealment  of  the 
avowal  of  an  intention  is  riot  misprision,  be 
cause  such  an  avowal  is  not  an  overt  act  of 
high  treason.  Misprision  of  treason  is  a  con 
cealment  of  an  overt  act  of  treason.  A  con 
sultation  about  the  means  of  revolt  is  un 
doubtedly  an  overt  act,  because  it  is  one  of 
the  ordinary  and  necessary  means  of  accom 
plishing  the  object :  but  it  is  perfectly  other 
wise  with  a  conversation,  even  though  in  the 
course  of  it  improper  declarations  of  a  gene 
ral  nature  should  be  made.  I  need  not  quote 
Hale  or  Foster  in  support  of  positions  which 
I  believe  will  not  be  controverted.  Content 
ing  myself  with  having  laid  them  down,  I 
proceed  to  apply  them  to  the  evidence  on 
this  charge.  • 

I  think  myself  entitled  to  lay  aside — and, 
indeed,  in  that  I  only  follow  the  example  of 
the  Honourable  Gentleman — the  testimony 
of  the  coachman  and  the  groom,  which,  if 
understood  in  one  sense  is  incredible,  and  in 
the  other  is  insignificant.  It  evidently 
amounts  to  no  more  than  a  remark  by  Mr. 
Smith,  after  the  insurrection  broke  out,  that 
he  had  long  foreseen  danger.  The  conceal 
ment  of  such  a  general  misapprehension,  if 
he  had  concealed  it.  was  no  crime ;  for  it 
would  be  indeed  most  inconvenient  to  magis 
trates  and  rulers,  and  most  destructive  of  the 
quiet  of  society,  if  men  were  bound  to  com 
municate  to  the  public  authorities  every 


*  Kelynge,  p.  22. 


alarm  that  might  seize  the  minds  of  any  of 
them. 

But  he  did  not  conceal  that  general  appre 
hension  :  on  the  contrary,  he  did  much  more 
than  strict  legal  duty  required.  Divide  the 
facts  into  two  parts,  those  which  preceded 
Sunday  the  17th  of  August,  and  those  which 
occurred  then  and  afterwards.  I  fix  on  this 
day,  because  it  will  not  be  said,  by  any  one 
whose  arguments  I  should  be  at  the  trouble 
of  answering,  that  there  is  any  evidence  of 
the  existence  of  a  specific  plan  of  revolt  pre 
vious  to  the  17th  of  August.  What  did  riot 
xist  could  neither  be  concealed  nor  dis 
closed.  But  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Smith  re 
specting  the  general  apprehensions  which  he 
entertained  before  that  day  is  evidence  of 
_reat  importance  as  to  what  would  have 
been  his  probable  conduct,  if  any  specific 
plan  had  afterwards  been  communicated  to 
trim.  If  he  made  every  effort  to  disclose  a 
general  apprehension,  it  is  not  likely  that  he 
should  have  deliberately  concealed  a  specific 
plan.  It  is  in  that  light  that  I  desire  the  at- 
;ention  of  the  House  to  it. 

It  is  quite  clear  that  considerable  agitation 
lad  prevailed  among  the  negroes  from  the 
arrival  of  Lord  Bathurst's  Dispatch  in  the 
beginning  of  July.  They  had  heard  from 
seamen  arrived  from  England,  and  by  ser 
vants  in  the  Governor's  house,  and  by  the 
angry  conversations  of  their  masters,  that 
some  projects  for  improving  their  condition 
had  been  favourably  received  in  this  country. 
They  naturally  entertained  sanguine  and  ex 
aggerated  hopes  of  the  extent  of  the  refor 
mation.  The  delay  in  making  the  Instruc 
tions  known  naturally  led  the  slaves  to 
greater  exaggerations  of  the  plan,  and  gra 
dually  filled  their  minds  with  angry  suspi- 
ions  that  it  was  concealed  on  account  of  the 
extensive  benefits  it  was  to  confer.  Liberty 
seemed  to  be  offered  from  England,  and 
pushed  aside  by  their  masters  and  rulers  at 
Demerara.  This  irritation  could  not  escape 
the  observation  of  Mr.  Smith,  and  instead  of 
concealing  it,  he  early  imparted  it  to  a  neigh 
bouring  manager  and  attorney.  How  comes 
the  Honourable  Gentleman  to  have  entirely 
omitted  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Stewart  ?*  It 
appears  from  his  testimony,  that  Mr.  Smith, 
several  weeks  before  the  revolt,  communi 
cated  to  him,  (Stewart)  the  manager  of  plan 
tation  Success,  that  alarming  rumours  about 
the  Instructions  prevailed  among  the  negroes. 
It  appears  that  Mr.  Smith  wrent  publicly  \vith 
his  friend  Mr.  Elliott,  another  missionary,  to 
Mr.  Stewart,  to  repeat  the  information  at  a 
subsequent  period ;  and  that,  in  consequence, 
Mr.  Stewart,  with  Mr.  Cort,'  the  attorney  of 
plantation  Success,  went  on  the  8th  of  August 
to  Mr.  Smith,  who  confirmed  his  previous 
statements. — said  that  Quamina  and  other 
negroes  had  asked  whether  their  freedom 
had  come  out, — and  mentioned  that  he  had 
some  thoughts  of  disabusing  them,  by  telling 
them  from  the  pulpit  that  their  expectations 
of  freedom  were  erroneous.  Mr.  Cort  dis- 

*  Trial,  &c.,  p.  47. 


544 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


suaded  him  from  taking  so  much  upon  him 
self.  Is  it  not  evident  from  this  testimony, 
that  Mr.  Smith  had  the  reverse  of  an  inten 
tion  to  conceal  the  dangerous  agitation  on  or 
before  the  8th  of  August  ?  It  is  certain  that 
all  evidence  of  his  privity  or  participation 
before  that  day  must  be  false.  He  then  told 
all  that  he  knew,  and  offered  to  do  much 
more  than  he  was  bound  to  do.  His  dis 
closures  were  of  a  nature  to  defeat  a  project 
of  revolt,  or  to  prevent  it  from  being  formed  : 
— he  enabled  Cort  or  Stewart  to  put  the  Go 
vernment  on  their  guard.  He  told  no  parti 
culars,  because  he  knew  none ;  but  he  put 
it  into  the  power  of  others  to  discover  them 
if  they  existed.  He  made  these  discoveries 
on  the  8th  of  August:  what  could  have 
changed  his  previous  system  of  conduct  in 
the  remaining  ten  days'?  Nay,  more,  he  put  it 
out  of  his  own  power  to  change  his  conduct 
effectually:  it  no  longer  depended  on  himself 
whether  what  he  knew  should  not  be  so  per 
fectly  made  known  to  the  Government  as  to 
render  all  subsequent  concealment  ineffec 
tual.  He  could  not  even  know  on  the  17th 
whether  his  conversations  with  Stewart  and 
Cort  had  not  been  communicated'  to  the  Go 
vernor,  and  whether  measures  had  not  been 
taken,  which  had  either  ascertained  that  the 
agitation  no  longer  generally  prevailed,  or 
had  led  to  such  precautions  as  could  not  fail 
to  end  in  the  destruction  of  those  who  should 
deliberately  and  criminally  conceal  the  de 
signs  of  the  insurgents.  The  crime  of  mis- 
prision  consists  in  a  design  to  deceive, — 
which,  after  such  a  disclosure,  it  was  im 
possible  to  harbour.  If  this  had  related  to 
the  communication  of  a  formed  plan,  it  might 
be  said,  that  the  disclosure  to  private  per 
sons  was  not  sufficient,  and  that  he  was 
bound  to  make  it  to  the  higher  authorities. 
I  believe  Mr.  Cort  was  a  member  of  the 
Court  of  Policy.  [Here  Mr.  Gladstone  inti 
mated  by  a  shake  of  his  head  that  Mr.  Cort 
was  not.]  I  yield  to  the  local  knowledge  of 
my  Honourable  Friend — if  I  may  venture  to 
call  him  so  in  our  present  belligerent  rela 
tions.  If  Mr.  Cort  be  not  a  member  of  the 
Court  of  Policy,  he  must  have  had  access  to 
its  members: — he  stated  to  Mr.  Smith  the 
reason  of  their  delay  to  promulgate  the  In 
structions;  and  in  a  communication  which 
related  merely  to  general  agitation,  Mr. 
Smith  could  not  have  chosen  two  persons 
more  likely  to  be  on  the  alert  about  a  revolt 
of  slaves  than  the  manager  and  attorney  of 
a  neighbouring  plantation.  Stewart  and  Cort 
were  also  officers  of  militia. 

A  very  extraordinary  part  of  this  case  ap 
pears  in  the  Demerara  Papers  (No.  II.)  to 
which  I  have  already  adverted.  Hamilton, 
the  manager  of  plantation  Ressouvenir,  had, 
it  seems,  a  negro  mistress,  from  whom  few 
of  his  secrets  were  hid.  This  lady  had  the 
singularly  inappropriate  name  of  Susannah. 
I  am  now  told  that  she  had  been  the  wife  of 
Jack,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  revolt — I  have 
no  wish  to  penetrate  into  his  domestic  mis 
fortunes; — at  all  events,  Jack  kept  up  a  con 


stant  and  confidential  intercourse  with  his 
former  friend,  even  in  the  elevated  station 
which  she  had  attained.  She  told  him  (if 
we  may  believe  both  him  and  her)  of  all 
Hamilton's  conversations.  By  the  account 
of  Paris,  it  seems  that  Hamilton  had  instruct 
ed  them  to  destroy  the  bridges.  Susannah 
said  that  he  entreated  them  to  delay  the  re 
volt  for  two  weeks,  till  he  could  remove  his 
things.  They  told  Hamilton  not  only  of  the 
intention  to  rise  three  weeks  before,  but  of 
the  particular  time.  On  Monday  morning 
Hamilton  told  her,  that  it  was  useless  for 
him  to  manumit -her  and  her  children,  as 
she  wished,  for  that  all  would  soon  be  free ; 
and  that  the  Governor  kept  back  the  Instruc 
tions  because  he  was  himself  a  slave-owner. 
Paris  and  Jack  agree  in  laying  to  Hamilton's 
charge  the  deepest  participation  in  their 
criminal  designs.  If  this  evidence  was  be 
lieved,  why  was  not  Hamilton  brought  to 
trial  rather  than  Smith?  If  it  was  disbe 
lieved,  as  the  far  greater  part  of  it  must 
have  been,  why  was  it  concealed  from  Smith 
that  such  wicked  falsehoods  had  been  con 
trived  against  another  man, — a  circumstance 
which  so  deeply  affects  the  credit  of  all  the 
negro  accomplices,  who  swore  to  save  their 
own  lives.  If,  as  I  am  inclined  to  believe, 
some  communications  were  made  through 
Susannah,  how  hard  was  the  fate  of  Mr. 
Smith,  who  suffers  for  not  promulgating 
some  general  notions  of  danger,  which,  from 
this  instance,  must  have  entered  through 
many  channels  into  the  minds  of  the  greater 
number  of  whites.  But,  up  to  the  17th  of 
August,  it  appears  that  Mr.  Smith  did  not 
content  himself  with  bare  disclosure,  but 
proffered  his  services  to  allay  discontent, 
and  showed  more  solicitude  than  any  other 
person  known  to  us,  to  preserve  the  peace 
of  the  community. 

The  question  now  presents  itself,  which  I 
allow  constitutes  the  vital  part  of  this  case, 
— Whether  any  communication  was  made  to 
Mr.  Smith  on  the  evening  of  Sunday  the 
17th,  of  which  the  concealment  from  his 
superiors  was  equivalent  to  what  we  call 
misprision  of  treason?  No  man  can  consci 
entiously  vote  against  the  motion  who  does 
not  consider  the  affirmative  as  proved.  I  do 
not  say  that  this  would  be  of  itself  sufficierit 
to  negative  the  motion;  I  only  say,  that  it  is 
indispensably  necessary.  There  would  still 
remain  behind  the  illegality  of  the  jurisdic 
tion,  as  well  as  the  injustice  of  the  punish 
ment.  And  on  this  latter  most  important 
part  of  the  case  I  must  here  remark,  that  it 
would  not  be  sufficient  to  tell  us,  that  the 
JRoman  and  Dutch  law  ranked  misprision  as  a 
species  of  treason,  and  made  it  punishable 
by  death.  It  must  be  shown,  not  only  that 
the  Court  were  by  this  law  entitled  to  con 
demn  Mr.  Smith  to  death,  but  that  they  were 
also  bound  to  pronounce  such  a  sentence. 
For  if  they  had  any  discretion,  it  will  not  be 
said  that  an  English  court-martial  ought  not 
to  regulate  the  exercise  of  it  by  the  more 
humane  and  reasonable  principles  of  their 


CASE  OF  MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


545 


own  law,  which  does  not  treat  misprision  as 
a  capital  offence. 

.  .  .  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  the  Honour 
able  Agent  for  Demerara*  has  quitted  his 
usual  place,  and  has  taken  a  very  important 
position.  I  feel  no  ill-will  j  but  I  dread  the 
sight  of  him  when  pouring  poison  into  the 
ears  of  the  powerful.  He  is  but  too  formid 
able  in  his  ordinary  station,  at  the  head  of 
those  troops  whom  his  magical  wand  brings 
into  battle  in  such  numbers  as  no  eloquence 
can  match,  and  no  influence  but  his  own  can 
command 

Let  us  now  consider  the  evidence  of  what 
passed  on  the  17th  of  August.  And  here, 
once  more,  let  me  conjure  the  House  to  con 
sider  the  condition  of  the  witnesses  who  gave 
that  evidence.  They  were  accomplices  in 
the  revolt,  who  had  no  chance  of  life  but 
what  acceptable  testimony  might  afford. — 
They  knew  the  fierce,  furious  hatred,  which 
the  ruling  party  had  vowed  against  Mr.  Smith. 
They  were  surrounded  by  the  skeletons  of 
their  brethren  :  —  they  could  perhaps  hear 
the  lash  resounding  on  the  bloody  backs  of 
others,  who  were  condemned  to  suffer  a 
thousand  lashes,  and  to  work  for  life  in  irons 
under  the  burning  sun  of  Guiana.  They 
lived  in  a  colony  where  such  unexampled 
barbarities  were  inflicted  as  a  mitigated 
punishment,  and  held  out  as  acts  of  mercy. 
Such  were  the  dreadful  terrors  which  acted 
on  their  minds,  and  under  the  mental  torture 
of  which  every  syllable  of  their  testimony 
was  uttered.  There  was  still  another  deduc 
tion  to  be  made  from  their  evidence  : — they 
rke  to  no  palpable  facts :  they  gave  evi- 
ice  only  of  conversation.  "Words,"  says 
Mr.  Justice  Foster,  "  are  transient  and  fleet 
ing  as  the  wind  ;  frequently  the  effects  of  a 
sudden  transport  easily  misunderstood,  and 
often  misreported."  If  he  spoke  thus  of 
words  used  in  the  presence  of  witnesses  in 
telligent,  enlightened,  and  accustomed  to  ap 
preciate  the  force  and  distinctions  of  terms, 
what  would  he  have  said  of  the  evidence  of 
negro  slaves,  accomplices  in  the  crime,  trem 
bling  for  their  lives,  reporting  conversations 
of  which  the  whole  effect  might  depend  on 
the  shades  and  gradations  of  words  in  a  lan 
guage  very  grossly  known  to  them, — of  Eng 
lish  words,  uttered  in  a  few  hurried  moments, 
and  in  the  presence  of  no  other  witnesses 
from  whom  they  could  dread  an  exposure  of 
their  falsehood  ?  It  may  be  safely  affirmed, 
that  it  is  difficult  for  imagination  to  conceive 
admissible  evidence  of  lower  credit,  and 
more  near  the  verge  of  utter  rejection. 

But  what,  after  all,  is  the  sum  of  the  evi 
dence  ?  It  is,  that  the  negroes  who  followed 
Mr.  Smith  from  church  on  Sunday  the  17th, 
spoke  to  him  of  some  design  which  they  en 
tertained  for  the.  next  day.  It  is  not  pre 
tended  that  time,  or  place,  or  persons,  were 
mentioned:  —  the  contrary  is  sworn.  Mr. 


*  Mr.  William  Holmes,  who  was  also  the  Trea 
sury  "  whipper-in,"  was  for  the  moment  seated 
next,  and  whispering  to,  Mr.  Canning.— ED. 
69 


Smith,  who  was  accustomed  for  six  weeks 
to  their  murmurs,  and  had  before  been  suc 
cessful  in  dissuading  them  from  violence, 
contents  himself  with  repeating  the  same 
dissuasives, — believes  he  has  again  succeed 
ed  in  persuading  them  to  remain  quiet,— and 
abstains  for  twenty-four  hours  from  any  new 
communication  of  designs  altogether  vague 
and  undigested,  which  he  hoped  would  eva 
porate,  as  others  of  the  same  kind  had  done, 
without  any  serious  effects.  The  very  utmost 
that  he  seems  to  have  apprehended  was,  a 
plan  for  obliging,  or  "  driving,"  as  they  called 
it,  their  managers  to  join  in  an  application  to 
the  Governor  on  the  subject  of  the  new  law, 
— a  kind  of  proceeding  which  had  more  than 
once  occurred,  both  under  the  Dutch  and 
English  governments.  It  appears  from  the 
witnesses  for  the  prosecution,  that  they  had 
more  than  once  gone  to  Mr.  Smith  before  on 
the  same  subject,  and  that  his  answer  was 
always  the  same  :  and  that  some  of  the  more 
exasperated  negroes  were  so  dissatisfied  with 
his  exhortations  to  submission,  that  they 
cried  out,  "Mr.  Smith  was  making  them 
fools, — that  he  would  not  deny  his  own  colour 
for  the  sake  of  black  people."  Quamina 
appears  to  have  shown  at  all  times  a  more 
than  ordinary  deference  towards  his  pastor. 
He  renewed  these  conversations  on  the  even 
ing  of  Sunday  the  17th,  and  told  Mr.  Smith, 
who  again  exhorted  them  to  patience,  that 
two  of  the  more  violent  negroes.  Jack  arid 
Joseph,  spoke  of  taking  their  liberty  by  force. 
I  desire  it  to  be  particularly  observed,  that 
this  intention,  or  even  violent  language,  ap 
pears  to  have  been  attributed  only  to  two, 
and  that  in  such  a  manner  as  naturally  to 
exclude  the  rest.  Mr.  Smith  again  repeated 
the  advice  which  had  hitherto  proved  effica 
cious.  "  He  told  them  to  wait,  and  not  to  be 
so  foolish.  How  do  you  mean  that  they 
should  take  it  by  force  ?  You  cannot  do  any 
thing  with  the  white  people,  because  the 
soldiers  will  be  more  strong  than  you  ;  there 
fore  you  had  better  wait.  You  "had  better 
go  and  tell  the  people,  and  Christians  parti 
cularly,  that  they  had  better  have  nothing  to 
do  with  it."  When  Mr.  Smith  spoke  of  the 
resistance  of  the  soldiers,  Quamina,  with  an 
evident  view  to  persuade  Mr.  Smith  that  no 
thing  was  intended  which  would  induce  the 
military  to  proceed  to  the  last  extremity, 
observed,  that  they  would  drive  the  mana 
gers  to  town  ;  which,  by  means  of  the  ex 
pedient  of  a  general  "strike"  or  refusal  to 
work,  appears  to  have  been  the  project  spoken 
of  by  most  of  the  slaves.  To  this  observation 
Mr.  Smith  justly  answered,  that  even  if  they 
did  "drive"  the  managers  to  town,  they 
"  would  not  be  able  to  go  against  the  sol 
diers,"  who  would  very  properly  resist  such 
tumultuary  and  dangerous  movements.  Be 
it  again  observed,  that  Bristol,  the  chief  wit 
ness  for  the  prosecution,  clearly  distinguishes 
this  plan  from  that  of  Jack  and  Joseph,  "  who 
intended  to  fight  with  the  white  people."  I 
do  not  undertake  to  determine  whether  the 
more  desperate  measure  was  at  that  time 
2v2 


546 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


confined  to  these  two  men :  it  is  sufficient 
for  me  that  such  was  the  representation  made 
to  Mr.  Smith.  Whoever  fairly  compares  the 
evidence  of  Bristol  with  that  of  Seaton  will, 
I  think,  find  the  general  result  to  be  such  as 
I  have  now  stated.  It  is  true,  that  there  are 
contradictions  between  them,  which,  in  the 
case  of  witnesses  of  another  caste,  might  be 
considered  as  altogether  subversive  of  their 
credit.  But  I  make  allowance  for  their  fears, 
— for  their  confusion. — for  their  habitual  in 
accuracy,  —  for  their  ignorance  of  the  lan 
guage, — for  their  own  incorrectness,  if  they 
gave  evidence  in  English, — for  that  of  the 
interpreters,  if  they  employed  any  other  lan 
guage.  In  return,  I  expect  that  no  fair  op 
ponent  will  rely  on  minute  circumstances, — 
that  he  will  also  allow  the  benefit  of  all 
chances  of  inaccuracy  to  the  accused, — and 
that  he  will  not  rely  on  the  manner,  where 
a  single  word,  mistaken  or  misremembered. 
might  make  the  whole  difference  between 
the  most  earnest  and  the  faintest  dissuasive. 

I  do  not  know  what  other  topics  Mr.  Smith 
could  have  used.  He  appeals  to  their  pru 
dence  :  "  the  soldiers,"  says  he,  "  will  over 
come  your  vain  revolt."  He  appeals  to  their 
sense  of  religion  : — "  as  Christians  you  ought 
not  to  use  violence."  What  argument  re 
mained,  if  both  these  failed  ?  What  part  of 
human  nature  could  he  have  addressed, 
where  neither  danger  could  deter,  nor  duty 
restrain  ?  He  spoke  to  their  conscience  and 
to  their  fears : — surely  admonition  could  go 
no  further.  There  is  not  the  least  appear 
ance  that  these  topics  were  not  urged  with 
as  perfect  good  faith,  as  they  must  have  been 
in  those  former  instances  where  he  demon 
strated  his  sincerity  by  the  communications 
which  he  made  to  Stewart  and  Cort.  His 
temper  of  mind  on  this  subject  continued, 
then,  to  be  the  same  on  the  evening  of  the 
17th  that  it  had  been  before.  And,  if  so, 
how  absolutely  incredible  it  is,  that  he  should, 
on  that  night,  and  on  the  succeeding  morn 
ing,  advisedly,  coolly,  and  malignantly,  form 
the  design  of  hiding  a  treasonable  plot  con 
fidentially  imparted  to  him  by  the  conspira 
tors,  in  order  to  lull  the  vigilance  of  the 
Government,  and  commit  himself  and  his 
countrymen  to  the  mercy  of  exasperated  and 
triumphant  slaves  ! 

I  have  already  stated  the  reasons  which 
might  have  induced  him  to  believe  that  he 
had  once  more  succeeded  in  dissuading  the 
negroes  from  violence.  Was  he  inexcusable 
in  overrating  his  own  ascendant, — in  over 
estimating  the  docility  of  his  converts, — in 
relying  more  on  the  efficacy  of  his  religious 
instructions  than  men  of  more  experience 
and  colder  temper  would  deem  reasonable  ? 
I  entreat  the  House  to  consider  whether  this 
self-deception  be  improbable ;  for  if  he  be 
lieved  that  he  had  been  successful,  and  that 
the  plan  of  tumult  or  revolt  was  abandoned, 
would  it  not  have  been  the  basest  and  most 
atrocious  treachery  to  have  given  such  in 
formation  as  might  have  exposed  the  de 
fenceless  slaves  to  punishments  of  unparal 


leled  cruelty,  for  offences  which  they  had 
meditated,  but  from  which  he  believed  that 
he  had  reclaimed  them  ?  Let  me  for  a  mo 
ment  again  remind  the  House  of  the  facts 
which  give  such  weight  to  this  considera 
tion.  He  lived  in  a  colony  where,  for  an  in 
surrection  in  which  no  white  man  was  wan 
tonly  or  deliberately  put  to  death,  and  no 
property  was  intentionally  destroyed  or  even 
damaged,  I  know  not  how  many  negroes 
perished  on  the  gibbet,  and  others, — under 
the  insolent,  atrocious,  detestable  pretext  of 
mercy! — suffered  a  thousand  lashes,  and 
were  doomed  to  hard  labour  in  irons  for  life, 
under  the  burning  sun,  and  among  the  pes 
tilential  marshes  of  Guiana1?  These  dread 
ful  cruelties,  miscalled  punishments,  did  in 
deed  occur  after  the  17th  of  August.  But 
he,  whose  "heart  had  fluttered  from  the  in 
cessant  cracking  of  the  whip,"  must  have 
strongly  felt  the  horrors  to  which  he  was  ex 
posing  his  unhappy  flock  by  a  hasty  or  need 
less  disclosure  of  projects  excited  by  the 
impolitic  delay  of  their  rulers.  Every  good 
man  must  have  wished  to  find  the  informa- 
tion  unnecessary.  Would  not  Mr.  Smith 
have  been  the  most  unworthy  of  pastors,  if 
he  had  not  desired  that  such  a  cup  might 
pass  from  him?  And  if  he  felt  these  be 
nevolent  desires, — if  he  recoiled  with  horror 
from  putting  these  poor  men  into  the  hands 
of  what  in  Demerara  is  called  justice,  there 
was  nothing  in  the  circumstances  which 
might  not  have  seemed  to  him  to  accord  with 
his  wishes.  Even  without  the  influence  of 
warm  feeling,  I  do  not  think  that  it  would 
have  been  unreasonable  for  any  man  to 
believe  that  the  negroes  had  fully  agreed  to 
wait.  Nay,  I  am  convinced  that  with  Qua- 
mina  Mr.  Smith  was  successful.  Quamina, 
I  believe,  used  his  influence  to  prevent  the 
revolt  j  and  it  was  not  till  after  he  was  ap 
prehended  on  Monday,  on  unjust  suspicions, 
and  was  rescued,  that  he  took  refuge  among 
the  revolters,  and  was  at  last  shot  by  the 
soldiery  when  he  was  a  runaway  in  the 
forest, — a  fact  which  was  accepted  by  the 
Court-martial  as  the  sufficient,  though  sole, 
evidence  of  his  being  a  ringleader  in  the 
rebellion. 

The  whole  period  during  which  it  is  nje- 
cessary  to  account  for  Mr.  Smith's  not  corh- 
municating  to  the  Government  an  immature 
project,  of  which  he  knew  no  particulars, 
and  which  he  might  well  believe  to  be  aban 
doned,  is  a  few  hours  in  the  morning  of  Mon 
day  ;  for  it  is  proved  by  the  evidence  of 
Hamilton,  that  he  was  informed  of  the  in 
tended  revolt  by  a  Captain  Simson,  at  one 
o'clock  of  that  day,  in  George-Town,  the 
seat  of  government,  at  some  miles  distant 
from  the  scene  of  action.  It  was  then  so 
notorious,  that  Hamilton  never  dreamt  of 
troubling  the  Governor  with  such  needless 
intelligence  j  yet  this  was  only  four  or  five 
hours  later  than  the  time  when  Mr.  Smith 
was  held  to  be  bound,  under  pain  of  death, 
to  make  such  a  communication !  The  Go 
vernor  himself,  in  his  dispatches,  said  that 


CASE  OF    MISSIONARY  SMITH. 


547 


he  had  received  the  information,  but  did  not 
believe  it.*  This  disbelief,  however,  could 
not  have  been  of  long  duration:  for  active 
measures  were  taken,  and  Mr.  Stewart  ap 
prehended  Quamina  and  his  son  Jack  a  little 
after  three  o'clock  on  Monday ;  which,  con 
sidering  the  distance,  necessarily  implies 
that  some  general  order  of  that  nature  had 
been  issued  by  the  Government  at  George- 
Town  not  long  after  noon  on  that  day.t  As 
all  these  proceedings  occurred  before  Mr. 
Smith  received  the  note  from  Jack  of  Doch- 
four  about  half  an  hour  before  the  revolt,  I 
lay  that  fact  out  of  the  case,  as  wholly  im 
material.  The  interview  of  Mr.  Smith  with 
Quamina,  on  the  19th  of  August,  is  nega 
tived  by  the  finding  of  the  Court-martial : — 
that  on  the  20th  will  be  relied  on  by  no  man 
in  this  House,  because  there  is  not  the  slight 
est  proof,  nor,  indeed,  probability,  that  the 
conversation  at  that  interview  was  not  per 
fectly  innocent.  Nothing,  then,  called  for 
explanation  but  the  conversation  of  Sunday 
evening,  and  the  silence  of  Monday  morning, 
which  I  think  I  have  satisfactorily  explained, 
as  fully  as  my  present  strength  will  allow, 
and  much  more  so  than  the  speech  of  my 
Learned  Friend  left  it  necessary  to  do. 

There  is  one  other  circumstance  which 
occurred  on  Sunday,  and  which  I  cannot  pass 
over  in  silence : — it  is  the  cruel  perversion 
of  the  beautiful  text  from  the  Gospel  on 
which  Mr.  Smith  preached  his  last  sermon. 
That  circumstance  alone  evinces  the  incura 
ble  prejudice  against  this  unfortunate  man, 
which  so  far  blinded  his  prosecutors,  that 
they  actually  represent  him  as  choosing  that 
most  affecting  lamentation  over  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem,  in  order  to  excite  the  slaves  to 
accomplish  the  destruction  of  Demerara.  The 
lamentation  of  one  wrho  loved  a  country  was 
by  them  thought  to  be  selected  to  stimulate 
those  who  were  to  destroy  a  country ; — as  if 
tragical  reprehensions  of  the  horrors  of  an 
assault  were  likely  to  be  exhibited  in  the 
camp  of  the  assailants  the  night  before  they 
were  to  storm  a  city.  It  is  wonderful  that 
these  prosecutors  should  not  have  perceived 
that  such  a  choice  of  a  text  would  have  been 
very  natural  for  Mr.  Smith,  only  on  the  sup 
position  that  he  had  been  full  of  love  and 
compassion  and  alarm  for  the  European  in 
habitants  of  Demerara.  The  simple  truth 
was.  that  the  estate  was  about  to  be  sold, 
the  negroes  to  be  scattered  over  the  colony 
by  auction,  and  that, — by  one  of  those  some 
what  forced  analogies,  which  may  appear  to 
me  unreasonable,  but  which  men  of  the 
most  sublime  genius  as  well  as  fervent  piety 
have  often  applied  to  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture. — he  likened  their  sad  dispersion, 
in  connection  with  their  past  neglect  of  the 
means  of  improvement,  and  the  chance  of 
their  now  losing  all  religious  consolation  and 
instruction,  to  the  punishment  inflicted  on 
the  Jews  by  the  conquest  and  destruction  of 
Jerusalem. 


*  Demerara  Papers,  No.  II.  p.  1.     t  Ibid.,  p.  70. 


In  what  I  have  now  addressed  to  the 
House,  I  have  studiously  abstained  from  all 
discussions  of  those  awful  questions  which 
relate  to  the  general  structure  of  colonial  so 
ciety.  I  am  as  adverse  as  any  one  to  the 
sudden  emancipation  of  slaves, — much  out 
of  regard  to  the  masters,  but  still  more,  as 
affecting  a  far  larger  portion  of  mankind,  out 
of  regard  to  the  unhappy  slaves  themselves. 
Emancipation  by  violence  and  revolt  I  con 
sider  as  the  greatest  calamity  that  can  visit 
a  community,  except  perpetual  slavery.  I 
should  not  have  so  deep  an  abhorrence  of 
that  wretched  state,  if  I  did  not  regard  it  as 
unfitting  slaves  for  the  safe  exercise  of  the 
common  rights  of  mankind.  I  should  be 
grossly  inconsistent  with  myself,  if,  believing 
this  corrupt  and  degrading  power  of  slavery 
over  the  mind  to  be  the  worst  of  all  its  evils, 
I  were  not  very  fearful  of  changes  which 
would  set  free  those  beings,  whom  a  cruel 
yoke  had  transformed  into  wild  beasts,  only 
that  they  might  tear  and  devour  each  other. 
I  acknowledge  that  the  pacific  emancipation 
of  great  multitudes  thus  wretchedly  circum 
stanced  is  a  problem  so  arduous  as  to  per 
plex  and  almost  silence  the  reason  of  man. 
Time  is  undoubtedly  necessary;  and  I  shall 
never  object  to  time  if  it  be  asked  in  good 
faith.  If  I  be  convinced  of  the  sincerity  of 
the  reformer,  I  will  not  object  to  the  reforma 
tion  merely  on  account  of  the  time  which  it 
requires.  But  I  have  a  right  to  be  jealous 
of  every  attempt  which,  under  pretence  of 
asking  time  for  reformation,  may  only  aim  at 
evading  urgent  demands,  and  indefinitely 

Erocrastinating  the  deliverance  of  men  from 
ondage. 

And  here.  Sir,  I  should  naturally  close; 
but  I  must  be  permitted  to  relate  the  subse 
quent  treatment  of  Mr.  Smith,  because  it 
reflects  back  the  strongest  light  on  the  inten 
tions  and  dispositions  of  those  who  prose 
cuted  him,  and  of  those  who  ratified  the  sen 
tence  of  death.  They  who  can  cruelly  treat 
the  condemned,  are  not  in  general  scrupu 
lous  about  convicting  the  innocent.  I  have 
seen  the  widow  of  this  unhappy  sufferer, — 
a  pious  and  amiable  woman,  worthy  to  be 
the  helpmate  of  her  martyred  husband,  dis 
tinguished  by  a  calm  and  clear  understand 
ing,  and,  as  far  as  I  could  discover,  of  great 
accuracy,  anxious  rather  to  understate  facts, 
and  to  counteract  every  lurking  disposition 
to  exaggerate,  of  which  her  judgment  and 
humility  might  lead  her  to  suspect  herself. 
She  told  me  her  story  with  temper  and  sim 
plicity  ;  and,  though  I  ventured  more  near  to 
cross  examination  in  my  inquiries  than  de 
licacy  would,  perhaps,  in  any  less  important 
case  have  warranted,  I  saw  not  the  least  rea 
son  to  distrust  the  exactness,  any  more  than 
the  honesty,  of  her  narrative.  Within  a  few 
days  of  his  apprehension,  Mr.  Smith  and  his 
wife  were  closely  confined  in  two  small  rooms 
at  the  top  of  a  building,  with  only  the  out 
ward  roof  between  them  and  the  sun,  when 
the  thermometer  in  the  shade  at  their  resi 
dence  in  the  country  stood  at  an  average  of 


548 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


eighty-three  degrees  of  Fahrenheit.  There 
they  were  confined  from  August  to  October, 
with  two  sentries  at  the  door,  which  was 
kept  open  day  and  night.  These  sentries. 
who  were  relieved  every  two  hours,  had 
orders  at  every  relief  to  call  on  the  prisoner, 
to  ascertain  by  his  answer  that  he  had  not 
escaped.  The  generality,  of  course,  executed 
their  orders:  "a  few,  more  humane,'?  said 
Mrs.  Smith,  "contented  themselves  during 
the  night  with  quietly  looking  into  the  bed." 
Thus  was  he,  under  a  mortal  disease,  and 
his  wife,  with  all  the  delicacy  of  her  sex, 
confined  for  two  months,  without  seeing  a 
human  face  except  those  of  the  sentries,  and 
of  the  absolutely  necessary  attendants : — no 
physician,  no  friends  to  console,  no  legal  ad 
viser  to  guide  the  prisoner  to  the  means  of 
proving  his  innocence,  no  mitigation,  no 
solace !  The  first  human  face  which  she 
saw,  was  that  of  the  man  who  came  to  bear 
tidings  of  accusation,  and  trial,  and  death,  to 
her  husband.  I  asked  her,  "  whether  it  was 
possible  that  the  Governor  knew  that  they 
were  in  this  state  of  desolation  V1  She  an 
swered,  "that  she  did  not  know,  for  nobody 
came  to  inquire  after  them  !"  He  was  after 
wards  removed  to  apartments  on  the  ground 
floor,  the  damp  of  which  seems  to  have  has 
tened  his  fate.  Mrs.  Smith  was  set  at  large, 
but  obliged  to  ask  a  daily  permission  to  see 
her  husband  for  a  limited  time,  and  if  I  re 
member  right,  before  witnesses  !  After  the 
packet  had  sailed,  and  when  there  was  no 
longer  cause  to  dread  their  communication 
with  England,  she  was  permitted  to  have  un 
restricted  access  to  him,  as  long  as  his  inter 
course  with  earthly  things  endured.  At 
length  he  was  mercifully  released  from  his 
woes.  The  funeral  was  ordered  to  take  place 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  that  no  sor 
rowing  negroes  might  follow  the  good  man's 
corpse.  The  widow  desired  to  accompany 
the  remains  of  her  husband  to  the  grave  : — 
even  this  sad  luxury  was  prohibited.  The 
officer  declared  that  his  instructions  were 
peremptory:  Mrs.  Smith  bowed  with  the 
silent  submission  of  a  broken  heart.  Mrs. 
Elliot,  her  friend  and  companion,  not  so 
borne  down  by  sorrow,  remonstrated.  "Is 
it  possible,"  she  said,  "  That  General  Murray 
can  have  forbidden  a  poor  widow  from  fol 
lowing  the  coffin  of  her  husband."  The 
officer  again  answered  that  his  orders  were 
peremptory.  "At  all  events/'  said  Mrs. 
Elliot,  "  he  cannot  hinder  us  from  meeting 
the  coffin  at  the  grave."  Two  negroes  bore 
the  coffin,  with  a  single  lantern  going  before  ; 
and  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  two 
women  met  it  in  silent  anguish  at  The  grave, 
and  poured  over  the  remains  of  the  perse 
cuted  man  that  tribute  which  nature  pays  to 
the  memory  of  those  whom  we  love.  Two 
negro  workmen,  a  carpenter  and  a  brick 
layer,— who  had  been  members  of  his  con 
gregation, — were  desirous  of  being  permitted 
to  protect  and  distinguish  the  spot  where 
their  benefactor  reposed : — 


"  That  ev'n  his  bones  from  insult  to  protect, 
Some  frail  memorial,  still  erected  nigh, 
With  uncouth  rhymes  and  shapeless  sculpture 

deckt, 
Might  claim  the  passing  tribute  of  a  sigh."* 

They  began  to  rail  in  and  to  brick  over  the 
grave  :  but  as  soon  as  this  intelligence  reach 
ed  the  First  Fiscal,  his  Honour  was  pleased 
to  forbid  the  work ;  he  ordered  the  bricks  to 
be  taken  up,  the  railing  to  be  torn  down,  and 
the  whole  frail  memorial  of  gratitude  and 
piety  to  be  destroyed  ! 

"English  vengeance  wars  not  with  the 
dead  :" — it  is  not  so  in  Guiana.  As  they 
began,  so  they  concluded ;  and  at  least  it 
must  be  owned  that  they  were  consistent  in 
their  treatment  of  the  living  and  of  the  dead. 
They  did  not  stop  here  :  a  few  days  after  the 
death  of  Mr.  Smith,  they  passed  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  Mr.  President  Wray.  for  his  ser 
vices  during  the  insurrection,  which,  I  fear, 
consisted  entirely  in  his  judicial  acts  as  a 
member  of  the  Court-martial.  It  is  the 
single  instance.  I  believe,  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  where  a  popular  meeting  thanked 
a  judge  for  his  share  in  a  trial  which  closed 
with  a  sentence  of  death  !  I  must  add,  with 
sincere  regret,  that  Mr.  Wray,  in  an  unad 
vised  moment,  accepted  these  tainted  thanks, 
and  expressed  his  gratitude  for  them.  Shortly 
after  they  did  their  utmost  to  make  him  re 
pent,  and  be  ashamed  of  his  rashness.  I 
hold  in  my  hand  a  Demerara  newspaper, 
containing  an  account  of  a  meeting,  which 
must  have  been  held  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  Governor,  and  among  whom  I  see  nine 
names,  which  from  the  prefix  "  Honourable," 
belong,  I  presume,  to  persons  who  were 
members  either  of  the  Court  of  Justice  or 
of  the  Court  of  Policy.  It  was  an  assembly 
which  must  be  taken  to  represent  the  co 
lony.  Their  first  proceeding  was  a  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  : — they  resolved,  that 
the  King  and  Parliament  or  Great  Britain 
had  no  right  to  change  their  Jaws  without 
the  consent  of  their  Court  of  Policy.  They 
founded  this  pretension. — which  would  be 
so  extravagant  and  insolent,  if  it  were  not 
so  ridiculous, — on  the  first  article  of  the 
Capitulation  now  lying  before  me.  bearing 
date  on  the  19th  of  September,  1803,1  by 
which  it  was  stipulated  that  no  new  efcta- 
blishments  should  be  introduced  without  the 
consent  of  the  Court  of  Policy. — as  if  a  mili 
tary  commander  had  any  power  to  perpetuate 
the  civil  constitution  of  a  conquered  country, 
and  as  if  the  subsequent  treaty  had  not  ceded 
Demerara  in  full  sovereignty  to  his  Majesty. 
I  should  have  disdained  to  notice  such  a  de 
claration  if  it  were  not  for  what  followed. 
This  meeting  took  place  eighteen  days  after 
the  death  of  Mr.  Smith.  It  might  be  hoped, 
that,  if  their  hearts  were  riot  touched  by  his 
fate,  at  least  their  hatred  might  have  been 
buried  in  his  grave ;  but  they  showed  how 
little  chance  of  justice  he  had  when  living 

*  Gray's  Elegy.— ED. 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  STATES. 


549 


within  the  sphere  of  their  influence,  by  their 
rancorous  persecution  of  his  memory  after 
death.  Eighteen  days  after  he  had  expired  in 
a  dungeon,  they  passed  a  resolution  of  strong 
condemnation  against  two  names  not  often 
joined, — the  London  Missionary  Society  and 
Lord  Bathurst; — the  Society,  because  they 
petitioned  for  mercy  (for  that  is  a  crime  in 
their  eyes), — Lord  Bathurst,  because  he  ad 
vised  His  Majesty  to  dispense  it  to  Mr.  Smith. 
With  an  ignorance  suitable  to  their  other 
qualities,  they  consider  the  exercise  of  mercy 
as  a  violation  of  justice.  They  are  not  con 


tent  with  persecuting  their  victim  to  death ; 
— they  arraign  nature,  which  released  him, 
and  justice,  in  the  form  of  mercy,  which 
would  have  delivered  him  out  of  their  hands. 
Not  satisfied  with  his  life,  they  are  incensed 
at  not  being  able  to  brand  his  memory, — to 
put  an  ignominious  end  to  his  miseries,  and 
to  hang  up  his  skeleton  on  a  gibbet,  which, 
as  often  as  it  waved  in  the  winds,  should 
warn  every  future  missionary  to  fly  from 
such  a  shore,  and  not  dare  to  enter  that  colony 
to  preach  the  doctrines  of  peace,  of  justice, 
and  of  mercy ! 


SPEECH 


ON   PRESENTING   A    PETITION   FROM   THE   MERCHANTS   OF   LONDON    FOR   THE   RECOGNITION   OF 

.        '    THE  INDEPENDENT   STATES 

ESTABLISHED    IN    THE    COUNTRIES    OF    AMERICA    FORMERLY    SUBJECT     TO     SPAIN. 
DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  ON  THE  15TH  OF  JUNE,   1824. 


Scit  .... 

Unde  petal  Romam,  libertas  ultima  mundi 

Quo  steterit  ierienda  loco. — Pharsalia,  lib.  vii.  579. 

"  As  for  the  wars  anciently  made  on  behalf  of  a  parity  or  tacit  conformity  of  estate, — to  set  up  or 
pull  down  democracies  and  oligarchies, — I  do  not  see  how  they  may  be  well  justified." — BACON, 
Essay  on  the  True  Greatness  of  Kingdoms. 


MR.  SPEAKER, — I  hold  in  my  hand  a  Peti 
tion  from  the  Merchants  of  the  City  of  London 
who  are  engaged  in  trade  with  the  countries 
of  America  formerly  subject  to  the  crown  of 
Spain,  praying  that  the  House  would  adopt 
such  measures  as  to  them  may  seem  meet 
to  induce  His  Majesty's  Government  to  re 
cognise  the  independence  of  the  states  in 
those  countries  which  have,  in  fact,  esta 
blished  independent  governments. 

In  presenting  this  Petition,  I  think  it  right 
to  give  the  House  such  information  as  I  pos 
sess  relating  to  the  number  and  character  of 
the  Petitioners,  that  it  may  be  seen  how  far 
they  are  what  they  profess  to  be, — what  are 
their  means  of  knowledge, — what  are  likely 
to  be  the  motives  of  their  application, — what 
faith  is  due  to  their  testimony,  and  what 
weight  ought  to  be  allowed  to  their  judg 
ment.  Their  number  is  one  hundred  and 
seventeen.  Each  of  them  is  a  member  of  a 
considerable  commercial  house  interested  in 
the  trade  to  America;  the  Petition,  therefore, 
conveys  the  sentiments  of  three  or  four  hun 
dred  merchants.  The  signatures  were  col 
lected  in  two  days,  without  a  public  meeting, 
or  even  an  advertisement.  It  was  confined 
to  the  American  merchants,  but  the  Petition 
ers  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  mer 
chant  in  London  would  have  declined  to  put 


his  name  to  it.  I  am  but  imperfectly  quali 
fied  to  estimate  the  importance  and  station 
of  the  Petitioners.  Judging  from  common 
information,  I  should  consider  many  of  them 
as  in  the  first  rank  of  the  mercantile  com 
munity.  I  see  among  them  the  firm  of 
Baring  and  Company,  which,  without  dis 
paragement  to  any  others,  may  be  placed  at 
the  head  of  the  commercial  establishments 
of  the  world.  I  see  also  the  firms  of  Herring, 
Powles,  and  Company;  of  Richardson  and 
Company ;  Goldsmid  and  Company ;  Monte- 
fiore  and  Company ;  of  Mr.  Benjamin  Shaw, 
who,  as  Chairman  of  Lloyd's  Coffee-house, 
represents  the  most  numerous  and  diversified 
interests  of  traffic;  together  with  many  others 
not  equally  known  to  me,  but  whom,  if  I  did 
know,  I  have  no  doubt  that  I  might  with 
truth  describe  as  persons  of  the  highest  mer 
cantile  respectability.  I  perceive  among 
them  the  name  of  Ricardo,  which  I  shall 
ever  honour,  and  which  I  cannot  now  pro 
nounce  without  emotion.*  In  a  word,  the 
Petitioners  are  the  City  of  London.  They 
contain  individuals  of  all  political  parties; 
they  are  deeply  interested  in  the  subject, — 
perfectly  conversant  with  all  its  commercial 

*  Mr.  Ricardo  had  died  on  the  llth  of  Septem 
ber  preceding. — ED. 


550 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


bearings;  and  they  could  not  fill  the  high 
place  where  they  stand,  if  they  were  not 
as  much  distinguished  by  intelligence  and 
probity;  as  by  those  inferior  advantages  of 
wealth  which  with  them  are  not  fortunate 
accidents,  but  proofs  of  personal  worth  and 
professional  merit. 

If,  Sir,  it  had  been  my  intention  to  enter 
fully  on  this  subject,  and  especially  to  dis 
cuss  it  adversely  to  the  King's  Government, 
I  might  have  chosen  a  different  form  of  pre 
senting  it  to  the  House.  But  though  I  am 
and  ever  shall  be  a  member  of  a  party  asso 
ciated,  as  I  conceive,  for  preserving  the  liber 
ties  of  the  kingdom,  I  present  this  Petition 
in  the  spirit  of  those  by  whom  it  is  sub 
scribed,  in  the  hope  of  relieving  that  anxious 
desire  which  pervades  the  commercial  world, 
— and  which  is  also  shared  by  the  people  of 
England, — that  the  present  session  may  not 
close  without  some  discussion  or  some  expla 
nation  on  this  important  subject,  as  far  as 
that  explanation  can  be  given  without  incon 
venience  to  the  public  service.  For  such  a 
purpose,  the  presentation  of  a  petition  affords 
a  convenient  opportunity,  both  because  it 
implies  the  absence  of  any  intention  to  blame 
the  past  measures  of  Government  as  foreign 
from  the  wishes  of  the  Petitioners,  and  be 
cause  it  does  not  naturally  require  to  be  fol 
lowed  by  any  motion  which  might  be  repre 
sented  as  an  invasion  of  the  prerogative  of 
the  Crown,  or  as  a  restraint  on  the  discretion 
of  its  constitutional  advisers. 

At  the  same  time  I  must  add,  that  in  what 
ever  form  or  at  whatever  period  of  the  ses 
sion  I  had  brought  this  subject  forward,  I  do 
not  think  that  I  should  have  felt  myself  call 
ed  upon  to  discuss  it  in  a  tone  very  different 
from  that  which  the  nature  of  the  present 
occasion  appears  to  me  to  require.  On  a 
question  of  policy,  where  various  opinions 
may  be  formed  about  the  past,  and  where 
the  only  important  part  is  necessarily  pros 
pective,  I  should  naturally  have  wished  to 
speak  in  a  deliberative  temper.  However 
much  I  might  lament  the  delays  which  had 
occurred  in  khe  recognition  of  the  American 
States,  I  could  hardly  have  gone  further  than 
strongly  to  urge  that  the  time  was  now  at 
least  come  for  more  decisive  measures. 

With  respect,  indeed,  to  the  Slate  Papers 
laid  before  us,  I  see  nothing  in  them  to  blame 
or  to  regret,  unless  it  be  that  excess  of  ten 
derness  and  forbearance  towards  the  feelings 
and  pretensions  of  European  Spain  which  the 
Despatches  themselves  acknowledge.  In  all 
other  respects,  I  can  only  describe  them  as 
containing  a  body  of  liberal  maxims  of  policy 
and  just  principles  of  public  law,  expressed 
with  a  precision,  a  circumspection,  and  a  dig 
nity  which  will  always  render  them  models 
and  master-pieces  of  diplomatic  composi 
tion.*  Far  from  assailing  these  valuable 

*  They  were  among  the  first  papers  issued  from 
the  Foreign  Office,  after  the  accession  to  office  of 
Mr.  Canning,  and  represented  the  spirit  of  his — 
as  distinguished  from  the  preceding  Castlereagh 
policy. — ED. 


documents,  it  is  my  object  to  uphold  their 
doctrines,  to  reason  from  their  principles,  and 
to  contend  for  nothing  more  than  that  the 
future  policy  of  England  on  this  subject  may 
be  governed  by  them.  On  them  I  rest :  from 
them  seems  to  me  to  flow  every  consequence 
respecting  the  future,  which  I  think  most 
desirable.  I  should  naturally  have  had  no 
other  task  than  that  of  quoting  them,  of 
showing  the  stage  to  which  they  had  con 
ducted  the  question,  of  unfolding  their  import 
where  they  are  too  short  for  the  generality 
of  readers,  and  of  enforcing  their  application 
to  all  that  yet  remains  undone.  But  some 
thing  more  is  made  necessary  by  the  confu 
sion  and  misconception  which  prevail  on  one 
part  of  this  subject.  I  have  observed  with 
astonishment,  that  persons  otherwise  well 
informed  should  here  betray  a  forgetfulness 
of  the  most  celebrated  events  in  history,  and 
an  unacquaintance  with  the  plainest  princi 
ples  of  international  law.  which  I  should  not 
have  thought  possible  if 'l  had  not  known  it 
to  be  real.  I  am  therefore  obliged  to  justify 
these  State  Papers  before  I  appeal  to  them. 
I  must  go  back  for  a  moment  to  those  ele 
mentary  principles  which  are  so  grossly  mis 
understood. 

And  first,  Sir,  with  respect  to  the  term 
"  recognition,"  the  introduction  of  which 
into  these  discussions  has  proved  the  princi 
pal  occasion  of  darkness  and  error.  It  is  a 
term  which  is  used  in  two  senses  so  different 
from  each  other  as  to  have  nothing  very  im 
portant  in  common.  The  first,  which  is  the 
true  and  legitimate  sense  of  the  word  "  re 
cognition,"  as  a  technical  term  of  interna 
tional  law,  is  that  in  which  it  denotes  the 
explicit  acknowledgment  of  the  independ 
ence  of  a  country  by  a  state  which  formerly 
exercised  sovereignty  over  it.  Spain  has 
been  doomed  to  exhibit  more  examples  of 
this  species  of  recognition  than  any  other 
European  state;  of  which  the  most  memora 
ble  cases  are  her  acknowledgment  of  the 
independence  of  Portugal  and  Holland.  This 
country  also  paid  the  penalty  of  evil  councils 
in  that  hour  of  folly  and  infatuation  which 
led  to  a  hostile  separation  between  the 
American  Colonies  and  their  mother  country. 
Such  recognitions  are  renunciations  of  sove 
reignty, — surrenders  of  the  power  or  of  me 
claim  to  govern. 

But  we,  who  are  as  foreign  to  the  Spanish 
states  in  America  as  we  are  to  Spain  herself, 
— who  never  had  any  more  authority  over 
them  than  over  her, — have  in  this  case  no 
claims  to  renounce,  no  power  to  abdicate,  no 
sovereignty  to  resign,  no  legal  rights  to  con 
fer.  What  we  have  to  do  is  therefore  not 
recognition  in  its  first  and  most  strictly  proper 
sense.  It  is  not  by  formal  stipulations  or 
solemn  declarations  that  we  are  to  recognise 
the  American  states,  but  by  measures  of 
practical  policy,  which  imply  that  we  ac 
knowledge  their  independence.  Our  recog 
nition  is  virtual.  The  most  conspicuous  part 
of  such  a  recognition,  is  the  act  of  sending 
and  receiving  diplomatic  agents.  It  implies 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  STATES. 


551 


no  guarantee,  no  alliance,  no  aid,  no  appro 
bation  of  the  successful  revolt, — no  intimation 
of  an  opinion  concerning  the  justice  or  injus 
tice  of  the  means  by  which  it  has  been  ac 
complished.  These  are  matters  beyond  our 
jurisdiction.  It  would  be  an  usurpation  in 
us  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  them.  As  a  state, 
we  can  neither  condemn  nor  justify  revolu 
tions  which  do  not  affect  our  safety,  and  are 
not  amenable  to  our  laws.  We  deal  with 
the  authorities  of  new  states  on  the  same 
principles  and  for  the  same  object  as  wdth 
those  of  old.  We  consider  them  as  govern 
ments  actually  exercising  authority  over  the 
people  of  a  country,  with  whom  we  are 
called  upon  to  maintain  a  regular  intercourse 
by  diplomatic  agents  for  the  interests  of 
Great  Britain,  and  for  the  security  of  British 
subjects.  Antiquity  affords  a  presumption 
of  stability,  which,  like  all  other  presump 
tions,  may  and  does  fail  in  particular  in 
stances;  but  in  itself  it  is  nothing,  and  when 
it  ceases  to  indicate  stability,  ir  ought  to  be 
regarded  by  a  foreign  country  as  of  no  ac 
count.  The  tacit  recognition  of  a  new  state, 
with  which  alone  I  am  now7  concerned,  not 
being  a  judgment  for  the  new  government, 
or  against  the  old,  is  not  a  deviation  from 
perfect  neutrality,  or  a  cause  of  just  offence 
to  the  dispossessed  ruler.*  When  Great 
Britain  recognised  the  United  States,  it  was 


*  These  doctrines  are  so  indisputable,  that  they 
are  not  controverted  even  by  the  jurists  of  the 
Holy  Alliance,  whose  writings  in  every  other  re 
spect  bear  the  most  ignominious  marks  of  the 
servitude  of  the  human  understanding  under  the 
empire  of  that  confederacy.  Martens,  who  in  the 
last  edition  of  his  Summary  of  International  Law 
has  sacrificed  even  the  principle  of  national  inde 
pendence  (liv.  iii.  c.  ii.  s.  74),  without  which  no 
such  law  could  be  conceived,  yet  speaks  as  follows 
on  recognitions: — "  Quant  a  la  simple  reconnais 
sance,  il  semble  qu'une  naiion  etrangere,  n'etant 
pas  obligee  a  juger  de  la  legitimite,  peut  toutes 
les  fois  qu'elle  est  douteuse  se  permettre  de  s'at- 
tacher  au  seul  fait  de  la  possession,  et  trailer 
comme  independent  de  son  ancien  gouyernement, 
I'etat  ou  la  province  qui  jouit  dans  le  fait  de  1'inde- 
pendance,  sans  blesser  par  la  les  devoirs  d'une 
rigoureuse  neutralite." — Precis  du  Droit  des  Gens, 
liv.  iii.  c.  ii.  s.  80.  Gottingen,  1821.  Yet  a  com 
parison  of  the  above  sentence  with  the  paralle 
passage  of  the  same  book  in  the  edition  of  1789  is 
a  mortifying  specimen  of  the  decline  of  liberty  of 
opinion  in  Europe.  Even  Kluber,  the  publishei 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
assents  to  the  same  doctrine,  though  he  insidiously 
contrives  the  means  of  evading  it  by  the  insertion 
of  one  or  two  ambiguous  words: — "La  souve- 
rainete  est  acquise  par  un  erat,  ou  lors  de  sa  fon- 
dation  ou  bien  lorsqu'il  se  degage  legitimement  de 
la  dependance  dans  laquelle  il  se  trouvait.  Pour 
etre  valide,  elle  n'a  pas  besoin  d'etre  reconnue  ot 
garantie  par  une  puissance  quelconque :  pourvu 
que  la  possession  ne  soit  pas  vicieuse." — Droit  des 
Gens,  part  i.  c.  i.  s.  23.  Mr.  Kluber  would  find  i 
difficult  to  answer  the  question,  "  Who  is  to  judg< 
whether  the  acquisition  of  independence  be  leg  iii 
mate,  or  its  possession  vicious  V  And  it  is  eviden 
that  the  latter  qualification  is  utterly  unmeaning 
for  if  there  be  an  original  fault,  which  vitiates  th< 
possession  of  independence,  it  cannot  be  remove< 
by  foreign  recognition,  which,  according  to  thii 
writer  himselfpis  needless  where  the  independence 


a  concession  by  the  recognising  Power,  the 
object  of  which  was  the  advantage  and  se 
curity  of  the  government  recognised.  But 
.vhen  Great  Britain  (I  hope  very  soon)  recog- 
lises  the  states  of  Spanish  America,  it  will 
lot  be  as  a  concession  to  them,  for  they  need 
10  such  recognition ;  but  it  will  be  lor  her 
wn  sake, — to  promote  her  own  interest. — to 
jrotect  the  trade  and  navigation  of  her  sub 
jects, — to  acquire  the  best  means  of  cul- 
ivating  friendly  relations  with  important 
countries,  and  of  composing  by  immediate 
negotiation  those  differences  which  might 
otherwise  terminate  in  war.  Are  these  new 
loctrines? — quite  the  contrary.  They  are 
founded  on  the  ancient  practice  of  Europe. 
They  have  been  acted  upon  for  more  than 
;\vo  centuries  by  England  as  well  as  other 
lations. 

I  have  already  generally  alluded,  Sir,  to 
the  memorable  and  glorious  revolt  by  which 
the  United  Provinces  of  the  Netherlands 
threw  off  the  yoke  of  Spain.  Nearly  four 
score  years  passed  from  the  beginning  of 
that  just  insurrection  to  the  time  when  a 
recognition  of  independence  was  at  last  ex 
torted  from  Castilian  pride  and  obstinacy. 
The  people  of  the  Netherlands  first  took  up 
arms  to  obtain  the  redress  of  intolerable 
grievances;  and  for  many  years  they  for 
bore  from  proceeding  to  the  last  extremity 
against  their  tyrannical  king.*  It  was  not 
till  Philip  had  formally  proscribed  the  Prince 
of  Orange, — the  purest  and  most  perfect 
model  of  a  patriotic  hero, — putting  a  price 
on  his  head,  and  promising  not  only  pardon 
for  every  crime,  but  the  honours  of  nobility 
to  any  one  who  should  assassinate  him,t  that 
the  States-General  declared  the  King  of  Spain 
to  have  forfeited,  by  a  Jong  course  of  merci 
less  tyranny,  his  rights  of  sovereignty  over  the 
Netherlands. J  Several  assassins  attempted 
the  life  of  the  good  and  great  Prince  of 
Orange :  one  wounded  him  dangerously ; 
another  consummated  the  murder, — a  zealot 
of  what  wras  then,  as  it  is  now.  called  "  legiti 
macy."  He  suffered  the  punishment  due  to 
his  crime ;  but  the  King  of  Spain  bestowed 


is  lawful,  and  must  therefore  be  useless  in  those 
cases  where  he  insinuates  rather  than  asserts  that 
foreign  states  are  bound  or  entitled  to  treat  it  as 
unlawful. 

*  The  following  are  the  words  of  their  illustri 
ous  historian: — "  Pos\  longam  dubitationem,  ab 
ordinibus  Belgarum  Philippo,  ob  violatas  leges, 
imperium  abrogatum  est ;  lataque  in  ilium  senten- 
tia  cum  quo,  si  verum  fatemur,  novem  jam  per 
annos  bellatum  erat ;  sed  tune  primum  desitum 
nomen  ejus  et  insignia  usurpari,  mutataque  verba 
solennis  jurisjurandi,  ut  qui  princeps  hactenus 
erat:  hostis  vocaretur.  Hoc  consilium  vicinas 
apud  gentes  necessitate  et  tot  irritis  ante  precibus 
excusatum,  haud  desiere  Hispani  ut  scelus  insec- 
tari,  parum  memores,  pulsum  a  rnajoribus  suis 
regno  invisas  crudelitatis  regem,  eique  praelatam 
stirpem  non  ex  legibus  genitam  ;  ut  jam  taceantur 
vetera  apud  Francos,  minus  vetera  apud  Anglos, 
recentiora  apud  Danos  et  Sueonas  dejectorum 
regum  exempla." — Grotii  Annales,  lib.  iii. 

t  Dumont,  Corps  Diplomatique,  vol.  v.  p.  368. 

t  Ibid.  p.  413. 


552 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


on  his  family  the  infamous  nobility  which 
had  been  earned  by  the  assassin, — an  ex 
ample  which  has  also  disgraced  our  age. 
Before  and  after  that  murder,  the  greatest 
vicissitudes  of  fortune  had  attended  the 
arms  of  those  who  fought  for  the  liberties  of 
their  country.  Their  chiefs  were  driven  into 
exile;  their  armies  were  dispersed.  The 
greatest  and  most  opulent  of  the  Belgic 
Provinces,  misled  by  priests,  had  made  their 
peace  with  the  tyrant.  The  greatest  cap 
tains  of  the  age  commanded  against  them. 
The  Duke  of  Alva  employed  his  valour  and 
experience  to  quell  the  revolts  which  had 
been  produced  by  his  cruelty.  The  genius 
of  the  Prince  of  Parma  long  threatened  the 
infant  liberty  of  Holland.  Spinola  balanced 
the  consummate  ability  of  Prince  Maurice, 
and  kept  up  an  equal  contest,  till  Gustavus 
Adolphus  rescued  Europe  from  the  Holy 
Allies  of  that  age.  The  insurgents  had  seen 
with  dread  the  armament  called  "Invinci 
ble,"  which  was  designed,  by  the  conquest 
of  England,  to  destroy  the  last  hopes  of  the 
Netherlands.  Their  independence  appeared 
more  than  once  to  be  annihilated ;  it  was 
often  endangered  ;  it  was  to  the  last  fiercely 
contested.  The  fortune  of  war  was  as  often 
adverse  as  favourable  to  their  arms. 

It  was  not  till  the  30th  of  January,  1648,* 
nearly  eight  years  after  the  revolt,  nearly 
seventy  after  the  declaration  of  independ 
ence,  that  the  Crown  of  Spain,  by  the  Treaty 
of  Munster,  recognised  the  Republic  of  the 
United  Provinces,  and  renounced  all  pre 
tensions  to  sovereignty  over  their  territory. 
What,  during  that  Ions'  period,  was  the  policy 
of  the  European  states'?  Did  they  wait  for 
eighty  years,  till  the  obstinate  punctilio  or 
lazy  pedantry  of  the  Escurial  was  subdued  ? 
Did  they  forego  all  the  advantages  of  friendly 
intercourse  with  a  powerful  and  flourishing 
republic'?  Did  they  withhold  from  that  re 
public  the  ordinary  courtesy  of  keeping  up 
a  regular  and  open  correspondence  with  her 
through  avowed  and  honourable  ministers? 
Did  they  refuse  to  their  own  subjects  that  pro 
tection  for  their  lives  and  properties,  which 
such  a  correspondence  alone  could  afford  ? 

All  this  they  ought  to  have  done,  accord 
ing  to  the  principles  of  those  who  would 
resist  the  prayer  of  the  Petition  in  my  hand. 
But  nothing  of  this  was  then  done  or  dreamt 
of.  Every  state  in  Europe,  except  the  Ger 
man  branch  of  the  House  of  Austria,  sent 
ministers  to  the  Hague,  and  received  those 
of  the  States-General.  Their  friendship  was 
prized, — their  alliance  courted  ;  and  defen 
sive  treaties  were  formed  with  them  by 
Powers  at  peace  with  Spain,  from  the  heroic 
Gustavus  Adolphus  to  the  barbarians  of  Per 
sia  arid  Muscovy.  I  say  nothing  of  Eliza 
beth  herself, — proscribed  as  she  was  as  an 
usurper, — the  stay  of  Holland,  and  the  leader 
of  the  liberal  party  throughout  Europe.  But 
no  one  can  question  the  authority  on  this 
point  of  her  successor, — the  great  professor 

*  Dumont,  vol.  vi.  p.  429. 


of  legitimacy, — the  founder  of  that  doctrine 
of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  which  led  his 
family  to  destruction.  As  king  of  Scotland, 
in  1594,  forty-four  years  before  the  recogni 
tion  by  Spain,  James  recognised  the  States- 
General  as  the  successors  of  the  Houses  of 
Austria  and  Burgundy,  by  stipulating  with 
them  the  renewal  of  a  treaty  concluded  be 
tween  his  mother  Queen  Mary  and  the 
Emperor  Charles  V.*  In  1604,  when  he 
made  peace  with  Spain,  eager  as  he  was  by 
that  transaction  to  be  admitted  into  the  fra 
ternity  of  legitimate  kings,  he  was  so  far 
curbed  by  the  counsellors  of  Elizabeth,  that 
he  adhered  to  his  own  and  to  her  recognition 
of  the  independence  of  Holland :  the  Court 
of  Madrid  virtually  acknowledging,  by  seve 
ral  articles  of  the  treaty* t  that  such  perseve 
rance  in  the  recognition  was  no  breach  of 
neutrality,  and  no  obstacle  to  friendship  with 
Spain.  At  the  very  moment  of  the  negotia 
tion,  Winwood  was  despatched  with  new 
instructions  as  minister  to  the  States-Gene 
ral.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  England,  at 
peace  with  Spain,  continued  to  treat  Holland 
as  an  independent  slate  for  the  forty-four 
years  which  passed  from  that  treaty  to  the 
recognition  of  Munster. 

The  policy  of  England  towards  Portugal, 
though  in  itself  far  Jess  memorable,  is  still 
more  strikingly  pertinent  to  the  purpose  of 
this  argument.  On  the  1st  of  December 
1640,  the  people  of  Portugal  rose  in  arms 
against  the  tyranny  of  Spain,  under  which 
they  had  groaned  about  sixty  years.  They 
seated  the  Duke  of  Braganza  on  the  throne. 
In  January  1641,  the  Cortes  of  the  kingdom 
were  assembled  to  legalize  his  authority, 
though  seldom  convoked  by  his  successors 
after  their  power  was  consolidated.  Did 
England  then  wait  the  pleasure  of  Spain? 
Did  she  desist  from  connection  with  Portu 
gal,  till  it  appeared  from  long  experience 
that  the  attempts  of  Spain  to  recover  that 
country  must  be  unavailing?  Did  she  even 
require  that  the  Braganza  Government  should 
stand  the  test  of  time  before  she  recognised 
its  independent  authority?  No:  within  a 
year  of  the  proclamation  of  the  Duke  of 
Braganza  by  the  Cortes,  a  treaty  of  peace?' 
and  alliance  wTas  signed  at  Windsor  betvveerl 
Charles  I.  and  JohnlV..  which  not  only  treats', 
with  the  latter  as  an  independent  sovereign, 
but  expressly  speaks  of  the  King  of  Castile 
as  a  dispossessed  ruler;  and  alleges  on  the 
part  of  the  King  of  England,  that  he  was 
moved  to  conclude  this  treaty  uby  his  solici 
tude  to  preserve  the  tranquillity  of  his  king 
doms,  and  to  secure  the  liberty  of  trade  of  his 
beloved  subjects."*  The  contest  was  carried 
on:  the  Spaniards  obtained  victories;  they 
excited  conspiracies;  they  created  divisions. 

*  Dumont,  vol.  v.  p.  507. 

t  See  particularly  Art.  xii.  and  xiv.  in  Rymer, 
vol.  xvi.  The  extreme  anxiety  of  the  English  to 
adhere  to  their  connection  with  Holland,  appears 
from  the  Instructions  and  Despatches  in  Win- 
wood. 

t  Dumont,  vol.  vi.  p.  238.        \,\ 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH- AM  ERIC  AN  STATES. 


553 


The  palace  of  the  King  of  Portugal  was  the 
scene  of  domestic  discord,  court  intrigue,  and 
meditated  usurpation.  There  is  no  trace  of 
any  complaint  or  remonstrance,  or  even  mur 
mur,  against  the  early  recognition  by  Eng 
land,  though  it  was  not  till  twenty-six  years 
afterwards  that  Spain  herself  acknowledged 
the  independence  of  Portugal,  and  (what  is 
remarkable)  made  that  acknowledgment  in 
a  treaty  concluded  under  the  mediation  of 
England.* 

To  these  examples  let  me  add  an  observa 
tion  upon  a  part  of  the  practice  of  nations, 
strongly  illustrative  of  the  principles  which 
ought  to  decide  this  question.  All  the  Pow 
ers  of  Europe  treated  England,  under  the 
Commonwealth  and  the  Protectorate,  as  re 
taining  her  rights  of  sovereignty.  They  re 
cognised  these  governments  as  much  as  they 
had  recognised  the  Monarchy.  The  friends 
of  Charles  II.  did  riot  complain  of  this  policy. 
That  monarch,  when  restored,  did  not  dis 
allow  the  treaties  of  foreign  Powers  with  the 
Republic  or  with  Cromwell.  Why?  Be 
cause  these  Powers  were  obliged,  for  the 
interest  of  their  own  subjects,  to  negotiate 
with  the  government  which,  whatever  might 
be  its  character,  was  actually  obeyed  by  the 
British  nation.  They  pronounced  no  opinion 
on  the  legitimacy  of  that  government, — no 
judgment  unfavourable  to  the  claims  of  the 
exiled  prince;  they  consulted  only  the  secu 
rity  of  the  commerce  and  intercourse  of  their 
own  subjects  with  the  British  Islands. 

It  was  quite  otherwise  with  the  recogni 
tion  by  Louis  XIV.  of  the  son  of  James  II., 
when  his  father  died,  as  King  of  Great  Bri 
tain.  As  that  prince  was  not  acknowledged 
and  obeyed  in  England,  no  interest  of  France 
required  that  Louis  should  maintain  an  inter 
course,  or  take  any  notice  of  his  pretensions. 
That  recognition  was  therefore  justly  resent 
ed  by  England  as  a  wanton  insult, — as  a 
direct  interference  in  her  internal  affairs, — 
as  an  assumption  of  authority  to  pronounce 
against  the  lawfulness  of  her  government. t 

I  am  aware.  Sir,  that  our  complaints  of  the 
interference  of  France  in  the  American  war 
may  be  quoted  against  my  argument.  Those 
who  glance  over  the  surface  of  history  may 


*  Treaty  of  Lisbon,  February  23d,  1688.    Du- 
monl,  vol.  vii.  p.  70. 

t  "  Le  Comte  de  Manchester,  ambassadeur 
d'Angleterre,  ne  parut  plus  a  Versailles  apres  la 
reconnaissance  du  Prince  de  Galles,  et  partit,  sans 
prendre  conge,  quelquos  jours  apres  1'arrivee  du 
Roi  a  Fpntainbleau.  Le  Roi  Guillaume  regut 
en  sa  maison  de  Loo  en  Hollande  la  nouvelte  de 
la  mort  du  Roi  Jacques  etde  cette  reconnaissance. 
II  etait  alors  a  table  avec  quelques  autres  seigneurs. 
II  ne  profera  pas  une  seule  parole  outre  la  nouvelle; 
mais  il  rougit,  enfon§a  son  chapeau,  et  ne  put 
contenir  son  visage.  11  envoya  ordre  a  Londres 
d'en  chasser  sur  le  champ  Poussin,  et  de  lui  faire 
repasser  la  mer  aussi-tot  apres.  II  faisait  les  affaires 
du  Roi  en  Tabsence  d'un  ambassadeur  et  d'un 
envoye.  Get  eclat  fut  suivi  de  pres  de  la  signa 
ture  de  la  Grande  Alliance  defensive  et  offensive 
centre  la  France  et  1'Espagne,  entre  1'Empereur 
et  1'Empire,  1'Angleterre  et  la  Hollande." — Me- 
moires  de  St.  Simon,  vol.  iii.  p.  228. 
70 


see  some  likeness  between  that  case  and 
the  present :  but  the  resemblance  is  merely 
superficial;  it  disappears  on  the  slightest 
examination.  It  was  riot  of  the  establish 
ment  of  diplomatic  relation  with  America 
by  France  in  1778,  that  Great  Britain  com 
plained.  We  now  know  from  the  last  edi 
tion  of  the  Memoirs  of  the  Marquis  de  Bou- 
ille,  that  from  the  first  appearance  of  discon 
tent  in  1765,  the  Due  de  Choiseul  employed 
secret  agents  to  excite  commotion  in  North 
America.  That  gallant  and  accomplished 
officer  himself  was  no  stranger  to  these  in 
trigues  after  the  year  1768,  when  he  became 
governor  of  Guadaloupe.*  It  is  well  known 
that  the  same  clandestine  and  treacherous 
machinations  were  continued  to  the  last,  in 
a  time  of  profound  peace,  and  in  spite  of  pro 
fessions  of  amity  so  repeated  and  so  solemn, 
that  the  breach  of  them  produced  a  more 
than  political  resentment  in  the  mind  of  King 
George  III.  against  the  House  of  Bourbon. 
We  also  learn,  from  no  contemptible  autho 
rity,  that  at  the  very  time  that  the  prelimi 
naries  of  peace  were  signed  at  Fontainbleau 
in  1762  by  the  Ducde  Choiseul  and  the  Duke 
of  Bedford,  the  former  of  these  ministers  con 
cluded  a  secret  treaty  with  Spain,  by  which 
it  was  stipulated,  that  in  eight  years  both 
Powers  should  attack  England; — a  design 
of  which  the  removal  of  Choiseul  defeated 
the  execution.!  The  recognition  of  the 
United  States  was  no  more  than  the  con 
summation  and  avowal  of  these  dark  designs. 
So  conscious  was  the  Court  of  Versailles  of 
their  own  perfidy,  that  they  expected  war  to 
be  the  immediate  consequence  of  it.  On 
the  same  day  with  the  treaty  of  commerce 
they  signed  another  secret  treaty.;  by  which 
it  was  stipulated,  that  in  case  of  hostilities  be 
tween  France  and  England,  America  should 
make  common  cause  with  the  former.  The 
division  of  the  territories  to  be  conquered 
was  even  provided  for.  Negligent  and  su 
pine  as  were  the  English  Ministers,  they  can 
hardly  be  supposed  to  have  been  altogether 
ignorant  of  these  secret  treaties.  The  cause 
of  war,  then,  was  not  a  mere  recognition 
after  a  long  warning  to  the  mother  country, 
— after  a  more  than  generous  forbearance 
shown  to  her  dignity  and  claims  (as  it  would 
be  now  in  the  case  with  Spanish  America) : 
it  was  that  France,  in  defiance  of  the  most 
solemn  assurances  of  her  Ministers,  and  also 
as  it  is  said  of  her  Sovereign,  at  length  openly 
avowed  those  machinations  to  destroy  the 
union  between  the  British  nation  and  the 
people  of  America,— Englishmen  by  blood, 
and  freemen  by  principle,  dear  to  us  by  both 
ties,  but  most  dear  by  the  last, — which  they 
had  carried  on  during  so  many  years  of 
peace  and  pretended  friendship. 

I   now   proceed   to   review  the   progress 
which  we  have  already  made  towards  the 

*  Memoires  de  Bouille,  p.  15.     Choiseul,  Rela 
tion  du  Voyage  de  Louis  XVI.  a  Varennes.p.  14. 

t  Ferrand,  Trois  Demembremens  de  la  Polog- 
ne,  vol.  i.  p.  76. 

+  Martens,  Recueil  de  Traites.  vol.  i.  p.  701. 
2W 


554 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


recognition  of  the  states  of  Spanish  America, 
as  it  appears  in  the  Papers  before  the  House. 
I  \vill  not  dwell  on  the  statute  3  Geo.  IV.  c. 
43,  which  provides,  "  that  the  merchandize 
of  countries  in  America  or  the  West  Indies, 
being  or  having  been  a  part  of  the  dominions 
of  the  Kins,  of  Spain,  may  be  imported  into 
Great  Britain  in  ships  which  are  the  build 
of  these  countries ;"  though  that  clause  must 
be  allowed  to  be  an  acknowledgment  of  in 
dependence,  unless  it  could  be  said  that  the 
provinces  separated  from  Spain  were  either 
countries  without  inhabitants,  or  inhabited 
by  men  without  a  government.  Neither  will 
I  say  any  thing  of  the  declaration  made  to 
Spain,  that  consuls  must  be  immediately  sent 
to  South  America;  though  I  shall  hereafter 
argue,  that  the  appointment  of  consuls  is  as 
much  an  act  of  recognition  as  the  appoint 
ment  of  higher  ministers.  Lord  Liverpool 
indeed  said,  that  by  doing  so  we  were  "treat 
ing  South  America  as  independent," — which 
is  the  only  species  of  recognition  which  w-e 
have  a  right  to  make.  I  should  be  the  last 
to  blame  the  suspension  of  such  a  purpose 
during  the  lawless  and  faithless  invasion  of 
Spain,  then  threatened,  and  soon  after  exe 
cuted.  So  strongly  was  I  convinced  that 
this  was  a  sacred  duty,  that  I  at  that  time 
declined  to  present  a  petition  of  a  nature 
similar  to  that  which  I  now  offer  to  your 
consideration.  Nothing  under  heaven  could 
have  induced  me  to  give  the  slightest  aid  to 
the  unrighteous  violence  w-hich  then  mena 
ced  the  independence  of  Spain. 

The  Despatch  of  Mr.  Secretary  Canning  to 
Sir  Charles  Stuart,  of  the  31st  of  March,  1823, 
is  the  first  paper  which  I  wish  to  recall  to 
the  remembrance,  and  recommend  to  the 
serious  attention  of  the  House.  It  declares 
that  time  and  events  have  decided  the  sepa 
ration  of  Spanish  America, — that  various  cir 
cumstances  in  their  internal  condition  may 
accelerate  or  retard  the  recognition  of  their 
independence  ;  and  it  concludes  with  intelli 
gibly  intimating  that  Great  Britain  would 
resist  the  conquest  of  any  part  of  these  pro 
vinces  by  France.  The  most  explicit  warn 
ing  was  thus  given  to  Spain,  to  France,  and 
to  all  Europe,  as  well  as  to  the  states  of 
Spanish  America,  that  Great  Britain  con 
sidered  their  independence  as  certain, — that 
she  regarded  the  time  of  recognising  it  as  a 
question  only  of  policy, — and  that  she  would 
not  suffer  foreign  Po\vers  to  interfere  for  pre 
venting  its  establishment.  France,  indeed, 
is  the  only  Power  named  ;  but  the  reason  of 
the  case  applied  to  every  other,  and  extended 
as  much  to  conquest  under  the  name  of  Spain 
as  if  it  were  made  avowedly  for  France  her 
self. 

The  next  document  to  which  I  shall  refer 
is  the  Memorandum  of  a  Conference  be 
tween  M.  de  Polignac  and  Mr.  Secretary 
Canning,  on  the  9th  of  October,  1823  ;  and  I 
cannot  help  earnestly  recommending  to  all 
persons  who  have  any  doubt  writh  respect  to 
the  present  state  of  this  question,  or  to  the 
footing  on  which  it  has  stood  for  many 


months, — who  do  not  see  or  do  not  own  that 
our  determination  has  long  been  made  and 
announced, — to  observe  with  care  the  force 
and  extent  of  the  language  of  the  British 
Government  on  this  important  occasion. — 
"  The  British  Government,"  it  is  there  saidr 
"  were  of  opinion  that  any  attempt  to  bring 
Spanish  America  under  its  ancient  submis 
sion  must  be  utterly  hopeless;  that  all  nego 
tiation  for  that  purpose  would  be  unsuccess 
ful  ;  and  that  the  prolongation  or  renewal  of 
war  for  the  same  object  could  be  only  a 
w^aste  of  human  life  and  an  infliction  of  ca 
lamities  on  both  parties  to  no  end.7'  Lan 
guage  cannot  more  strongly  declare  the  con 
viction  of  Great  Britain  that  the  issue  of  the 
contest  was  even  then  no  longer  doubtful, — • 
that  there  was  indeed  no  longer  any  such 
contest  as  could  affect  the  policy  of  foreign 
states  towards  America.  As  soon  as  we  had 
made  known  our  opinion  in  terms  so  positive 
to  Europe  and  America,  the  pretensions  of 
Spain  could  not  in  point  of  justice  be  any 
reason  for  a  delay.  After  declaring  that  we 
should  remain,  however,  "  strictly  neutral 
if  war  should  be  unhappily  prolonged,"  we 
go  on  to  state  more  explicitly  than  before, 
'•'  that  the  junction  of  any  Power  in  an  enter 
prise  of  Spain  against  the  colonies  would  be 
viewed  as  an  entirely  new  question,  upon 
which  they  must  take  such  decision  as  the 
interest  of  Great  Britain  might  require  ;" — 
language  which,  however  cautious  and  mo 
derate  in  its  forms,  is  in  substance  too  clear 
to  be  misunderstood.  After  this  paragraph, 
no  state  in  Europe  would  have  had  a  right 
to  affect  surprise  at  the  recognition,  if  it  had 
been  proclaimed  on  the  following  day.  Still 
more  clearly,  if  possible,  is  the  same  princi 
ple  avowed  in  a  subsequent  paragraph : — 
"  That  the  British  Government  had  no  de 
sire  to  precipitate  the  recognition,  so  long  as 
there  was  any  reasonable  chance  of  an  ac 
commodation  writh  the  mother  country,  by 
which  such  a  recognition  might  come  first 
from  Spain  :"  but  that  it  could  not  wait  in 
definitely  for  that  result  ]  that  it  could  not 
consent  to  make  its  recognition  of  the  new 
states  dependent  on  that  of  Spain  ]  "  and. 
that  it  would  consider  any  foreign  interfere 
ence,  either  by  force  or  by  menace,  in  th4 
dispute  between  Spain  and  the  colonies,  as, 
a  motive  for  recognising  the  latter  without 
delay."  And  here  in  a  matter  less  impor 
tant  I  should  be  willing  to  stop,  and  to  rest 
my  case  on  this  passage  alone.  Words  can 
not  be  more  explicit :  it  is  needless  to  com 
ment  on  them,  and  impossible  to  evade  them. 
We  declare,  that  the  only  accommodation 
which  we  contemplate,  is  one  which  is  to 
terminate  in  recognition  by  Spain  ;  and  that 
we  cannot  indefinitely  wait  even  for  that  re 
sult.  We  assert  our  right  to  recognise, 
whether  Spain  does  so  or  not ;  and  we  state 
a  case  in  which  we  should  immediately  re 
cognise,  independently  of  the  consent  of  the 
Spanish  Government,  arid  without  regard  to 
the  internal  state  of  the  American  provinces. 
As  a  natural  consequence  of  these  positions. 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  STATES. 


555 


we  decline  any  part  in  a  proposed  congress 
of  European  Powers  for  regulating  the  affairs 
of  America. 

Sir,  I  cannot  quit  this  document  without 
paying  a  just  tribute  to  that  part  which  re 
lates  to  commerce. — to  the  firmness  with 
which  it  asserts  the  right  of  this  country  to 
continue  her  important  trade  with  America, 
as  well  as  the  necessity  of  the  appointment 
of  consuls  for  the  protection  of  that  trade, — 
and  to  the  distinct  annunciation,  "that  an 
attempt  to  renew  the  obsolete  interdictions 
would  be  best  cut  short  by  a  speedy  and  un 
qualified  recognition  of  the  independence  of 
the  South  American  states."  Still  more  do  I 
applaud  the  declaration,  "that  Great  Britain 
had  no  desire  to  set  up  any  separate  right  to 
the  free  enjoyment  of  this  trade ;  that  she 
considered  the  force  of  circumstances  and 
the  irreversible  progress  of  events  to  have 
already  determined  the  question  of  the  ex 
istence  of  that  freedom  for  all  the  world." 
These  are  declarations  equally  wise  and  ad 
mirable.  They  coincide  indeed  so  evidently 
with  the  well-understood  interest  of  every 
state,  that  it  is  mortifying  to  be  compelled 
to  speak  of  them  as  generous;  but  they  are 
so  much  at  variance  with  the  base  and  short 
sighted  policy  of  Governments,  that  it  is  re 
freshing  and  consolatory  to  meet  them  in 
Acts  of  State ; — at  least  when,  as  here,  they 
must  be  sincere,  because  the  circumstances 
of  their  promulgation  secure  their  observ 
ance,  and  indeed  render  deviation  from  them 
impossible.  I  read  them  over  and  over  with 
the  utmost  pleasure.  They  breathe  the  spirit 
of  that  just  policy  and  sound  philosophy, 
which  teaches  us  to  regard  the  interest  of 
our  country  as  best  promoted  by  an  increase 
of  the  industry,  wealth,  and  happiness  of 
other  nations. 

Although  the  attention  of  the  House  is 
chiefly  directed  to  the  acts  of  our  own  Go 
vernment,  it  is  not  foreign  from  the  purpose 
of  my  argument  to  solicit  them  for  a  few 
minutes  to  consider  the  admirable  Message 
sent  on  the  2d  of  December,  1823,  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States*  to  the  Con 
gress  of  that  great  republic.  I  heartily  re 
joice  in  the  perfect  agreement  of  that  mes 
sage  with  the  principles  professed  by  us  to 
the  French  Minister,  and  afterwards  to  all 
the  great  Powers  of  Europe,  whether  mili 
tary  or  maritime,  and  to  the  great  English 
State  beyond  the  Atlantic.  I  am  not  anx 
ious  to  ascertain  whether  the  Message  was 
influenced  by  our  communication,  or  was 
the  mere  result  of  similarity  of  principle 
and  coincidence  of  interest.  The  United 
States  had  at  all  events  long  preceded  us  in 
the  recognition.  They  sent  consuls  and 
commissioners  two  years  before  us,  who 
found  the  greater  part  of  South  America 
quiet  and  secure,  and  in  the  agitations  of 
the  remainder,  met  with  no  obstacles  to 
friendly  intercourse.  This  recognition  neither 
interrupted  amicable  relations  with  Spain,  nor 
occasioned  remonstrances  from  any  Power 


*  Mr.  Monroe.— -ED. 


in  Europe.  They  declared  their  neutrality 
at  the  moment  of  recognition  :  they  solemnly 
renew  that  declaration  in  the  Message  be 
fore  me.  That  wise  Government,  in  grave 
but  determined  language,  and  with  that  rea 
sonable  and  deliberate  tone  which  becomes 
true  courage,  proclaims  the  principles  of  her 
policy,  and  makes  known  the  cases  in  which 
the  care  of  her  own  safety  will  compel  her 
to  lake  up  arms  for  the  defence  of  other 
states.  I  have  already  observed  its  coinci 
dence  with  the  declarations  of  England ; 
which  indeed  is  perfect,  if  allowance  be 
made  for  the  deeper,  or  at  least  more  imme 
diate,  interest  in  the  independence  of  South 
America,  which  near  neighbourhood  gives  to 
the  United  States.  This  coincidence  of  the 
two  great  English  Commonwealths  (for  so  I 
delight  to  call  them,  and  I  heartily  pray  that 
they  may  be  for  ever  united  in  the  cause  of 
justice  and  liberty)  cannot  be  contemplated 
without  the  utmost  pleasure  by  every  en 
lightened  citizen  of  either.  Above  all,  Sir, 
there  is  one  coincidence  between  them, 
which  is,  I  trust,  of  happy  augury  to  the 
whole  civilized  world  : — they  have  both  de 
clared  their  neutrality  in  the  American  con 
test  as  long  as  it  shall  be  confined  to  Spain 
and  her  former  colonies,  or  as  long  as  no 
foreign  Power  shall  interfere. 

On  the  25th  of  December  1823,  M.  Ofalia, 
the  Spanish  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
proposed  to  the  principal  Powers  of  Europe 
a  conference  at  Paris  on  the  best  means  of 
enabling  his  Catholic  Majesty  to  re-establish 
his  legitimate  authority,  and  to  spread  the 
blessings  of  his  paternal  government  over 
the  vast  provinces  of  America  which  once 
acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  Spain.  To 
this  communication,  which  was  made  also  to 
this  government,  an  answer  was  given  on 
the  30th  of  January  following,  which  cannot 
be  read  by  Englishmen  without  approbation 
and  pleasure.  In  this  answer,  the  proposi 
tion  of  a  congress  is  once  more  rejected  :  the 
British  Government  adheres  to  its  original 
declaration,  that  it  would  wait  for  a  time, — 
but  a  limited  time  only, — and  would  rejoice 
to  see  his  Catholic  Majesty  have  the  grace 
and  advantage  of  taking  the  lead  among  the 
Powers  of  Europe  in  the  recognition  of  the 
American  states,  as  well  for  the  greater 
benefit  and  security  of  these  states  them 
selves,  as  from  the  generous  disposition  felt 
by  Great  Britain  to  spare  the  remains  of 
dignity  and  grandeur,  however  infinitesi- 
mally  small,  which  may  still  be  fancied  to 
belong  to  the  thing  called  the  crown  of  Spain. 
Even  the  shadow  of  long-departed  greatness 
was  treated  with  compassionate  forbearance. 
But  all  these  courtesies  and  decorums  were 
to  have  their  limit.  The  interests  of  Europe 
and  America  imposed  higher  duties,  which 
\vere  not  to  be  violated  for  the  sake  of  leav 
ing  undisturbed  the  precedents  copied  by 
public  offices  at  Madrid,  from  the  power  of 
Charles  V.  or  the  arrogance  of  Philip  II. 
The  principal  circumstance  in  which  this 
Despatch  added  to  the  preceding,  was;  that 


556 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


it  both  laid  a  wider  foundation  for  the  policy 
of  recognition,  and  made  a  much  nearer  ap 
proach  to  exactness  in  fixing  the  time  beyond 
which  it  could  not  be  delayed. 

I  have  no  subsequent  official  information. 
I  have  heard,  and  I  believe,  that  Spain  has 
answered  this  Despatch, — that  she  repeals 
her  invitation  to  England  to  send  a  minister 
to  the  proposed  congress,  and  that  she  has 
notified  the  assent  of  Russia,  Austria,  France, 
and  Prussia.  I  have  heard,  and  I  also  be 
lieve,  that  England  on  this  occasion  has 
proved  true  to  herself, — that,  in  conformity 
to  her  ancient  character,  and  in  consistency 
with  her  repeated  declarations,  she  has  de 
clined  all  discussion  of  this  question  with  the 
Holy  (or  w?i-Holy)  Alliance.  Would  to  God 
that  we  had  from  the  beginning  kept  aloof 
from  these  Congresses,  in  which  we  have 
made  shipwreck  of  our  ancient  honour  !  If 
that  were  not  possible,  would  to  God  that  we 
had  protested,  at  least  by  silence  and  ab 
sence  against  that  conspiracy  at  Verona, 
which  has  annihilated  the  liberties  of  conti 
nental  Europe  ! 

In  confirmation  of  the  review  which  I  have 
taken  of  the  documents,  I  may  also  here 
mention  the  declaration  made  in  this  House, 
that  during  the  occupation  of  Spain  by  a 
French  army,  every  armament  against  the 
Spanish  ports  must  be  considered  as  having 
a  French  character,  and  being  therefore 
W7ithin  the  principle  repeatedly  laid  down  in 
the  Papers.  Spain  indeed,  as  a  belligerent, 
can  be  now  considered  only  as  a  fang  of  the 
Holy  Alliance,  powerless  in  itself,  but  which 
that  monster  has  the  power  to  arm  with 
thrice-distilled  venom. 

As  the  case  now  stands,  Sir,  I  conceive  it 
to  be  declared  by  Great  Britain,  that  the  ac 
knowledgment  of  the  independence  of  Spa 
nish  America  is  no  breach  of  faith  or  neu 
trality  towards  Spain, — that  such  an  acknow 
ledgment  might  long  ago  have  been  made 
without  any  violation  of  her  rights  or  inter 
position  in  her  affairs, — that  we  have  been 
for  at  least  two  years  entitled  to  make  it  by 
all  the  rules  of  international  law, — that  we 
have  delayed  it,  from  friendly  consideration 
for  the  feelings  and  claims  of  the  Spanish 
Government, — that  we  have  now  carried  our 
forbearance  to  the  utmost  verge  of  reasonable 
generosity, — and,  having  exhausted  all  the 
offices  of  friendship  and  good  neighbourhood, 
are  at  perfect  liberty  to  consult  only  the  in 
terest  of  our  own  subjects,  and  the  just  pre 
tensions  of  the  American  states. 

In  adopting  this  recognition  now,  we  shall 
give  just  offence  to  no  other  Power.  But  if 
we  did,  and  once  suffer  ourselves  to  be  in 
fluenced  by  the  apprehension  of  danger  in  re 
sisting  unjust  pretensions,  we  destroy  the  only 
bulwark, — that  of  principle,  —  that  guards 
a  nation.  There  never  was  a  time  when  it 
would  be  more  perilous  to  make  concessions, 
or  to  show  feebleness  and  fear.  We  live  in 
an  age  of  the  most  extravagant  and  mon 
strous  pretensions,  supported  by  tremendous 
force.  A  confederacy  of  absolute  monarchs 


claim  the  right  of  controlling  the  internal  go 
vernment  of  all  nations.  In  the  exercise  of 
that  usurped  power  they  have  already  taken 
military  possession  of  the  whole  continent 
of  Europe.  Continental  governments  either 
obey  their  laws  or  tremble  at  their  displea 
sure.  England  alone  has  condemned  their 
principles,  and  is  independent  of  their  power, 
They  ascribe  all  the  misfortunes  of  the  pre 
sent  age  to  the  example  of  her  institutions, 
On  England,  therefore,  they  must  look  with 
irreconcilable  hatred.  As  long  as  she  is  free 
and  powerful,  their  system  is  incomplete,  all 
the  precautions  of  their  tyrannical  policy  are 
imperfect,  and  their  oppressed  subjects  may 
turn  their  eyes  to  her,  indulging  the  hope 
that  circumstances  will  one  day  compel  us 
to  exchange  the  alliance  of  kings  for  the  . 
friendship  of  nations. 

I  will  not  say  that  such  a  state  of  the  world 
does  not  require  a  considerate  and  circum 
spect  policy.  I  acknowledge,  and  should 
earnestly'  contend,  that  there  never  was  a 
moment  at  which  the  continuance  of  peace 
was  more  desirable.  After  passing  through 
all  the  sufferings  of  twenty  years  universal 
war,  and  feeling  its  internal  evils  perhaps 
more  severely  since  its  close  than  when  it 
raged  most  widely  and  fiercely,  we  are  only 
now  beginning  to  taste  the  natural  and  genu 
ine  fruits  of  peace.  The  robust  constitution 
of  a  free  community  is  just  showing  its  power 
to  heal  the  deepest  wounds. — to  compose 
obstinate  convulsions. — and  to  restore  health 
and  vigour  to  every  disordered  function  or 
disabled  member.  I  deprecate  the  occur 
rence  of  what  must  disturb  this  noble  pro 
cess, — one  of  the  miracles  of  Liberty.  But 
I  am  also  firmly  convinced,  that  prudence  in 
the  present  circumstances  of  Europe  forbids 
every  measure  that  can  be  represented  as 
having  the  appearance  of  fear.  If  we  carry 
our  caution  further  than  strict  abstinence 
from  injustice,  we  cannot  doubt  to  what  mo 
tive  our  forbearance  will  be  imputed.  Every 
delay  is  liable  to  that  interpretation.  The  least 
scrupulous  politicians  condemn  falsehood 
when  it  wears  the  appearance  of  fear.  It 
maybe  sometimes  unsafe  to  fire  at  the  royal 
tiger  who  suddenly  crosses  your  path  in  an  • 
eastern  forest ;  but  it  is  thought  fully  as  dan-  ( 
gerous  to  betray  your  fear  by  running  away  :  ' 
prudent  men  quietly  pursue  their  road  with 
out  altering  their  pace, — without  provoking 
or  tempting  the  ferocious  animal. 

Having  thus  traced  the  progress  of  mea 
sures  which  have  lead  us  to  the  very  verge 
of  recognition,  the  question  naturally  presents 
itself,  Why  do  we  not  now  recognize  ?  It  is 
not  so  much  my  duty  as  it  is  that  of  the  Go 
vernment,  to  tell  us  why  they  do  not  com 
plete  their  own  system.  Every  preparation 
is  made ;  every  adverse  claim  is  rejected ; 
ample  notice  is  given  to  all  parties.  Why  is 
the  determination  delayed  ?  We  are  irrevo 
cably  pledged  to  maintain  our  principles,  and 
to  act  on  them  towards  America.  We  have 
cut  off  all  honourable  retreat.  Why  should 
we  seem  to  hesitate  ?  America  expects  from 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  STATES.         557 


us  the  common  marks  of  amity  and  respect. 
Spain  cannot  complain  at  their  being  granted. 
iVo  other  state  can  intimate  an  opinion  on  the 
subject,  without  an  open  attack  on  the  inde 
pendence  of  Great  Britain.  What  then  hin 
ders  the  decisive  word  from  being  spoken  ? 

We  have  already  indeed  taken  one  step 
more,  in  addition  to  those  on  which  I  have 
too  long  dwelt.  \Ve  have  sent  consuls  to  all 
the  ports  of  Spanish  America  to  which  we 
trade,  as  well  as  to  the  seats  of  the  new  go 
vernment  in  that  country.  We  have  seen  in 
the  public  papers,  that  the  consul  at  Buenos 
Ayres  has  presented  a  letter  from  the  Secre 
tary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  in  this  coun 
try  to  the  Secretary  of  that  Government,  de 
siring  that  they  would  grant  the  permission 
to  the  consul,  without  which  he  cannot  ex 
ercise  his  powers.  Does  not  this  act  acknow 
ledge  the  independence  of  the  State  of  Bue 
nos  Ayres  ?  An  independent  state  alone 
can  appoint  consuls : — an  independent  state 
only  can  receive  consuls.  We  have  not  only 
sent  consuls,  but  commissioners.  What  is 
their  character?  Can  it  be  any  other  than 
that  of  an  envoy  with  a  new  title  1  Every 
agent  publicly  accredited  to  a  foreign  govern 
ment,  and  not  limited  by  his  commission  to 
commercial  affairs,  must  in  reality  be  a  di 
plomatic  minister,  whatever  may  be  his  offi 
cial  name.  We  read  of  the  public  and  joyful 
reception  of  these  commissioners,  of  presents 
made  by  them  to  the  American  administra 
tors,  and  of  speeches  in  which  they  announce 
the  good-will  of  the  Government  and  people 
of  England  towards  the  infant  republics.  I 
allude  to  the  speech  of  Colonel  Hamilton  at 
Bogota,  on  which,  as  I  have  seen  it  only  in 
a  translation,  I  can  only  venture  to  conjecture 
(after  making  some  allowance  for  the  over 
flow  of  courtesy  and  kindness  which  is  apt 
to  occur  on  such  occasions)  that  it  expressed 
the  anxious  wishes  and  earnest  hopes  of  this 
country,  that  he  might  find  Columbia  in  a 
state  capable  of  maintaining  those  relations 
of  amity  which  we  were  sincerely  desirous 
to  establish.  Where  should  we  apply  for 
redress,  if  a  Columbian  privateer  were  to 
capture  an  English  merchantman  ?  Not  at 
Madrid,  but  at  Bogota.  Does  not  this  answer 
decide  the  whole  question  ? 

But  British  subjects,  Sir,  have  a  right  to 
expect,  not  merely  that  their  Government 
shall  provide  some  means  of  redress,  but 
that  they  should  provide  adequate  and  effec 
tual  means, — those  which  universal  expe 
rience  has  proved  to  be  the  best.  They  are 
not  bound  to  be  content  writh  the  unavowed 
agency  and  precarious  good  offices  of  naval 
officers,  nor  even  with  the  inferior  and  im 
perfect  protection  of  an  agent  whose  com 
mission  is  limited  to  the  security  of  trade. 
The  power  of  a  consul  is  confined  to  com 
mercial  affairs;  and  there  are  many  of  the 
severest  wrongs  which  the  merchant  suffers, 
which,  as  they  may  not  directly  affect  him 
in  his  trading  concerns,  are  not  within  the 
proper  province  of  the  consul.  The  English 
trader  at  Buenos  Ayres  ought  not  to  feel  his 


safety  less  perfect  than  that  of  other  foreign 
merchants.  The  habit  of  trusting  to  an  am 
bassador  for  security  has  a  tendency  to  re 
concile  the  spirit  of  adventurous  industry 
with  a  constant  affection  for  the  place  of  a 
man's  birth.  If  these  advantages  are  not 
inconsiderable  to  any  European  nation,  they 
must  be  important  to  the  most  commercial 
and  maritime  people  of  the  world. 

The  American  Governments  at  present 
rate  our  friendship  too  high,  to  be  jealous 
and  punctilious  in  their  intercourse  with  us. 
But  a  little  longer  delay  may  give  rise  to  an 
unfavourable  judgment  of  our  conduct.  They 
may  even  doubt  our  neutrality  itself.  In 
stead  of  admitting  that  the  acknowledgment 
of  their  independence  would  be  a  breach  of 
neutrality  towards  Spain,  they  may  much 
more  naturally  conceive  that  the  delay  to 
acknowledge  it  is  a  breach  of  neutrality 
towards  themselves.  Do  we  in  truth  deal 
equally  by  both  the  contending  parties  ?  We 
do  not  content  ourselves  with  consuls  at  Ca 
diz  and  Barcelona.  If  we  expect  justice  to 
our  subjects  from  the  Government  of  Ferdi 
nand  VII.,  we  in  return  pay  every  honour  to 
that  Government  as  a  Power  of  the  first  class. 
We  lend  it  every  aid  that  it  can  desire  from 
the  presence  of  a  British  minister  of  the 
highest  rank.  We  do  not  inquire  whether 
he  legitimately  deposed  his  father,  or  legally 
dispersed  the  Cortes  who  preserved  his 
throne.  The  inequality  becomes  the  more 
strikingly  offensive,  when  it  is  considered 
that  the  number  of  English  in  the  American 
States  is  far  greater,  and  our  commerce  with 
them  much  more  important. 

We  have  long  since  advised  Spain  to  ac 
knowledge  the  independence  of  her  late  pro 
vinces  in  America :  we  have  told  her  that  it 
is  the  only  basis  on  which  negotiations  can  be 
carried  on,  and  that  it  affords  her  the  only 
chance  of  preserving  some  of  the  advantages 
of  friendship  and  commerce  with  these  vast 
territories.  Whatever  rendered  it  right  for 
Spain  to  recognise  them,  must  also  render  it 
right  for  us.  If  we  now  delay,  Spain  may 
very  speciously  charge  us  with  insincerity 
"It  now,"  she  may  say,  "  appears  from  your 
own  conduct,  that  under  pretence  of  friend 
ship  you  advised  us  to  do  that  from  which 
you  yourselves  recoil." 

We  have  declared  that  we  should  imme 
diately  proceed  to  recognition,  either  if  Spain 
were  to  invade  the  liberty  of  trade  which  we 
now  possess,  or  if  any  other  Power  were  to 
take  a  part  in  the  contest  between  her  and 
the  American  states.  But  do  not  these  decla 
rations  necessarily  imply  that  they  are  in 
fact  independent  ?  Surely  no  injustice  of 
Spain,  or  France,  or  Russia  could  authorize 
England  to  acknowledge  that  to  be  a  fact 
which  we  do  not  know  to  be  so.  Either 
therefore  we  have  threatened  to  do  what 
ought  not  to  be  done,  or  these  states  are 
now  in  a  condition  to  be  treated  as  independ 
ent. 

It  is  now  many  months  since  it  was  de 
clared  to  M.  de  Polignacj  that  we  should 
2  w  2 


558 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


consider  "any  foreign  interference,  by  force 
or  menace,  in  the  dispute  between  Spain  and 
her  colonies,  as  a  motive  for  recognising  the 
latter  without  delay."  I  ask  whether  the 
interference  "by  menace"  has  not  now  oc 
curred  ?  M.  Ofalia,  on  the  26th  of  Decem 
ber,  proposed  a  congress  on  the  affairs  of 
America,  in  hopes  that  the  allies  of  King 
Ferdinand  "  will  assist  him  in  accomplishing 
the  worthy  object  of  upholding  the  principles 
of  order  and  legitimacy,  the  subversion  of 
which,  once  commenced  in  America,  would 
speedily  communicate."  Now  I  have  al 
ready  said,  that,  if  I  am  rightly  informed, 
this  proposition,  happily  rejected  by  Great 
Britain,  has  been  acceded  to  by  the  Allied 
Powers.  Preparations  for  the  congress  are 
said  to  be  already  made.  Can  there  be  a 
more  distinct  case  of  interference  by  menace 
in  the  American  contest,  than  the  agreement 
to  assemble  a  congress  for  the  purpose  de 
scribed  in  the  despatch  of  M.  Ofalia'? 

But  it  is  said,  Sir,  that  \ve  ought  not  to  re 
cognise  independence  where  a  contest  is  still 
maintained,  or  \vhere  governments  of  some 
apparent  stability  do  not  exist.  Both  these 
ideas  seem  to  be  comprehended  in  the  proposi 
tion, — "  that  we  ought  to  recognise  only  where 
independence  is  actually  enjoyed ;"  though 
that  proposition  properly  only  affirms  the 
former.  But  it  is  said  that  we  are  called 
upon  only  to  acknowledge  the  fact  of  inde 
pendence,  and  before  we  make  the  acknow 
ledgment  we  ought  to  have  evidence  of  the 
fact.  To  this  single  point  the  discussion  is 
now  confined.  All  considerations  of  Euro 
pean  policy  are  (I  cannot  repeat  it  too  often) 
excluded :  the  policy  of  Spain,  or  France,  or 
Russia,  is  no  longer  an  element  in  the  pro 
blem.  The  fact  of  independence  is  now  the 
sole  object  of  consideration.  If  there  be  no 
independence,  we  cannot  acknowledge  it :  if 
there  be,  we  must. 

To  understand  the  matter  rightly,  we  must 
consider  separately — what  are  often  con 
founded — the  two  questions, — Whether  there 
is  a  contest  with  Spain  still  pending  ?  and 
Whether  internal  tranquillity  be  securely 
established  ?  As  to  the  first,  we  must  mean 
such  a  contest  as  exhibits  some  equality  of 
force,  and  of  which,  if  the  combatants  wrere 
left  to  themselves,  the  issue  would  be  in 
some  degree  doubtful.  It  never  can  be  un 
derstood  so  as  to  include  a  bare  chance,  that 
Spain  might  recover  her  ancient  dominions  at 
some  distant  and  absolutely  uncertain  period. 

In  this  inquiry,  do  you  consider  Spanish 
America  as  one  mass,  or  do  you  apply  your 
inquiry  to  the  peculiar  situation  of  each  in 
dividual  state  ?  For  the  purposes  of  the 
present  argument  you  may  view  them  in 
either  light : — in  the  latter,  because  they  are 
sovereign  commonwealths,  as  independent 
of  each  other  as  they  all  are  of  Europe  j  or  in 
the  former,  because  they  are  united  by  a 
treaty  of  alliance  offensive  and  defensive, 
which  binds  them  to  make  common  cause  in 
this  contest,  and  to  conclude  no  separate 
peace  with  Spain. 


If  I  look  on  Spanish  America  as  one  vast 
unit,  the  question  of  the  existence  of  any 
serious  contest  is  too  simple  to  admit  the 
slightest  doubt.  What  proportion  does  the 
contest  bear  to  the  country  in  which  it  pre 
vails?  My  geograghy,  or  at  least  my  recol 
lection,  does  not  serve  me  so  far,  that  I  could 
enumerate  the  degrees  of  latitude  and  longi 
tude  over  which  that  vast  country  extends. 
On  the  western  coast,  however,  it  reaches 
from  the  northern  point  of  New  California  to 
the  utmost  limit  of  cultivation  towards  Cape 
Horn.  On  the  eastern  it  extends  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi  to  that  of  the  Ori 
noco ;  and,  after  the  immense  exception  of 
Guiana  and  Brazil,  from  the  Rio  de  la  Plata 
to  the  southern  footsteps  of  civilized  man. 
The  prodigious  varieties  of  its  elevation  ex 
hibit  in  the  same  parallel  of  latitude  all  the 
climates  and  products  of  the  globe.  It  is  the 
only  abundant  source  of  the  metals  justly  call 
ed  "precious," — the  most  generally  and  per 
manently  useful  of  all  commodities,  except 
those  which  are  necessary  to  the  preservation 
of  human  life.  It  is  unequally  and  scantily  peo 
pled  by  sixteen  or  eighteen  millions. — whose 
numbers,  freedom  of  industry,  and  security 
of  property  must  be  quadrupled  in  a  century. 
Its  length  on  the  Pacific  coast  is  equal  to  that 
of  the  whole  continent  of  Africa  from  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar. 
It  is  more  extensive  than  the  vast  possessions 
of  Russia  or  of  Great  Britain  in  Asia.  The 
Spanish  language  is  spoken  over  a  line  of 
nearly  six  thousand  miles.  The  State  of 
Mexico  alone  is  five  times  larger  that  Euro 
pean  Spain.  A  single  communication  cut 
through  these  territories  between  the  Atlan 
tic  and  Pacific  would  bring  China  six  thou 
sand  miles  nearer  to  Europe  ;*  and  the  Re 
public  of  Columbia  or  that  of  Mexico  may 
open  and  command  that  new  road  for  the 
commerce  of  the  world. 

What  is  the  Spanish  strength?  A  single 
castle  in  Mexico,  an  island  on  the  coast  of 
Chili,  and  a  small  army  in  Upper  Peru  !  Is 
this  a  contest  approaching  to  equality?  Is  it 
sufficient  to  render  the  independence  of 
such  a  country  doubtful?  Does  it  deserve 
the  name  of  a  contest?  It  is  very  little  mor^ 
than  what  in  some  of  the  wretched  goverri 
ments  of  the  East  is  thought  desirable  tA 
keep  alive  the  vigilance  of  the  rulers,  and 
to  exercise  the  martial  spirit  of  the  people. 
There  is  no  present  appearance  that  the 
country  can  be  reduced  by  the  power  of 
Spain  alone;  and  if  any  other  Power  were 
to  interfere,  it  is  acknowledged  that  such  an 
interference  would  impose  new  duties  on 
Great  Britain. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  consider  the 
American  states  as  separate,  the  fact  of  in 
dependence  is  undisputed,  with  respect  at 
least  to  some  of  them.  What  doubts  can^be 
entertained  of  the  independence  of  the  im 
mense  provinces  of  Caraccas,  New  Grenada, 


*  See  Humboldt's  admirable  Essay  on  New 
Spain. 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH- AM  ERIC  AN  STATES.         559 


and  Quito,  which  now  form  the  Republic  of 
Columbia'?  There,  a  considerable  Spanish 
army  has  been  defeated :  all  have  been  either 
destroyed,  or  expelled  from  the  territory  of 
the  Republic :  not  a  Royalist  soldier  remains. 
Three  Congresses  have  successively  been 
assembled :  they  have  formed  a  reasonable 
and  promising  Constitution ;  and  they  have 
endeavoured  to  establish  a  wise  system  and 
a  just  administration  of  law.  In  the  midst 
of  their  difficulties  the  Columbians  have 
ventured  (and  hitherto  with  perfect  success) 
to  encounter  the  arduous  and  perilous,  but 
noble  problem  of  a  pacific  emancipation  of 
their  slaves.  They  have  been  able  to  ob 
serve  good  faith  with  their  creditors,  and 
thus  to  preserve  the  greatest  of  all  resources 
for  times  of  danger.  Their  tranquillity  has 
stood  the  test  of  the  long  absence  of  Bolivar 
in  Peru.  Englishmen  who  have  lately  tra 
versed  their  territories  in  various  directions. 
are  unanimous  in  stating  that  their  journeys 
were  made  in  the  most  undisturbed  security. 
Every  where  they  saw  the  laws  obeyed, 
justice  administered,  armies  disciplined,  and 
the  revenue  peaceably  collected.  Many 
British  subjects  have  indeed  given  prac 
tical  proofs  of  their  faith  in  the  power  and 
will  of  the  Columbian  Government  to  pro 
tect  industry  and  property: — they  have  esta 
blished  houses  of  trade ;  they  have  under 
taken  to  work  mines;  and  they  are  esta 
blishing  steam-boats  on  the  Orinoco  and  the 
Magdalena.  Where  is  the  state  which  can 
give  better  proofs  of  secure  independence  ? 

The  Republic  of  Buenos  Ayres  has  an 
equally  undisputed  enjoyment  of  independ 
ence.  There  no  Spanish  soldier  has  set  his 
foot  for  fourteen  years.  It  would  be  as  diffi 
cult  to  find  a  Royalist  there,  as  it  would  be  a 
Jacobite  in  England  (I  mean  only  a  personal 
adherent  of  ths  House  of  Stuart,  for  as  to 
Jacobites  in  principle,  I  fear  they  never  were 
more  abundant).  Its  rulers  are  so  conscious 
of  internal  security,  that  they  have  crossed 
the  Andes,  and  interposed  with  vigour  and 
effect  in  the  revolutions  of  Chili  and  Peru. 
Whoever  wishes  to  know  the  state  of  Chili, 
will  find  it  in  a  very  valuable  book  lately 
published  by  Mrs.  Graham,*  a  lady  whom  I 
have  the  happiness  to  call  my  friend,  who, 
by  the  faithful  and  picturesque  minuteness 
of  her  descriptions,  places  her  reader  in  the 
midst  of  the  country,  and  introduces  him  to 
the  familiar  acquaintance  of  the  inhabitants. 
Whatever  seeds  of  internal  discord  may  be 
perceived,  we  do  not  discover  the  vestige  of 
any  party  friendly  to  the  dominion  of  Spain. 
Even  in  Peru,  where  the  spirit  of  independ 
ence  has  most  recently  appeared,  and  ap 
pears  most  to  fluctuate,  no  formidable  body 
of  Spanish  partisans  has  been  observed  by 
the  most  intelligent  observers;  and  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  even  the  army  which  keeps 
the  field  in  that  province  against  the  Ameri 
can  cause  be  devoted  to  the  restored  despot 
ism  of  Spain .  Mexico,  the  greatest,  doubt- 


Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Chili. — ED. 


less,  and  most  populous,  but  not  perhaps  the 
most  enlightened,  portion  of  Spanish  America, 
has  passed  through  severe  trials,  and  seems 
hitherto  far  from  showing  a  disposition  again 
to  fall  under  the  authority  of  Spain.  Even 
the  party  who  long  bore  the  name  of  Spain 
on  their  banners,  imbibed  in  that  very  con 
test  the  spirit  of  independence,  and  at  length 
ceased  to  look  abroad  for  a  sovereign.  The 
last  Viceroy  who  was  sent  from  Spain*  was 
compelled  to  acknowledge  the  independence 
of  Mexico;  and  the  Royalist  officer,!  who 
appeared  for  a  time  so  fortunate,  could  not 
win  his  wTay  to  a  transient  power  without 
declaring  against  the  pretensions  of  the  mo 
ther  country. 

If.  then,  we  consider  these  states  as  one 
nation,  there  cannot  be  said  to  be  any  re 
maining  contest.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
consider  them  separately,  why  do  we  not 
immediately  comply  with  the  prayer  of  this 
Petition,  by  recognising  the  independence 
of  those  which  \ve  must  allow  to  be  in  fact 
independent  ?  Where  is  the  objection  to  the 
instantaneous  recognition  at  least  of  Colum 
bia  and  Buenos  Ayres  1 

But  here,  Sir.  I  shall  be  reminded  of  the 
second  condition  (as  applicable  to  Mexico 
and  Peru), — the  necessity  of  a  stable  go 
vernment  arid  of  internal  tranquillity.  Inde 
pendence  and  good  government  are  unfortu 
nately  very  different  things.  Most  countries 
have  enjoyed  the  former :  not  above  three 
or  four  since  the  beginning  of  history  have 
had  any  pretensions  to  the  latter.  Still, 
many  grossly  misgoverned  countries  have 
performed  the  common  duties  of  justice  and 
good- will  to  their  neighbours, — I  do  not  say 
so  well  as  more  wisely  ordered  common 
wealths,  but  still  tolerably,  and  always  much 
better  than  if  they  had  not  been  controlled 
by  the  influence  of  opinion  acting  through  a 
regular  intercourse  with  other  nations. 

We  really  do  not  deal  with  Spain  and 
America  by  the  same  weight  and  measure. 
We  exact  proofs  of  independence  and  tran 
quillity  from  America:  we  dispense  both 
with  independence  and  tranquillity  in  Old 
Spain.  We  have  an  ambassador  at  Madrid, 
though  the  whole  kingdom  be  in  the  hands 
of  France.  We  treat  Spain  with  all  the  ho 
nours  due  to  a  civilized  state  of  the  first  rank, 
though  we  have  been  told  in  this  House,  that 
the  continuance  of  the  French  army  there  is 
an  act  of  humanity,  necessary  to  prevent  the 
faction  of  frantic  Royalists  from  destroying 
not  only  the  friends  of  liberty,  but  every 
Spaniard  who  hesitates  to  carry  on  a  war  of 
persecution  and  extirpation  against  all  who 
are  not  the  zealous  supporters  of  unbounded 
tyranny.  On  the  other  hand,  we  require  of 
me  new-born  states  of  America  to  solve  the 
awful  problem  of  reconciling  liberty  with  or 
der.  We  expect  that  all  the  efforts  incident 
to  a  fearful  struggle  shah1  at  once  subside 
into  the  most  perfect  and  undisturbed  tran- 


*  Admiral  Apodaca. — ED. 

t  Don  Augustiu  Iturbide. — ED. 


560 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


quillity,— that  every  visionary  or  ambitious 
nope  which  it  has  kindled  shall  submit  with 
out  a  murmur  to  the  counsels  of  wisdom  and 
the  authority  of  the  laws.  Who  are  we  who 
exact  the  performance  of  such  hard  condi 
tions?  Are  we  the  English  nation,  to  look 
thus  coldly  on  rising  liberty  1  We  have  in 
dulgence  enough  for  tyrants;  we  make  am 
ple  allowance  for  the  difficulties  of  their 
situation;  we  are  ready  enough  to  deprecate 
the  censure  of  their  worst  acts.  And  are  we, 
who  spent  ages  of  bloodshed  in  struggling 
for  freedom,  to  treat  with  such  severity 
others  now  following  our  example  ?-  Are  we 
to  refuse  that  indulgence  to  the  errors  and 
faults  of  other  nations,  which  was  so  long 
needed  by  our  own  ancestors'?  We  who  have 
passed  through  every  form  of  civil  and  reli 
gious  tyranny, — who  persecuted  Protestants 
under  Mary, — who — I  blush  to  add — perse 
cuted  Catholics  under  Elizabeth, — shall  we 
now  inconsistently, — unreasonably, — basely 
hold,  that  distractions  so  much  fewer  and 
milder  and  shorter,  endured  in  the  same 
glorious  cause,  will  unfit  other  nations  for  its 
attainment,  and  preclude  them  from  the  en 
joyment  of  that  rank  and  those  privileges 
which  we  at  the  same  moment  recognise  as 
belonging  to  slaves  and  barbarians'? 

I  call  upon  my  Right  Honourable  Friend* 
distinctly  to  tell  us,  on  what  principle  he  con 
siders  the  perfect  enjoyment  of  internal  quiet 
as  a  condition  necessary  for  the  acknowledg 
ment  of  an  independence  which  cannot  be 
denied  to  exist.  I  can  discover  none;  un 
less  the  confusions  of  a  country  were  such 
as  to  endanger  the  personal  safety  of  a 
foreign  minister.  Yet  the  European  Powers 
have  always  had  ministers  at  Constantinople, 
though  it  was  well  known  that  the  barbari 
ans  who  ruled  there  would,  on  the  approach 
of  a  quarrel,  send  these  unfortunate  gentle 
men  to  a  prison  in  which  they  might  remain 
during  a  long  war.  But  if  there  is  any  such 
insecurity  in  these  states,  how  do  the  minis 
ters  of  the  United  States  of  North  America 
reside  in  their  capitals'?  or  why  do  we  trust 
our  own  consuls  and  commissioners  among 
them  ?  Is  there  any  physical  pecularity  in 
a  consul,  wbjch  renders  him  invulnerable 
where  an  ambassador  or  an  envoy  would  be 
in  danger"?  Is  he  bullet-proof  or  bayonet- 
proof?  or  does  he  wear  a  coat  of  mail  ?  The 
same  Government,  one  would  think,  which 
redresses  an  individual  grievance  on  the  ap 
plication  of  a  consul,  may  remove  a  cause  of 
national  difference  after  listening  to  the  re 
monstrance  of  an  envoy. 

I  will  venture  even  to  contend,  that  inter 
nal  distractions,  instead  of  being  an  impedi 
ment  to  diplomatic  intercourse,  are  rather  an 
additional  reason  for  it.  An  ambassador  is 
more  necessary  in  a  disturbed  than  in  a  tran 
quil  country,  inasmuch  as  the  evils  against 
which  his  presence  is  intended  to  guard  are 
more  likely  to  occur  in  the  former  than  in 
the  latter.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  civil  com- 


*  Mr.  Canning. — ED. 


motions  that  the  foreign  trader  is  the  most 
likely  to  be  wronged ;  and  it  is  then  that  he 
therefore  requires  not  only  the  good  offices 
of  a  consul,  but  the  weightier  interposition 
of  a  higher  minister.  In  a  perfectly  well- 
ordered  country  the  laws  and  the  tribunals 
might  be  sufficient.  In  the  same  manner  it 
is  obvious,  that  if  an  ambassador  be  an  im 
portant  security  for  the  preservation  of  good 
understanding  between  the  best  regulated 
governments,  his  presence  must  be  far  more 
requisite  to  prevent  the  angry  passions  of 
exasperated  factions  from  breaking  out  into 
war.  Whether  therefore  we  consider  the 
individual  or  the  public  interests  which  are 
secured  by  embassies,  it  seems  no  paradox 
to  maintain,  that  if  they  could  be  dispensed 
with  at  all,  it  would  rather  be  in  quiet  than 
in  disturbed  countries. 

The  interests  here  at  stake  may  be  said 
to  be  rather  individual  than  national.  But  a 
wrong  done  to  the  humblest  British  subject, 
an  insult  offered  to  the  British  flag  flying 
on  the  slightest  skiff,  is,  if  unrepaired,  a  dis 
honour  to  the  British  nation. 

Then  the  amount  of  private  interests  en 
gaged  in  our  trade  with  Spanish  America  is 
so  great  as  to  render  them  a  large  part  of  the 
national  interest.  There  are  already  at  least 
a  hundred  English  houses  of  trade  established 
in  various  parts  of  that  immense  country.  A 
great  body  of  skilful  miners  have  lately  left 
this  country,  to  restore  and  increase  the 
working  of  the  mines  of  Mexico.  Botanists, 
and  geologists,  and  zoologists,  are  preparing 
to  explore  regions  too  vast  to  be  exhausted 
by  the  Condamines  and  Humboldts.  These 
missionaries  of  civilization,  who  are  about 
to  spread  European,  and  especially  English 
opinions  and  habits,  and  to  teach  industry 
and  the  arts,  with  their  natural  consequences 
— the  love  of  order  and  the  desire  of  quiet, — 
are  at  the  same  time  opening  new  markets 
for  the  produce  of  British  labour,  and  new 
sources  of  improvement  as  well  as  enjoyment 
to  the  people  of  America. 

The  excellent  petition  from  Liverpool  to 
the  King  sets  forth  the  value  of  our  South 
American  commerce  very  clearly,  with  re 
spect  to  its  present  extent,  its  rapid  increase, 
and  its  probable  permanence.  In  1819,  t|ie 
official  returns  represent  the  value  of  British 
exports  at  thirty-five  millions  sterling, — In 
1822,  at  forty-six  millions;  and,  in  the  opin 
ion  of  the  Petitioners,  who  are  witnesses  of 
the  highest  authority,  a  great  part  of  this 
prodigious  increase  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
progress  of  the  South  American  trade.  On 
this"  point,  however,  they  are  not  content 
with  probabilities.  In  1822,  they  tell  us  that 
the  British  exports  to  the  late  Spanish  colo 
nies  amounted  in  value  to  three  millions 
eight  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling;  and 
in  1823,  to  five  millions  six  hundred  thou 
sand ; — an  increase  of  near  two  millions  in 
one  year.  As  both  the  years  compared  are 
subsequent  to  the  opening  of  the  American 
ports,  we  may  lay  out  of  the  account  the  in 
direct  trade  formerly  carried  on  with  the 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  STATES. 


561 


Spanish  Main  through  the  West  Indies,  the 
far  greater  part  of  which  must  now  be  trans 
ferred  to  a  cheaper,  shorter,  and  more  con 
venient  channel.  In  the  year  1820  and  the 
three  following  years,  the  annual  average 
number  of  ships  which  sailed  from  the  port 
of  Liverpool  to  Spanish  America,  was  one 
hundred  and  eighty-nine;  and  the  number 
of  those  who  have  so  sailed  in  five  mouths 
of  the  present  year,  is  already  one  hundred 
and  twenty-four;  being  an  increase  in  the 
proportion  of  thirty  to  nineteen.  Another 
criterion  of  the  importance  of  this  trade,  on 
which  the  traders  of  Liverpool  are  peculiarly 
well  qualified  to  judge,  is  the  export  of  cot 
ton  goods  from  their  own  port.  -The  result 
of  the  comparison  of  that  export  to  the  United 
States  of  America,  and  to  certain  parts*  of 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  America,  is  pecu 
liarly  instructive  and  striking : — 

ACTUAL  VALUE  OF  COTTON  GOODS  EXPORTED 
FROM  LIVERPOOL. 

Year  ending  Jan.  5,  1820. 

To  United  States  -  -  -  £882,029 
To  Spanish  and  Portuguese  America  852,651 

Year  ending  Jan.  5,  1821. 

To  United  States  -  -  -  £1,033,206 
To  Spanish  and  Portuguese  America  1,111,574 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  this  last  extraordi 
nary  statement  relates  to  the  comparative 
infancy  of  this  trade ;  that  it  comprehends 
neither  Vera  Cruz  nor  the  ports  of  Columbia ; 
and  that  the  striking  disproportion  in  the  rate 
of  increase  does  not  arise  from  the  abate 
ment  of  the  North  American  demand  (for 
that  has  increased),  but  from  the  rapid  pro 
gress  of  that  in  the  South  American  market. 
Already,  then,  this  new  commerce  surpasses 
in  amount,  and  still  more  in  progress,  that 
trade  with  the  United  States  which  is  one 
of  the  oldest  and  most  extensive,  as  well  as 
most  progressive  branches  of  our  traffic. 

If  I  consult  another  respectable  authority, 
and  look  at  the  subject  in  a  somewhat  dif 
ferent  light,  I  find  the  annual  value  of  our 
whole  exports  estimated  in  Lord  Liverpool's 
speecht  on  this  subject  at  forty-three  mil 
lions  sterling,  of  which  about  twenty  mil 
lions'  worth  "goes  to  Europe,  and  about  the 
value  of  seventeen  millions  to  North  arid 
South  America;  leaving  between  four  and 
five  millions  to  Africa  and  Asia.  According 
to  this  statement.  I  may  reckon  the  trade  to 
the  new  independent  states  as  one  eighth  of 
the  trade  of  the  whole  British  Empire.  It  is 
more  than  our  trade  to  all  our  possessions  on 
the  continent  and  islands  of  America  was, 
before  the  beginning  of  the  fatal  American 
\var  in  1774: — for  fatal  I  call  it,  not  because 
I  lament  the  independence  of  America,  but 
because  I  deeply  deplore  the  hostile  separa 
tion  of  the  two  great  nations  of  English  race. 

The  official  accounts  of  exports  and  im 
ports  laid  before  this  House  on  the  3d  of 

*  Viz.,  Brazil,  Buenos  Ayres,  Monte  Video, 
Chili,  and  the  West  Coast  of  America. 

t  Delivered  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  15th 
of  March.— ED. 

71 


May,  1824,  present  another  view  of  this 
subject,  in  which  the  Spanish  colonies  are 
carefully  separated  from  Brazil.  By  these 
accounts  it  appears  that  the  exports  to  the 
Spanish  colonies  were  as  follows : — 


1818,  £735,344. 

1819,  £850.943. 
1820',  £431.615. 


1821, 

1822, 
1823, 


£917.916. 
£1.210^825. 
£2^016,276. 


I  quote  all  these  statements  of  this  com 
merce,  though  they  do  not  entirely  agree 
with  each  other,  because  I  well  know  the 
difficulty  of  attaining  exactness  on  such  sub 
jects, — because  the  least  of  them  is  perfectly 
sufficient  for  my  purpose, — and  because  the 
last,  though  not  so  large  as  others  in  amount, 
shows  more  clearly  than  any  other  its  rapid 
progress,  and  the  proportion  which  its  increase 
bears  to  the  extension  of  American  independ 
ence. 

If  it  were  important  to  swell  this  account. 
I  might  follow  the  example  of  the  Liverpoo 
Petitioners  (who  are  to  be  heard  with  more 
respect,  because  on  this  subject  they  have 
no  interest),  by  adding  to  the  general  amount 
of  commerce  the  supply  of  money  to  the 
American  states  of  about  twelve  millions 
sterling.  For  though  I  of  course  allow  that 
such  contracts  cannot  be  enforced  by  the 
arms  of  this  country  against  a  foreign  state, 
yet  I  consider  the  commerce  in  money  as 
equally  legitimate  and  honourable  with  any 
other  sort  of  commercial  dealing,  and  equally 
advantageous  to  the  country  of  the  lenders, 
wherever  it  is  profitable  to  the  lenders  them 
selves.  I  see  no  difference  in  principle  be 
tween  a  loan  on  the  security  of  public  reve 
nue,  and  a  loan  on  a  mortgage  of  private 
property;  and  the  protection  of  such  deal 
ings  is  in  my  opinion  a  perfectly  good  addi 
tional  reason  for  hastening  to  do  that  which 
is  previously  determined  to  be  politic  and 
just. 

If.  Sir,  I  were  further  called  to  illustrate 
the  value  of  a  free  intercourse  with  South 
America.  I  should  refer  the  House  to  a  valu 
able  work,  which  I  hope  all  who  hear  me 
have  read,  and  which  I  know  they  ought  to 
read, — I  mean  Captain  Basil  Hall's  Travels 
in  that  country.  The  whole  book  is  one 
continued  proof  of  the  importance  of  a  Free 
Trade  to  England,  to  America,  and  to  man 
kind.  No  man  knows  belter  how  to  extract 
information  from  the  most  seemingly  trifling 
conversations,  and  to  make  them  the  means 
of  conveying  the  most  just  conception  of  the 
opinions,  interests,  and  feelings  of  a  people. 
Though  he  can  weigh  interests  in  the  scales 
of  Smith,  he  also  seizes  with  the  skill  of 
Plutarch  on  those  small  circumstances  and 
expressions  which  characterize  not  only  in 
dividuals  but  nations.  "While  we  were  ad 
miring  the  scenery,"  says  he,  "our  people 
had  established  themselves  in  a  hut,  and 
were  preparing  supper  under  the  direction 
of  a  peasant, — a  tall  copper-coloured  semi- 
barbarous  native  of  the  forest, — but  who, 
notwithstanding  his  uncivilized  appearance, 
turned  out  to  be  a  very  shrewd  feUow;  aud 


562 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


gave  us  sufficiently  pertinent  answers  to 
most  of  our  queries.  A  young  Spaniard  of 
our  party,  a  Royalist  by  birth,  and  half  a 
patriot  in  sentiment,  asked  the  mountaineer 
what  harm  the  King  had  done.  l  Why,'  an 
swered  he,  cas  for  the  King,  his  only  fault. 
at  least  that  I  know  of,  was  his  living  too  far 
off.  If  a  king  be  really  good  for  a  country, 
it  appears  to  me  that  he  ought  to  live  in  that 
country,  not  two  thousand  leagues  away 
from  it.'  On  asking  him  what  was  his 
opinion  of  free  trade,  '  My  opinion,'  said  he, 
'is  this: — formerly  I  paid  nine  dollars  for 
the  piece  of  cloth  of  which  this  shirt  is 
made  ;  I  now  pay  two  : — that  is  my  opinion 
of  free  trade.'  "*  This  simple  story  illus 
trates  better  than  a  thousand  arguments  the 
sense  which  the  American  consumer  has  of 
the  consequences  of  free  trade  to  him. 

If  we  ask  how  it  affects  the  American 
producer,  we  shall  find  a  decisive  answer  in 
the  same  admirable  work.  His  interest  is  to 
produce  his  commodities  at  less  expense, 
and  to  sell  them  at  a  higher  price,  as  well  as 
in  greater  quantity : — all  these  objects  he 
has  obtained.  Before  the  Revolution;  he  sold 
his  copper  at  seven  dollars  a  quintal:  in 
1821,  he  sold  it  at  thirteen.  The  articles 
which  he  uses  in  the  mines  are,  on  the  other 
hand,  reduced; — steel  from  fifty  dollars  a 
quintal  to  sixteen  dollars  ;  iron  from  twenty- 
five  to  eight ;  the  provisions  of  his  labourers 
in  the  proportion  of  twenty-one  to  fourteen ; 
the  fine  cloth  which  he  himself  wears,  from 
twenty-three  dollars  a  yard  to  twelve ;  his 
crockery  from  three  hundred  and  fifty  reals 
per  crate  to  forty;  his  hardware  from  three 
hundred  to  one  hundred  reals 
from  two  hundred  to  one  hundred. t 

It  is  justly  observed  by  Captain  Hall,  that 
however  incompetent  a  Peruvian  might  be 
to  appreciate  the  benefits  of  political  liberty, 
he  can  have  no  difficulty  in  estimating  such 
sensible  and  palpable  improvements  in  the 
condition  of  himself  and  his  countrymen. 
With  Spanish  authority  he  connects  the  re 
membrance  of  restriction,  monopoly,  degra 
dation,  poverty,  discomfort,  privation.  In 
those  who  struggle  to  restore  it,  we  may  be 
assured  that  the  majority  of  Americans  can 
see  only  enemies  who  come  to  rob  them  of 
private  enjoyments  and  personal  accommo 
dations. 

It  will  perhaps  be  said,  that  Spain  is  will 
ing  to  abandon  her  monopolies.  But  if  she 
does  now,  might  she  not  by  the  same  autho 
rity  restore  them  ?  If  her  sovereignty  be  re 
stored,  she  must  possess  abundant  means 
of  evading  the  execution  of  any  concessions 
now  made  in  the  hour  of  her  distress.  The 
faith  of  a  Ferdinand  is  the  only  security  she 
offers.  On  the  other  hand,  if  America  con 
tinues  independent,  our  security  is  the  strong 
sense  of  a  most  palpable  interest  already 
spread  among  the  people, — the  interest  of 


*  Vol.  ii.  p.  188. 

t  Vol.  ii.  p.  47.    -This  curious  table  relates  to 
Chili, — the  anecdote  to  Mexico. 


and  his  glass 


the  miner  of  Chili  in  selling  his  copper,  and 
of  the  peasant  of  Mexico  in  buying  his  shirt. 
I  prefer  it  to  the  royal  word  of  Ferdinand. 
But  do  we  not  know  that  the  Royalist  Gene 
ral  Canterac,  in  the  summer  of  1823,  declared 
the  old  prohibitory  laws  to  be  still  in  force 
in  Peru,  and  announced  his  intention  of  ac 
cordingly  confiscating  all  English  merchan 
dise  which  he  had  before  generously  spared? 
Do  we  not  know  that  English  commerce 
every  where  flies  from  the  Royalists,  and 
hails  with  security  and  joy  the  appearance 
of  the  American  flag?*  But  it  is  needless 
to  reason  on  this  subject,  or  to  refer  to  the 
conduct  of  local  agents.  We  have  a  decree 
of  Ferdinand  himself  to  appeal  to,  bearing 
date  at  Madrid  on  the  9th  February,  1824. 
It  is  a  very  curious  document,  and  very 
agreeable  to  the  general  character  of  his 
most  important  edicts; — in  it  there  is  more 
than  the  usual  repugnance  between  the  title 
and  the  purport.  As  he  published  a  table 
of  proscription  under  the  name  of  a  decree 
of  amnesty,  so  his  professed  grant  of  free 
trade  is  in  truth  an  establishment  of  mo 
nopoly.  The  first  article  does  indeed  pro 
mise  a  free  trade  to  Spanish  America.  The 
second,  however,  hastens  to  declare,  that 
this  free  trade  is. to  be  "regulated"  by  a 
future  law, — that  it  is  to  be  confined  to  cer 
tain  ports, — and  that  it  shall  be  subjected  to 
duties,  which  are  to  be  regulated  by  the 
same  law.  The  third  also  declares,  that 
the  preference  to  be  granted  to  Spain  shall 
be  "regulated"  in  like  manner.  As  if  the 
duties,  limitations,  and  preferences  thus  an 
nounced  had  not  provided  such  means  of 
evasion  as  were  equivalent  to  a  repeal  of  the 
first  article,  the  Royal  lawgiver  proceeds  in 
the  fourth  article  to  enact,  that  "till  the  two 
foregoing  articles  can  receive  their  perfect 
execution,  there  shall  be  nothing  innovated 
in  the  state  of  America."  As  the  Court  of 
Madrid  does  not  recognise  the  legality  of 
what  has  been  done  in  America  since  the 
revolt,  must  not  this  be  reasonably  inter 
preted  to  import  a  re-establishment  of  the 
Spanish  laws  of  absolute  monopoly,  till  the 
Government  of  Spain  shall  be  disposed  to 
promulgate  that  code  of  restriction,  of  pre 
ference,  and  of  duties, — perhaps  prohibitory 
ones, — which,  according  to  them,  constitutes 
free  trade. 

But,  Sir,  it  will  be  said  elsewhere,  though 
not  here,  that  I  now  argue  on  the  selfish  and 
sordid  principle  of  exclusive  regard  to  Bri 
tish  interest, — that  I  would  sacrifice  every 
higher  consideration  to  the  extension  of  our 
traffic,  and  to  the  increase  of  our  profits. 
For  this  is  the  insolent  language,  in  which 
those  who  gratify  their  ambition  by  plunder 
ing  and  destroying  their  fellow-creatures, 
have  in  all  ages  dared  to  speak  of  those  who 
better  their  own  condition  by  multiplying  the 
enjoyments  of  mankind.  In  answer,  I  might 
content  myself  with  saying,  that  having 


*  As  in  the  evacuation  of  Lima  in  the  spring  of 
1824. 


ON  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  STATES. 


563 


proved  the  recognition  of  the  independence 
of  these  states  to  be  conformable  to  justice, 
I  have  a  perfect  right  to  recommend  it  as 
conducive  to  the  welfare  of  this  nation.  But 
I  deny  altogether  the  doctrine,  that  com 
merce  has  a  selfish  character, — that  it  can 
benefit  one  party  without  being  advantageous 
to  the  other.  It  is  twice  blessed  :  it  blesses 
the  giver  as  well  as  the  receiver.  It  consists 
in  the  interchange  of  the  means  of  enjoy 
ment;  and  its  very  essence  is  to  employ 'one 
part  of  mankind  in  contributing  to  the  hap 
piness  of  others.  What  is  the  instrument 
by  which  a  savage  is  to  be  raised  from  a 
state  in  which  he  has  nothing  human  but  the 
form,  but  commerce, — exciting  in  his  mind 
the  desire  of  accommodation  and  enjoyment, 
and  presenting  to  him  the  means  of  obtain 
ing  these  advantages  ?  It  is  thus  only  that 
he  is  gradually  raised  to  industry, — to  fore 
sight. — to  a  respect  for  property, — to  a  sense 
of  justice, — to  a  perception  of  the  necessity 
of  laws.  What  corrects  his  prejudices  against 
foreign  nations  and  dissimilar  races? — com 
mercial  intercourse.  What  slowly  teaches 
him  that  the  quiet  and  well-being  of  the 
most  distant  regions  have  some  tendency  to 
promote  the  prosperity  of  his  own'?  What 
at  length  disposes  him  even  to  tolerate  those 
religious  differences  which  led  him  to  regard 
the  greater  part  of  the  species  with  abhor 
rence  ?  Nothing  but  the  intercourse  and 
familiarity  into  which  commerce  alone  could 
have  tempted  him.  What  diffuses  wealth, 
and  therefore  increases  the  leisure  which 
calls  into  existence  the  works  of  genius,  the 
discoveries  of  science,  and  the  inventions  of 
art?  What  transports  just  opinions  of  go 
vernment  into  enslaved  countries, — raises  the 
importance  of  the  middle  and  lower  classes 
of  society,  and  thus  reforms  social  institu 
tions,  and  establishes  equal  liberty  ?  What 
but  Commerce — the  real  civilizer  and  eman 
cipator  of  mankind  ? 

A  delay  of  recognition  would  be  an  im 
portant  breach  of  justice  to  the  American 
states.  We  send  consuls  to  their  territory, 
in  the  confidence  that  their  Government  and 
their  judges  will  do  justice  to  British  sub 
jects*  but  we  receive  no  authorised  agents 
from  them  in  return.  Until  they  shall  be 
recognised  by  the  King,  our  courts  of  law 
will  not  acknowledge  their  existence.  Our 
statutes  allow  certain  privileges  to  ships 
coming  from  the  "provinces  in  America 
lately  subject  to  Spain ;"  but  our  courts  will 
not  acknowledge  that  these  provinces  are 
subject  to  any  government.  If  the  maritime 
war  which  has  lately  commenced  should 
long  continue,  many  questions  of  interna 
tional  law  may  arise  out  of  our  anomalous 
situation,  which  it  will  be  impossible  to  de 
termine  by  any  established  principles.  If 
we  escape  this  difficulty  by  recognising  the 
actual  governments  in  courts  of  Prize,  how 
absurd,  inconsistent,  and  inconvenient  it  is 
not  to  extend  the  same  recognition  to  all  our 
tribunals ! 

The  reception  of  a  new  state  into  the  so 


ciety  of  civilized  nations  by  those  acts  which 
amount  to  recognition,  is  a  proceeding  which, 
as  it  has  no  legal  character,  and  is  purely  of 
a  moral  nature,  must  vary  very  much  in  its 
value,  according  to  the  authority  of  the  na 
tions  who,  upon  such  occasions,  act  as  the 
representatives  of  civilized  men.  I  will  say 
nothing  of  England,  but  that  she  is  the  only 
anciently  free  state  in  the  world.  For  her 
to  refuse  her  moral  aid  to  communities  strug 
gling  for  liberty,  is  an  act  of  unnatural  harsh 
ness,  which,  if  it  does  not  recoil  on  herself, 
must  injure  America  in  the  estimation  of 
mankind. 

This  is  not  all.  The  delay  of  recognition 
tends  to  prolong  and  exasperate  the  disorders 
which  are  the  reason  alleged  for  it.  It  en 
courages  Spain  to  waste  herself  in  desperate 
efforts;  it  encourages  the  Holy  Alliance  to 
sow  division, — to  employ  intrigue  and  cor 
ruption, — to  threaten,  perhaps  to  equip  and 
despatch,  armaments.  Then  it  encourages 
every  incendiary  to  excite  revolt,  and  every 
ambitious  adventurer  to  embark  in  projects 
of  usurpation.  It  is  a  cruel  policy,  which 
has  the  strongest  tendency  to  continue  for  a 
time,  of  which  we  cannot  foresee  the  limits, 
rapine  and  blood,  commotions  and  civil  wars, 
throughout  the  larger  portion  of  the  New 
World.  By  maintaining  an  outlawry  against 
them,  wre  shall  give  them  the  character  of 
outlaws.  The  long  continuance  of  confu 
sion.— in  part  arising  from  our  refusing  to 
countenance  their  governments,  to  impose  on 
them  the  mild  yoke  of  civilized  opinion,  and 
to  teach  them  respect  for  themselves  by  as 
sociating  them  with  other  free  communities, 
— may  at  length  really  unfit  them  for  liberty 
or  order,  and  destroy  in  America  that  capa 
city  to  maintain  the  usual  relations  of  peace 
and  amity  with  us  which  undoubtedly  exists 
there  at  present. 

It  is  vain  to  expect  that  Spain,  even  if  she 
were  to  reconquer  America,  could  establish 
in  that  country  a  vigorous  government,  ca 
pable  of  securing  a  peaceful  intercourse  with 
other  countries.  America  is  too  determined, 
and  Spain  is  too  feeble.  The  only  possible 
result  of  so  unhappy  an  event  would  be,  to 
exhibit  the  wretched  spectacle  of  beggary, 
plunder,  bloodshed,  and  alternate  anarchy 
and  despotism  in  a  country  almost  depopu 
lated.  It  may  require  time  to  give  firmness 
to  native  governments;  but  it  is  impossi 
ble  that  a  Spanish  one  should  ever  again  ac 
quire  it. 

Sir,  I  am  far  from  foretelling  that  the  Ame 
rican  nations  will  not  speedily  and  complete 
ly  subdue  the  agitations  which  are  in  some 
degree,  perhaps,  inseparable  from  a  struggle 
for  independence.  I  have  no  such  gloomy 
forebodings;  though  even  if  I  were  to  yield 
to  them,  I  should  not  speak  the  language 
once  grateful  to  the  ears  of  this  House,  if  I 
were  not  to  say  that  the  chance  of  liberty  is 
worth  the  agitations  of  centuries.  If  any 
Englishman  were  to  speak  opposite  doctrines 
to  these  rising  communities,  the  present 
power  and  prosperity  and  glory  of  England 


564 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


would  enable  them  to  detect  his  slavish 
sophistry.  As  a  man,  I  trust  that  the  virtue 
and  fortune  of  these  American  states  will 
spare  them  many  of  the  sufferings  which 
appear  to  be  the  price  set  on  liberty;  but  as 
a  Briton,  I  am  desirous  that  we  should  aid 
them  by  early  treating  them  with  that  honour 
and  kindness  which  the  justice,  humanity, 
valour,  and  magnanimity  which'  they  have 
displayed  in  the  prosecution  of  the  noblest 
object  of  human  pursuit,  have  so  well  de 
served. 

To  conclude  : — the  delay  of  the  recogni 
tion  is  not  due  to  Spain:  it  is  injurious  to 
America  :  it  is  inconvenient  to  all  European 
nations,  —  and  only  most  inconvenient  to 
Great  Britain,  because  she  has  a  greater  in 
tercourse  with  America  than  any  other  na 
tion.  I  would  not  endanger  the  safety  of  my 
own  country  for  the  advantage  of  others;  I 
would  not  violate  the  rules  of  duty  to  pro 
mote  its  interest;  I  would  not  take  unlawful 
means  even  for  the  purpose  of  diffusing 
liberty  among  men ;  I  would  not  violate  neu 
trality  to  serve  America,  nor  commit  injus 
tice  to  extend  the  commerce  of  England : 


j  but  I  would  do  an  act,  consistent  with  neu 
trality,  and  warranted  by  impartial  justice, 
:  tending  to  mature  the  liberty  and  to  consoli- 
|  date  the  internal  quiet  of  a  vast  continent, — 
'  to  increase  the  probability  of  the  benefits  of 
free  and  just  government  being  attained  by 
;  a  great  portion  of  mankind, — to  procure  for 
England  the  honour  of  a  becoming  share  in 
j  contributing  to  so  unspeakable  a  blessing. — 
;  to  prevent  the  dictators  of  Europe  from  be- 
'  coming  the  masters  of  the  New  World, — to 
re-establish  some   balance  of  opinions  and 
force,  by  placing  the  republics  of  America, 
1  with  the  wealth  and  maritime  power  of  the 
world,  in  the  scale  opposite   to   that  of  the 
European  Allies, — to   establish  beyond  the 
Atlantic  an  asylum  which  may  preserve,  till 
happier  times,  the  remains  of  the  Spanish 
name, — to  save  nations,  who  have  already 
proved  their  generous  spirit,  from  becoming 
the   slaves   of  the   Holy  Alliance, — and   to 
rescue  sixteen   millions  of  American   Spa 
niards   from   sharing  with    their   European 
brethren  that  sort  of   law  and  justice, — of 
peace  and  order, — which  now  prevails  from 
the  Pyrenees  to  the  Rock  of  Gibraltar. 


;^,<::    :.  SPEECH 

ON  THE  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  OF  CANADA, 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS  ON  THE  2o  OF  MAY,  1828. 


MR.  SPEAKER, — I  think  I  may  interpret 
fairly  the  general  feeling  of  the  House,  when 
I  express  my  congratulations  upon  the  great 
extent  of  talent  and  information  which  the 
Honourable  Member  for  St.  Michael's*  has 
just  displayed,  and  that  I  may  venture  to 
assert  he  has  given  us  full  assurance,  in  his 
future  progress,  of  proving  a  useful  and  valu 
able  member  of  the  Parliament  of  this  coun 
try.  I  cannot,  also,  avoid  observing,  that  the 
laudable  curiosity  which  carried  him  to  visit 
that  country  whose  situation  is  now  the  sub 
ject  of  discussion,  and  still  more  the  curiosity 
which  led  him  to  visit  that  Imperial  Republic 
which  occupies  the  other  best  portion  of  the 
American  continent,  gave  evidence  of  a  mind 
actuated  by  enlarged  and  liberal  views. 

After  having  presented  a  petition  signed 
by  eighty-seven  thousand  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Lower  Canada — comprehending  in  that 
number  nine-tenths  of  the  heads  of  families 
in  the  province,  and  more  than  two-thirds  of 
its  landed  proprietors,  and  after  having  shown 
that  the  Petitioners  had  the  greatest  causes 
of  complaint  against  the  administration  of 

*  Mr.  [now  the  Right  Honourable]  Henry  La- 
bouchere.— ED. 


the  government  in  that  colony,  it  would  be 
an  act  of  inconsistency  on  my  part  to  attempt 
to  throw  any  obstacle  in  the  way  of  that  in 
quiry  which  the  Right  Honourable  Gentle- 
|  man*  proposes.     It  might  seem,  indeed,  a 
j  more  natural  course  on  my  part,  if  I  had 
j  seconded   such  a   preposition.      Perhaps   I 
!  might  have  been  contented  to  give  a  silent 
;  acquiescence  in  the  appointment  of  a  coifi- 
!  mittee,  and  to  reserve  any  observations }.l 
may  have  to  offer  until  some  specific  meal- 
sure  is  proposed,  or  until  the  House  is  in  pos 
session  of  the   information  which  may  be 
!  procured  through  the  labours  of  the  commit- 
i  tee, — perhaps,  I  say,  I  might  have  been  dis- 
'  posed  to  adopt  this  course  if  I  had  not  been 
intrusted  with  the  presentation  of  that  Peti 
tion.     But  I  feel  bound  by  a  sense  of  the 
trust  reposed  in  me  to  allow  no  opportunity 
to  pass  over  of  calling  the  attention  of  the 
House  to  the  grievances  of  the  Petitioners, 

*  Mr.  Huskisson,  Secretary  for  the  Colonial 
Department,  had  moved  to  refer  the  whole  ques 
tion  of  the  already  embroiled  affairs  of  the  Ca 
nadian  provinces  to  a  Select  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  which  was  eventually  agreed 
to,— ED. 


ON  THE  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  OF  CANADA. 


565 


and  to  their  claims  for  redress  and  for  the 
maintenance  of  their  legitimate  rights.  This 
duty  I  hold -myself  bound  to  execute,  ac 
cording  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  without 
sacrificing  my  judgment,  or  rendering  it  sub 
ordinate  to  any  sense  of  duty  ; — but  feeling 
only  that  the  confidence  of  the  Petitioners 
binds  me  to  act  on  their  behalf,  and  as  their 
advocate,  in  precisely  the  same  manner, 
and  to  the  same  extent,  as  if  I  had  been  in 
vested  with  another  character,  and  autho 
rised  to  state  their  complaints  in  a  different 
situation.* 

To  begin  then  with  the  speech  of  the 
Right  Honourable  Gentleman,  I  may  take 
leave  to  observe,  that  in  all  that  was  con 
tained  in  the  latter  part  of  it  he  has  my  full 
est  and  most  cordial  assent.  In  1822,  when 
the  Canadians  were  last  before  the  House, 
I  stated  the  principles  which  ought  to  be 
maintained  with  respect  to  what  the  Right 
Honourable  Gentleman  has  very  properly 
and  very  eloquently  called  the  "Great  Bri 
tish  Confederacy."  I  hold  now,  as  I  did 
then,  that  all  the  different  portions  of  that 
Confederacy  are  integral  parts  of  the  British 
Empire,  and  as  such  entitled  to  the  fullest 
protection.  I  hold  that  they  are  all  bound 
together  as  one  great  class,  by  an  alliance 
prior  in  importance  to  every  other, — more 
binding  upon  us  than  any  treaty  ever  enter 
ed  into  with  any  state, — the  fulfilment  of 
which  we  can  never  desert  without  the 
sacrifice  of  a  great  moral  duty.  I  hold  that 
it  can  be  a  matter  of  no  moment,  in  this  bond 
of  alliance,  whether  the  parties  be  divided 
by  oceans  or  be  neighbours : — I  hold  that 
the  moral  bond  of  duty  and  protection  is  the 
same.  My  maxims  of  Colonial  Policy  are 
few  and  simple  : — a  full  and  efficient  pro 
tection  from  all  foreign  influence  :  full  per 
mission  to  conduct  the  whole  of  their  own 
internal  affairs ;  compelling  them  to  pay  all 
the  reasonable  expenses  of  their  own  govern 
ment,  and  giving  them  at  the  same  time  a 
perfect  control  over  the  expenditures  of  the 
money;  and  imposing  no  restrictions  of  any 
kind  upon  the  industry  or  traffic  of  the  peo 
ple.  These  are  the  only  means  by  which 
the  hitherto  almost  incurable  evil  of  distant 
government  can  be  either  mitigated  or  re 
moved.  And  it  may  be  a  matter  of  doubt, 
whether  in  such  circumstances  the  colonists 
would  not  be  under  a  more  gentle  control, 
and  in  a  happier  state,  than  if  they  were  to 
be  admitted  to  a  full  participation  in  the 
rule,  and  brought  under  the  immediate  and 
full  protection,  of  the  parent  government. 
I  agree  most  fully  with  the  Honourable  Gen 
tleman  who  spoke  last,  when  he  expressed  a 
wish  that  we  should  leave  the  regulation  of 
the  internal  affairs  of  the  colonies  to  the 
colonists,  except  in  cases  of  the  most  urgent 
and  manifest  necessity.  The  most  urgent 
and  manifest  necessity,  I  say ;  and  few  and 

*  This  alludes  to  his  nomination  some  time 
previously  by  the  House  of  Assembly  of  Lower 
Canada  as  the  Agent  of  the  Province,  which 
nomination  had  not  however  taken  effect. — ED. 


rare  ought  to  be  the  exceptions  to  the  rule 
even  upon  the  strength  of  those  necessities. 
Under  these  circumstances  of  right  I  con 
tend  it  is  prudent  to  regard  all  our  colonies; 
and  peculiarly  the  population  of  these  two 
great  provinces; — provinces  placed  in  one 
of  those  rare  and  happy  states  of  society  in 
which  the  progress  of  population  must  be 
regarded  as  a  blessing  to  mankind, — exempt 
from  the  curse  of  fostering  slavery, — exempt 
from  the  evils  produced  by  the  contentions 


of  jarring  systems  of  reli 


enjoying  the 


blessings  of  universal  toleration, — and  pre 
senting  a  state  of  society  the  most  unlike 
that  can  possibly  be  imagined  to  the  fastidi 
ous  distinctions  of  Europe.  Exempt  at  once 
from  the  slavery  of  the  West,  and  the  castes 
of  the  East, — exempt,  too.  from  the  embar 
rassments  of  that  other  great  continent  which 
we  have  chosen  as  a  penal  settlement,  and 
in  which  the  prejudices  of  society  have 
been  fostered,  I  regret  to  find,  in  a  most  un 
reasonable  degree, —  exempt  from  all  the 
artificial  distinctions  of  the  Old  World,  arid 
many  of  the  evils  of  the  New,  we  see  a  great 
population  rapidly  growing  up  to  be  a  great 
nation.  None  of  the  claims  of  such  a  popu 
lation  ought  to  be  cast  aside ;  and  none  of 
their  complaints  can  receive  any  but  the 
most  serious  consideration. 

In  the  first  part  of  his  speech  the  Right 
Honourable  Gentleman  declared,  that  the 
excesses  and  complaints  of  the  colonists 
arose  from  the  defect  of  their  constitution, 
and  next  from  certain  contentions  into  which 
they  had  fallen  with  Lord  Dalhousie.  In 
any  thing  I  may  say  on  this  occasion,  I  beg 
to  be  understood  as  not  casting  any  imputa 
tion  upon  the  character  of  that  Noble  Lord  : 
I  speak  merely  of  the  acts  of  his  Govern 
ment;  and  I  wish  solely  to  be  understood  as 
saying,  that  my  opinion  of  the  acts  of  that 
Government  are  different  from  those  which 
I  believe  to  have  been  conscientiously  his. 

I,  however,  must  say,  that  I  thought  the 
Right  Honourable  Gentleman  in  one  part  of 
his  address  had  indulged  himself  in  some 
pleasantries  which  seemed  ill  suited  to  the 
subject  to  which  he  claimed  our  attention ; 
— I  allude  to  the  three  essential  grievances 
which  he  seemed  to  imagine  led  to  many, 
if  not  all,  of  the  discontents  and  complaints 
of  the  colonists.  There  was  the  perplexed 
system  of  real-property-law,  creating  such  a 
vexatious  delay,  and  such  enormous  costs  to 
the  suitor  as  to  'amount  very  nearly  to  a  de 
nial  of  justice :  this,  he  said,  arose  from  ad 
hering  to  the  Custom  of  Paris.  The  next 
cause  of  discontent  is  the  inadequate  repre 
sentation  of  the  people  in  Parliament :  that 
he  recommended  to  the  immediate  attention 
of  the  committee,  for  the  purpose  of  revision. 
Lastly,  the  members  of  the  Legislature  were 
so  absurdly  ignorant  of  the  first  principles  of 
political  economy,  as  to  have  attempted  to 
exclude  all  the  industry  and  capital  of  other 
countries  from  flowing  in  to  enrich  and  fer 
tilise  their  shores.  These  were  the  three 
grounds  upon  which  he  formally  impeached 
2X 


566 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  people  of  Canada  before  the  Knights, 
Citizens,  and  Burgesses  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  in  Parliament  assembled. 

Did  the  Right  Honourable  Gentleman  never 
hear  of  any  other  System  of  law,  in  any 
other  country  than  Canada,  in  which  a  jumble 
of  obsolete  usages  were  mixed  up  and  con 
founded  with  modern  subtleties,  until  the 
mind  of  the  most  acute  men  of  the  age  and 
nation — men  who  had,  in  a  service  of  forty 
years,  passed  through  every  stage  of  its  gra 
dations — were  driven  to  declare  that  they 
felt  totally  unable  to  find  their  way  through 
its  labyrinths,  and  were  compelled,  by  their 
doubts  of  what  was  law  and  what  was  not, 
to  add  in  a  most  ruinous  degree  to  the  ex 
penses  of  the  suitor  ?  This  system  has  been 
called  the  "Common  Law,'' — "the  wisdom 
of  our  ancestors," — and  various  other  vener 
able  names.  Did  he  never  hear  of  a  system 
of  representation  in  any  other  country  totally 
irreconcilable  either  with  the  state  of  the 
population  or  with  any  rule  or  principle  under 
heaven  1  Have  I  not  heard  over  and  over 
again  from  the  lips  of  the  Right  Honourable 
Gentleman,  and  from  one*  whom,  alas !  I 
shall  hear  no  more,  that  this  inadequate 
system  of  representation  possessed  extraor 
dinary  advantages  over  those  more  syste 
matic  contrivances  which  resulted  from  the 
studies  of  the  "  constitution  makers"  of  other 
countries'?  And  yet  it  is  for  this  very  irre 
gularity  in  their  mode  of  representation  that 
the  Canadians  are  now  to  be  brought  before 
the  judgment  of  the  Right  Honourable  Gentle 
man's  committee.  I  felt  still  greater  wonder, 
however,  when  I  heard  him  mention  his  third 
ground  of  objection  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
colonists,  and  his  third  cause  of  their  dis 
content — their  ignorance  of  political  econo 
my.  Too  surely  the  laws  for  the  exclusion 
of  the  capital  and  industry  of  other  countries 
did  display  the  grossest  ignorance  of  that 
science !  I  should  not  much  wonder  if  I 
heard  of  the  Canadians  devising  plans  to 
prevent  the  entrance  of  a  single  grain  of 
foreign  corn  into  the  provinces.  I  should  not 
wonder  to  hear  the  members  of  their  Legis 
lature  and  their  great  land-owners  contend 
ing  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  the 
D)le  should  be  able  to  raise  all  their  own 
;  and  consequently  (although,  perhaps, 
they  do  not  see  the  consequences)  to  make 
every  other  nation  completely  independent 
of  their  products  and  their  industry.  It  is 
perhaps  barely  possible  that  some  such  non 
sense  as  this  might  be  uttered  in  the  legisla 
tive  assembly  of  the  Canadians. 

Then  again,  Sir,  the  Right  Honourable 
Gentleman  has  alluded  to  the  Seigneurs  and 
their  vassals.  Som&of  these  "most  potent, 
grave,  and  reverend"  Seigneurs  may  happen 
to  be  jealous  of  their  manorial  rights :  for 
seigneuralty  means  manor,  and  a  seigneur  is 
only,  therefore,  a  lord  of  the  manor.  How 
harmless  this  lofty  word  seems  to  be  when 
translated  !  Some  of  these  seigneurs  might 

*  Mr.  Canning. — ED. 


happen,  I  say,  to  be  jealous  of  their  manorial 
privileges,  and  anxious  for  the  preservation 
of  their  game.  I  am  a  very  bad  sportsman 
myself,,.and  not  well  acquainted  with  the 
various  objects  of  anxiety  to  such  persons; 
but  there  may  be,  too,  in  these  colonies  also, 
persons  who  may  take  upon  themselves  to 
institute  a  rigorous  inquiry  into  the  state  of 
their  game,  and  into  the  best  methods  of 
preserving  red  game  and  black  game,  and 
pheasants  and  partridges;  and  who  might  be 
disposed  to  make  it  a  question  whether  any 
evils  arise  from  the  preservation  of  these 
things  for  their  sport,  or  whether  the  safety, 
the  liberty,  and  the  life  of  their  fellow-sub 
jects  ought  not  to  be  sacrificed  for  their  per 
sonal  gratification. 

With  regard  to  the  observance  of  the 
Custom  of  Paris,  I  beg  the  House  to  consider 
that  no  change  was  effected  from  1760  to 
1789;  and  (although  I  admit  with  the  Right 
Honourable  Gentleman  that  it  may  be  bad  as 
a  system  of  conveyance,  and  may  be  expen 
sive  on  account  of  the  difficulties  produced 
by  mortgages)  that  the  Canadians  cannot  be 
very  ill  off  under  a  code  of  laws  which  grew 
up  under  the  auspices  of  the  Parliament  of 
Paris — a  body  comprising  the  greatest  learn 
ing  and  talent  ever  brought  to  the  study  of 
the  law,  and  boasting  the  names  of  L'Hopital 
and  Montesquieu. 

Neither  can  it  be  said,  that  the  Assembly 
of  Canada  was  so  entirely  indifferent  to  its 
system  of  representation :  for  it  ought  to  be 
recollected,  that  they  passed  a  bill  to  amend 
it,  Avhich  was  thrown  out  by  the  Council. — 
that  is,  in  fact,  by  the  Government.  At  'all 
events,  this  showTs  that  there  was  no  want 
of  a  disposition  to  amend  the  state  of  their 
representation;  although  Government  might 
differ  from  them  as  to  the  best  method  of 
accomplishing  it.  A  bill  for  establishing  the 
independence  of  the  judges  was  another  re 
medial  measure  thrown  out  by  the  Upper 
House. 

As  at  present  informed,  however,  without 
going  further  into  these  questions,  I  see 
enough  stated  in  the  Petition  upon  the  table 
of  the  House,  to  justify  the  appointment  of 
a  committee  of  inquiry. 

In  every  country,  Sir,  the  wishes  of  the 
greater  number  of  the  inhabitants,  and  o'f 
those  in  possession  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
property,  ought  to  have  great  influence  in  the 
government;  —  they  ought  to  possess  the 
power  of  the  government.  If  this  be  true 
generally,  the  rule  ought,  a  multo  fortiori,  to 
be  followed  in  the  government  of  distant 
colonies,  from  which  the  information  that  is 
to  guide  the  Government  at  home  is.  sent  by 
a  few,  and  is  never  correct  or  complete.  A 
Government  on  the  spot,  though  with  the 
means  of  obtaining  correct  information,  is 
exposed  to  the  delusions  of  prejudice  : — for 
a  Government  at  a  distance,  the  only  safe 
course  to  pursue  is  to  follow  public  opinion. 
In  making  the  practical  application  of  this 
principle,  if  I  find  the  Government  of  any 
country  engaged  in  squabbles  with  the  great 


ON  THE  CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  OF  CANADA. 


56T 


mass  of  the  people, — if  I  find  it  engaged  in 
vexatious  controversies  and  ill-timed  dis 
putes, — especially  if  that  Government  be  the 
Government  of  a  colony, — I  say,  that  there 
is  a  reasonable  presumption  against  that  Go 
vernment.  I  do  not  charge  it  with  injustice, 
but  I  charge  it  with  imprudence  and  indis 
cretion  ;  and  I  say  that  it  is  unfit  to  hold  the 
authority  intrusted  to  it.  The  ten  years  of 
squabbles  and  hostility  which  have  existed 
in  this  instance,  are  a  sufficient  charge  against 
this  Government. 

I  was  surprised  to  hear  the  Right  Honour 
able  Gentleman  put  the  People  and  the  Go 
vernment  on  the  same  footing  in  this  respect. 
What  is  government  good  for,  if  not  to  temper 
passion  with  wisdom?  The  People  are  said 
to  be  deficient  in  certain  qualities,  and  a  go 
vernment  are  said  to  possess  them.  If  the 
People  are  not  deficient  in  them,  it  is  a  fal 
lacy  to  talk  of  the  danger  of  intrusting  them 
with  political  power:  if  they  are  deficient, 
where  is  the  common  sense  of  exacting  from 
them  that  moderation  which  government  is 
instituted  for  the  very  purpose  of  supplying  ? 

Taking  this  to  be  true  as  a  general  princi 
ple,  it  cannot  be  false  in  its  application  to 
the  question  before  the  House.  As  I  under 
stand  it,  the  House  of  Assembly  has  a  right 
to  appropriate  the  supplies  which  itself  has 
granted.  The  House  of  Commons  knows 
well  how  to  appreciate  that  right,  and  should 
not  quarrel  with  the  House  of  Assembly  for 
indulging  in  a  similar  feeling.  The  Right 
Honourable  Gentleman  himself  admits  the 
existence  of  this  right.  The  Governor-Gene 
ral  has,  however,  infringed  it,  by  appropria 
ting  a  sum  of  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
pounds  without  the  authority  of  the  Assem 
bly.  That  House  does  not  claim  to  appro 
priate  the  revenue  raised  under  the  Act  of 
1774:  they  only  claim  a  right  to  examine 
the  items  of  the  appropriation  in  order  to 
ascertain  if  the  Government  need  any  fresh 
supplies.  The  Petitioners  state  it  as  one  of 
their  not  unimaginary  grievances,  that  they 
have  lost  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  by 
the  neglect  of  the  Receiver-General.  This 
is  not  one  of  those  grievances  which  are  said 
to  arise  from  the  Assembly's  claim  of  politi 
cal  rights.  Another  dispute  arises  from  the 
Governor-General  claiming,  in  imitation  of 
the  power  of  the  King,  a  right  to  confirm  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Assembly.  This 
right. — a  very  ancient  one,  and  venerable 
from  its  antiquity  and  from  being  an  esta 
blished  fact  of  an  excellent  constitution  at 
home, — is  a  most  absurd  adjunct  to  a  colo 
nial  government.  But  I  will  not  investigate 
the  question,  nor  enter  into  any  legal  argu 
ment  with  regard  to  it ;  for  no  discussion  can 
in  any  case,  as  I  feel,  be  put  in  competition 
with  the  feelings  of  a  whole  people.  It  is  a 
fatal  error  in  the  rulers  of  a  country  to  despise 
the  people :  its  safety,  honour,  and  strength, 
are  best  preserved  by  consulting  their  wishes 
and  feelings.  The  Government  at  Quebec, 
despising  such  considerations,  has  been  long 
engaged  in  a  scuffle  with  the  people,  and  has 
2Q2 


thought  hard  wrords  and  hard  blows  not  in 
consistent  with  its  dignity. 

I  observe,  Sir,  that  twenty-one  bills  were 
passed  by  the  House  of  Assembly  in  1827, 
— most  of  them  reformatory, — of  which  not 
one  was  approved  of  by  the  Legislative 
Council.  Is  the  Governor  responsible  for 
this'?  I  answer,  he  is.  The  Council  is  no 
thing  else  but  his  tool :  it  is  not,  as  at  present 
constituted,  a  fair  and  just  constitutional 
check  between  the  popular  assembly  and  the 
Governor.  Of  the  twenty-seven  Councillors, 
seventeen  hold  places  under  the  Government 
at  pleasure,  dividingamong  themselves  yearly 
fifteen  thousand  pounds,  which  is  not  a  small 
sum  in  a  country  in  which  a  thousand  a-year 
is  a  large  income  for  a  country  gentleman. 
I  omit  the  Bishop,  who  is  perhaps  rather  too 
much  inclined  to  authority,  but  is  of  a  pacific 
character.  The  minority,  worn  out  in  their 
fruitless  resistance,  have  withdrawn  from 
attendance  on  the  Council.  Two  of  them, 
being  the  most  considerable  landholders  in 
the  province,  were  amongst  the  subscribers 
to  the  Petition.  I  appeal  to  the  House,  if  the 
Canadians  are  not  justified  in  considering  the 
very  existence  of  this  Council  as  a  constitu 
tional  grievance  1 

It  has  been  said  that  there  is  no  aristocracy 
formed  in  the  province.  It  is  not  possible 
that  this  part  of  Mr.  Pitt's  plan  could  ever 
have  been  carried  into  execution :  an  aristo 
cracy —  the  creature  of  time  and  opinion — 
cannot  be  created.  But  men  of  great  merit 
and  superior  qualifications  get  an  influence 
over  the  people ;  and  they  form  a  species  of 
aristocracy,  differing,  indeed,  from  one  of 
birth  and  descent,  but  supplying  the  mate 
rials  out  of  which  a  constitutional  senate 
may  be  constituted.  Such  an  aristocracy 
there  is  in  Canada;  but  it  is  excluded  from 
the  Council. 

There  are  then,  Sir.  two  specific  classes 
of  grievances  complained  of  by  the  Lower- 
Canadians:  the  first  is,  the  continued  hosti 
lity  to  all  the  projected  measures  of  the 
Assembly  by  the  Governor;  the  second  is, 
the  use  he  makes  of  the  Council  to  oppose 
them.  These  are  the  grounds  on  which  in 
quiry  and  change  are  demanded.  I,  how 
ever,  do  not  look  upon  these  circumstances 
alone  as  peremptorily  requiring  a  change  in 
the  constitution  of  the  province.  These  are 
wrongs  which  the  Government  might  have 
remedied.  It  might  have  selected  a  better 
Council ;  and  it  might  have  sent  out  instruc 
tions  to  the  Governor  to  consult  the  feelings 
of  the  people.  It  might  have  pointed  out  to 
him  the  example  of  a  Government  which 
gave  way  to  the  wishes  of  a  people, — of  a 
majority  of  the  people,  expressed  by  a  ma 
jority  of  their  representatives, — on  a  ques 
tion,  too.  of  religious  liberty,*  and  instead  of 
weakening  themselves,  had  thereby  more 
firmly  seated  themselves  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  On  reviewing  the  whole  question, 
the  only  practical  remedy  which  I  see,  is  to 


*  Alluding  to  the  repeal  of  the  Test  Act.— ED. 


568 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


introduce  more  prudence  and  discretion  into 
the  counsels  of  the  Administration  of  the 
Province. 

The  Right  Honourable  Gentleman  has  made 
allusion  to  the  English  settlers  in  Lower- 
Canada,  as  if  they  were  oppressed  by  the 
natives.  But  I  ask  what  law  has  been  passed 
by  the  Assembly  that  is  unjust  to  them  ?  Is 
it  a  remedy  for  this  that  it  is  proposed  to 
change  the  scheme  of  representation  ?  The 
English  inhabitants  of  Lower-Canada,  with 
some  few  exceptions,  collected,  in  towns  as 
merchants  or  the  agents  of  merchants, — 
very  respectable  persons,  I  have  no  doubt, — 
amount  to  about  eighty  thousand :  would  it 
not  be  the  height  of  injustice  to  give  them 
the  same  influence  which  the  four  hundred 
thousand  Canadians,  from  their  numbers  and 
property,  ought  to  possess?  Sir,  when  I  hear 
of  an  inquiry  on  account  of  measures  neces 
sary  to  protect  English  settlers,  I  greatly 
lament  that  any  such  language  should  have 
been  used.  Are  we  to  have  an  English  colony 
in  Canada  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  in 
habitants, — a  favoured  body,  with  peculiar 
privileges  ?  Shall  they  have  a  sympathy  with 
English  sympathies  and  English  interests? 
And  shall  we  deal  out  to  Canada  six  hundred 
years  of  such  miseries  as  we  have  to  Ireland  ? 
Let  us  not.  in  God's  name,  introduce  such 
curses  into  another  region.  Let  our  policy 
be  to  give  all  the  King's  subjects  in  Canada 
equal  law  and  equal  justice.  I  cannot  listen 
to  unwise  distinctions,  generating  alarm,  and 
leading  to  nothing  but  evil,  without  adverting 
to  them  j  and  I  shall  be  glad  if  my  observa 
tions  supply  the  Gentlemen  opposite  with  the 
opportunity  of  disavowing,  —  knowing,  as  I 
do,  that  the  disavowal  will  be  sincere — that 
any  such  distinction  is  to  be  kept  up. 

As  to  Upper  Canada,  the  statement  of  the 
Right  Honourable  Gentleman  appears  to  be 
scanty  in  information  :  it  does  not  point  out, 
— as  is  usual  in  proposing  such  a  Committee. 
— what  is  to  be  the  termination  of  the  change 
proposed.  He  has  thrown  out  two  or  three 
plans;  but  he  has  also  himself  supplied  ob 
jections  to  them.  The  Assembly  there  ap 
pears  to  be  as  independent  as  the  one  in  the 
Lower  province.  I  have  heard  of  some  of 
their  measures  —  an  Alien  bill,  a  Catholic 
bill,  and  a  bill  for  regulating  the  Press : 
and  these  discussions  were  managed  with  as 
much  spirit  as  those  of  an  assembly  which 
I  will  not  say  is  better,  but  which  has  the 
good  fortune  to  be  their  superiors.  The  peo 
ple  have  been  much  disappointed  by  the 


immense  grants  of  land  which  have  been 
reserved  for  the  Church  of  England, — which 
faith  is  not  4hat  of  the  majority~of  the  people. 
Such  endowments  are  to  be  held  sacred 
where  they  have  been  long  made  j  but  I  do 
not  see  the  propriety  of  creating  them  anewr, 
— and  for  a  Church,  too,  to  which  the  ma 
jority  of  the  people  do  not  belong.  Then, 
with  regard  to  the  regulations  \vhich  have 
been  made  for  the  new  college,  I  see  with 
astonishment  that,  in  a  country  where  the 
majority  of  the  people  do  not  belong  to  the 
Church  of  England,  the  professors  are  all  to 
subscribe  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  :  so  that, 
if  Dr.  Adam  Smith  were  alive,  he  could  not 
fill  the  chair  of  political  economy,  and  Dr. 
Black  would  be  excluded  from  that  of  chem 
istry.  Another  thing  should  be  considered : 
— a  large  portion  of  the  population  consists 
of  American  settlers,  who  can  least  of  all 
men  bear  the  intrusion  of  law  into  the  do 
mains  of  conscience  arid  religion.  It  is  a 
bad  augury  for  the  welfare  of  the  province, 
that  opinions  prevalent  at  the  distance  of 
thousands  of  miles,  are  to  be  the  foundations 
of  the  college-charter :  it  is  still  worse,  if 
they  be  only  the  opinions  of  a  faction,  that 
we  cannot  interfere  to  correct  the  injustice. 

To  the  proposed  plan  for  the  union  of  the 
two  provinces  there  are  so  many  and  such 
powerful  objections,  that  I  scarcely  think 
that  such  a  measure  can  soon  be  success 
fully  concluded.  The  Bill  proposed  in  1822, 
whereby  the  bitterness  of  the  Lower-Canada 
Assembly  was  to  be  mitigated  by  an  infu 
sion  of  mildness  from  the  Upper  province, — 
failing  as  it  did. — has  excited  general  alarm 
and  mistrust  among  all  your  colonies.  Ex 
cept  that  measure,  which  ought  to  be  looked 
upon  as  a  warning  rather  than  a  precedent, 
I  think  the  grounds  upon  which  we  have 
now  been  called  upon  to  interfere  the  scan 
tiest  that  ever  were  exhibited. 

I  do  not  know,  Sir,  what  other  plans  are  to 
be  produced,  but  I  think  the  wisest  measure 
would  be  to  send  out  a  temperate  Governor, 
with  instructions  to  be  candid,  and  to  supply 
him  with  such  a  Council  as  will  put  an  end 
to  the  present  disputes,  and  infuse  a  better 
spirit  into  the  administration  than  it  ha| 
known  for  the  last  ten  years.  I  wish,  how-* 
ever,  to  state,  that  I  have  not  come  to  a  final' 
judgment,  but  have  merely  described  what 
the  bearing  of  my  mind  is  on  those  general 
maxims  of  colonial  policy,  any  deviation 
from  which  is  as  inconsistent  with  national 
policy  as  it  is  with  national  justice. 


ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  PORTUGAL. 


569 


SPEECH 


ON  MOVING  FOR 

PAPERS  RELATIVE  TO  THE  AFFAIRS    OF  PORTUGAL. 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  ON  THE  IST  OF  JUNE,  1829. 


MR.  SPEAKER, — I  think  it  will  be  scarcely 
necessary  for  any  man  \vho  addresses  the 
House  from  that  part  of  it  where  I  generally 
sit,  to  disclaim  any  spirit  of  party  opposition 
to  His  Majesty's  Ministers  during  the  present 
session.  My  own  conduct  in  dealing  with 
the  motion  which  I  regret  that  it  is  now  my 
painful  duty  to  bring  forward,  affords,  I  be 
lieve  I  may  say,  a  pretty  fair  sample  of  the 
principle  and  feeling  which  have  guided  all 
my  friends  in  the  course  they  have  adopted 
since  the  very  first  day  of  this  Session,  when 
I  intimated  rny  intention  to  call  public  atten 
tion  to  the  present  subject.  For  the  first 
two  months  of  the  session,  I  considered  my 
self  and  my  political  friends  as  acting  under 
a  sacred  and  irresistible  obligation  not  to  do 
any  thing  which  might  appear  even  to  ruffle 
the  surface  of  that  hearty  and  complete  co 
operation  which  experience  has  proved  to 
have  been  not  more  than  necessary  to  the  suc 
cess  of  that  grand  healing  measure*  brought 
forward  by  His  Majesty's  Ministers. — that 
measure  which  I  trust  and  believe  will  be 
found  the  most  beneficent  ever  adopted  by 
Parliament  since  the  period  when  the  happy- 
settlement  of  a  Parliamentary  and  constitu 
tional  crown  on  the  House  of  Brunswick,  not 
only  preserved  the  constitution  of  England, 
but  struck  a  death-blow  against  all  preten 
sions  to  unbounded  power  and  indefeasible 
title  throughout  the  world.  I  cannot  now 
throw  off  the  feelings  that  actuated  me  in 
the  course  of  the  contest  by  means  of  which 
this  great  measure  has  been  effected.  I  can 
not  so  soon  forget  that  I  have  fought  by  the 
side  of  the  Gentlemen  opposite  for  the  at 
tainment  of  that  end.  Such  are  my  feelings 
upon  the  present  occasion,  that  while  I  will 
endeavour  to  discharge  my  duty,  as  I  feel 
no  hostility,  so  I  shall  assume  no  appearance 
of  acrimony.  At  the  same  time,  I  trust  my 
conduct  will  be  found  to  be  at  an  immeasura 
ble  distance  from  that  lukevvarmness,  which, 
on  a  question  of  national  honour,  and  in  the 
cause  of  the  defenceless.  I  should  hold  to  be 
aggravated  treachery.  I  am  influenced  by 
a  solicitude  that  the  councils  of  England 
should  be  and  should  seem  unspotted,  not 
only  at  home,  but  in  the  eye  of  the  people 
as  well  as  the  rulers  of  Europe, — by  a  desire 


*  The  Bill  for  removing  the  Roman  Catholic 
disabilities. 

72 


I  for  an  explanation  of  measures  which  have 
j  ended  in  plunging  our  most  ancient  ally  into 
I  the  lowest  depths  of  degradation, — by  a  warm 
and  therefore  jealous  regard  to  national  hon 
'  our,  which,  in  my  judgment,  consists  still 
more  in  not  doing  or  abetiing,  or  approach 
ing,  or  conniving  at  wrong  to  others,  than  in 
the' spirit  never  tamely  to  brook  wrong  done 
to  ourselves. 

I  hold  it.  Sir,  as  a  general  principle  to  be 
exceedingly  beneficial  and  wholesome,  that 
the  attention  of  the  House  should  be  some 
times  drawn  to  the  state  of  our  foreign  rela 
tions  :  atid  this  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  peo 
ple  of  England ; — in  the  first  place,  in  order 
to  assure  them  that  proper  care  is  taken  for 
the  maintenance  of  peace  and  security; — 
above  all,  to  convince  them  that  care  is  taken 
of  the  national  honour,  the  best,  and  indeed 
only  sufficient  guard  of  that  peace  and  secu 
rity.  I  regard  such  discussions  as  acts  of 
courtesy  due  to  cur  fellow-members  of  the 
great  commonwealth  of  European  slates; 
more  particularly  now  that  some  of  them  are 
bound  to  us  by  kindred  ties  of  liberty,  and 
by  the  possession  of  institutions  similar  to 
our  own.  Two  of  our  neighbouring  states, 
— one  our  closest  and  most  congenial  ally, — 
the  other,  in  times  less  happy,  our  most 
illustrious  antagonist,  but  in  times  to  come 
our  most  illustrious  rival — have  adopted  our 
English  institutions  of  limited  monarchy  and 
representative  assemblies :  may  they  con 
solidate  and  perpetuate  their  wise  alliance 
between  authority  and  freedom  !  The  occa 
sional  discussions  of  Foreign  Policy  in  such 
assemblies  will,  I  believe,  in  spite  of  cross 
accidents  and  intemperate  individuals,  prove 
on  the  whole,  and  in  the  long-run,  favourable 
to  c;ood-will  and  good  understanding  between 
nations,  by  gradually  softening  prejudices, 
by  leading  to  public  and  satisfactory  expla 
nations  of  ambiguous  acts,  and  even  by 
affording  a  timely  vent  to  jealousies  and  re 
sentments.  They  will.  I  am  persuaded,  root 
more  deeply  that  strong  and  grow  ing  passion 
for  peace,  which,  whaFever  may  be  the  pro 
jects  or  intrigues  of  Cabinets,  is  daily  spread 
ing  in  the  hearts  of  European  nations,  and 
which,  let  me  add,  is  the  best  legacy  be 
queathed  to  us  by  the  fierce  wars  which 
have  desolated  Europe  from  Copenhagen  to 
Cadiz.  They  will  foster  this  useful  disposi 
tion,  through  the  most  generous  sentiments 
2x2 


570 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  .human  nature,  instead  of  attempting  to 
attain  the  same  end  by  under-rating  the  re 
sources  or  magnifying  the  difficulties  of  any 
single  country,  at  a  moment  when  distress  is 
felt  by  all : — attempts  more  likely  to  rouse 
and  provoke  the  just  sense  of  national  dig 
nity  which  belongs  to  great  and  gallant  na 
tions,  than  to  check  their  boldness  or  to  damp 
their  spirit. 

If  any  thing  was  wanting  to  strengthen  my 
passion  for  peace,  it  would  draw  new  vigour 
from  the  dissuasive  against  war  which  I 
heard  fall  with  such  weight  from  the  lips  of 
him,*  of  whom  alone  in  the  two  thousand 

S?ars  that  have  passed  since  Scipio  defeated 
armibal  at  Zama.  it  can  be  said,  that  in  a 
single  battle  he  overthrew  the  greatest  of 
commanders.  I  thought,  at  the  moment,  of 
verses  written  and  sometimes  quoted  for 
other  purposes,  but  characteristic  of  a  dis 
suasive,  which  derived  its  weight  from  so 
many  victories,  and  of  the  awful  lesson  taught 
by  the  fate  of  his  mighty  antagonist : — 

"  Si  admoveris  ora, 
Cannas  et  Trebiam  ante  oculos,  Thrasymenaque 

busta, 
Et  Pauli  stare  ingentem  miraberis  umbram/'t 

Actuated  by  a  passion  for  peace,  I  own 
that  I  am  as  jealous  of  new  guarantees  of 
foreign  political  arrangements,  as  I  should  be 
resolute  in  observing  the  old.  I  object  to 
them  as  multiplying  the  chances  of  war. 
And  I  deprecate  virtual,  as  wrell  as  express 
ones  :  for  such  engagements  may  be  as  much 
contracted  by  acts  as  by  word  s.  To  proclaim 
by  our  measures,  or  our  language,  that  the 
preservation  of  the  integrity  of  a  particular 
state  is  to  be  introduced  as  a  principle  into 
the  public  policy  of  Europe,  is  in  truth  to 
form  a  new,  and,  perhaps,  universal,  even 
if  only  a  virtual,  guarantee.  I  will  not  affect 
to  conceal  that  I  allude  to  our  peculiarly  ob 
jectionable  guarantee  of  the  Ottoman  em 
pire,  t  I  cannot  see  the  justice  of  a  policy, 
which  would  doom  to  perpetual  barbarism 
and  barrenness  the  eastern  and  southern 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean, — the  fair  and 
famous  lands  which  wind  from  the  Euxine 
to  the  Atlantic.  I  recoil  from  thus  riveting 
the  Turkish  yoke  on  the  neck  of  the  Chris 
tian  nations  of  As:a  Minor,  of  Mesopotamia, 
of  Syria,  and  of  Egypt :  encouraged  as  they 
are  on  the  one  hand  to  hope  for  deliverance 
by  the  example  of  Greece,  and  sure  that 
the  barbarians  will  be  provoked,  by  the 
same  example,  to  maltreat  them  with  tenfold 
cruelty.  It  is  in  vain  to  distinguish  in  this 
case  between  a  guarantee  against  foreign 
enemies,  and  one  against  internal  revolt.  If 
all  the  Powers  of  Europe  be  pledged  by  their 
acts  to  protect  the  Turkish  territory  from 
invasion,  the  unhappy  Christians  of  the  East 

*  Alluding  to  a  passage  contained  in  a  speech 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  on  the  Catholic  Relief 
Bill.— ED. 

t  Pharsalia,  lib.  vii. — ED. 

t  Which  formed  part  of  the  basis  of  the  arrange 
ments  for  liberating  Greece. — ED. 


must  look  on  all  as  enemies ;  while  the  Turk, 
relieved  from  all  foreign  fear,  is  at  perfect 
liberty  to  tyrannize  over  his  slaves.  The 
Christians  must  despair  not  only  of  aid,  but 
even  of  good-will,  from  states  whose  interest 
it  will  become,  that  a  Government  which 
they  are  bound  to  shield  from  abroad  should 
be  undisturbed  at  home.  Such  a  guarantee 
cannot  be  long  enforced ;  it  will  shortly  give 
rise  to  the  very  dangers  against  which  it  is 
intended  to  guard.  The  issue  will  assuredly, 
in  no  long  time,  be,  that  the  great  military 
Powers  of  the  neighbourhood,  when  they 
come  to  the  brink  of  war  with  each  other, 
will  recur  to  their  ancient  secret  of  avoiding 
a  quarrel,  by  fairly  cutting  up  the  prey  that 
lies  at  their  feet.  They  will  smile  at  the 
credulity  of  those  most  distant  states,  whose 
strength,  however  great,  is  neither  of  the 
kind,  nor  within  the  distance,  which  would 
enable  them  to  prevent  the  partition.  But 
of  this,  perhaps,  too  much. 

The  case  of  Portugal  touches  us  most  near 
ly.  It  is  that  of  a  country  connected  with 
England  by  treaty  for  four  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  without  the  interruption  of  a  single 
day's  coldness, — with  which  we  have  been 
connected  by  a  treaty  of  guarantee  for  more 
than  a  century,  without  ever  having  been 
drawn  into  war,  or  exposed  to  the  danger  of 
it, — which,  on  the  other  hand,  for  her  stead 
fast  faith  to  England,  has  been  three  times 
invaded — in  1760,  in  1801,  and  in  1807. — 
and  the  soldiers  of  which  have  fought  for 
European  independence,  when  it  was  main 
tained  by  our  most  renowned  captains  against 
Louis  XIV.  and  Napoleon.  It  is  a  connection 
which  in  length  and  intimacy  the  history  of 
mankind  cannot  match.  All  other  nations 
have  learnt  to  regard  our  ascendant,  and 
their  attachment,  as  two  of  the  elements  of 
the  European  system.  May  I  venture  to 
add,  that  Portugal  preceded  us,  though  but 
for  a  short  period,  in  the  command  of  the 
sea,  and  that  it  is  the  country  of  the  greatest 
poet  who  has  employed  his  genius  in  cele 
brating  nautical  enterprise  ? 

Such  is  the  country  which  has  fallen  under 
the  yoke  of  an  usurper,  whose  private  crimes 
rather  remind  us  of  the  age  of  Commoduja 
and  Caracalla,  than  of  the  level  mediocrity 
of  civilized  vice, — who  appears  before  th& 
whole  world  with  the  deep  brand  on  his 
brow  of  a  pardon  from  his  king  and  father 
for  a  parricide  rebellion, — who  has  waded 
to  the  throne  through  a  succession  of  frauds, 
falsehoods,  and  perjuries,  for  which  any  man 
amenable  to  the  law  woul'd  have  suffered 
the  most  disgraceful, — if  not  the  last  pun 
ishment.  Meanwhile  the  lawful  sovereign, 
Donna  Maria  II.,  received  by  His  Majesty 
with  parental  kindness, — by  the  British  na 
tion  with  the  interest  due  to  her  age.  and 
sex,  and  royal  dignity, — solemnly  recognised 
by  the  British  Government  as  Queen  of  Por 
tugal, — whom  all  the  great  Powers  of  Europe 
once  co-operated  to  place  on  her  throne,  con 
tinues  still  to  be  an  exile ;  though  the  very 
acts  by  which  she  is  unlawfully  dispossessed 


ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  PORTUGAL. 


571 


are  outrages  and  indignities  of  the  highest 
nature  against  these  Powers  themselves. 

His  Majesty  has  twice  told  his  Parliament 
that  he  has  been  compelled,  by  this  alike 
perfidious  and  insolent  usurpation,  to  break 
off  all  diplomatic  intercourse  with  Portugal. 
Europe  has  tried  the  Usurper.  Europe  is 
determined  that  under  his  sway  the  usual  re 
lations  of  amity  and  courtesy  cannot  be  kept 
up  with  a  once  illustrious  and  still  respecta 
ble  nation.  So  strong  a  mark  of  the  displea 
sure  of  all  European  rulers  has  never  yet 
been  set  on  any  country  in  time  of  peace. 
It  would  be  a  reflection  on  them,  to  doubt 
that  they  have  been  in  some  measure  influ 
enced  by  those  unconfuted — 1  might  say,  un- 
coritradicted — charges  of  monstrous  crimes 
which  hang  over  the  head  of  the  Usurper. 
His  crimes,  public  and  private,  have  brought 
on  her  this  unparalleled  dishonour.  Never 
before  were  the  crimes  of  a  ruler  the  avowed 
and  sufficient  ground  of  so  severe  a  visitation 
on  a  people.  It  is.  therefore,  my  public  duty 
to  state  them  here ;  and  I  cannot  do  so  in 
soft  words,  without  injustice  to  Portugal  and 
disgrace  to  myself.  In  a  case  touching  our 
national  honour,  in  relation  to  our  conduct 
towards  a  feeble  ally,  and  to  the  unmatched 
ignominy  which  has  now  befallen  her,  I 
must  use  the  utmost  frankness  of  speech. 

I  must  inquire  what  are  the  causes  of  this 
fatal  issue  ?  Has  the  fluctuation  of  British 
policy  had  any  part  in  it?  Can  we  safely 
say  that  we  have  acted  not  merely  with 
literal  fidelity  to  engagements,  but  with  gene 
rous  support  to  those  who  risked  all  in  reli 
ance  on  us, — with  consistent  friendship  to 
wards  a  people  who  put  their  trust  in  us, — 
with  liberal  good  faith  to  a  monarch  whom 
we  acknowledge  as  lawful,  and  who  has 
taken  irretrievable  steps  in  consequence  of 
our  apparent  encouragement?  The  motion 
with  which  I  shall  conclude,  will  be  for  an 
address  to  obtain  answers  to  these  important 
questions,  by  the  production  of  the  principal 
despatches  and  documents  relating  to  Portu 
guese  affairs,  from  the  summer  of  1826  to 
to  the  present  moment  •  whether  originating 
at  London,  at  Lisbon,  at  Vienna,  at  Rio  Ja 
neiro,  or  at  Terceira. 

As  a  ground  for  such  a  motion,  I  am  obliged, 
Sir,  to  state  at  some  length,  though  as  shortly 
as  I  can,  the  events  on  which  these  docu 
ments  may  throw  the  needful  light.  In  this 
statement  I  shall  first  lighten  my  burden  by 
throwing  overboard  the  pretended  claim  of 
Miguel  to  the  crowyn,  under  I  know  not  what 
ancient  laws :  not  that  I  have  not  examined 
it,*  and  found  it  to  be  altogether  absurd ;  but 
because  he  renounced  it  by  repeated  oaths, — 
because  all  the  Powers  of  Europe  recognised 
another  settlement  of  the  Portuguese  cro\vn, 
and  took  measures,  though  inadequate  ones, 
to  carry  it  into  effect, — because  His  Majesty 
has  withdrawn  his  minister  from  Lisbon,  in 
acknowledgment  of  Donna  Maria's  right.  I 
content  myself  with  these  authorities,  as,  in 


See  the  Case  of  Donna  Maria,~-Ep, 


this  place,  indisputable.  In  the  performance 
of  my  duty,  I  shall  have  to  relate  facts  which 
I  have  heard  from  high  authority,  and  to 
quote  copies  which  I  consider  as  accurate, 
of  various  despatches  and  minutes.  I  be 
lieve  the  truth  of  what  I  shall  relate,  and  the 
correctness  of  what  I  shall  quote.  I  shall  be 
corrected  wheresoever  I  may  chance  to  be 
misinformed.  I  owe  no  part  of  my  intelli 
gence  to  any  breach  of  duty.  The  House 
will  not  wonder  that  many  copies  of  docu 
ments  interesting  to  multitudes  of  men,  in 
the  disastrous  situation  of  some  of  the  parties, 
should  have  been  scattered  over  Europe. 

I  pass  over  the  revolution  of  1820,  when  a 
democratical  monarchy  was  adopted.  The 
principles  of  its  best  adherents  have  been 
modified  by  the  reform  of  1826:  its  basest 
leaders  are  now  among  the  tools  of  the 
Usurper,  while  he  proscribes  the  loyal  suf 
ferers  of  that  period.  1  mention  only  in  pas 
sing  the  Treaty  of  Rio  Janeiro,  completed  in 
August,  1825,  by  which  Brazil  was  separated 
from  Portugal,  under  the  mediation  of  Eng 
land  and  Austria ; — the  result  of  negotiations 
in  which  Sir  Charles  Stuart  (nowr  Lord  Stuart 
de  Rothesay),  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  British  diplomatists,  acted  as  the  plenipo 
tentiary  of  Portugal.  In  the  following  spring, 
John  VI.,  the  late  King  of  Portugal,  died, 
after  having,  in  the  ratification  of  the  treaty, 
acknowledged  Dom  Pedro  as  his  heir.  It 
was  a  necessary  interpretation  of  that  treaty 
that  the  latter  was  not  to  continue  King  of 
Portugal  in  his  own  right,  but  only  for  the 
purpose  of  separating  and  settling  the  two 
kingdoms.  He  held  Portugal  in  trust,  and 
only  till  he  had  discharged  this  trust :  for 
that  purpose  some  time  was  necessary ;  the 
duration  could  not  be  precisely  defined;  but 
it  was  sufficient  that  there  should  appear  no 
symptom  of  bad  faith, — no  appearance  of  an 
intention  to  hold  it  longer  than  the  purposes 
of  the  trust  absolutely  required.  For  these 
purposes,  and  for  that  time,  he  was  as  much 
King  of  Portugal  as  his  forefathers ;  and  as 
such  was  recognised  by  all  Europe,  with  the 
exception  of  Spain,  which  did  riot  throw  the 
discredit  of  her  recognition  on  his  title. 

To  effect  the  separation  safely  and  bene 
ficially  for  both  countries,  Dom  Pedro  abdi 
cated  the  crown  of  Portugal  in  favour  of  his 
daughter  Donna  Maria,  who  was  to  be  affi 
anced  to  Dom  Miguel,  on  condition  of  his 
swearing  to  observe  the  Constitution  at  the 
same  time  bestowed  by  Dom  Pedro  on  the 
Portuguese  nation.  With  whatever  pangs 
he  thus  sacrificed  his  daughter,  it  must  be 
owned  that  no  arrangement  seemed  more 
likely  to  secure  peace  between  the  parties 
who  divided  Portugal,  than  the  union  of  the 
chief  of  the  Absolutists  with  a  princess  who 
became  the  hope  of  the  Constitutionalists. 
Various  opinions  may  be  formed  of  the  fit- 
ness  of  Portugal  for  a  free  constitution  :  but 
no  one  can  doubt  that  the  foundations  of 
tranquillity  could  be  laid  no  otherwise  than 
in  the  security  of  each  party  from  being  op 
pressed  by  the  other,— that  a  fair  distribu- 


572 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


tion  of  political  power  between  them  was 
the  only  means  of  shielding  either, — and  that 
no  such  distribution  could  be  effected  with 
out  a  constitution  comprehending  all  classes 
and  parties. 

In  the  month  of  June,  1826,  this  Constitu 
tion  was  brought  to  Lisbon  by  the  same  emi 
nent  English  minister  who  had  gone  from 
that  city  to  Brazil  as  the  plenipotentiary  of 
John  VI.,  and  who  now  returned  from  Rio  to 
the  Tagus.  as  the  bearer  of  the  Constitutional 
Charter  granted  by  Dom  Pedro.  I  do  not 
meddle  with  the  rumours  of  dissatisfaction 
then  produced  by  that  Minister's  visit  to 
Lisbon.  It  is  easier  to  censure  at  a  distance, 
than  to  decide  on  a  pressing  emergency.  It 
doubtless  appeared  of  the  utmost  importance 
to  Sir  Charles  Stuart,  that  the  uncertainty  of 
the  Portuguese  nation  as  to  their  form  of 
government  should  not  be  continued ;  and 
that  he,  a  messenger  of  peace,  should  hasten 
with  its  tidings.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the 
people  of  Portugal  received  such  a  boon,  by 
such  a  bearer,  as  a  mark  of  the  favourable 
disposition  of  the  British  Government  towards 
the  Constitution.  It  is  matter  of  notoriety 
that  many  of  the  Nobility  were  encouraged 
by  this  seeming  approbation  of  Great  Britain 
publicly  to  espouse  it  in  a  manner  which 
they  might  and  would  otherwise  have  con 
sidered  as  an  useless  sacrifice  of  their  own 
safety.  Their  constitutional  principles,  how 
ever  sincere,  required  no  such  devotion, 
without  these  reasonable  hopes  of  success, 
which  every  mark  of  the  favour  of  England 
strongly  tended  to  inspire.  No  diplomatic 
disavowal  (a  proceeding  so  apt  to  be  con 
sidered  as  merely  formal)  could,  even  if  it 
were  public,  which  it  was  not,  undo  the  im 
pression  made  by  this  act  of  Sir  Charles 
Stuart.  No  avowal,  however  public,  made 
six  months  after,  of  an  intention  to  abstain 
from  all  interference  in  intestine  divisions, 
could  replace  the  Portuguese  in  their  first 
situation  :  they  had  taken  irrevocable  steps, 
and  cut  themselves  off  from  all  retreat. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Unless  I  be  misin 
formed  by  those  who  cannot  deceive,  and 
are  most  unlikely  to  be  deceived,  the  promul 
gation  of  the  Constitution  was  suspended  at 
Lisbon  till  the  Regency  could  receive  advice 
from  His  Majesty.  The  delay  lasted  at  least 
a  fortnight.  The  advice  given  was,  to  put 
the  Charter  in  force.  I  do  not  know  the 
terms  of  this  opinion,  or  the  limitations  and 
conditions  which  might  accompany  it :  nor 
does  it  import  to  my  reasoning  that  I  should. 
The  great  practical  fact  that  it  was  asked 
for,  was  sure  to  be  published,  as  it  instantly 
was,  through  all  the  societies  of  Lisbon. — 
The  small  accessories  were  either  likely  to 
be  concealed,  or  sure  to  be  disregarded,  by 
eager  and  ardent  reporters.  In  the  rapid 
succession  of  governments  which  then  ap 
peared  at  Lisbon,  it  could  not  fail  to  be  known 
to  every  man  of  information,  and  spread  with 
the  usual  exaggerations  among  the  multitude, 
that  Great  Britain  had  declared  for  the  Con 
stitution.  Let  it  not  be  thought  that  I  men- 


ion  these  acts  to  blame  them.  They  were 
he  good  offices  of  an  ally.  Friendly  advice 
s  not  undue  interference  :  it  involves  no  en 
croachment  on  independence, — no  departure 
"rom  neutrality.  '•  Strict  neutrality  consists 
merely,  first,  in  abstaining  from  all  part  in 
the  operations  of  war;  and,  secondly,  in 
equally  allowing  or  forbidding  the  supply  of 
nstruments  of  war  to  both  parties."*  Neu 
trality  does  not  imply  indifference.  It  re 
quires  no  detestable  impartiality  between 
right  or  wrong.  It  consists  in  an  abstinence 
from  certain  outward  acts,  well  defined  by 
international  law. — leaving  the  heart  entirely 
free,  and  the  hands  at  liberty,  where  they 
are  not  visibly  bound.  We  violated  no  neu 
trality  in  execrating  the  sale  of  Corsica, — in 
ioudly  crying  out  against  the  partition  of 
Poland.  Neutrality  did  not  prevent  Mr. 
Canning  from  almost  praying  in  this  House 
for  the  defeat  of  the  French  invasion  of 
Spain.  No  war  with  France,  or  Austria,  or 
Prussia,  or  Russia,  ensued.  Neutrality  is 
not  a  point,  but  a  line  extending  from  the 
camp  of  one  party  to  the  camp  of  his  oppo 
nent.  It  comprehends  a  great  variety  of 
shades  and  degrees  of  good  and  ill  opinion  : 
so  that  there  is  scope  within  its  technical 
limits  for  a  change  from  the  most  friendly  to 
the  most  adverse  policy,  as  long  as  arms  are 
not  taken  up. 

Soon  after,  another  encouragement  of  an 
extraordinary  nature  presented  itself  to  this 
unfortunate  people,  the  atrocious  peculiari 
ties  of  which  throw  into  shade  its  connection, 
through  subsequent  occurrences,  with  the 
acts  of  Great  Britain.  On  the  30th  October 
following.  Dom  Miguel,  at  Vienna,  first  swore 
to  the  Constitution,  and  was  consequently 
affianced  by  the  Pope's  Nuncio,  in  the  pre 
sence  of  the  Imperial  Ministers,  to  Donna 
Maria,  whom  he  then  solemnly  acknow 
ledged  as  Queen  of  Portugal.  This  was 
the  first  of  his  perjuries.  It  was  a  deliberate 
one,  for  it  depended  on  the  issue  of  a  Papal 
dispensation,  which  required  time  and  many 
formalities.  The  falsehood  had  every  aggra 
vation  that  can  arise  from  the  quality  of 
the  witnesses,  the  importance  of  the  object  (' 
which  it  secured  to  him.  and  the  reliance^ 
which  he  desired  should  be  placed  on  it  by 
this  country.  At  the  same  moment,  a  re-  " 
bellion,  abetted  by  Spain,  broke  out  in  his 
name,  which  still  he  publicly  disavowed. 
Two  months  more,  and  the  perfidy  of  Spain 
became  apparent :  the  English  troops  were 
landed  in  Portugal ;  the  rebels  were  driven 
from  the  territory  of  our  ancient  friends,  by 
one  of  the  most  wise,  honourable,  vigorous, 
and  brilliant  strokes  of  policy  ever  struck 
by  England.  Mr.  Canning  delivered  Portu 
gal,  and  thus  paid  the  debt  which  we  owed 
for  four  centuries  of  constant  faith  and  friend 
ship, — for  three  invasions  and  a  conquest 
endured  in  our  cause.  Still  we  were  neutral : 
but  what  Portuguese  could  doubt  that  the 
nation  which  had  scattered  the  Absolutists 

*  Martens,  Precis  du  Droit  des  Gens,  p.  524. 


ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  PORTUGAL. 


573 


was  friendly  to  the  Constitution  ?  No  tech 
nical  rule  was  broken ;  but  new  encourage 
ment  was  unavoidably  held  out.  These  re 
peated  incentives  to  a  nation's  hopes, — these 
informal  but  most  effective,  arid  therefore 
most  binding  acts,  are  those  on  which  I  lay 
the  stress  of  this  argument,  still  more  than 
on  federal  and  diplomatic  proceedings. 

There  occurred  in  the  following  year  a 
transaction  between  the  Governments,  more 
nearly  approaching  the  nature  of  a  treaty, 
and  which,  in  my  humble  judgment,  par 
takes  much  of  its  nature,  and  imposes  its 
equitable  and  honourable  duties.  I  now 
come  to  the  conferences  of  Vienna  in  au 
tumn,  1827.  On  the  3d  of  July  in  that  year, 
Dom  Pedro  had  issued  an  edict  by  which  he 
approached  more  nearly  to  an  abdication  of 
the  crown,  and  nominated  Dom  Miguel  lieu 
tenant  of  the  kingdom.  This  decree  had 
been  enforced  by  letters  of  the  same  date, — 
one  to  Dom  Miguel,  commanding  and  re 
quiring  him  to  execute  the  office  in  con 
formity  with  the  Constitution,  and  others  to 
his  allies,  the  Emperor  of  Austria  and  the 
King  of  Great  Britain,  committing  to  them 
as  it  were  the  execution  of  his  decree,  and 
beseeching  them  to  take  such  measures  as 
should  render  the  Constitutional  Charter  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  Portuguese  mo 
narchy.*  On  these  conditions,  for  this  pur 
pose,  he  prayed  for  aid  in  the  establishment 
of  Miguel.  In  consequence  of  this  decree, 
measures  had  been  immediately  taken  for  a 
ministerial  conference  at  Vienna,  to  concert 
the  means  of  its  execution. 

And  here,  Sir,  I  must  mention  one  of  them, 
as  of  the  utmost  importance  to  both  branches 
of  my  argument ; — as  an  encouragement  to 
the  Portuguese,  and  as  a  virtual  engagement 
with  Dom  Pedro  :  and  I  entreat  the  House  to 
bear  in  mind  the  character  of  the  transactions 
of  which  I  am  now  to  speak,  as  it  affects  both 
these  important  points.  Count  Villa  Real,  at 
that  time  in  London,  was  appointed,  I  know 
not  by  whom,  to  act  as  a  Portuguese  minis 
ter  at  Vienna.  Under  colour  of  want  of  time 
to  consult  the  Princess  Regent  at  Lisbon,  un 
signed  papers  of  advice,  amounting  in  effect 
to  instructions,  were  put  into  his  hands  by  an 
Austrian  and  an  English  minister.  In  these 
papers  he  was  instructed  to  assure  Miguel, 
that  by  observing  the  Constitutional  Charter, 
he  would  insure  the  support  of  England. 
The  tone  and  temper  fit  to  be  adopted  by 
Miguel  in  conversations  at  Paris  were  pointed 
out.  Count  Villa  Real  was  more  especially 
instructed  to  urge  the  necessity  of  Miguel's 
return  by  England.  "  His  return,"  it  was 
said,  "is  itself  an  immense  guarantee  to  the 
Royalists  ;  his  return  through  this  country 
will  be  a  security  to  the  other  party."  Could 
the  Nobility  and  people  of  Portugal  fail  to 


*  "  Je  supplie  V.  M.  de  m'aider  non  seulement 
a  faire  que  cette  regenee  entre  promptement  en 
fonctions,  mais  encore  a  effectuer  que  la  Charte 
Constitutionelie  octroyee  par  moi  devienne  la  loi 
fondamentale  du  Royaume." — Dom  Pedro  to  the 
King  of  Great  Britain,  3d  July,  1827. 


consider  so  active  a  part  in  the  settlement 
of  their  government,  as  an  encouragement 
from  their  ancient  and  powerful  ally  to  ad 
here  to  the  Constitution  ?  Is  it  possible  that 
language  so  remarkable  should  not  speedily 
have  spread  among  them  ?  May  not  some 
of  those  before  whose  eyes  now  rises  a  scaf 
fold  have  been  emboldened  to  act  on  their 
opinions  by  encouragement  which  seemed 
so  flattering'? 

In  the  month  of  September,  1827,  when 
Europe  and  America  were  bewailing  the 
death  of  Mr.  Canning,  a  note  was  given  in  at 
Vienna  by  the  Marquess  de  Rezende.  the 
Brazilian  minister  at  that  court,  containing 
the  edict  and  letters  of  the  3d  of  July.  The 
ministers  of  Austria,  England,  Portugal,  and 
Brazil,  assembled  there  on  the  18th  of  Octo 
ber.  They  began  by  taking  the  Brazilian 
note  and  the  documents  which  accompanied 
it,  as  the  basis  of  their  proceedings.  It  was 
thus  acknowledged,  solemnly,  that  Dom 
Pedro's  title  was  unimpaired,  and  his  settle 
ment  of  the  constitutional  crown  legitimate. 
They  thus  also  accepted  the  execution  of  the 
trust  on  the  conditions  under  which  he  com 
mitted  it  to  them. 

It  appears  from  a  despatch  of  Prince  Met 
ternich  to  Prince  Esterhazy  (the  copy  of 
which  was  entered  on  the  minutes  of  the 
conference),  that  Prince  Metternich  imme 
diately  proceeded  to  dispose  Dom  Miguel 
towards  a  prudent  and  obedient  course.  He 
represented  to  him  that  Dom  Pedro  had  re 
quired  "the  effectual  aid  of  Austria  to  en 
gage  the  Infant  to  submit  with  entire  defer 
ence  to  the  orders  of  his  brother'"  and  he 
added,  that  "  the  Emperor  of  Austria  could, 
in  no  case,  consent  to  his  return  through 
Spain,  which  would  be  contrary  to  the  wishes 
of  Dom  Pedro,  and  to  the  opinion  of  all  the 
Governments  of  Europe."  These  represen 
tations  were  vain  :  the  good  offices  of  an  Au 
gust  Person  were  interposed  : — Miguel  con 
tinued  inflexible.  But  in  an  interview,  where, 
if  there  had  been  any  truth  in  him.  he  must 
have  uttered  it.  he  spontaneously  added,  that 
"  he  was  determined  to  maintain  in  Portugal 
the  Charter  to  which  he  had  sworn,  and  that 
His  Majesty  might  be  at  ease  in  that  respect." 
This  voluntary  falsehood, — this  daring  allu 
sion  to  his  oath,  amounting,  virtually,  to  a  re 
petition  of  it. — this  promise,  made  at  a  mo 
ment  when  obstinacy  in  other  respects  gave 
it  a  fraudulent  credit,  deserves  to  be  num 
bered  among  the  most  signal  of  the  perjuries 
by  which  he  deluded  his  subjects,  and  in 
sulted  all  European  sovereigns. 

Prince  Metternich.  after  having  consulted 
Sir  Henry  Wellesley  (now  Lord  Cowley)  and 
the  other  Ministers,  '-'on  the  means  of  con 
quering  the  resistance  of  the  Infant,"  deter 
mined,  conformably,  (be  it  remembered) 
with  the  concurrence  of  all,  to  have  a  last 
and  categorical  explanation  with  that  Prince. 
"'I  declared  to  him,"  says  Prince  Metter 
nich,  "  without  reserve,  that,  in  his  position, 
he  had  only  to  choose  between  immediately 
going  to  England  on  his  way  to  Portugal,  or 


574 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


waiting  at  Vienna  the  further  determination 
of  Dom  Pedro,  to  whom  the  Courts  of  Lon 
don  (be  it  not  forgotten)  and  Vienna  would 
communicate  the  motives  which  had  induced 
the  Infant  not  immediately  to  obey  his  bro 
ther's  orders."  Prince  Metternich  describes 
the  instantaneous  effect  of  this  menace  of 
further  imprisonment  with  the  elaborate  soft 
ness  of  a  courtier  and  a  diplomatist.  "  I  was 
not  slow  in  perceiving  that  I  had  the  happi 
ness  to  make  a  profound  impression  on  the 
mind  of  the  Infant.  After  some  moments 
of  reflection,  he  at  last  yielded  to  the  coun 
sels  of  friendship  and  of  reason."  He  owned 
"  that  he  dreaded  a  return  through  England, 
because  he  knew  that  there  were  strong  pre 
judices  against  him  in  that  country,  and  he 
feared  a  bad  reception  there."  He  did  jus 
tice  to  the  people  of  England  • — his  conscious 
guilt  foresaw  their  just  indignation  :  but  he 
could  not  be  expected  to  comprehend  those 
higher  and  more  generous  qualities  which 
disposed  them  to  forget  his  former  crimes, 
in  the  hope  that  he  was  about  to  atone  for 
them  by  the  establishment  of  liberty.  No 
thing  in  their  own  nature  taught  them  that 
it  was  possible  for  a  being  in  human  shape 
to  employ  the  solemn  promises  which  de 
luded  them  as  the  means  of  perpetrating 
new  and  more  atrocious  crimes. 

Here,  Sir,  I  must  pause.  Prince  Metter 
nich,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  English 
Minister,  announced  to  Miguel,  that  if  he  did 
not  immediately  return  to  Portugal  by  way 
of  England,  he  must  remain  at  Vienna  until 
Dom  Pedro's  further  pleasure  should  be 
known.  Reflections  here  crowd  on  the  mind. 
Miguel  had  before  agreed  to  maintain  the 
Charter :  had  he  hesitated  on  that  subject,  it 
is  evident  that  the  language  used  to  him 
must  have  been  still  more  categorical.  No 
doubt  is  hinted  on  either  side  of  his  brother's 
sovereign  authority:  the  whole  proceeding  im 
plies  it ;  and  in  many  of  its  parts  it  is  express 
ly  affirmed.  He  is  to  be  detained  at  Vienna, 
if  he  does  not  consent  to  go  through  England, 
in  order  to  persuade  the  whole  Portuguese 
nation  of  his  sincerity,  and  to  hold  out — in 
the  already  quoted  words  of  the  English 
Minister — "  a  security  to  the  Constitutional 
party,"  or,  in  other  language,  the  strongest 
practical  assurance  to  them,  that  he  was  sent 
by  Austria,  and  more  especially  by  England, 
to  exercise  the  Regency,  on  condition  of  ad 
hering  to  the  Constitution.  Whence  did  this 
right  of  imprisonment  arise  ?  I  cannot  ques 
tion  it  without  charging  a  threat  of  false  im 
prisonment  on  all  the  great  Powers.  It  may, 
perhaps,  be  thought,  if  not  said,  that  it  was 
founded  on  the  original  commitment  by  John 
VI.  for  rebellion  and  meditated  parricide, 
and  on  the,  perhaps,  too  lenient  commuta 
tion  of  it  into  a  sentence  of  transportation  to 
Vienna.  The  pardon  and  enlargement  grant 
ed  by  Dom  Pedro  were,  on  that  supposition, 
conditional,  and  could  not  be  earned  without 
the  fulfilment  of  all  the  conditions.  Miguel's 
escape  from  custody  must,  then,  be  regarded 
as  effected  by  fraud '}  and  those  to  whom  his 


person  was  intrusted  by  Dom  Pedro,  seem 
to  me  to  have  been  bound,  by  their  trust,  to 
do  all  that  was  necessary  to  repair  the  evil 
consequences  of  his  enlargement  to  the  King 
and  people  of  Portugal.  But  the  more  natu 
ral  supposition  is,  that  they  undertook  the 
trust,  the  custody,  and  the  conditional  liber 
ation,  in  consequence  of  the  application  of 
their  ally,  the  lawful  Sovereign  of  Portugal, 
and  for  the  public  object  of  preserving  the 
quiet  of  that  kingdom,  and  with  it  the  peace 
of  Europe  and  the  secure  tranquillity  of  their 
own  dominions.  Did  they  not  thereby  con 
tract  a  federal  obligation  with  Dom  Pedro  to 
complete  their  work,  and,  more  especially, 
to  take  care  that  Miguel  should  not  imme 
diately  employ  the  liberty,  the  sanction,  the 
moral  aid.  which  they  had  given  him,  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  fundamental  laws  which 
they  too  easily  trusted  that  he  would  observe 
his  promises  and  oaths  to  uphold  ?  When 
did  this  duty  cease?  Was  it  not  fully  as 
binding  on  the  banks  of  the  Tagus  as  on  those 
of  the  Danube  ?  If,  in  the  fulfilment  of  this 
obligation,  they  had  a  right  to  imprison  him 
at  Vienna,  because  he  would  not  allay  the 
suspicions  of  the  Constitutional  party  by  re 
turning  through  England,  is  it  possible  to  con 
tend  that  they  were  not  bound  to  require  and 
demand  at  Lisbon,  that  he  should  instantly 
desist  from  his  open  overthrow  of  the  Char 
ter'? 

I  do  not  enter  into  any  technical  distinc 
tions  between  a  protocol  and  a  treaty.  I 
consider  the  protocol  as  the  minutes  of  con 
ferences,  in  which  the  parties  verbally  agreed 
on  certain  important  measures,  which,  being 
afterwards  acted  upon  by  others,  became 
conclusively  binding,  in  faith,  honour,  and 
conscience,  on  themselves.  In  consequence 
of  these  conferences,  Dom  Miguel,  on  the 
19th  of  October,  wrote  letters  to  his  brother, 
His  Britannic  Majesty,  and  Her  Royal  High 
ness  the  Regent  of  Portugal.  In  the  two 
former,  he  solemnly  re-affirmed  his  determi 
nation  to  maintain  the  charter  "granted  by 
Dom  Pedro;"  and,  in  the  last,  he  more  fully 
assures  his  sister  his  unshaken  purpose  "to 
maintain,  and  cause  to  be  observed,  the  law;S 
and  institutions  legally  granted  by  our  auguit 
brother,  and  which  we  have  all  sworn  tf? 
maintain ;  and  I  desire  that  you  should  give 
to  this  solemn  declaration  the  necessary  pub 
licity."  On  the  faith  of  these  declarations, 
he  was  suffered  to  leave  Vienna.  The  Pow 
ers  who  thus  enlarged  him  taught  the  world, 
by  this  act,  that  they  believed  him.  They 
lent  him  their  credit,  and  became  vouchers 
for  his  fidelity.  On  the  faith  of  these  decla- 
tions,  the  King  and  people  of  England  re 
ceived  him  with  kindness,  and  forgot  the 
criminal,  to  hail  the  first  Constitutional  King 
of  emancipated  Portugal.  On  the  same  faith, 
the  English  ambassadors  attended  him  ;  and 
the  English  flag,  which  sanctioned  his  return, 
proclaimed  to  the  Constitutionalists,  that  they 
might  lay  aside  their  fears  for  liberty  and 
their  reasonable  apprehensions  for  them 
selves.  The  British  ministers,  in  their  in- 


ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  PORTUGAL. 


575 


strnctions  to  Count  Villa  Real,  had  expressly 
declared,  that  his  return  through  England 
was  a  great  security  to  the  Constitutional 
party.  Facts  had  loudly  spoken  the  same 
language;  but  the  very  words  of  the  British 
Minister  must  inevitably  have  resounded 
through  Portugal — lulling  vigilance,  seeming 
to  dispense  with  caution,  and  tending  to  ex 
tinguish  the  blackest  suspicions.  This  is 
not  all:  Count  Villa  Flor,  then  a  minister, 
who  knew  his  man,  on  the  first  rumours  of 
Miguel's  return  obtained  the  appointment  of 
Ambassador  to  Paris,  that  he  might  not  be 
caught  by  the  wolf  in  his  den.  It  was  ap 
prehended  that  such  a  step  would  give  gene 
ral  alarm : — he  was  prevailed  upon  to  remain, 
by  letters  from  Vienna,  with  assurances  of 
Miguel's  good  dispositions,  which  were  not 
unknown  to  the  British  Ministers  at  Vienna; 
and  he  continued  in  office  a  living  pledge 
from  the  two  Powers  to  the  whole  Portu 
guese  people,  that  their  Constitution  was 
to  be  preserved.  How  many  irrevocable 
acts  were  done, — how  many  dungeons  were 
crowded, — how  many  deaths  were  braved, — 
how  many  were  suffered — from  faith  in  per 
fidious  assurances,  accredited  by  the  appa 
rent  sanction  of  two  deluded  and  abused 
Courts  !  How  can  these  Courts  ba  released 
from  the  duty  of  repairing  the  evil  which 
their  credulity  has  caused  ! 

I  shall  say  nothing  of  the  Protocol  of  Lon 
don  of  the  12th  of  January,  1828,  except 
that  it  adopted  and  ratified  the  conferences 
of  Vienna, — that  it  provided  for  a  loan  to 
Miguel  to  assist  his  re-establishment. — and 
that  it  was  immediately  transmitted  to  Dom 
Pedro,  together  with  the  Protocol  of  Vienna. 
Dom  Pedro  had  originally  besought  the  aid 
of  the  Powers  to  secure  the  Constitution. 
They  did  not  refuse  it : — they  did  not  make 
any  reservations  or  limitations  respecting  it : 
on  the  contrary,  they  took  the  most  decisive 
measures  on  the  principle  of  his  proposition. 
So  implicitly  did  Dom  Pedro  rely  on  them 
that,  in  spite  of  all  threatening  symptoms 
of  danger,  he  has  sent  his  daughter  to  Eu 
rope  ; — a  step  from  which  he  cannot  recede, 
without  betraying  his  own  dignity,  and  seem 
ing  to  weaken  her  claims;  and  which  has 
proved  a  fruitful  source  of  embarrassment, 
vexation,  and  humiliation,  to  himself  and  his 
most  faithful  councillors.  By  this  decisive 
measure,  he  has  placed  his  loyal  subjects  in 
a  more  lasting  and  irreconcilable  state  of 
hostility  with  those  who  have  mastered  their 
country,  and  has  rendered  compromise  under 
better  rulers  more  difficult. 

Under  all  these  circumstances,  Sir,  I  can 
not  doubt  that  the  Mediating  Powers  have 
acquired  a  right  imperatively  to  require  that 
Miguel  shall  renounce  that  authority  which 
by  fraud  and  falsehood  he  has  obtained  from 
them  the  means  of  usurping.  They  are 
bound  to  exercise  that  right  by  a  sacred 
duty  towards  Dom  Pedro,  who  has  intrusted 
them  with  the  conditional  establishment  of 
the  Regency,  and  the  people  of  Portugal, 
with  whom  their  obligation  of  honour  is  the 


more  inviolable,  because  it  must  be  informal. 
I  shall  be  sorry  to  hear  that  such  duties  are 
to  be  distinguished,  by  the  first  Powers  of 
Christendom,  from  the  most  strictly  literal 
obligations  of  a  treaty. 

On  the  28th  of  February,  Miguel  landed 
at  Lisbon,  accompanied  by  an  English  am 
bassador,  who  showed  as  much  sagacity  and 
firmness  as  were  perhaps  ever  combined  in 
such  circumstances.  The  Cortes  met  to  re 
ceive  the  oaths  of  the  Regent  to  the  Emperor 
and  the  Constitution.  A  scene  then  passed 
which  is  the  most  dastardly  of  all  his  per 
juries, — the  basest  evasion  that  could  be 
devised  by  a  cowardly  and  immoral  super 
stition.  He  acted  as  if  he  were  taking  the 
oaths,  slurring  them  over  in  apparent  hurry, 
and  muttering  inarticulately,  instead  of  ut 
tering  their  words.  A  Prince  of  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  of  Royal  Houses,  at  the  mo 
ment  of  undertaking  the  sacred  duties  of 
supreme  magistracy,  in  the  presence  of  the 
representatives  of  the  nation,  and  of  the 
ministers  of  all  civilized  states,  had  recourse 
to  the  lowest  of  the  knavish  tricks  formerly 
said  (but  I  hope  calumniously)  to  have  been 
practised  by  miscreants  at  the  Old  Bailey, 
who  by  bringing  their  lips  so  near  the  book 
without  kissing  it  as  to  deceive  the  specta 
tor,  satisfied  their  own  base  superstition,  and 
dared  to  hope  that  they  could  deceive  the 
Searcher  of  Hearts. 

I  shall  not  follow  him  through  the  steps 
of  his  usurpation.  His  designs  were  soon 
perceived  :  they  were  so  evident  that  Sir 
Frederick  Lamb,  with  equal  sense  and  spi 
rit,  refused  to  land  the  money  raised  by 
loan,  and  sent  it  back  to  this  country.  They 
might  have  been  then  defeated  by  the 
Loyalists :  but  an  insurmountable  obstacle 
presented  itself.  The  British  troops  were 
instructed  to  abstain  from  interference  in 
domestic  dissensions : — there  was  one  ex 
ception,  and  it  was  in  favour  of  the  basest 
man  in  Portugal.  The  Loyalists  had  the 
means  of  sending  Miguel  to  his  too  merciful 
brother  in  Brazil :  they  were  bound  by  their 
allegiance  to  prevent  his  rebellion  ;  and  loy 
alty  and  liberty  alike  required  it.  The  right 
was  not  doubted  by  the  British  authorities  : 
but  they  were  compelled  to  say  that  the 
general  instruction  to  protect  the  Royal  Fa 
mily  would  oblige  them  to  protect  Miguel 
against  attack.  Our  troops  remained  long 
•enough  to  give  him  time  to  displace  all 
faithful  officers,  and  to  fill  the  garrison  with 
rebels;  while  by  the  help  of  monks  and 
bribes,  he  stirred  up  the  vilest  rabble  to  a 
"sedition  for  slavery."  When  his  designs 
were  ripe  for  execution,  we  delivered  him 
from  all  shadow  of  restraint  by  recalling 
our  troops  to  England.  I  do  not  mention 
this  circumstance  as  matter  of  blame,  but 
of  the  deepest  regret.  It  is  too  certain, 
that  if  they  had  left  Lisbon  three  months 
sooner,  or  remained  there  three  months 
longer,  in  either  case  Portugal  would  have 
been  saved.  This  consequence,  however 
unintended,  surely  imposes  on  us  the  duty 


576 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  showing  much,  more  than  ordinary  con 
sideration  towards  those  who  were  destroy 
ed  by  the  effect  of  our  measures.  The  form 
in  which  the  blockade  of  Oporto  was  an 
nounced  did  not  repair  this  misfortune.  I 
have  never  yet  heard  why  we  did  not  speak  of 
'•  the  persons  exercising  the  power  of  govern 
ment,"  instead  of  calling  Miguel  "  Prince  Re 
gent," — a  title  which  he  had  forfeited,  and 
indeed  had  himself  rejected.  Nor  do  I  see 
why  in  the  singular  case  of  twro  parties, — 
one  falsely,  the  other  truly, — professing  to 
act  on  behalf  of  Dom  Pedro,  both  might  not 
have  been  impartially  forbidden  to  exercise 
belligerent  rights  at  sea  until  his  pleasure 
was  made  known.  The  fatal  events  which 
have  followed  are,  I  have  serious  reasons  to 
believe,  no  proof  of  the  slate  of  general  opi 
nion  in  Portugal.  A  majority  of  the  higher 
nobility,  with  almost  all  the  considerable  in 
habitants  of  towns,  were  and  are  still  wTell 
affected.  The  clergy,  the  lower  gentry, 
and  the  rabble,  were,  but  I  believe  are  not 
now,  adverse.  The  enemies  of  the  Consti 
tution  were  th.9  same  classes  who  opposed 
our  own  Revolution  for  fourscore  years.  Ac 
cidents,  unusually  unfortunate,  deprived  the 
Oporto  army  of  its  commanders.  Had  they 
disregarded  this  obstacle,  and  immediately 
advanced  from  Coimbra,  it  is  the  opinion  of 
the  most  impartial  and  intelligent  persons, 
then  at  Lisbon,  that  they  would  have  suc 
ceeded  without  a  blow.  It  is  certain  that 
the  Usurper  and  his  mother  had  prepared  for 
a  flight  to  Madrid,  and,  after  the  fatal  delay 
at  Coimbra,  were  with  difficulty  persuaded 
to  adopt  measures  of  courage.  As  soon  as 
Miguel  assumed  the  title  of  King,  all  the 
Foreign  Ministers  fled  from  Lisbon  :  a  nation 
which  ceased  to  resist  such  a  tyrant  was 
deemed  unworthy  of  remaining  a  member 
of  the  European  community.  The  brand  of 
exclusion  was  fixed,  which  is  not  yet  with 
drawn.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  delay 
at  Coimbra,  the  strength  thence  gained  by 
the  Usurper,  and  the  discouragement  spread 
by  the  retreat  of  the  Loyalists,  led  to  the  fall 
of  Oporto,  and  compelled  its  loyal  garrison, 
with  many  other  faithful  subjects,  to  leave 
their  dishonoured  country.  They  were 
doubly  honoured  by  the  barbarous  inhospi- 
tality  of  Spain  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  by  the  sympathy  of  France  and  of 
England. 

At  this  point,  Sir,  I  must  deviate  a  mo 
ment  from  my  line,  to  consider  the  very  pe 
culiar  state  of  our  diplomatic  intercourse 
with  Dom  Pedro  and  Donna  Maria,  in  rela 
tion  to  the  crown  of  Portugal.  All  diplo 
matic  intercourse  with  the  Usurper  in  posses 
sion  of  it  was  broken  off.  There  were  three 
ministers  from  the  legitimate  sovereigns  of 
the  House  of  Braganza  in  London:  —  the 
Marquess  Palmella,  ambassador  from  Portu 
gal,  who  considered  himself  in  that  character 
as  the  minister  of  Donna  Maria,  the  Queen 
acknowledged  by  us. — the  Marquess  Barba- 
cena,  the  confidential  adviser  appointed  by 
Dom  Pedro  to  guide  the  infant  Queen, — and 


the  Viscount  Itabayana,  the  recognised  min 
ister  from  that  monarch  as  Emperor  of  Bra 
zil.  They  all  negotiated,  or  attempted  to 
negotiate,  with  us.  The  Marquess  Palmella 
was  told  that  the  success  of  the  usurpation 
left  him  no  Portuguese  interests  to  protect, — 
that  his  occupation  was  gone.  The  Viscount 
Itabayana  was  repelled  as  being  merely  the 
minister  from  Brazil,  a  country  finally  sepa 
rated  from  Portugal.  The  Marquess  Barba- 
cena  was  positively  apprised  that  we  did  not 
recognise  the  right  of  Dom  Pedro  to  interfere 
as  head  of  the  House  of  Brazil,  or  as  interna 
tional  guardian  of  his  daughter.  By  some 
ingenious  stratagem  each  was  excluded,  or 
driven  to  negotiate  in  an  inferior  and  unac 
knowledged  character.  This  policy  seems 
to  me  very  like  what  used  to  be  called  in 
the  courts,  '-'sharp  practice."  It  is  not  free 
from  all  appearance  of  international  special 
pleading,  which  seems  to  me  the  less  com 
mendable,  because  the  Government  were 
neither  guided  nor  hampered  by  precedent. 
It  is  a  case.  I  will  venture  to  say,  without 
parallel.  The  result  was,  that  an  infant 
Queen,  recognised  as  legitimate,  treated  with 
personal  honour  and  kindness,  is  left  without 
a  guardian  to  guide  her,  or  a  minister  to  act 
for  her.  Such  was  the  result  of  our  interna 
tional  subtleties  and  diplomatic  punctilios ! 

To  avoid  such  a  practical  absurdity,  no 
thing  seemed  more  simple  than  to  hold  that 
nature  and  necessity,  with  the  entire  absence 
of  any  other  qualified  person,  had  vested  in 
Dom  Pedro  the  guardianship  of  his  Royal 
daughter,  for  the  purpose  of  executing  the 
separation  of  the  two  countries,  and  the  ab 
dication  of  the  Portuguese  crown.  His  cha 
racter  would  have  had  some  analogy  to  that 
of  the  guardian  named  in  a  court  of  justice 
to  a  minor  party  in  a  law-suit.  Ingenuity 
would,  I  think,  have  been  better  empfoyed 
in  discovering  the  legal  analogies,  or  politi 
cal  reasons,  which  are  favourable  to  this  na 
tural  and  convenient  doctrine.  Even  the 
rejection  of  the  minister  of  a  deposed  sove 
reign  has  not  always  been  rigidly  enforced. 
Queen  Elizabeth's  virtues  were  riot  indul 
gent;  nor  did  her  treatment  of  the  Queen  of 
Scots  do  honour  to  her  character :  yet  she 
continued  for  years  after  the  deposition  Qf 
Mary  to  treat  with  Bishop  Leslie;  and  he 
was  not  pronounced  to  have  forfeited  the 
privileges  of  an  ambassador  till  he  was  de 
tected  in  a  treasonable  conspiracy. 

A  negotiation  under  the  disadvantage  of 
an  unacknowledged  character  was,  however, 
carried  on  by  the  Marquess  Palmella,  and 
the  Marquess  Barbacena,  between  the  months 
of  November  and  February  last,  in  which 
they  claimed  the  aid  of  Great  Britain  against 
the  Usurper,  by  virtue  of  the  ancient  treaties, 
and  of  the  conferences  at  Vienna.  Perhaps 
I  must  allow  that  the  first  claim  could  not  in 
strictness  be  maintained  : — perhaps  this  case 
was  not  in  the  bond.  But  I  have  already 
stated  my  reasons  for  considering  the  con 
ferences  at  Vienna,  the  measures  concerted 
there,  and  the  acts  done  on  their  faith,  as 


ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  PORTUGAL. 


577 


equivalent  to  an  engagement  on  the  part  of 
Austria  and  England  with  Dom  Pedro.  At 
all  events,  this  series  of  treaties  for  four 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  from  Edward  III.  to 
George  IV. — longer  and  more  uninterrupted 
than  any  other  in  history, — containing  many 
articles  closely  approaching  the  nature  of  a 
guarantee,  followed,  as  it  has  been  by  the 
strong  marks  of  favour  showed  by  England 
to  the  Constitution,  and  by  the  principles  and 
plan  adopted  by  England  and  Austria  (with 
the  approbation  of  France,  Russia,  and  Prus 
sia),  at  Vienna,  altogether  hold  out  the  strong 
est  virtual  encouragement  to  the  Constitu 
tionalists.  How  could  Portugal  believe  that 
those  who  threatened  to  imprison  Miguel  at 
Vienna,  would  hesitate  about  hurling  him 
from  an  usurped  throne  at  Lisbon  ?  How 
could  the  Portuguese  nation  suppose  that,  in 
a  case  where  Austria  and  England  had  the 
concurrence  of  all  the  great  Powers,  they 
should  be  deterred  from  doing  justice  by  a 
fear  of  war?  How  could  they  imagine  that 
the  rule  of  non-interference, — violated  against 
Spain, — violated  against  Naples, —  violated 
against  Piedmont, — more  honourably  violat 
ed  for  Greece  but  against  Turkey. — should 
be  held  sacred,  only  when  it  served  to  screen 
the  armies  and  guard  the  usurpation  of  Mi 
guel  ?  Perhaps  their  confidence  might  have 
been  strengthened  by  what  they  must  think 
the  obvious  policy  of  the  two  Courts.  It 
does  seem  to  me  that  they  might  have  com 
manded  Miguel  to  quit  his  prey  (for  war  is 
ridiculous)  as  a  mere  act  of  self-defence. 
Ferdinand  VII.  is  doubtless  an  able  preacher 
of  republicanism  ;  but  he  is  surpassed  in  this 
particular  by  Miguel.  I  cannot  think  it  a 
safe  policy  to  allow  the  performance  of  an 
experiment  to  determine  how  low  the  kingly 
character  may  sink  in  the  Pyrenean  Penin 
sula,  without  abating  its  estimation  in  the 
rest  of  Europe.  Kings  are  sometimes  the 
most  formidable  of  all  enemies  to  royalty. 

The  issue  of  our  conduct  towards  Portugal 
for  the  last  eighteen  months  is,  in  point  of 
policy,  astonishing.  We  are  now  bound  to 
defend  a  country  of  which  we  have  made  all 
the  inhabitants  our  enemies.  It  is  needless 
to  speak  of  former  divisions :  there  are  now 
only  two  parties  there.  The  Absolutists  hate 
us :  they  detest  the  country  of  juries  and  of 
Parliaments, — the  native  land  of  Canning, — 
the  source  from  which  their  Constitution 
seemed  to  come, — the  model  which  has  ex 
cited  the  love  of  liberty  throughout  the  world. 
No  half-measures,  however  cruel  to  their 
opponents,  can  allay  their  hatred.  If  you 
doubt,  look  at  their  treatment  of  British  sub 
jects,  which  I  consider  chiefly  important,  as 
indicating  their  deep-rooted  and  irreconcil 
able  malignity  to  us.  The  very  name  of  an 
Englishman  is  with  them  that  of  a  jacobin 
and  an  atheist.  Look  at  their  treatment  of 
the  city  of  Oporto  and  of  the  island  of  Ma 
deira,  which  may  be  almost  considered  as 
English  colonies.  If  this  hatred  was  in  any 
degree  excited  by  the  feelings  of  the  Eng 
lish  inhabitants  towards  them,  from  what 


could  such  feelings  spring  but  from  a  know 
ledge  of  the  execrable  character  of  the  ruling 
faction  ?•  Can  they  ever  forgive  us  for  de 
grading  their  Government  and  disgracing 
their  minion,  by  an  exclusion  from  interna 
tional  intercourse  more  rigorous  than  any  in- 
urred  under  a  Papal  interdict  of  the  four 
teenth  century?-  Their  trust  alone  is  in  the 
Spanish  Apostolicals.  The  Constitutionalists, 
who  had  absorbed  and  softened  all  the  more 
popular  parties  of  the  former  period,  no  longer 
trust  us.  They  consider  us  as  having  incited 
them  to  resistance,  and  as  having  afterwards 
abandoned  them  to  their  fate.  They  do  riot 
distinguish  between  treaties  and  protocols, — 
between  one  sort  of  guarantee  and  another. 
They  view  us,  more  simply,  as  friends  who 
have  ruined  them.  Their  trust  alone  is  in 
Constitutional  France.  Even  those  who  think, 
perhaps  justly,  that  the  political  value  of 
Portugal  to  us  is  unspeakably  diminished  by 
the  measures  which  we  have  happily  taken 
for  the  security  of  Ireland,  cannot  reasonably 
expect  that  any  nation  of  the  second  order, 
which  sees  the  fate  of  Portugal,  will  feel  as 
surance  of  safety  from  the  protection  of 
England. 

If  we  persist  in  an  unfriendly  neutrality,  it 
is  absurd  voluntarily  to  continue  to  submit 
to  obligations  from  which  we  may  justly  re 
lease  ourselves.  For  undoubtedly  a  govern 
ment  so  covered  with  crimes,  so  disgraced 
by  Europe  as  that  of  Miguel,  is  a  new  source 
of  danger,  not  contemplated'  in  the  treaties 
of  alliance  and  guarantee.  If  Mr.  Canning, 
with  reason,  held  that  an  alliance  of  Portugal 
with  the  Spanish  Revolutionists  would,  on 
that  principle,  release  us  from  our  obligations, 
it  cannot  be  doubted  that  by  the  standing  in 
famy  of  submission  to  the  present  Govern 
ment,  she  well  deserves  to  forfeit  all  remain 
ing  claims  to  our  protection. 

Notwithstanding  the  failure  of  the  nego 
tiations  to  obtain  our  aid  as  an  ally,  I  believe 
that  others  have  been  carried  on,  and  proba 
bly  are  not  yet  closed,  in  London  and  at  Rio 
Janeiro.  It  has  been  proposed,  by  the  Me 
diating  Powers,  to  Dom  Pedro,  to  complete 
the  marriage,  to  be  silent  on  the  Constitu 
tion, — but  to  obtain  an  universal  amnesty.  I 
cannot  wonder  at  Dom  Pedro's  rejection  of 
conditions,  one  of  which  only  can  be  effec 
tual, — that  which  imposes  on  his  daughter 
the  worst  husband  in  Europe.  What  wonder 
that  he  should  reject  a  proposal  to  put  the 
life  of  a  Royal  infant  under  the  care  of  mur 
derers. — to  join  her  youthful  hand,  at  the 
altar,  with  one  embrued  in  the  blood  of  hei 
most  faithful  friends !  As  for  the  other  con 
ditions,  what  amnesty  can  be  expected  from 
the  wolf  of  Oporto1?  What  imaginable  se 
curity  can  be  devised  for  an  amnesty,  unless 
the  vanquished  party  be  shielded  by  some 
political  privileges  ?  Yet  I  rejoice  that  these 
negotiations  have  not  closed, — that  the  two 
Powers  have  adopted  the  decisive  principle 
of  stipulating  what  Miguel  must  do,  without 
consulting  him ;  and  that,  whether  from  the 
generous  feelings  of  a  Royal  mind  at  home, 


578 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


or  from  the  spirit  of  constitutional  liberty  in 
the  greatest  of  foreign  countries,  or  from 
both  these  causes,  the  negotiations  have  as 
sumed  a  more  amicable  tone.  I  do  not 
wonder  that  Dom  Pedro,  after  having  pro 
tested  against  the  rebellion  of  his  brother, 
and  the  coldness  of  his  friends,  should  in 
dignantly  give  orders  for  the  return  of  the 
young  Queen,  while  he  provides  for  the  as 
sertion  of  her  rights,  by  the  establishment  of 
a  regency  in  Europe.  I  am  well  pleased 
however  to  learn,  that  the  Mediating  Powers 
have  advised  his  ministers  to  suspend  the 
execution  of  his  commands  till  he  shall  be 
acquainted  with  the  present  state  of  affairs. 
The  monstrous  marriage  is,  at  all  events,  I 
trust,  for  ever  abandoned.  As  long  as  a  ne 
gotiation  is  on  foot  respecting  the  general 
question,  I  shall  not  despair  of  our  ancient 
Ally. 

Sir,  I  must  own,  that  there  is  no  circum 
stance  in  this  case,  which,  taken  singly,  I  so 
deeply  regret  as  the  late  unhappy  affair  of 
Terceira.  The  Portuguese  troops  and  Roy 
alists  who  landed  in  England,  had  been  sta 
tioned,  after  some  time,  at  Plymouth,  where 
their  exemplary  conduct  gained  the  most 
public  and  general  marks  of  the  esteem  of 
the  inhabitants.  In  the  month  of  November, 
a  proposition  to  disperse  them  in  the  towns 
and  villages  of  the  adjacent  counties,  without 
their  officers,  was  made  by  the  British  Go 
vernment.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  question 
the  right  of  His  Majesty  to  disperse  all  mili 
tary  bodies  in  his  dominions,  and  to  prevent 
this  country  from  being  used  as  an  arsenal  or 
port  of  equipment  by  one  belligerent  against 
another, — even  in  cases  where,  as  in  the 
present,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  assemblage 
was  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  this  kingdom, 
or  menacing  to  the  safety  of  any  other.  1 
admit,  in  their  fullest  extent,  the  rights  and 
duties  of  neutral  states.  Yet  the  dispersion 
of  these  troops,  without  their  officers,  could 
scarcely  fail  to  discourage  them,  to  deprive 
them  of  military  spirits- and  habits,  and  to 
end  in  the  utter  disbanding  of  the  feeble  re 
mains  of  a  faithful  army.  The  ministers  of 
Donna  Maria  considered  this  as  fatal  to  their 
hopes.  An  unofficial  correspondence  was 
carried  on  from  the  end  of  November  to  the 
beginning  of  January  on  the  subject,  between 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  the  Marquess 
Palmella, — a  man  of  whom  I  cannot  help 
saying,  that  he  is  perhaps  the  individual  by 
whom  his  country  is  most  favourably  known 
to  foreign  nations, — that,  highly  esteemed  as 
he  is  among  statesmen 'for  his  share  in  the 
greatest  affairs  of  Europe  for  the  last  sixteen 
years,  he  is  not  less  valued  by  his  friends  for 
his  amiable  character  and  various  accom 
plishments, — and  that  there  is  no  one  living 
more  incapable  of  forgetting  the  severest 
dictates  of  delicacy  and  honour.  The  Mar 
quess  chose  rather  to  send  the  faithful  rem 
nant  of  Donna  Maria's  troops  to  Brazil,  than 
to  subject  them  to  utter  annihilation.  Va 
rious  letters  passed  on  the  reasonableness  of 
this  dispersion,  and  the  mode  of  removal, 


from  the  20th  of  November  to  the  20lh  of 
December,  in  which  Brazil  was  considered  as 
the  destination  of  the  troops.  In  a  letter  of 
t  he  20th  of  December,  the  Marquess  Palmella, 
for  the  first  time,  mentioned  the  Island  of 
Terceira.  It  had  been  twice  before  men 
tioned,  in  negotiations,  by  two  ministers  of 
the  House  of  Braganza,  with  totally  different 
views,  which,  if  the  course  of  debate  should 
call  for  it,  I  trust  I  shall  explain :  but  it  was 
first  substituted  for  Brazil  by  the  Marquess 
Palmella  on  the  20th  of  December.  I  anx 
iously  particularize  the  date,  because  it  is 
alone  sufficient  to  vindicate  his  scrupulous 
honour.  In  the  month  of  May,  some  parti 
sans  of  Miguel  had  shaken  the  loyalty  of  a 
part  of  the  inhabitants:  Dom  Pedro  and  the 
Constitution  wrere  proclaimed  on  the  22d  of 
June  ;  the  ringleaders  of  the  rebellion  were 
arrested  j  and  the  lawful  government  was  re 
established.  Some  disturbances,  however, 
continued,  which  enabled  the  priests  to  stir 
up  a  revolt  in  the  end  of  September.  The 
insurgents  were  again  suppressed  in  a  few 
days ;  but  it  was  not  till  the  4th  of  December 
that  Donna  Maria  was  proclaimed  as  Queen 
of  Portugal  in  conformity  to  the  treaty  of  se 
paration,  to  the  Constitutional  Charter,  and 
to  the  Act  of  Abdication.  Since  that  time  I 
have  now  before  me  documents  which  de 
monstrate  that  her  authority  has  been  regu 
larly  exercised  and  acknowledged  in  that 
island,  with  no  other  disturbance  than  that 
occasioned  by  one  or  two  bands  of  Guerillas, 
quickly  dispersed,  and  without  any  pretence 
for  alleging  that  there  was  in  that  island  a 
disputed  title,  or  an  armed  contest. 

On  the  20th  of  December,  then,  the  Mar 
quess  Palmella  informed  the  Duke  of  Wel 
lington,  that  though  he  (the  Marquess)  had 
hitherto  chosen  Brazil  as  being  the  only  safe, 
though  distant,  refuge  for  the  troops,  "  yet, 
from  the  information  which  he  had  just  re 
ceived  of  the  entire  and  peaceable  submission 
of  Terceira  to  the  young  Queen,  and  of  the 
disappearance  of  the  squadron  sent  by  the  ac 
tual  Government  of  Portugal  to  blockade  the 
Azores,  he  now  intended  to  send  her  troops 
to  that  part  of  her  dominions  where  she  w?s 
not  only  the  rightful  but  the  actual  Sovfe- 
reign,  and  for  which  he  conceived  that  the^ 
might  embark  at  Plymouth,  without  any  in 
fringement  of  the  neutrality  of  the  British 
territories."  This  letter  contains  the  explana 
tion  of  the  change  of  destination.  Unarmed 
troops  could  not  have  been  safely  sent  to 
Terceira,  nor  merchant  vessels  either,  while 
there  were  intestine  divisions,  or  apprehen 
sions  of  a  blockade,  or  indeed  till  there  was 
full  and  authentic  information  of  the  esta 
blishment  of  quiet  and  legitimate  authority. 
The  Marquess  Palmella  thought  that  the 
transportation  of  the  troops  had  now  become 
as  lawful  as  it  was  obviously  desirable.  To 
remove  the  Queen's  troops  to  a  part  of  her 
own  actual  dominions,  seemed  to  him,  as  I 
own  it  still  seems  to  me,  an  act  consistent 
even  with  the  cold  and  stem  neutrality  as 
sumed  by  England.  Had  not  a  Queen,  ac- 


ON  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  PORTUGAL. 


579 


knowledged  in  England,  and  obeyed  in  Ter- 
ceira,  a  perfect  right  to  send  her  own  sol 
diers  home  from  a  neutral  country?  If  the 
fact  of  the  actual  return  of  Terceira  to  its 
allegiance  be  not  denied  and  disproved,  I 
shall  be  anxious  to  hear  the  reasons,  to  me 
unknown,  which  authorise  a  neutral  power 
to  forbid  such  a  movement.  It  is  vain  to 
say,  that  Great  Britain,  as  mediator  in  the 
Treaty  of  1825,  was  entitled  to  prevent  the 
separation  of  the  Azores  from  Portugal,  and 
their  subjection  to  Brazil;  for,  on  the  4th  of 
December,  Donna  Maria  had  been  proclaim 
ed  at  Terceira  as  Queen  of  Portugal,  in  virtue 
of  the  possession  of  the  Portuguese  crown. 
It  is  vain  to  say  that  the  embarcation  had  a 
hostile  character  ;  since  it  was  immediately 
destined  for  the  territory  of  the  friendly 
sovereign.  Beyond  this  point  the  neutral  is 
neither  bound  nor  entitled  to  inquire.  It 
•was  not,  as  has  been  inconsiderately  said, 
an  expedition  against  the  Azores.  It  was 
the  movement  of  Portuguese  troops  from 
neutral  England  to  obedient  and  loyal  Ter 
ceira, — where  surely  the  Sovereign  might 
employ  her  troops  in  such  manner  as  she 
judged  right.  How  far  is  the  contrary  pro 
position  to  go  ?  Should  we, — could  we,  as  a 
neutral  Power,  have  hindered  Miguel  from 
transporting  those  of  his  followers,  who  might 
be  in  England,  to  Lisbon,  because  they  might 
be  sent  thence  against  the  Azores.  It  is  true, 
the  group  of  islands  have  the  generic  name 
of  the  Azores :  but  so, — though  the  Ameri 
can  islands  are  called  the  West  Indies, — I 
presume  it  will  not  be  contended  that  a  re 
bellion  in  Barbadoes  could  authorise  a  foreign 
Sovereign  in  preventing  British  troops  which 
happened  to  be  on  his  territory  from  being 
despatched  by  His  Majesty  to  strengthen  his 
garrison  of  Jamaica.  Supposing  the  facts 
which  I  have  stated  to  be  true,  I  can  see  no 
mode  of  impugning  the  inferences  which  I 
have  made  from  them.  Until  I  receive  a 
satisfactory  answer,  I  am  bound  to  say,  that 
I  consider  the  prohibition  of  this  embarca 
tion  as  a  breach  of  neutrality  in  favour  of 
the  Usurper. 

And  even,  Sir,  if  these  arguments  are  suc 
cessfully  controverted,  another  proposition 
remains,  to  which  it  is  still  more  difficult  for 
me  to  conceive  the  possibility  of  an  answer. 
Granting  that  the  permission  of  the  embarca 
tion  was  a  breach  of  neutrality,  which  might 
be,  and  must  be,  prevented  on  British  land, 
or  in  British  waters,  where  is  the  proof  from 
reason,  from  usage. — even  from  example  or 
authority,  that  England  was  bound,  or  enti 
tled,  to  pursue  the  expedition  over  the  ocean, 
— to  use  force  against  them  on  the  high  seas, 
— most  of  all  to  levy  war  against  them  within 
the  waters  of  Terceira  ?  Where  are  the  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  any  such  right  or  duty?  I 
have  searched  for  them  in  vain.  Even  if  an 
example  or  two  could  be  dug  up,  they  would 
not  affect  my  judgment.  I  desire  to  know 
where  the  series  of  examples  from  good 
times  can  be  found  which  might  amount  to 
general  usage,  and  thus  constitute  a  part  of 


international  law.  I  never  can  consider  mere 
general  reasoning  as  a  sufficient  justification 
of  such  an  act.  There  are  many  instances 
in  which  international  law  rejects  such  rea 
sonings.  For  example,  to  allow  a  passage 
to  a  belligerent  through  a  neutral  territory, 
is  not  in  itself  a  departure  from  neutrality. 
But  to  fire  on  a  friendly  ship  within  the  \va- 
terfe  of  a  friendly  state,  for  a  wrong  done  in 
an  English  harbour,  is  an  act  which  appears 
to  me  a  most  alarming  innovation  in  the  law 
of  civilized  war.  The  attack  on  the  Spanish 
frigates  in  1805  is  probably  reconcilable  with 
the  stern  and  odious  rights  of  war :  yet  I  am 
sure  that  every  cool-headed  and  true-hearted 
Englishman  would  desire  to  blot  the  scene 
from  the  annals  of  Europe.  Every  approach 
towards  rigour,  beyond  the  common  and 
well-known  usage  of  war,  is  an  innovation  : 
and  it  must  ever  be  deplored  that  we  have 
made  the  first  experiment  of  its  extension 
beyond  former  usage  in  the  case  of  the  most 
ancient  of  our  allies,  in  the  season  of  her 
utmost  need. 

I  shrink  from  enlarging  on  the  scene  which 
closed, — I  fear  for  ever, — a  friendship  of  four 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  On  the  16th  of 
January  last,  three  English  vessels  and  a 
Russian  brig,  having  aboard  five  hundred 
unarmed  Portuguese,  attempted  to  enter  the 
port  of  Praya,  in  the  island  of  Terceira.  Cap 
tain  Walpole,  of  His  Majesty's  ship  "Ran 
ger,"  fired  on  two  of  these  vessels,  which 
had  got  under  the  guns  of  the  forts  protect 
ing  the  harbour:  the  blood  of  Her  Most 
Faithful  Majesty's  subjects  was  spilt ;  one 
soldier  was  killed ;  a  peaceable  passenger 
was  dangerously  wounded.  I  forbear  to  state 
further  particulars.  I  hope  and  confidently 
trust  that  Captain  Walpole  will  acquit  him 
self  of  all  negligence, — of  all  want  of  the 
most  anxious  endeavours  to  spare  blood,  and 
to  be  frugal  of  violence,  in  a  proceeding  where 
such  defects  would  be  crimes.  Warmly  as  I 
rejoice  in  the  prevalence  of  that  spirit  of  li 
berty,  and,  as  a  consequence,  of  humanity, 
of  which  the  triumph  in  France  is  so  happy 
for  Europe,  I  must  own  that  I  cannot  con 
template  without  mortification  the  spectacle 
of  the  loyal  Portuguese  exhibiting  in  a  French 
port  wounds  inflicted  by  the  arms  of  their  an 
cient  ally,  protector,  and  friend.  The  friend 
ship  of  four  centuries  and  a  half  should  have 
had  a  more  becoming  close :  it  should  not 
have  been  extinguished  in  fire. and  blood. 

I  will  now  conclude,  Sir,  with  the  latest, 
and  perhaps  the  saddest  incident  in  this  tra 
gic  story  of  a  nation's  <:  hopes  too  fondly 
raised,"  perhaps,  but  surely  "  too  rudely 
crossed."  I  shall  not  quote  it  as  a  proof  o'f 
the  Usurper's  inhumanity; — there  is  no  man 
in  this  House  who  would  not  say  that  such 
proofs  are  needless:  I  produce  it,  only  as  a 
sample  of  the  boldness  with  which  he  now 
throws  down  the  gauntlet  to  the  govern 
ments  and  nations  of  Christendom.  On 
Thursday  the  7th  of  May,  little  more  than 
three  weeks  ago,  in  the  city  of  Oporto,  ten 
gentlemen  were  openly  murdered  on  *^e 


580 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


avowed  ground,  that  on  the  16th  of  May, 
1828,  while  Miguel  himself  still  pretended 
to  be  the  lieutenant  of  Dom  Pedro,  they  fol 
lowed  the  example  of  Austria  and  England, 
in  treating  Dom  Pedro  as  their  lawful  sove 
reign,  and  in  endeavouring  to  carry  into  ex 
ecution  the  laws  established  by  him.  Two 
were  reserved  for  longer  suffering  by  a  pre 
tended  pardon : — the  tender  mercies  of  the 
wicked  are  cruel.  One  of  these  two  was 
condemned  to  a  lingering  yet  agonizing  death 
in  the  galleys  of  Angola ;  the  other,  the  bro 
ther  of  the  Ambassador  at  Brussels,  was  con 
demned  to  hard  labour  for  life,  but  adjudged 
first  to  witness  the  execution  of  his  friends; 
— an  aggravation  light  to  the  hard-hearted, 
heart-breaking  to  the  generous,  which,  by  a 
hateful  contrivance,  draws  the  whole  force 
of  the  infliction  from  the  virtues  of  the  suf 
ferer.  The  city  of  Oporto  felt  this  scene 
with  a  horror  not  lessened  by  the  sentiments 
which  generations  of  Englishmen  have,  I 
would  fain  hope,  left  behind  them.  The  rich 
fled  to  their  villas;  the  poor  shut  up  their 
doors  and  windows ;  the  peasants  of  the 
neighbourhood  withheld  their  wonted  sup 
plies  from  the  markets  of  the  tainted  city ; 
the  deserted  streets  were  left  to  the  execu 
tioner,  his  guards,  and  his  victims. — with  no 
more  beholders  than  were  needful  to  bear 
witness,  that  those  "faithful  found  among 
the  faithless"  left  the  world  with  the  feel 
ings  of  men  who  die  for  their  country. 

On  the  16th  of  May,  1828,  the  day  on 
which  the  pretended  treasons  were  charged 
to  have  been  committed,  the  state  of  Portu 
gal  was,  in  the  light  most  indulgent  to  Mi 
guel,  that  of  a  contest  for  the  crown.  It  was 
not  a  rebellion  :  it  was  a  civil  war.  At  the 


]  close  of  these  wars  without  triumph,  civilized 
j  victors  hasten  to  throw  the  pall  of  amnesty 
over  the  wounds  of  their  country.     Not  so 
Miguel :   ten   months  after   submission,  he 
1  sheds  blood  for  acts  done  before  the  war. 
j  He  has  not  the  excuses  of  Robespierre  and 
Marat : — no  army  is  marching  on  Lisbon  ;  no 
squadron  is  entering  the  Tagus  with  the  flag 
of  deliverance.     The  season  of  fulness  and 
safety,   which  stills   the    tiger,    rouses  the 
j  coward's  thirst  for  blood.     Is  this  the  blind 
j  instinct  of  ferocity  ?     Is  it  only  to  carry  des- 
I  pair  into  the  thousands  of  loyal  Portuguese 
j  whom  he  has  scattered  over  the  earth  ?   No  ! 
acts  of  later  date  might  have  served  that 
purpose  :  his  choice  of  time  is  a  defiance  to 
Europe.     The  offence  here  was  resisting  an 
usurpation,  the   consummation  of  which  a 
few  weeks  after  made  the  representatives 
|  of  Europe  fly  from  Lisbon,  as  from  a  city 
I  of    the   plague.      The   indignity   is   chiefly 
!  pointed  at  the  two  Mediating  Powers,  who 
j  nave  not  yet  relinquished  all  hopes  of  com- 
!  promise.     But  it  is  not  confined  to  them  : 
'  though  he  is  aware  that  a  breath  would  blow 
j  him  away  without  blood  or  cost,  he  makes 
!  a  daring  experiment  on  the  patience  of  all 
;  Europe.      He   will   draw  out  for  slaughter 
handful  after  handful  of  those,  whose  sole 
•  crime  was  to  trust  the  words  and  follow  the 
example   of  all   civilized  nations.     He  be 
lieves  that  an  attempt  will  at  length  be  made 
to  stop  his  crimes  by  a  recognition  of  his 
authority, — that  by  dint  of  murders  he  may 
1  force  his  way  into  the  number  of  the  dis- 
I  pensers  of  justice  and  mercy.     He  holds  up 
;  the  bleeding  heads  of  Oporto  to  tell  sove 
reigns  and  nations  alike  how  he  scorns  their 
:  judgment  and  defies  their  power. 


SPEECH    :   - 

ON  THE  SECOND  READING  OF 

THE  UILL  TO  AMEND  THE  REPRESENTATION' 

OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  ENGLAND  AND  WALES. 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  COMMONS,  ON  THE  4TH  OF  JULY,  1831. 


MR.  SPEAKER, — I  feel  no  surprise,  and  cer 
tainly  no  regret,  at  the  applause  which  fol 
lowed  the  speech  of  the  Honourable  and 
Learned  Gentleman,*  whose  speeches  never 
leave  any  unpleasant  impression,  but  the  re- 

*  Mr.  Fynes  Clinton,  M.  P.  for  Aldborough. 
— ED. 


flection  that  he  speaks  so  seldom.  Much 
of  that  excellent  speech  so  immediately 
bears  on  the  whole  question  of  Parliamen 
tary  Reform,  that  it  will  naturally  lead  me 
to  the  consideration  of  the  general  principle 
of  the  Bill  before  us. 

I  must,  Sir,  however,  premise  a  very  few 
remarks  on  the  speech  of  the  Honourable 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


581 


Baronet:*  though  I  shall  not  follow  him 
through  his  account  of  the  squabble  between 
the  labourers  and  their  employers  at  Merthyr 
Tidvil,  which  I  leave  to  the  justice  of  the 
law,  or,  what  is  better,  to  the  prudence  and 
principle  of  both  parties.  Neither  can  I 
seriously  handle  his  objection  to  this  Bill, 
that  it  has  produced  a  strong  interest,  and 
divided  opinions  throughout  the  kingdom. 
Such  objections  prove  too  much  :  they  would 
exclude  most  important  questions,  and.  cer 
tainly,  all  reformatory  measures.  It  is  one 
of  the  chief  advantages  of  free  governments, 
that  they  excite,— sometimes  to  an  incon 
venient  degree,  but,  upon  the  whole,  with 
the  utmost  benefit, — all  the  generous  feel 
ings,  all  the  efforts  for  a  public  cause,  of 
which  human  nature  is  capable.  But  there 
is  one  point  in  the  ingenious  speech  of  the 
Honourable  Baronet,  which,  as  it  touches  the 
great  doctrines  of  the  Constitution,  and  in 
volves  a  reflection  on  the  conduct  of  many 
Members  of  this  House,  cannot  be  passed 
over,  without  an  exposition  of  the  fallacy 
which  shuts  his  eyes  to  very  plain  truths. — 
Mr.  Burke,  in  the  famous  speech  at  Bristol, 
told,  indeed,  his  constituents,  that  as  soon  as 
he  should  be  elected,  however  much  he 
might  respect  their  opinions,  his  votes  must 
be  governed  by  his  own  conscience.  This 
doctrine  was  indisputably  true.  But  did  he 
not,  by  his  elaborate  justification  of  his 
public  conduct,  admit  their  jurisdiction  over 
it,  and  acknowledge,  that  if  he  failed  in  con 
verting  them,  they  had  an  undoubted  right 
to  reject  him?  Then,  if  they  could  justly 
reject  him,  for  differing  from  what'  they 
thought  right,  it  follows,  most  evidently, 
that  they  might,  with  equal  justice,  refuse 
their  suffrages  to  him,  if  they  thought  his 
future  votes  likely  to  differ  from  those  which 
they  deemed  indispensable  to  the  public 
weal.  If  they  doubted  what  that  future 
conduct  might  be,  they  were  entitled,  and 
bound,  to  require  a  satisfactory  explanation, 
either  in  public  or  in  private  ;  and  in  case 
of  unsatisfactory,  or  of  no  explanation,  to 
refuse  their  support  to  the  candidate.  This 
duty  the  people  may  exercise  in  whatever 
form  they  deem  most  effectual.  They  im 
pose  no  restriction  on  the  conscience  of  the 
candidate ;  they  only  satisfy  their  own  con 
science,  by  rejecting  a  candidate,  of  whose 
conduct,  on  the  most  momentous  question, 
they  have  reason  to  doubt.  Far  less  could 
constituents  be  absolved,  on  the  present  occa 
sion,  from  the  absolute  duty  of  ascertaining 
the  determination  of  candidates  on  the  sub 
ject  of  Parliamentary  Reform.  His  Majesty, 
in  his  speech  from  the  throne,  on  the  22d 
of  April,  was  pleased  to  declare,  "  I  have 
come  to  meet  you,  for  the  purpose  of  pro 
roguing  Parliament,  with  a  view  to  its  im 
mediate  dissolution.  I  have  been  induced 
to  resort  to  this  measure,  for  the  purpose  of 


*  Sir  John  Walsh,  who  had  moved  the  amend 
ment  that  the  Bill  be  read  that  day  six  months, 
which  Mr.  Clinton  had  seconded. — ED, 


|  ascertaining  the  sense  of  my  people,  in  the 
way  in  which  it  can  be  most  constitutionally 
and  authentically  expressed,  on  the  expedi 
ency  of  making  such  changes  in  the  repre 
sentation  as  circumstances  may  appear  to 
require;  and  which,  founded  upon  the  ac 
knowledged  principles  of  the  Constitution, 
may  tend  at  once  to  uphold  the  just  rights 
arid  prerogatives  of  the  Crown,  and  to  give 
security  to  the  liberties  of  the  subject." 
What  answer  could  the  people  have  made 
to  the  appeal  thus  generously  made  to  them, 
without  taking  all  necessary  means  to  be 
assured  that  the  votes  of  those,  whom  they 
chose,  would  sufficiently  manifest  to  him  the 
sense  of  his  people,  on  the  changes  neces 
sary  to  be  made  in  the  representation. 

On  subjects  of  foreign  policy,  Sir,  a  long 
silence  has  been  observed  on  this  side  of 
the  House, — undisturbed,  I  am  bound  to  add, 
by  the  opposite  side,  for  reasons  which  are 
very  obvious.  We  are  silent,  and  we  are 
allowed  to  be  silent;  because,  a  word  spoken 
awry,  might  occasion  fatal  explosions.  The 
affairs  of  the  Continent  are  so  embroiled, 
that  we  have  forborne  to  express  those  feel 
ings,  which  must  agitate  the  breast  of  every 
human  being,  at  the  sight  of  that  admirable 
and  afflicting  struggle*  on  which  the  eyes 
of  Europe  are  constantly,  however  silently, 
fixed.  As  it  is  admitted  by  the  Honourable 
Baronet,  that  the  resistance  of  the  French  to 
an  usurpation  of  their  rights  last  year  was 
glorious  to  all  who  were  concerned  in  it,  it 
follows  that,  being  just,  it  has  no  need  of 
being  sanctioned  by  the  approbation  of  for 
tune.  Who  then  are  morally  answerable  for 
the  unfortunate  confusions  which  followed, 
and  for  the  further  commotion,  which,  if 
heaven  avert  it  not,  may  convulse  France 
and  Europe  ?  Who  opened  the  floodgates 
of  discord  on  mankind'?  Not  the  friends  of 
liberty, — not  the  advocates  of  popular  prin 
ciples:  their  hands  are  clean  ; — they  took  up 
arms  only  to  defend  themselves  against 
wrong.  I  hold  sacred  every  retreat  of  mis 
fortune,  and  desire  not  to  disturb  fallen  great 
ness;  but  justice  compels  me  to  say,  that  the 
hands  of  the  late  King  of  France  were  made 
to  unlock  these  gates  by  his  usurping  ordi 
nances, — 

"  To  open  ;  but  to  shut  surpassed  his  power." 

The  dangers  of  Europe  do  not  originate  in  de- 
mocratical  principles,  or  democratical  power, 
but  in  a  conspiracy  for  the  subversion  of  all 
popular  rights,  however  sanctioned  by  oaths, 
by  constitution,  and  by  laws. 

I  shall  now,  Sir,  directly  proceed  to  the 
latter  part  of  the  speech  of  the  Honourable 
and  Learned  Member  for  Boroughbridge, 
which  regards  the  general  principle  and 
character  of  this  Bill.  In  so  doing,  I  shall 
endeavour,  as  far  as  may  be,  not  to  displease 
the  fastidious  ears  of  the  Honourable  Baro 
net,  by  frequently  repeating  the  barbarous 
names  of  the  Tudors  and  Plantagenets.  I 

*  The  insurrection  in  Poland. — ED. 
2y2 


582 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


must,  however,  follow  the  Honourable  and 
Learned  Member  to  the  fountains  of  our  go 
vernment  and  laws,  whither,  indeed,  he 
calls  upon  me  with  no  unfriendly  voice  to 
accompany  him. 

That  no  example  can  be  found  from  the 
time  of  Simon  de  Montfort  to  the  present 
year,  either  in  the  practice  of  ancient  legis 
lation,  or  in  the  improvements  proposed  by 
modern  Reformers,  which  sanctions  the 
general  principle  of  this  Bill,  is  an  assertion, 
which  I  am  sure  the  Honourable  Gentleman 
will  discover  to  be  unadvisedly  hazarded. 

I  shall  begin  with  one  of  the  latest  exam 
ples  of  a  Reformer  of  great  weight  and  au 
thority, — that  which  is  afforded  by  the 
speech  and  the  plan  of  Mr.  Pitt,  in  1785, 
because  it  does  not  only  itself  exhibit  the 
principle  of  the  schedules  of  this  Bill,  but 
because  it  proves,  beyond  all  possibility  of 
dispute,  his  thorough  conviction  tjiat  this 
principle  is  conformable  to  the  ancient  laws 
and  practice  of  the  constitution.  The  prin 
ciple  of  Schedules  A.  and  B.  is  the  abolition, 
partial  or  total,  of  the  elective  rights  of  petty 
and  dependent  boroughs.  The  principle  of 
Schedules  C.  D.  and  E.  is  the  transfer  of 
that  resumed  right  to  great  towns,  and  to 
other  bodies  of  constituents  deemed  likely 
to  use  it  better.  Let  me  now  state  Mr.  Pitt's 
opinion,  in  his  own  words,  on  the  expediency 
of  acting  on  both  these  principles,  and  on  the 
agreement  of  both  with  the  ancient  course 
and  order  of  the  constitution.  His  plan,  it  is 
well  known,  was  to  take  away  seventy-two 
members  from  thirty-six  small  boroughs,  and 
to.  add  them  to  the  county  representation, 
with  a  permanent  provision  for  such  other 
transfers  of  similar  rights  to  great  towns,  as 
should  from  time  to  time  seem  necessary. 
His  object,  in  this  disfranchisement  and  en 
franchisement,  was,  according  to  his  own 
words,  "to  make  the  House  of  Commons  an 
assembly  which  should  have  the  closest 
union,  and  the  most  perfect  sympathy  with 
the  mass  of  the  people."  To  effect  this 
object,  he  proposed  to  buy  up  these  boroughs 
by  the  establishment  of  a  fund,  (cheers  from 
the  Opposition,)  of  which  the  first  effect  was 
expected  to  be  considerable,  and  the  accu 
mulation  would  prove  an  irresistible  tempta 
tion.  Gentlemen  would  do  well  to  hear  the 
whole  words  of  Mr.  Pitt,  before  they  so 
loudl}'-  exult: — "It  is  an  indisputable  doc 
trine  of  antiquity,  that  the  state  of  the  repre 
sentation  is  to  be  changed  with  the  change 
of  circumstances.  Change  in  the  borough 
representation  was  frequent.  A  great  num 
ber  of  the  boroughs,  originally  Parliamentary, 
had  been  disfranchised, — that  is,  the  Crown 
had  ceased  to  summon  them  to  send  bur 
gesses.  Some  of  these  had  been  restored  on 
their  petitions:  the  rest  had  not  recovered 
their  lost  franchise.  Considering  the  resto 
ration  of  the  former,  and  the  deprivation  of 
the  latter,  the  constitution  had  been  grossly 
violated,  if  it  was  true  (which  he  denied,)  that 
the  extension  of  the  elective  franchise  to 
one  set  of  boroughs,  and  the  resumption  of 


it  from  others,  was  a  violation  of  the  consti 
tution.  The  alterations  were  not  made  from 
principle;  but  they  were  founded  on  the 
general  notion  which  gave  the  discretionary 
power  to  the  Crown, — viz.,  that  the  prin 
cipal  places,  and  not  the  decayed  boroughs, 
should  exercise  the  right  of  election/''*  I 
know  full  well  that  these  boroughs  were  to 
be  bought.  I  also  know,  that  the  late  Mem 
ber  for  Dorset  (Mr.  Bankes),  the  college- 
friend,  the  zealous  but  independent  sup 
porter  of  Mr.  Pitt,  exclaimed  against  the 
purchase,  though  he  applauded  the  Reform. 
How  did  Mr.  Pitt  answer?  Did  he  say,  I 
cannot  deprive  men  of  inviolable  privileges 
without  compensation ;  I  cannot  promote 
Reform  by  injustice  ?  Must  he  not  have  so 
answered,  if  he  had  considered  the  resump 
tion  of  the  franchise  as  "corporation  rob 
bery?"  No !  he  excuses  himself  to  his 
friend :  he  declares  the  purchase  to  be 
"the  tender  part  of  the  subject,"  and  apolo 
gizes  for  it,  as  "having  become  a  necessary 
evil,  if  any  Reform  was  to  take  place.77 
Would  this  great  master  of  language,  who 
so  thoroughly  understood  and  practised  pre 
cision  and  propriety  of  words,  have  called 
that  a  necessary  evil  which  he  thought  an 
obligation  of  justice, — the  payment  of  a 
sacred  debt?  It  is  clear  from  the  very 
words  that  follow, — "if  any  Reform  were 
to  take  place,"  that  he  regarded  the  price 
of  the  boroughs  merely  as  a  boon  to  so  many 
borough-holders  to  become  proselytes  to  it. 
It  is  material  also  to  observe,  that  as  com 
pensation  was  no  part  of  his  plans  or  sug 
gestions  in  1782  and  1783,  he  could  not  have 
consistently  represented  it  as  of  right  due. 
Another  decisive  reason  renders  it  impos 
sible  to  annex  any  other  meaning  to  his  lan 
guage  : — he  justifies  his  system  of  transfer 
ring  the  franchise  by  analogy  to  the  ancient 
practice  of  ceasing  to  summon  some  boroughs 
to  send  members,  while  the  prerogative  of 
summoning  others  at  pleasure  was  acknow 
ledged.  But  the  analogy  would  have  failed3 
if  he  thought  compensation  was  due;  for  it 
is  certain  that  no  compensation  was  dreamt 
of,  till  his  own  plan.  Would  he  have  so 
strenuously  maintained  the  constitutional 
authority  to  disfranchise  and  enfranchise  dif 
ferent  places,  if  he  had  entertained  the  least 
suspicion  that  it  could  not  be  exercised 
without  being  justly  characterised  as  an  act 
of  rapine  ?  Another  circumstance  is  conclu 
sive  :  —  his  plan,  as  may  be  seen  in  his 
speech,  was  to  make  the  compensation  to 
the  borough-holders, — not  to  the  poor  free 
men,  the  scot  and  lot  voters,  the  pot-wallop- 
pers; — whose  spoliation  has  been  so  much 
deprecated  on  this  occasion, — who  alone 
could  have  had  any  pretence  of  justice  or 
colour  of  law  to  claim  it.  They  at  least  had 
legal  privileges:  the  compensation  to  the 
borough-holders  was  to  be  for  the  loss  of 
their  profits  by  breaches  of  law.  One  pas 
sage  only  in  Mr.  Pitt's  speech,  may  be 

*  Parl.  Hist.  vol.  xxv.  p.  435.— ED. 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


583 


thought  favourable  to  another  sense  : — "  To 
a  Reform  by  violence  he  had  an  insurmount* 
able  objection."  Now  these  words  might 
mean  only  an  objection  to  effect  his  purpose 
by  an  act  of  the  supreme  power,  when  he 
could  introduce  the  same  good  by  milder 
means.  The  reports  of  that  period  were  far 
less  accurate  than  they  now  are :  the  general 
tenor  of  the  speech  must  determine  the  mean 
ing  of  a  single  word.  It  seems  to  me  impos 
sible  to  believe,  that  he  could  have  intended 
more  than  that  he  preferred  a  pacific  accom 
modation  of  almost  any  sort  to  formidable 
resistance,  and  the  chance  of  lasting  discon 
tent.  This  preference,  founded  either  on 
personal  feelings,  or  on  supposed  expedi 
ency,  is  nothing  against  my  present  purpose. 
What  an  imputation  would  be  thrown  on  his 
memory,  by  supposing  that  he  who  answered 
the  objection  of  Reform  being  unconstitu 
tional,  could  pass  over  the  more  serious  ob 
jection  that  it  was  unjust. 

That  I  may  not  be  obliged  to  return  to  this 
case,  I  shall  add  one  other  observation,  which 
more  strictly  belongs  to  another  part  of  the 
argument.  Mr.  Pitt  never  once  hints,  that 
the  dependent  boroughs  were  thought  neces 
sary  to  the  security  of  property.  It  never 
occurred  to  him  that  any  one  could  think 
them  intrinsically  good.  It  was  impossible 
that  he  could  propose  to  employ  a  million 
sterling  in  demolishing  the  safeguards  of  the 
British  constitution.  Be  it  observed,  that 
this  remark  must  be  considered  by  all  who 
respect  the  authority  of  Mr.  Put  as  of  great 
weight,  even  if  they  believe  compensation 
and  voluntary  surrender  to  be  essential  to 
the  justice  of  transferring  the  elective  fran 
chise.  It  must,  then,  I  think,  be  acknow 
ledged  by  the  Honourable  and  Learned  Mem 
ber  for  Aldborough  himself,  that  there  was 
a  Reformer  of  great  name  before  my  Noble 
Friend,  who  maintained  the  transfer  of  the 
elective  franchise,  by  disfranchisement  and 
enfranchisement,  to  be  conformable  to  an 
cient  rights  or  usages,  and  for  that  reason, 
among  others,  fit  to  be  employed  as  parts  of 
a  plan  of  Parliamentary  Reform.* 

The  two  plans  of  Reform,  Sir,  that  have 
been  proposed,  during  the  last  seventy  years, 
maybe  divided  into  the  Simultaneous  and  the 
Progressive.  Of  the  first  it  is  manifest,  that 
the  two  expedients  of  resuming  the  franchise 
from  those  who  cannot  use  it  for  the  public 
good,  and  bestowing  it  where  it  will  proba 
bly  be  better  employed,  are  indispensable, 
or  rather  essential  parts.  I  shall  presently 
show  that  it  is  impossible  to  execute  the  most 
slowly  Progressive  scheme  of  Reformation, 
without  some  application,  however  limited, 
of  these  now  altogether  proscribed  principles. 

I  do  not  wish  to  displease  the  Honour 
able  Baronet  by  frequent  or  extensive  excur 
sions  into  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  the  Honour 
able  and  Learned  Gentleman  will  admit  that 

*  The  Reforms  proposed  by  Mr.  Flood  in  1790, 
and  by  Lord  Grey  in  1797,  might  have  been  added 
to  those  of  Mr.  Pitt  in  1782,  1783  and  1785. 


the  right  of  the  Crown  to  summon  new  bo 
roughs,  was  never  disputed  until  its  last  ex 
ercise  by  Charles  II.  in  the  well-known  in 
stance  of  Newark.  In  the  Tudor  reigns,  this 
prerogative  had  added  one  hundred  and  fifty 
members  to  this  House.  In  the  forty-five 
years  of  Elizabeth,  more  than  sixty  were 
received  into  it.  From  the  accession  of 
Henry  VII.  to  the  disuse  of  the  prerogative, 
the  representation  received  an  accession  of 
about  two  hundred,  if  we  include  the  cases 
where  representation  was  established  by 
Parliament,  and  those  where,  after  a  disuse 
of  centuries,  it  was  so  restored.  Let  me 
add,  without  enlarging  on  it,  that  forty-foil? 
boroughs,  and  a  city,  which  anciently  sent 
burgesses  to  this  House,  are  unrepresented 
at  this  day.  I  know  no  Parliamentary  mode 
of  restoring  their  franchises,  but  by  a  statute, 
which  would  be  in  effect  a  new  grant.  I 
believe,  that  if  such  matters  were  cogniza 
ble  by  courts  of  law,  the  judges  would  pre 
sume,  or,  for  greater  security,  advise  a  jury 
to  presume,  after  a  disuse  of  so  many  centu 
ries,  that  it  had  originated  either  in  a  sur 
render,  or  in  some  other  legal  mode  of  ter 
minating  the  privilege.  According  to  the 
common  maxim,  that  there  is  no  right  with 
out  a  remedy,  we  may  infer  the  absence  of 
right  from  the  absence  of  remedy.  In  that 
case,  the  disuse  of  granting  summonses  by 
the  King,  or  his  officers,  must  be  taken  to 
hays  been  legal,  in  spite  of  the  authority  of 
Serjeant  Glanville  and  his  Committee,  who, 
in  the  reign  of  James  I.,  held  the  contrary 
doctrine.  But  I  waive  this  question,  because 
the  answer  to  it  is  needless  to  the  purpose 
of  my  argument.  It  is  enough  for  me  that 
the  disuse  had  been  practically  maintained, 
without  being  questioned,  till  the  end  of 
James'  reign  ;  and  that  it  still  shuts  our  doors 
on  ninety  persons  who  might  otherwise  be 
chosen  to  sit  in  this  House.  The  practice 
of  resuming  the  franchise,  therefore,  prevailed 
as  certainly  in  ancient  times,  as  the  exercise 
of  the  prerogative  of  conferring  it.  The 
effect  of  both  combined,  was  to  take  from 
the  representation  the  character  of  immuta 
bility,  and  to  bestow  on  it  that  flexibility 
which,  if  it  had  been  then  properly  applied, 
might  have  easily  fitted  it  for  every  change 
of  circumstances.  These  powers  were  never 
exercised  on  any  fixed  principle.  The  pre 
rogative  was  often  grievously  abused ]  but 
the  abuse  chiefly  consisted  in  granting  the 
privilege  to  beggarly  villages,  or  to  the  manor 
or  demesne  of  a  favoured  lord :  there  are  few 
examples  of  withholding  the  franchise  from 
considerable  towns.  On  a  rapid  review  of 
the  class  of  towns  next  in  importance  to  Lon 
don,  such  as  York,  Bristol,  Exeter,  Norwich, 
Lincoln,  &c.,  it  appears  to  me,  that  they  all 
sent  Members  to  the  House  of  Commons  of 
Edward  I.  Boston  did  not  occur  to  me ;  but, 
admitting  the  statement  respecting  that  place 
to  be  accurate,  the  Honourable  and  Learned 
Gentleman  must  allow  this  instance  to  be  at 
variance  with  the  general  spirit  and  ten 
dency  of  the  ancient  constitution,  in  the  dis- 


584 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


tribution  of  elective  privileges.  I  do  not 
call  it  an  exception  to  a  rule  :  for  there  were 
no  rules:  it  was  no  departure  from  principle  j 
for  no  general  principle  was  professed,  or, 
perhaps,  thought  of:  but  it  was  at  variance 
with  that  disposition  not  to  leave  grant  towns 
unrepresented,  which,  though  not  reduced  to 
system,  yet  practically  influenced  the  coarse 
good  sense  of  our  ancestors,  and,  what  is  re 
markable,  is  most  discernible  in  the  earliest 
part  of  their  legislation.* 

It  was  not  the  Union  with  Scotland  that 
stopped  the  exercise  of  the  prerogative.  With 
the  exception  of  Newark,  there  was  no  in 
stance  of  its  exertion  for  nearly  seventy 
years  before  that  date.  We  know  that  the  I 
Stuart  Kings  dreaded  an  increase  of  mem- 1 
bers  in  this  House,  as  likely  to  bestow  a  more 
democratical  character  on  its  proceedings: 
but  still  the  true  cause  of  the  extinction  of 
the  prerogative,  was  the  jealousy  of  a  people 
become  more  enlightened,  and  suspicious  of 
a  power  which  had  already  been  abused, 
and  which  might  be  made  the  means  of  en 
slaving  the  kingdom.  The  discussions  in 
this  House  respecting  the  admission  of  the 
members  for  Newark,  though  they  ended 
favourably  to  the  Crown  in  that  instance, 
afforded  such  a  specimen  of  the  general  sen 
timents  and  temper  respecting  the  preroga 
tive,  that  no  man  was  bold  enough  to  advise 
its  subsequent  exercise. 

The  course  of  true  wisdom  would  have 
been  to  regulate  the  employment  of  the  pre 
rogative  by  a  law.  which,  acting  quietly, 
calmly,  but  constantly,  would  have  removed 
or  prevented  all  gross  inequality  in  the  re 
presentation.  It  would  have  then  been  ne 
cessary  only  to  enact  that  every  town,  which 
grew  to  a  certain  number  of  houses,  should 
be  summoned  to  send  members  to  Parlia 
ment,  and  that  every  town  which  fell  below 
a  certain  number,  should  ceaso  to  be  so  sum 
moned.  The  consequence  of  this  neglect 
became  apparent  as  the  want  of  some  re 
medial  power  was  felt.  The  regulator  of 
the  representation,  which  had  been  injuri 
ously  active  in  stationary  times,  was  suffered 
to  drop  from  the  machine  at  a  moment  when 
it  was  much  needed  to  adapt  the  elective 
system  to  the  rapid  and  prodigious  changes 
which  have  occurred  in  the  state  of  society,  1 
— when  vast  cities  have  sprung  up  in  every 
province,  and  the  manufacturing  world  may 
be  said  to  have  been  created.  There  was 
no  longer  any  renovating  principle  in  the 
frame  of  the  constitution.  All  the  marvel 
lous  works  of  industry  and  science  are  un 
noticed  in  our  system  of  representation.  The 
changes  of  a  century  and  a  half  since  the 
case  of  Newark. — the  social  revolution  of  the 
last  sixty  years,  have  altered  the  whole  con 
dition  of  mankind  more  than  did  the  three 
centuries  which  passed  before  : — the  repre 
sentation  alone  has  stood  still.  It  is  to  this 

*  For  a  more  detailed  reference  to  the  earlier 
statutory  regulations  affecting  the  franchise,  see 
Appendix  A — ED. 


interruption  of  the  vis  mcdicatrix  et  conserva- 
trix  of  the  commonwealth  that  we  owe  the 
necessity  of  now  recurring  to  the  extensive 
plan  of  Simultaneous  Eeform,  of  which  I  do 
not  dispute  the  inconveniences.  We  are 
now  called  on  to  pay  the  arrears  of  a  hundred 
and  sixty  years  of  an  unreformed  represen 
tation.  The  immediate  settlement  of  this 
constitutional  balance  is  now  difficult  • — it 
may  not  be  without  danger  :  but  it  is  become 
necessary  that  we  may  avoid  ruin.  It  may 
soon  be  impossible  to  save  us  by  that,  or  by 
any  other  means. 

But,  Sir,  we  are  here  met  by  a  serious 
question,  which,  being  founded  on  a  princi 
ple  generally  true,  acquires  a  great  effect  by 
specious  application;  We  are  reminded  by 
the  Honourable  and  Learned  Gentleman,  that 
governments  are  to  be  valued  for  their  bene 
ficial  effects. — not  for  their  beauty  as  inge 
nious  pieces  of  machinery.  We  are  asked, 
what  is  the  practical  evil  which  we  propose 
to  remove,  or  even  to  lesson,  by  Reform  1 
We  are  told,  that  the  representative  system 
"  works  well,"  and  that  the  excellence  of  the 
English  constitution  is  attested  by  the  ad 
mirable  fruits,  which  for  at  least  a  century 
and  a  half  it  has  produced.  I  dare  not  take 
the  high  ground  of  denying  the  truth  of  the 
facts  thus  alleged.  God  forbid  that  I  should 
ever  derogate  from  the  transcendent  merits 
of  the  English  constitution,  which  it  has  been 
the  chief  occupation  of  my  life  to  study, 
and  which  I  now  seek,  because  I  love  it.  to 
reform  ! 

Much  as  I  love  and  revere  this  constitu 
tion.  I  must  say.  that,  during  the  last  century, 
the  representative  system  has  not  worked 
well.  I  do  not  mean  to  undervalue  its  gene 
ral  results:  but  it  has  riot  worked  well  for 
one  grand  purpose,  without  which,  no  other 
benefit  can  be  safe : — the  means  employed 
in  elections,  has  worked  all  respect  for  the 
constitution  out  of  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
The  foulness  and  shamefulness,  or  the  fraud 
and  mockery  of  borough  elections,  have 
slowly  weaned  the  people  from  their  ancient 
attachments.  With  less  competence,  per 
haps,  than  others,  to  draw  up  the  general 
comparison  between  the  good  and  evil  re 
sults,  they  were  shocked  by  the  barefaced 
corruption  which  the  increasing  frequency 
of  contests  constantly  brought  home  to  them. 
These  disgusting  scenes  could  not  but  uproot 
attachment  to  the  government  to  which  they 
seemed  to  pertain.  The  people  could  see 
nothing  venerable  in  venality, — in  bribery, — 
in  the  sale  of  some,  and  in  the  gift  of  other 
seats, — in  nominal  elections  carried  on  by  in 
dividuals,  under  the  disguise  of  popular  forms. 

It  is  true,  that  the  vile  machinery  of  openly 
marketable  votes,  was  the  most  powerful 
cause  which  alienated  them.  But  half  the 
nomination-boroughs  were  so  marketable. 
Though  I  know  one  nomination  borough* 

*  Knaresborough,  the  property  of  the  Duko 
of  Devonshire,  which  he  had  represented  since 
1818.— ED. 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


585 


where  no  seat  was  ever  sold, — where  no 
Member  ever  heard  a  whisper  of  the  wishes 
of  a  patron, — where  One  Member  at  least 
was  under  no  restraint  beyond  the  ties  of 
political  opinion  and  friendship,  which  he 
voluntarily  imposed  upon  himself.  It  does 
not  become  me  to  say  how  the  Member  to 
whom  I  advert  would  have  acted  in  other 
circumstances;  but  I  am  firmly  convinced 
that  the  generous  nature  of  the  other  Party 
would  as  much  recoil  from  imposing  de 
pendency,  as  any  other  could  recoil  from 
submitting-  to  it.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say 
that  this  is  a  solitary  instance :  but  I  believe 
it  to  ba  too  favourable  a  one  to  be  a  fair  sam 
ple  of  the  general  practice. 

Even  in  the  best  cases,  the  pretended 
election  was  an  eye-sore  to  all  that  witnessed 
it.  A  lie  was  solemnly  acted  before  their 
eyes.  While  the  popular  principles  of  the 
constitution  had  taught  them  that  popular 
elections  belonged  to  the  people,  all  the  acts 
that  the  letter  of  the  law  had  expressly  for 
bidden  were  now  become  the  ordinary  means 
of  obtaining  a  Parliamentary  seat.  These 
odious  and  loathsome  means  became  more 
general  as  the  country  increased  in  wealth, 
and  as  the  people  grew  better  informed. — 
more  jealous  of  encroachment  on  their  rights, 
and  more  impatient  of  exclusion  from  power. 
In  the  times  of  the  Stuarts  and  Tudors,  the 
burgesses,  as  we  see  from  the  lists,  had  been 
very  generally  the  sons  of  neighbouring  gen 
tlemen,  chosen  with  little  contest  and  noise, 
and  so  seldom  open  to  the  charge  of  bribery, 
that  when  it  occurred,  we  find  it  mentioned 
as  a  singular  event.  It  was  not  till  after  the 
Revolution  that  monied  candidates  came  from 
the  Capital  to  invade  a  tranquillity  very 
closly  allied  to  blind  submission.  At  length, 
the  worst  of  all  practical  effects  was  pro 
duced  : — the  constitution  sunk  in  popular 
estimation;  the  mass  of  the  people  were 
estranged  from  the  objects  of  their  here 
ditary  reverence.  An  election  is  the  part 
of  our  constitution  with  which  the  multitude 
come  into  most  frequent  contact.  Seeing  in 
many  of  them  nothing  but  debauchery, — 
riot. — the  sale  of  a  right  to  concur  in  making 
Jaw, — the  purchase  in  open  market  of  a 
share  in  the  choice  of  lawgivers, — absolute 
nomination  under  the  forms  of  election,  they 
were  conscious  that  many  immoral,  many 
illegal  practices  became  habitual,  and  were 
even  justified.  Was  it  not  natural  for  the 
majority  of  honest  men  to  form  their  judg 
ments  rather  by  means  of  their  moral  feel 
ings,  than  as  the  results  of  refined  argu 
ments,  founded  on  a  calm  comparison  of 
evils'?  Such  at  least  was  the  effect  of  this 
most  mischievous  practice,  that  when  any 
misfortune  of  the  country,  any  error  of  the 
Government,  any  commotion  abroad,  or  any 
disorder  at  home  arose,  they  were  all  as 
cribed,  with  exaggeration,  but  naturally,  to 
the  corruption,  which  the  humblest  of  the 
people  saw  had  tainted  the  vital  organs  of 
the  commonwealth. 

My  Honourable  and  Excellent  Friend,  the 
74 


Member  for  the  University  of  Oxford,*  in 
deed  told  the  last  Parliament,  that  the  cla 
mours  about  the  state  of  the  representation 
were  only  momentary  cries,  which,  however 
magnified  at  the  moment,  always  quickly 
yielded  to  a  vigorous  and  politic  government. 
He  might  have  looked  back  somewhat  far 
ther.  What  were  the  Place  Bills  and  Trien 
nial  Bills  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole's  time? 
Were  they  not,  in  truth,  demands  of  Parlia 
mentary  Reform  1  The  cry  is  therefore  one 
of  the  symptoms  of  a  distemper,  which  has 
lasted  for  a  century.  But  to  come  to  his 
more  recent  examples  : — in  1770,  Lord  Chat 
ham  was  the  agitator;  Mr.  Burke  was  the 
incendiary  pamphleteer,  who  exaggerated 
the  importance  of  a  momentary  delusion, 
which  was  to  subside  as  quickly  as  it  had 
risen.  Unfortunately  for  this  reasoning, 
though  the  delusion  subsided  after  1770,  it 
revived  again  in  1780.  under  Sir  George 
Saville;  under  Mr.  Pitt  in  1782.  1783,  and 
1784:  it  was  felt  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Flood's 
motion  in  1790.  Lord  Grey's  motion  in  1797 
was  supported  by  respectable  Tories,  such 
as  Sir  William  Dolben,  Sir  Rowland  Hill,  and 
by  conscientious  men,  more  friendly  to  Mr. 
Pitt  than  to  his  opponents,  of  whom  it  is 
enough  to  name  Mr.  Henry  Thornton,  then 
Member  for  Surrey.  Instead  of  being  the  ex 
pressions  of  a  transient  delusion,  these  con 
stantly  recurring  complaints  are  the  symp 
toms  of  a  deep-rooted  malady,  sometimes 
breaking  out,  sometimes  dying  away,  some 
times  repelled,  but  always  sure  to  return. — 
re-appearing  with  resistless  force  in  the  elec 
tions  of  1830,  and  still  more  decisively  in 
those  of  1831.  If  we  seek  for  proof  of  an 
occasional  provocation,  which  roused  the  peo 
ple  to  a  louder  declaration  of  their  opinions, 
where  shall  we  find  a  more  unexceptionable 
witness,  than  in  one  of  the  ablest  and  most 
unsparing  opponents  of  the  Ministers  and  of 
their  Bill.  Mr.  Henry  Drummond,  in  his 
very  able  Address  to  the  Freeholders  of  Sur 
rey,  explicitly  ascribes  the  irritation  which 
now  prevails  to  the  unwise  language  of  the 
late  Ministers.  The  declaration  of  the  late 
Ministers  against  Reform,  says  he,  "proved 
their  gross  ignorance  of  the  national  feeling, 
and  drove  the  people  of  England  to  despair." 
Many  allege,  Sir,  that  the  people  have 
gained  so  much  strength  and  influence 
through  the  press,  that  they  need  no  formal 
privileges  or  legal  franchises  to  reinforce  it. 
If  it  be  so,  I  consider  it  to  be  a  decisive  rea 
son  for  a  reformation  of  the  scheme  of  the 
representation.  A  country  in  which  the 
masses  are  become  powerful  by  their  intel 
ligence  and  by  their  wealth,  while  they 
are  exasperated  by  exclusion  from  political 
rights,  never  can  be  in  a  safe  condition.  I 
hold  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  invariable 
maxims  of  legislation,  to  bind  to  the  consti 
tution,  by  the  participation  of  legal  privilege, 
all  persons  who  have  risen  in  wealth, — in  in 
telligence, — in  any  of  the  legitimate  sources 

*  Sir  Robert  Harry  Inglis,  Bart,— -ED, 


586 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


of  ascendancy.  I  would  do  now  what  our 
forefathers,  though  rudely,  aimed  at  doing, 
by  calling  into  the  national  councils  every 
rising  element  in  the  body  politic. 

The  grand  objection  to  this  Bill,  Sir,  is 
what  ought  to  be  fatal  to  any  Bill,  if  the  ob 
jection  had  any  foundation  but  loud  and 
bold  assertion, — that  it  is  unjust.  This  ar 
gument  was  never,  indeed,  urged  by  the 
Right  Honourable  Baronet,  and  it  seems  to 
be  on  the  eve  of  being  abandoned.  But  the 
walls  of  the  House  still  seem  to  resound 
with  the  vociferations  of  my  Honourable  and 
Learned  'Friend,  the  Member  for  Borough- 
bridge,*  against  what  he  called  "  corporation 
robbery."  Now  many  of  these  boroughs  have 
no  corporations  at  all :  while  none  who  have 
will  be  deprived  of  their  corporate  rights. 
But  if  all  these  corporations  had  been  about 
to  be  divested  of  their  character, — divested 
of  rights  which  have  been,  or  are  likely  to 
be  abused,  the  term  "robbery"  would  have 
been  ridiculously  inapplicable.  Examples 
are  more  striking  than  general  reasonings. 
Was  the  disuse  of  issuing  Writs  of  Summons, 
as  a  consequence  of  which  near  a  hundred 
Members  are  excluded  from  this  House,  an 
act  of  "  robbery  ?  "  Was  the  Union  with  Scot 
land,  which  reduced  the  borough  representa 
tion  from  sixty-five  to  fifteen,  an  act  of  "  rob 
bery  ?"  Yes,  surely  it  was,  if  the  term  can 
be  properly  applied  to  this  Bill.  The  Scotch 
boroughs  were  thrown  into  clusters  of  four 
and  five;  each  of  which  sent  a  burgess.  But 
if  it  be  "  robbery  'r  to  take  away  the  whole 
of  a  franchise,  is  it  not  in  principle  as  violent 
an  invasion  of  property  to  take  away  four- 
fifths  or  three-fourths  of  it.  What  will  be 
eaid  of  the  Union  with  Ireland  ?  Was  it 
"  robbery"  to  reduce  her  representation  from 
three  hundred  'to  one  hundred  Members  ? 
Was  it  "  robbery  "  to  disfranchise,  as  they  did 
then,  one  hundred  boroughs,  on  the  very 
principle  of  the  present  Bill, — because  they 
were  decayed,  dependent,  and  so  unfit  to 
exercise  the  franchise?  Was  it  " robbery" 
to  deprive  the  Peers  of  Scotland  of  their 
birthright,  and  compel  them  to  be  contented 
with  a  bare  possibility  of  being  occasionally 
elected  1  Was  it  "  robbery  "  to  mutilate  the 
legislative  rights  of  the  Irish  Peerage  ?  No  ! 
because  in  all  these  cases,  the  powers  taken 
away  or  limited  were  trusts  resumable  by 
Parliament  for  the  general  well-being. 

Further,  I  contend  that  if  this  be  "rob 
bery,"  every  borough  disfranchised  for  cor 
ruption  has  been  "robbed"  of  its  rights. 
Talk  not  to  me  of  the  guilt  of  these  bo 
roughs:  individuals  are  innocent  or  guilty, 
— bodies  politic  can  be  neither.  Ifdisfran- 
chisement  be  considered  as  a  punishment, 
where  is  the  trial, — where  are  the  wit- 
uesses  on  oath, — where  are  the  precautions 
against  partiality, — where  are  the  responsible 
judges  1 — who,  indeed,  are  the  judges  ?  men 
who  have  avowedly  committed  and  have 
justified  as  constitutional  the  very  offence. 
Why,  in  such  cases,  are  the  unborn  punished 

"  *  Sir  Charles  Wetherell.-ED. 


for  the  offences  of  the  present  generation  ? 
Why  should  the  innocent  minority  suffer  for 
the  sins  of  a  venal  majority  ?  If  the  rights 
of  unoffending  parties  are  reserved,  of  what 
importance  is  the  reservation,  if  they  are  to 
be  merged  in  those  of  hundreds  or  thousands 
of  fellow-voters'?  Woultl  not  the  opening 
of  the  suffrage  in  the  city  of  Bath  be  as  de 
structive  to  the  close  Corporation  as  if  they 
were  to  be  by  name  disfranchised  ?  Viewed 
in  that  light,  every  Bill  of  Disfranchisement 
is  a  Bill  of  Pains  and  Penalties,  and  in  the 
nature  of  a  Bill  of  Attainder.  How  are  these 
absurdities  avoided? — only  by  the  principle 
of  this  Bill, — that  political  trust  may  be 
justly  resumed  by  the  supreme  power,  when 
ever  it  is  deemed  injurious  to  the  common 
wealth. 

The  test.  Sir.  which  distinguishes  property 
from  trust,  is  simple,  and  easily  applied  : — 
property  exists  for  the  benefit  of  the  pro 
prietor:  political  power  exists  only  for  the 
service  of  the  state.  Property  is,  indeed, 
the  most  useful  of  all  human  institutions :  it 
is  so.  because  the  power  of  every  man  to  do 
what  he  will  with  his  own,  is  beneficial  and 
even  essential  to  the  existence  of  society. 
A  trustee  is  legally  answerable  for  the  abuse 
of  his  power :  a  proprietor  is  not  amenable 
to  human  law  for  any  misuse  of  his  property, 
unless  it  should  involve  a  direct  violation  of 
the  rights  of  others.  It  is  said,  that  property 
is  a  trust;  and  so  it  may,  in  figurative  lan 
guage,  be  called :  but  it  is  a  moral,  not  a 
legal  one.  In  the  present  argument,  we  have 
to  deal  only  with  the  latter.  The  confusion 
of  the  ideas  misled  the  Stuarts  so  far,  that 
they  thought  the  kingdom  their  property,  till 
they  were  undeceived  by  the  Revolution, 
which  taught  us,  that  man  cannot  have  a 
property  in~his  fellows.  As  all  government 
is  a  trust,  the  share  which  each  voter  has  in 
the  nomination  of  lawgivers  is  one  also. 
Otherwise,  if  the  voter,  as  such,  were  a  pro 
prietor,  he  must  have  a  property  in  his  fel- 
low'citizens,  who  are  governed  by  laws,  of 
which  he  has  a  share  in  naming  the  makers. 
If  the  doctrine  of  the  franchise  being  pro 
perty  be  admitted,  all  Reform  is  for  ever  pre 
cluded.  Even  the  enfranchisement  of  newf 
boroughs,  or  districts,  must  be  renounced) 
for  every  addition  diminishes  the  value  or ^ 
the  previous  suffrage :  and  it  is  no  more  law 
ful  to  lessen  the  value  of  property,  than  to 
take  it  away. 

Of  all  doctrines  which  threaten  the  prin 
ciple  of  properly,  none  more  dangerous  was 
ever  promulgated,  than  that  which  confounds 
it  with  political  privileges.  None  of  the  dis 
ciples  of  St.  Simon,  or  of  the  followers  of  the 
ingenious  and  benevolent  Owen,  have  struck 
so  deadly  a  blow  at  it,  as  those  who  would 
reduce  it  to  the  level  of  the  elective  rights 
of  Gatton  and  Old  Sarum.  Property,  the 
nourisher  of  mankind, — the  incentive  to  in 
dustry, — the  cement  of  human  society, — will 
be  in  a  perilous  condition,  if  the  people  be 
taught  to  identify  it  with  political  abuse,  and 
to  deal  with  it  as  being  involved  in  its  im- 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


587 


pending  fate.  Let  us  not  teach  the  spoilers 
of  future  times  to  represent  our  resumption 
of  a  right  of  suffrage  as  a  precedent  for  their 
seizure  of  lands  arid  possessions. 

Much  is  said  in  praise  of  the  practice  of 
nomination,  which  is  now  called  "the  most 
unexceptionable  part  of  our  representation/' 
To  nomination,  it  seems,  we  owe  the  talents 
of  our  young  Members,— the  prudence  and 
experience  of  the  more  aged.  It  supplies 
the  colonies  and  dependencies  of  this  great 
empire  with  virtual  representation  in  this 
House.  By  it  commercial  and  funded  pro 
perty  finds  skilful  advocates  and  intrepid  de 
fenders.  All  these  happy  consequences  are 
ascribed  to  that  flagrant  system  of  breaches 
of  the  law,  which  is  now  called  "  the  prac 
tice  of  the  English  constitution." 

Sir,  I  never  had,  and  have  not  now,  any 
objection  to  the  admission  of  representatives 
of  the  colonies  into  this  House,  on  fair  and 
just  conditions.  But  I  cannot  conceive  that 
a  Bill  which  is  objected  to,  as  raising  ihe 
commercial  interest  at  the  expense  of  the 
landed,  will  also  lessen  the  safeguards  of 
their  property.  Considering  the  well-known 
and  most  remarkable  subdivision  of  funded 
income, — the  most  minutely  divided  of  any 
mass  of  property, — I  do  not  believe  that  any 
representatives,  or  even  any  constituents, 
could  be  ultimately  disposed  to  do  them 
selves  so  great  an  injury  as  to  invade  it.  Men 
of  genius,  and  men  of  experience,  and  men 
of  opulence,  have  found  their  way  into  this 
House  through  nomination,  or  worse  means, 
— through  any  channel  that  was  open  :  the 
same  classes  of  candidates  will  now  direct 
their  ambition  and  their  efforts  to  the  new 
channels  opened  by  the  present  Bill  j  they 
will  attain  their  end  by  only  varying  their 
means. 

A  list  has  been  read  to  us  of  illustrious 
men  who  found  an  introduction  to  Parlia 
ment,  or  a  refuge  from  unmerited  loss  of 
popularity,  by  means  of  decayed  boroughs. 
What  does  such  a  catalogue  prove,  but  that 
England,  for  the  last  sixty  years,  has  been  a 
country  full  of  ability, — of  knowledge, — of 
intellectual  activity. — of  honourable  ambi 
tion,  and  that  a  large  portion  of  these  quali 
ties  has  flowed  into  the  House  of  Commons? 
Might  riot  the  same  dazzling  common-places 
have  been  opposed  to  the  abolition  of  the 
court  of  the  Star  Chamber?  "What,"  it 
might  have  been  said,  "will  you,  in  your 
frantic  rage  of  innovation,  demolish  the  tri 
bunal  in  which  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  best  of 
men,  and  Lord  Bacon,  the  greatest  of  philo 
sophers,  presided, — where  Sir  Edward  Coke, 
the  oracle  of  law, — where  Burleigh  and  Wal- 
singham,  the  most  revered  of  English  states 
men,  sat  as  judges, — which  Bacon,  enlight 
ened  by  philosophy  and  experience,  called 
the  peculiar  glory  of  our  legislation,  as  being 
1  a  court  of  criminal  equity  V  Will  you,  in 
your  paroxysms  of  audacious  frenzy,  abo 
lish  this  Pra3torian  tribunal, — this  sole  instru 
ment  for  bridling  popular  incendiaries'?  Will 
you  dare  to  persevere  in  your  wild  purpose, 


at  a  moment  when  Scotland  is  agitated  by  a 
rebellious  League  and  Covenant, — when  Ire 
land  is  threatened  with  insurrection  and 
massacre?  Will  you  surrender  the  shield 
of  the  crown, — the  only  formidable  arm  of 
prerogative, — at  a  time  when  his  Majesty's 
authority  is  openly  defied  in  the  capital 
where  we  are  assembled?" 

I  cannot,  indeed.  Sir,  recollect  a  single 
instance  in  that  Jong  course  of  reformation, 
which  constitutes  the  history  of  the  English 
constitution,  where  the  same  plausible  argu 
ments,  and  the  same  exciting  topics,  might 
riot  have  been  employed  as  are  now  pointed 
against  the  present  measure.  The  Honoura 
ble  and  Learned  Gentleman  has  alluded  to 
Simon  de  Montfort, — the  first  and  most  ex 
tensive  Parliamentary  Reformer, — who  pla 
ced  the  representatives  of  the  burgesses  in 
Parliament.  The  haughty  and  unletfered 
Barons  disdained  argument ;  but  their  mur 
murs  were  doubtless  loud  and  vehement. 
Even  they  could  exclaim  that  the  new  con 
stitution  was  an  "untried  scheme," — that  it 
was  a  "daring  experiment," — that  it  "would 
level  all  the  distinctions  of  society," — that  it 
would  throw  the  power  of  the  state  into  the 
hands  of  traffickers  and  burgesses.  Were 
men  but  yesterday  slaves,  now  to  be  seated 
by  the  side  of  Plantagenets  engaged  in  the 
arduous  duty  of  making  laws?  Are  these 
not  the  topics  which  are  substantially  used 
against  Parliamentary  Reform  ?  They  are 
now  belied  by  experience,  which  has  taught 
us  that  the  adoption  of  the  lower  classes 
into  the  constitution,  the  concessions  made 
to  them,  and  the  widening  of  the  foundation 
of  the  legislature,  have  been  the  source  of 
peace,  of  order,  of  harmony, — of  all  that  is 
excellent  in  our  government,  and  of  all  that 
secures  the  frame  of  our  society.  The  Ha 
beas  Corpus  Act,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the 
Second,  was  obtained  only  by  repeated,  per 
severing,  unwearied  exertions  of  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury,  after  a  meritorious  struggle  of 
many  years.  I  mention  the  facts  with  plea 
sure  in  the  presence  of  his  descendant.* 
It  is  now  well  known,  from  the  confidential 
correspondence  of  Charles  and  his  brother 
James,  that  they  both  believed  sincerely 
that  a  government  without  the  power  of 
arbitrary  imprisonment  would  not  long  exist; 
and  that  Shaftesbury  had  forced  this  Act 
upon  them,  in  order  either  to  expose  them 
unarmed  to  the  populace,  or  to  drive  them 
to  have  recourse  to  the  odious  and  precarious 
protection  of  a  standing  army.  The  belief 
of  the  Royal  Brothers  was  the  more  incorri 
gible,  because  it  was  sincere.  It  is  the  fatal 
effect  of  absolute  power  to  corrupt  the  judg 
ment  of  its  possessors,  and  to  insinuate  into 
their  minds  the  false  and  pernicious  opinion, 
that  power  is  always  weakened  by  limitation. 

Shall  I  be  told,  that  the  sale  of  seats  is 
not  in  itself  an  evil  ?  The  same  most  inge 
nious  persont  who  hazarded  this  paradox, 

*  Viscount  Ashley. — ED. 
t  It  would  not  seem  easy  to  specify  the  person 
alluded  to. — ED. 


588 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


quoted  the  example  of  the  sale  of  the  judi 
cial  office  in  Old  France,  with  a  near  ap 
proach  to  approbation.  That  practice  has 
been  vindicated  by  French  writers  of  great 
note;  arid  it  had,  in  fact,  many  guards  and 
limitations  not  to  be  found  in  our  system  of 
marketable  boroughs :  but  it  has  been  swept 
away  by  the  Revolution ;  and  there  is  now 
no  man  disposed  to  palliate  its  shameless 
enormity.  The  grossest  abuses,  as  long  as 
they  prevail,  never  want  advocates  to  find 
out  specious  mitigations  of  their  effects : 
their  downfall  discovers  their  deformity  to 
every  eye.  For  my  part,  I  do  not  see,  why 
the  sale  of  a  power  to  make  Jaws  should  not 
be  as  immoral  as  the  sale  of  a  power  to  ad 
minister  them. 

We  have  heard  it  said,  Sir,  that  the  Peer 
age,  and  even  the  Monarchy,  cannot  survive 
the  loss  of  these  boroughs ;  and  we  are  re 
ferred  to  the  period  that  has  elapsed  since 
the  Revolution,  as  that  during  which  this 
influence  has  been  their  main  guard  against 
popular  assault  and  dictation.  I  respectfully 
lay  aside  the  Crown  in  this  debate ;  and  in 
the  few  words  that  I  am  now  about  to  utter, 
I  am  desirous  to  express  myself  in  cautious 
and  constitutional  language.  Since  the  Re 
volution, — since  the  defeat  of  the  attempts 
to  establish  absolute  monarchy,  the  English 
government  has  undoubtedly  become  Parlia 
mentary.  But  during  that  time,  also,  the 
hereditary  elements  of  the  constitution  have 
been  uniformly  respected  as  wholesome 
temperaments  of  the  rashness  of  popular 
assemblies.  I  can  discover  nothing  in  this 
proposed  change  which  will  disable  the 
Peers  from  usefully  continuing  to  perform 
this  duty.  If  some  inconvenient  diminution 
of  the  influence  of  great  property  should 
follow,  we  must  encounter  the  risk ;  for  no 
thing  can,  in  my  judgment,  be  more  certain, 
than  that  the  constitution  can  no  longer  bear 
the  weight  of  the  obloquy  thrown  upon  it  by 
our  present  mode  of  conducting  elections. 
The  community  cannot  afford  to  purchase  any 
advantage  at  such  an  expense  of  private  cha 
racter.  But  so  great  is  the  natural  influence 
of  property,  especially  in  a  country  where 
the  various  ranks  of  society  have  been  so 
long  bound  together  by  friendly  ties  as  in 
ours,  that  I  can  scarcely  conceive  any  laws 
or  institutions  which  could  much  diminish 
the  influence  of  well-spent  wealth,  whether 
honourably  inherited,  or  honestly  earned. 

The  benefits  of  any  reformation  might 
indeed  be  hazarded,  if  the  great  proprie 
tors  were  to  set  themselves  in  battle  array 
against  the  permanent  desires  of  the  people. 
If  they  treat  their  countrymen  as  adversa 
ries,  they  may,  in  their  turn,  excite  a  hostile 
spirit.  Distrust  will  beget  distrust:  jealousy 
will  awaken  an  adverse  jealousy.  I  trust 
these  evil  consequences  may  not  arise.  The 
Nobility  of  England,  in  former  times,  have 
led  their  countrymen  in  the  battles  of  liber 
ty  .  those  among  them  who  are  most  distin 
guished  by  ample  possessions,  by  historical 
names,  or  by  hereditary  fame,  interwoven , 


with  the  glory  of  their  country,  have,  on  this 
occasion,  been  the  foremost  to  show  their 
confidence  in  the  people, — their  unsuspect 
ing  liberality  in  the  enlargement  of  popular 
privilege, —  their  reliance  on  the  sense  and 
honesty  of  their  fellow-citizens,  as  the  best 
safeguard  of  property  and  of  order,  as  well 
as  of  all  other  interests  of  society.  Already, 
this  measure  has  exhibited  a  disinterested 
ness  which  has  united  all  classes,  from  the 
highest  borough-holder  to  the  humblest  non 
resident  freeman,  in  the  sacrifice  of  their 
own  exclusive  advantages  to  what  they 
think  a  great  public  good.  There  must  be 
something  good  in  what  produces  so  noble  a 
sacrifice. 

This,  Sir,  is  not  solely  a  reformatory  mea 
sure;  it  is  also  conciliatory.  If  it  were  pro 
posed  exclusively  for  the  amendment  of  in 
stitutions,  I  might  join  in  the  prevalent  cry 
"that  it  goes  too  far,"  or  at  least  " travels 
too  fast." — farther  and  faster  than  the  max 
ims  of  wise  reformation  would  warrant.  But 
as  it  is  a  means  of  regaining  national  confi 
dence,  it  must  be  guided  by  other  maxims. 
In  that  important  view  of  the  subject,  I  con 
sider  the  terms  of  this  plan  as  of  less  conse 
quence  than  the  temper  which  it  breathes, 
and  the  spirit  by  which  it  is  animated.  A 
conciliatory  measure  deserves  the  name  only, 
when  it  is  seen  and  felt  by  the  simplest  of 
men,  to  flow  from  the  desire  and  determina 
tion  to  conciliate.  At  this  moment,  when, 
amidst  many  causes  of  discord,  there  is  a 
general  sympathy  in  favour  of  reformation, 
the  superior  classes  of  society,  by  opening 
their  arms  to  receive  the  people, — by  giving 
to  the  people  a  signal  and  conspicuous  proof 
of  confidence, — may  reasonably  expect  to  be 
trusted  in  return.  But  to  reach  this  end,  they 
must  not  only  be,  but  appear  to  be,  liberally 
just  and  equitably  generous.  Confidence  can 
be  purchased  by  confidence  alone.  If  the 
leading  classes  follow  the  example  of  many 
of  their  own  number.  —  if  they  show,  by 
gracious  and  cheerful  concessions, — by  strik 
ing  acts,  not  merely  by  specious  language  or 
cold  formalities  of  law, — that  they  are  will 
ing  to  rest  on  the  fidelity  and  conscience  of 
the  people,  I  do  not  believe  that  they  w|l 
lean  on  a  broken  reed.  As  for  those  wise 
saws  which  teach  us  that  there  is  alwayfe 
danger  in  trust,  and  that  policy  and  genero 
sity  are  at  perpetual  variance,  I  hold  them 
in  little  respect.  Every  unbending  maxim 
of  policy  is  hollow  and  unsafe.  Base  princi 
ples  are  often  not  the  more  prudent  because 
they  are  pusillanimous.  I  rather  agree  with 
the  beautiful  peroration  of  Mr.  Burke's  se 
cond  speech  on  North  America :  —  l'  Mag 
nanimity  in  politics  is  not  seldom  the  truest 
wisdom":  a  great  empire  and  little  minds  go 
ill  together.  If  we  are  conscious  of  our 
situation,  and  glow  with  zeal  to  fill  our  place, 
as  becomes  our  station  and  ourselves,  we 
ought  to  auspicate  our  proceedings  respect 
ing  America,  with  the  old  warning  of  the 
Church,  —  'Sursum  CordaS  We  ought  to 
elevate  our  minds  to  the  dignity  of  that  trust, 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


589 


to  which  the  order  of  Providence  has  called 
us." 

Whether  we  consider  this  measure,  either 
as  a  scheme  of  reformation,  or  an  attempt  to 
form  an  alliance  with  the  people,  it  must  be 
always  remembered,  that  it  is  a  question  of 
the  comparative  safety  or  danger  of  the  only 
systems  now  before  us  for  our  option  • — that 
of  imdifitinguishing  adherence  to  present  in 
stitutions, — that  of  ample  redress  and  bold 
reformation, — and  that  of  niggardly,  evasive, 
arid  unwilling  Reform.  I  say  ''comparative" 
safety  or  danger;  for  not  one  of  those  who 
have  argued  this  question  seem  to  have  re 
membered  that  it  has  two  sides.  They  have 
thrown  all  the  danger  of  the  times  upon  the 
Reform.  They  load  it  with  as  much  odium 
as  if  the  age  were  otherwise  altogether  ex 
empt  from  turbulence  and  agitation,  and  first 
provoked  from  its  serene  quiet  by  this  wanton 
attempt.  They  make  it  answerable  for  mis 
chiefs  which  it  may  not  have  the  power  to 
prevent,  and  which  might  have  occurred  if 
no  such  measure  had  ever  been  attempted. 
They,  at  least,  tacitly  assume  that  it  must  ag 
gravate  every  evil  arising  from  other  sources. 
In  short,  they  beg  the  whole  question  in  dis 
pute.  They  ask  us,  Whether  there  be  not 
danger  in  Reform  ?  I  answer  by  asking  them, 
Is  there  no  danger  in  not  reforming'?  To 
this  question,  to  which  they  have  never  yet 
attempted  to  answer.  I  expect  no  answer 
now ;  because  a  negative  one  would  seem 
to  me  impossible,  while  an  affirmative  would 
reduce  the  whole  discussion  to  a  cool  com 
putation  and  calm  comparison  of  the  different 
degrees  of  danger  opening  upon  us. 

A  niggardly  Reform,  Sir,  seems  to  me  the 
most  unsafe  step  of  all  systems.  It  cannot 
conciliate;  for  it  is  founded  in  distrust.  It 
practically  admits  an  evil,  of  which  dissatis 
faction  is  a  large  part ;  and  yet  it  has  been 
already  proved  by  experience  that  it  yet 
satisfied  nobody.  Other  systems  may  be 
unsatisfactory:  this  scheme  is  so  already. 
In  the  present  temper  of  the  people,  and 
circumstances  of  the  world,  I  can  see  no  one 
good  purpose  to  be  answered  by  an  evasive 
and  delusive  Reform.  To  what  extent  will 
they  trust  the  determined  enemies  of  the 
smallest  step  towards  reformation, — who,  to 
avoid  the  grant  of  the  franchise  to  Birming 
ham,  have  broken  up  one  Administration, 
and  who,  if  they  be  sincere,  must  try  every 
expedient  to  render  impotent  a  measure 
which  they  can  no  longer  venture  avowedly 
to  oppose. 

On  the  other  hand,  Sir,  the  effect  of  the 
Bill  before  us  has  hitherto  confirmed  the 
opinion  of  those  who  thought  that  a  measure 
of  a  conciliatory  temper,  and  of  large  and 
liberal  concession,  would  satisfy  the  people. 
The  tone  and  scope  of  their  petitions,  which 
were  at  first  extravagant,  became  moderate 
and  pacific,  as  soon  as  the  Bill  was  known. 
As  soon  as  they  saw  so  unexpected  a  project 
of  substantial  amendment,  proceeding  from 
sincere  Reformers,  they  at  once  sacrificed  all 
vague  projects  of  indefinite  perfection.  No 


thing  can  be  more  ludicrously  absurd,  than  the 
supposition  which  has  been  hazarded  among 
us,  that  several  millions  of  men  are  such  deep 
dissemblers. — such  dark  conspirators. — as  to 
be  able  to  conceal  all  their  farther  projects, 
till  this  Bill  arms  them  with  the  means  of 
carrying  them  into  execution .  The  body  of  a 
people  cannot  fail  to  be  sincere.  I  do  not  ex 
pect  any  measure  of  legislation  to  work  mira 
cles.  Discontent  may  and  will  continue  ;  but 
I  believe  that  it  will  be  by  this  measure  per 
manently  abated.  Others  there  doubtless  are; 
who  foretell  far  other  effects  :  it  seems  to  me, 
that  the  favourers  of  the  Bill  rest  their  pre 
dictions  on  more  probable  foundations. 

Among  the  numerous  assumptions  of  our 
opponents,  there  is  none  which  appears  to 
me  more  remarkable,  than  their  taking  for 
granted  that  concession  is  always,  or  even 
generally,  more  dangerous  to  the  stability  of 
government  than  resistance.  As  the  Right 
Honourable  Baronet  introduced  several  happy 
quotations  from  Cicero  on  this  subject,  which 
he  seemed  to  address  more  particularly  to 
me,  I  hope  I  shall  not  be  charged  with  pe 
dantry,  if  I  begin  my  proofs  of  the  contrary, 
with  the  testimony  of  that  great  writer.  In 
the  third  book  of  his  work,  "  De  Legibus," 
after  having  put  an  excellent  aristocratical 
speech,  against  the  tribunitian  power,  into 
the  mouth  of  his  brother  Quintus,  he  proceeds 
to  answer  him  as  follows : — "  Concessa  Plebi 
a  Patribus  ista  potestate.  arma  ceciderunt, 
restincta  seditio  est,  inventum  est  tempera- 
mentum  quo  tenuiores  cum  principibus 
requari  se  putarint ;  in  quo  uno  fuit  civitatis 
salus."  It  will  not  be  said,  that  Cicero  was 
a  radical  or  a  demagogue,  or  that  he  had  any 
personal  cause  to  be  favourable  to  the  tri 
bunitian  power.  It  will  not  be  said,  that  to 
grant  to  a  few,  a  right  to  stop  the  progress 
oj  every  public  measure,  was  a  slender,  or 
likely  to  be  a  safe  concession.  The  ancients 
had  more  experience  of  democracy,  and  a 
better  knowledge  of  the  character  of  dema 
gogues,  than  the  frame  of  modern  society 
allows  us  the  means  of  attaining.  This  great 
man,  in  spite  of  his  natural  prejudices,  and 
just  resentments,  ascribes  to  this  apparently 
monstrous  power,  not  merely  the  spirit  and 
energy  which  may  be  expected  even  from 
the  excess  of  popular  institutions,  but  what 
ever  safety  and  tranquillity  the  common 
wealth  enjoyed  through  a  series  of  ages. 
He  would  not,  therefore,  have  argued  as  has 
been  argued  on  this  occasion,  that  if  the  mul 
titude  appeal  to  violence,  before  legal  privi 
leges  are  conferred  on  them,  they  will  be 
guilty  of  tenfold  excesses  when  they  become 
sharers  in  legitimate  authority.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  lays  it  down  in  the  context  of  the 
passage  quoted,  that  their  violence  is  abated, 
by  allowing  a  legal  vent  to  their  feelings. 

But  it  appears.  Sir,  to  be  taken  for  granted, 
that  concession  to  a  people  is  always  more 
dangerous  to  public  quiet  than  resistance.  Is 
there  any  pretence  for  such  a  doctrine  ?  I 
appeal  to  history,  as  a  vast  magazine  of  facts, 
all  leading  to  the  very  opposite  conclusion,-- 


590 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


teaching  that  this  fatal  principle  has  over 
thrown  more  thrones  and  dismembered  more 
empires  than  any  other — proving  that  late 
reformation, — dilatory  reformation, — reform 
ation  refused  at  the  critical  moment, — which 
may  pass  for  ever, — in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  has  been  the  most  frequent  of  all  causes 
of  the  convulsions  which  have  shaken  states, 
and  for  a  time  burst  asunder  the  bonds  of 
society.  Allow  me  very  briefly  to  advert  to 
the  earliest  revolution  of  modern  times: — 
•was  it  by  concession  that  Philip  II.  lost  the 
Netherlands  ?  Had  he  granted  timely  and 
equitable  concessions, — had  he  not  plotted 
the  destruction  of  the  ancient  privileges  of 
these  flourishing  provinces,  under  pretence 
that  all  popular  privilege  was  repugnant  to 
just  authority,  would  he  not  have  continued 
to  his  death  the  master  of  that  fair  portion 
of  Europe  ?  Did  Charles  I.  lose  his  throne 
and  his  life  by  concession  ?  Is  it  not  notori 
ous,  that  if,  before  losing  the  confidence  of 
the  Parliament  and  the  people  (after  that  loss 
all  his  expediems  of  policy  were  vain,  as 
in  such  a  case  all  policy  is  unavailing),  he 
had  adhered  to  the  principles  of  the  Petition 
of  Right,  to  which  he  had  given  his  Royal 
Assent, — if  he  had  forborne  from  the  perse 
cution  of  the  Puritans, — if  he  had  refrained 
from  levying  money  •without  a  grant  from 
Parliament,  he  would,  in  all  human  proba 
bility,  have  reigned  prosperously  to  the  last 
day  of  his  life.  If  there  be  any  man  who 
doubts  it.  his  doubts  will  be  easily  removed 
without  pursuing  his  studies  farther  than  the 
first  volume  of  Lord  Clarendon's  History. 
Did  the  British  Parliament  lose  North  America 
by  concession  ?  Is  not  the  loss  of  that  great 
empire  solely  to  be  ascribed  to  the  obstinate 
resistance  of  this  House  to  every  conciliatory 
proposition,  although  supported  by  their  own 
greatest  men,  tendered  in  the  loyal  petitions 
of  the  Colonies,  until  they  were  driven  into 
the  arms  of  France,  and  the  door  was  for 
ever  closed  against  all  hopes  of  re-union  ? 
Had  we  yielded  to  the  latest  prayers  of  the 
Americans,  it  is  hard  to  say  how  long  the 
two  British  nations  might  have  been  held 
together :  the  separation,  at  all  events,  if  ab 
solutely  necessary,  might  have  been  effected 
on  quiet  and  friendly  terms.  Whatever  may 
be  thought  of  recent  events  (of  which  it  is 
yet  too  early  to  firm  a  final  judgment),  the 
history  of  their  origin  and  progress  would  of 
itself  be  enough  to  show  the  wisdom  of  those 
«arly  reformations,  which,  as  Mr.  Burke 
says,  "are  accommodations  with  a  friend  in 
power." 

I  feel,  Sir,  some  curiosity  to  know  how 
many  of  the  high-principled,  consistent,  in 
flexible,  and  hitherto  unyielding  opponents  of 
this  Bill,  will  continue  to  refuse  to  make 
declaration  in  favour  of  any  Reform,  till  the 
last  moment  of  this  discussion.  Although  1 
differ  from  them  very  widely  in  opinion,  I 
know  how  to  estimate  their  fidelity  towards 
each  other,  and  their  general  fairness  to 
others,  as  well  as  their  firmness  under  cir 
cumstances  of  a  discouraging  and  disheart 


ening  nature,  calculated  to  sow  distrust  and 
disunion  in  any  political  party.  What  I 
dread  and  deprecate  in  their  system  is,  that 
hey  offer  no  option  but  Reform  or  coercion. 
L,et  any  man  seriously  consider  what  is  the 
ull  impoit  of  this  last  tremendous  word.  Re 
strictions  will  be  first  laid  on  the  people, 
•hich  will  be  assuredly  productive  of  new 
discontents,  provoking  in  turn  an  incensed 
Grovernment  to  measures  still  more  rigorous. 
Discontent  will  rankle  into  disaffection  :  dis- 
iffection  will  break  out  into  revolt,  which, 
supposing  the  most  favourable  termination, 
will  not  be  quelled  without  spilling  the  blood 
of  our  countrymen,  and  will  leave  them  in 
he  end  full  of  hatred  for  their  rulers,  and 
watching  for  the  favourable  opportunity  of 
renewing  their  attack.  It  is  needless  to  con 
sider  the  consequences  of  a  still  more  disas 
trous  and  irreparable  termination  of  the  con 
test.  It  is  enough  for  me  to  say,  that  the  long 
continuance  of  such  wretched  scuffles  be- 
ween  the  Government  and  the  people  is  abso- 
utely  incompatible  with  the  very  existence 
of  the  English  constitution.  But  although  a 
larkness  hangs  over  the  event,  is  there  nothing 
In  the  present  temper, — in  the  opinions, — in 
the  circumstances  of  all  European  nations, 
which  renders  the  success  of  popular  princi 
ples  probable  "?  The  mode  in  which  this  mat 
ter  has  been  argued,  will  excuse  me  for  once 
more  reminding  the  House  that  the  question 
is  one  of  comparative  danger.  I  vote  for  the 
present  Bill,  not  only  because  I  approve  of  it 
as  a  measure  of  Reform,  but  because  i  con 
sider  it  as  affording  the  greatest  probability 
of  preserving  the  integrity  of  our  fundamental 
laws.  Those  who  shut  their  eyes  on  the 
tempests  which  are  abroad, — on  the  gloomy 
silence  with  which  the  extreme  parties  look 
at  each  other,  may  obstinately  persist  in 
ascribing  the  present  agitation  of  mind  in 
Great  Britain  to  a  new  Cabinet  in  November, 
or  to  a  Reform  Bill  in  March. 

Our  opponents,  Sir,  deal  much  in  prophecy  : 
they  foretell  all  the  evils  which  will  spring 
from  Reform.  They  do  right:  such  antici 
pations  are  not  only  legitimate  arguments ; 
but  they  form  the  hinge  on  which  the  wh(^le 
case  turns.  But  they  have  two  sets  of  weights 
arid  measures  : — they  use  the  probability  of 
future  evil  resulting  from  Reform  as  their 
main  stay ;  but  when  we  employ  the  proba 
bility  of  future  evil  from  No-Reform,  in  sup 
port  of  our  opinion,  they  call  it  menace,  and 
charge  us  with  intimidation. 

In  this,  and  indeed  in  every  other  branch 
of  the  case,  the  arguments  of  our  opponents 
have  so  singular  a  resemblance  to  those  em 
ployed  by  them  on  the  Catholic  Question, 
that  we  might  quote  as  answers  to  them 
their  own  language.  Then,  as  now,  Minis 
ters  were  charged  with  yielding  to  clamour 
and  menace,  and  with  attempting  to  frighten 
other  men  from  their  independence.  As  a 
brief,  but  conclusive  answer,  I  have  only  to 
say,  that  all  policy  consists  in  such  considera 
tions  as  to  whether  a  measure  be  safe  and 
beneficial,— that  every  statesman  or  lawgiver 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


591 


ought  to  fear  what  he  considers  as  dangerous 
to  the  public, — and  that  I  avow  myself  a 
coward  at  the  prospect  of  the  civil  disorders 
which  I  think  impending  over  my  country. 

Then.  Sir,  we  are  told, — as  we  were  told 
in  the  case  of  the  Catholics, — that  this  mea- j 
sure  is  not  final,  and  that  it  is  sought  only  as 
a  vantage  ground  from  which  it  will  be  more  I 
easy  to  effect  other  innovations.     I  denied  ! 
the  disposition  to  encroach,  with  which  the 
Catholics  were  charged ;  and  however  afflict 
ing  the  condition  of  Ireland  may  now  be,  I  ; 
appeal  to  every  dispassionate  man,  whether  j 
the  relief  granted  to  them  has  not,  on  the  j 
whole,  bettered  the  situation,  and  strength 
ened  the  security  of  the   country.     I   was 
then  taught  by  the  Right  Honourable  Baro 
net.*  that  concession  would  divide  loyal  from 
disaffected  opponents,  and  unite  all  friends 
of  their  country  against  those  whose  demands 
were   manifestly  insatiable.     Is  it  not  rea 
sonable  to  expect  some  degree  of  the  same 
benefits  on  the  present  occasion  ? 

Nothing  human  is,  in  one  sense  of  the 
word,  final.  Of  a  distant  futurity  I  know 
nothing ;  and  I  am,  therefore,  altogether  un 
fitted  to  make  laws  for  it.  Posterity  may 
rightly  measure  their  own  wants,  and  their 
capacity. — we  cannot;  the  utmost  that  we 
can  aspire  to,  is  to  remove  elements  of  dis 
cord  from  their  path.  But  within  the  very 
limited  horizon  to  which  the  view  of  politi 
cians  can  reach,  I  have  pointed  out  some 
reasons  why  I  expect  that  a  measure  of  con 
cession,  made  in  a  spirit  of  unsuspecting 
confidence,  may  inspire  the  like  sentiments, 
and  why  I  believe  that  the  people  will 
acquiesce  in  a  grant  of  these  extensive  privi 
leges  to  those  whose  interests  must  be  al 
ways  the  same  as  their  own.  After  all,  is  it 

*  Sir  Robert  Peel.— ED. 


not  obvious  that  the  people  already  possess 
that  power  through  their  numbers,  of  which 
the  exercise  is  dreaded  ?  It  is  ours,  indeed, 
to  decide,  whether  they  are  to  exert  their 
force  in  the  market-place,  in  the  street,  in 
the  field,  or  in  discussion,  and  debate  in  this 
House.  If  we  somewhat  increase  their  legal 
privileges,  we  must,  also,  in  the  same  mea 
sure,  abate  their  supposed  disposition  to  use 
it  ill. 

On  the  great  proprietors,  much  of  the 
grace, — of  the  generous  character. — of  the 
conciliatory  effect  of  this  measure,  must  cer 
tainly  depend.  But  its  success  cannot  ulti 
mately  depend  upon  a  single  class.  If  they 
be  deluded  or  enraged  by  tales  of  intimida 
tion  arid  of  riot. — if  they  can  be  brought  to 
doubt  that  there  is  in  the  public  mind  on  the 
necessity  of  Reform  any  more  doubt  than  is 
necessary  to  show  the  liberty  of  publishing 
opinion, — whenever  or  wherever  they  act  on 
these  great  errors,  they  may  abate  the  heal 
ing  efficacy  of  a  great  measure  of  concilia 
tion  and  improvement ;  but  they  cannot  pre 
vent  its  final  adoption.  Above  all  other 
considerations,  I  advise  these  great  proprie 
tors  to  cast  from  them  those  reasonings  which 
would  involve  property  in  the  approaching 
downfall  of  political  abuse.  If  they  assent 
to  the  doctrine  that  political  privilege  is 
property,  they  must  be  prepared  for  the  in 
evitable  consequence, — that  it  is  no  more 
unlawful  to  violate  their  possessions,  than  to 
resume  a  delegated  trust.  The  suppression 
of  dependent  boroughs  is  at  hand  :  it  will  be 
the  truest  wisdom  of  the  natural  guardians 
of  the  principle  of  property,  to  maintain,  to 
inculcate,  to  enforce  the  essential  distinction 
between  it  and  political  trust, — if  they  be 
not  desirous  to  arm  the  spoilers,  whom  they 
dread,  with  arguments  which  they  can  never 
consistently  answer. 


APPENDIX. 


A. 

THE  first  article  in  a  wise  plan  of  reformation, 
would,  in  our  opinion,  be  the  immediate  addition 
of  twenty  Members  to  the  House  of  Commons,  to 
be  chosen  by  the  most  opulent  and  populous  of 
the  communities  which  are  at  present  without  di 
rect  representation  ;  with  such  varieties  in  the  right 
of  suffrage  as  the  local  circumstances  of  each  com 
munity  might  suggest,  but  in  all  of  them  on  the 
principle  of  a  widely  diffused  franchise.  In  Scot 
land,  Glasgow  ought  to  be  included:  in  Ireland 
we  think  there  are  no  unrepresented  communities 
to  which  the  principle  could  be  applied. 

In  endeavouring  to  show  that  this  proposal  is 
strictly  constitutional,  according  to  the  narrowest 
and  most  cautious  use  of  that  term, — that  it  re 
quires  only  the  exercise  of  an  acknowledged  right, 
and  the  revival  of  a  practice  observed  for  several 
ages,  we  shall  abstain  from  those  controverted 
questions  which  relate  to  the  obscure  and  legend 


ary  part  of  pur  Parliamentary  history.  A  very 
cursory  review  of  the  authentic  annals  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  is  sufficient  for  the  present 
purpose.  In  the  writs  of  summons  of  the  llth  of 
Edward  I.,  the  Sheriffs  were  directed  (as  they  are 
by  the  present  writ)  to  send  two  Members  from 
each  city  and  borough  within  their  respective  baili 
wicks.  The  letter  of  this  injunction  appears,  from 
the  beginning,  to  have  been  disobeyed,  The 
Crown  was,  indeed,  desirous  of  a  full  attendance 
of  citizens  and  burgesses,  a  class  of  men  then  sub 
servient  to  the  Royal  pleasure,  and  who,  it  was 
expected,  would  reconcile  their  neighbours  in  the 
provinces  to  the  burthen  of  Parliamentary  grants  ; 
but  to  many  boroughs,  the  wages  of  burgesses  in 
Parliament  were  a  heavy  and  sometimes  an  in 
supportable  burthen :  and  this  struggle  between 
the  policy  of  the  Crown  and  the  poverty  of  the 
boroughs,  occasioned  great  fluctuation  in  the  towns 
who  sent  Members  to  the  House  of  Commons,  i.'i 


592 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


the  course  of  ihe  fourteenth  century.  Small  bo 
roughs  were  often  excused  by  the  Sheriff  on  ac 
count  of  their  poverty,  and  at  other  times  negleci- 
ed  or  disobeyed  his  "order.  When  he  persisted, 
petitions  were  presented  to  the  King  in  Parlia 
ment,  and  perpetual  or  temporary  charters  of  ex 
emption  were  obtained  by  the  petitioning  boroughs. 
In  the  1st  of  Edward  III.  the  county  ot  Northum 
berland,  and  the  town  of  Newcastle,  were  ex 
empted,  on  account  of  the  devastations  of  the 
Scotch  war.  The  boroughs  in  Lancashire  sent 
no  Members  from  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  to 
that  of  Henry  VI.;  the  Sheriff  stating,  in  his  re 
turns,  that  there  was  no  borough  in  his  bailiwick 
able  to  bear  the  expense.  Of  one  hundred  and 
eighty-four  cities  and  boroughs,  summoned  to 
Parliament  in  the  reigns  of  the  three  first  Ed 
wards,  only  ninety-one  continued  to  send  Mem 
bers  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II.  In  the  midst  of 
this  great  irregularity  in  the  composition  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  we  still  see  a  manifest, 
though  irregular,  tendency  to  the  establishment 
ot  a  constitutional  principle, — viz.  that  deputies 
from  all  the  most  important  communities,  with 
palpably  distinct  interests,  should  form  part  of  a 
national  assembly.  The  separate  and  sometimes 
clashing  interests  of  the  town  and  the  country, 
were  not  intrusted  to  the  same  guardians.  The 
Knights  of  the  Shire  were  not  considered  as  suf 
ficient  representatives  even  of  the  rude  industry 
and  infant  commerce  of  that  age. 

The  dangerous  discretion  of  the  Sheriffs  was 
taken  away  by  the  statutes  for  the  regulation  of 
elections,  passed  under  the  princes  of  the  House 
of  Lancaster.  A  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons 
had  now  begun  to  be  an  object  of  general  ambi 
tion.  Landed  gentlemen,  lawyers,  even  courtiers, 
served  as  burgesses,  instead  of  those  traders, — 
sometimes,  if  we  may  judge  from  their  names,  of 
humble  occupation, — who  filled  that  station  in 
former  times.  Boroughs  had  already  fallen  under 
the  influence  of  neighbouring  proprietors:  and, 
from  a  curious  passage  in  the  Paston  Letters,  (vol. 
i.  p.  96,)  we  find,  that  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  nomination  of  a  young  gentleman  to 
serve  for  a  borough,  by  the  proprietor,  or  by  a 
great  man  of  the  Court,  was  spoken  of  as  not  an 
unusual  transaction.  From  this  time  the  power 
of  the  Crown,  of  granting  representation  to  new 
boroughs,  formed  a  part  of  the  regular  practice  of 
the  government,  and  was  exercised  without  inter 
ruption  for  two  hundred  years. 

In  the  cases  of  Wales,  Chester,  and  long  after 
of  Durham,  representation  was  bestowed  by  sta 
tute,  probably  because  it  was  thought  that  no  in 
ferior  authority  could  have  admiued  Members 
from  those  territories,  long  subject  to  a  distinct 
government,  jnto  the  Parliament  of  England.  In 
these  ancient  grants  of  representation,  whether 
made  by  the  King  or  by  Parliament,  we  discover 
a  great  uniformiiy  of  principle,  and  an  approach 
to  the  maxims  of  our  present  constitution.  In 
Wales  and  Chester,  as  well  as  in  England,  the 
counties  were  distinguished  from  the  towns ;  and 
the  protection  of  their  separate  interests  was  com 
mitted  to  different  representatives :  the  rights  of 
election  were  diversified,  according  to  the  local 
interests  and  municipal  constitution  of  the  several 
towns.  In  the  preamble  of  the  Chester  Act,  re 
presentation  is  stated  to  be  the  means  of  securing 
the  county  from  the  wrong  which  it  had  suffered 
while  it  was  unrepresented.  It  was  bestowed  on 
Wales  with  the  other  parts  of  the  laws  of  Eng 
land,  of  which  it  was  thought  the  necessary  com 
panion  :  and  the  exercise  of  popular  privileges  is 
distinctly  held  out  as  one  of  the  means  which 
were  to  quiet  and  civilize  that  principality.  In  the 
cases  of  Calais  and  Berwick,  the  frontier  fortresses 
against  France  and  Scotland, — where  modern  poli 
ticians  would  have  been  fearful  of  introducing  the 
disorders  of  elections, — Henry  the  VHIth  granted 


the  elective  franchise,  apparently  for  the  purpose 
of  strengthening  the  attachment,  and  securing  the 
fidelity  of  their  inhabitants.  The  Knights  of  the 
Shire  for  Northumberland  were  not  then  thought 
to  represent  Berwick  sufficiently. 

While  we  thus  find  in  these  ancient  examples 
so  much  solicitude  for  an  adequate  representation 
of  the  separate  interests  of  classes  and  districts,  it 
is  particularly  worthy  of  remark,  that  we  find  no 
trace  in  any  of  them  of  a  representation  founded 
merely  on  numbers.  The  statute  that  gave  repre 
sentatives  to  Wales,  was  within  a  century  of  the 
act  of  Henry  VI.  for  regulating  the  qualifications 
for  the  voters  in  counties  ;  and  on  that  subject,  as 
well  as  others,  may  be  regarded  as  no  inconsider 
able  evidence  on  the  ancient  state  of  the  constitu 
tion.  Had  universal  suffrage  prevailed  till  the  fif 
teenth  century,  it  seems  wholly  incredible,  that  no 
trace  of  it  should  be  found  in  the  numerous  Royal 
and  Parliamentary  grants  of  representation,  which 
occur  in  the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth.  Mere  ac 
cident  must  have  revived  it  in  some  instances ;  for 
it  certainly  had  not  then  become  an  argument  of 
jealousy  or  apprehension. 

In  the  reigns  of  Edward  the  Vlth,  Mary,  and 
Elizabeth,  the  struggles  between  the  Catholic  and 
Protestant  parties  occasioned  a  great  and  sudden 
increase  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Fourteen 
boroughs  were  thus  privileged  by  the  first  of  these 
Sovereigns,  ten  by  the  second,  and  twenty-four 
by  Elizabeth.  The  choice,  in  the  reign  of  Edward 
and  Elizabeth,  was  chiefly  in  the  western  and 
southern  counties,  where  the  adherents  of  the 
Reformation  were  most  numerous,  and  the 
towns  were  most  under  the  influence  of  the 
Crown.  By  this  extraordinary  exertion  of  prero 
gative,  a  permanent  addition  of  ninety-four  Mem 
bers  was  made  to  the  House  in  little  more  than 
fifty  years.  James  and  Charles,  perhaps,  dread 
ing  the  accession  of  strength  which  a  more  nu 
merous  House  might  give  to  the  popular  cause, 
made  a  more  sparing  use  of  this  power.  But 
the  popular  party  in  the  House,  imitating  the 
policy  of  the  ministers  of  Elizabeth,  began  to 
strengthen  their  Parliamentary  influence  by  a 
similar  expedient.  That  House  had,  indeed,  no 
pretensions  to  the  power  of  making  new  Parlia 
mentary  boroughs ;  but  the  same  purpose  was 
answered,  by  the  revival  of  those  which  had  long 
disused  their  privilege.  Petitions  were  obtained 
from  many  towns  well  effected  to  the  popular 
cause,  alleging  that  they  had,  in  ancient  times, 
sent  Members  to  Parliament,  and  had  not  legal 
ly  lost  the  right.  These  petitions  were  referred 
to  the  Committee  of  Privileges ;  and,  on  a  fa 
vourable  report,  the  Speaker  was  directed  to  issue 
his  warrant  for  new  writs.  Six  towns  (of  which 
Mr.  Hampden's  borough  of  Wendover  was  onje) 
were  in  this  manner  empowered  to  send  Members 
to  Parliament  in  the  reign  of  James.  Two  were 
added  in  1628  by  like  means,  and  six  more  by  the 
Long  Parliament  on  the  very  eve  of  the  civil  war. 

No  further  addition  was  made  to  the  represen 
tation  of  England  except  the  borough  of  Newark, 
on  which  Charles  II.,  in  1672,  bestowed  the  pri 
vilege  of  sending  burgesses  to  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  as  a  reward  for  the  fidelity  of  the  inhabitants 
to  his  father.  The  right  of  the  first  burgesses  re 
turned  by  this  borough  in  1673  was  questioned, — 
though  on  what  ground  our  scanty  and  confused 
accounts  of  the  Parliamentary  transactions  of  that 
period  do  not  enable  us  to  determine.  The  ques 
tion  was  suspended  for  about  three  years ;  and  at 
last,  on  the  26th  of  March,  1676,  it  was  determin 
ed  by  a  majority  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
against  seventy-three,  that  the  town  had  a  right  to 
send  burgesses.  But  on  a  second  division,  it  was 
resolved,  by  a  majority  of  one,  that  the  Members 
returned  were  not  duly  elected.  And  thus  sud 
denly,  and  somewhat  unaccountably,  ceased  the 
exercise  of  a  prerogative  which,  for  several  centu- 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


593 


ries,  had  continued  to  augment,  and,  in  some 
measure,  to  regulate  the  English  representation. 

Neither  this,  nor  any  other  constitutional  power, 
originated  in  foresight  and  contrivance.  Occa 
sional  convenience  gave  rise  to  its  first  exercise : 
the  course  of  time  gave  it  a  sanction  of  law.  It 
was  more  often  exercised  for  purposes  of  tempo 
rary  policy,  or  of  personal  favour,  than  with  any 
regard  to  the  interest  of  the  constitution.  Its  en 
tire  cessation  is,  however,  to  be  considered  as 
forming  an  epoch  in  the  progress  of  our  govern 
ment.  However  its  exercise  might  have  been 
abused,  its  existence  might  be  defended,  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  the  constitutional  means  of  re 
medying  the  defects  of  the  representation.  It  was 
a  tacit  acknowledgment  that  a  representative  sys 
tem  must,  from  time  to  time,  require  amendment. 
Every  constitutional  reasoner  must  have  admitted, 
that  it  was  rightly  exercised  only  in  those  cases 
where  it  contributed  to  the  ends  for  the  sake  of 
which  alone  it  could  be  justified.  Its  abuse  con 
sisted  much  more  in  granting  the  suffrage  to  in 
significant  villages,  than  from  withholding  it  from 
large  towns.  The  cases  of  the  latter  sort  are  very 
few,  and  may  be  imputed  to  accident  and  negli 
gence,  which  would  probably  have  been  corrected 
in  process  of  time.  No  such  instance  occurs  with 
respect  to  any  town  of  the  first,  or  even  of  the 
second  class.  And,  indeed,  it  cannot  be  supposed, 
that,  before  the  disuse  of  that  prerogative,  four  or 
five  of  the  principal  towns  in  the  kingdom  should 
have  continued  without  representatives  for  more 
than  a  century.  Whatever  the  motive  might  have 
been  for  granting  representatives  to  Westminster 
by  Edward  VI.,  no  reason  could  have  been  as 
signed  for  the  grant,  but  the  growing  importance 
of  that  city.  Lord  Clarendon's  commendation  of 
the  constitution  of  Cromwell's  Parliament,  to 
which  Manchester,  Leeds,  and  Halifax,  then  towns 
of  moderate  size,  sent  representatives,  may  be 
considered  as  an  indication  of  the  general  opinion 
on  this  subject. 

In  confirmation  of  these  remarks,  we  shall  close 
this  short  review  of  the  progress  of  the  represen 
tation  before  the  Revolution,  by  an  appeal  to  two 
legislative  declarations  of  the  principles  by  which 
it  ought  to  be  governed. 

The  first  is  the  Chester  Act,  (34  &  35  Hen.  8. 
c.  13,)  the  preamble  of  which  is  so  well  known  as 
the  basis  of  Mr-  Burke's  plan  for  conciliation  with 
America.  It  was  used  against  him,  to  show  that 
Parliament  might  legislate  for  unrepresented 
counties ;  but  it  was  retorted  by  him,  with  much 
greater  force,  as  a  proof  from  experience,  and  an 
acknowledgment  from  the  Legislature,  that  coun 
ties  in  that  situation  had  no  security  against  mis 
rule.  The  Petition  of  the  inhabitants  of  Che 
shire,  which  was  adopted  as  the  preamble  of  the 
Act,  complained  that  they  had  neither  knight  nor 
burgess  in  Parliament  for  the  said  county-pala 
tine  ;  and  that  the  said  inhabitants,  "for  lack 
thereof,  have  been  oftentimes  touched  and  grieved 
with  acts  and  statutes  made  within  the  said  court." 
On  this  recital  the  Statute  proceeds: — "For 
remedy  thereof  may  it  please  your  Highness,  that 
it  may  be  enacted,  that  from  the  end  of  this  pre 
sent  session,  the  said  county-palatine  shall  have 
two  knights  for  the  said  county-palatine,  and 
likewise  two  citizens  to  be  burgesses  for  the  city 
of  Chester." 

The  Statute  enabling  Durham  to  send  knights 
and  burgesses  to  Parliament,  which  has  been  less 
frequently  quoted,  is  still  more  explicit  on  the  pur 
poses  of  the  present  argument : — 

"  Whereas  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  county- 
palatine  of  Durham  have  not  hitherto  had  the 
liberty  and  privilege  of  electing:  and  sending  any 
knights  and  burgesses  to  the  High  Court  of  Par 
liament,  although  the  inhabitants  of  the  said 
county-palatine  are  liable  to  all  payments,  rates, 
and  subsidies  granted  by  Parliament,  equally 
75 


with  the  inhabitants  of  other  counties,  cities,  and 
boroughs  in  this  kingdom,  who  have  their  knights 
and  burgesses  in  the  Parliament,  and  are  there 
fore  concerned  equally  with  others  the  inhabitants 
of  this  kingdom  to  have  knights  and  burgesses 
in  the  said  High  Court  of  Parliament,  ot  their 
own  election,  to  represent  the  condition  of  their 
county,  as  the  inhabitants  of  other  counties,  cities, 
and  boroughs  of  this  kingdom  have  ....  Where 
fore,  be  it  enacted,  that  the  said  county-palatine 
of  Durham  may  have  two  knights  for  the  same 
county,  and  the  city  of  Durham  two  citizens  to 
be  burgesses  for  the  same  city,  for  ever  here 
after,  to  serve  in  the  High  Court  of  Parliament .  . . 
The  elections  of  the  Knights  to  serve  for  the 
said  county,  from  time  to  time  hereafter,  to  be 
made  by  the  greater  number  of  freeholders  of  the 
said  county-palatine,  which  from  time  to  time 
shall  be  present  at  such  elections,  accordingly  as 
is  used  in  other  counties  in  this  your  Majesty's 
kingdom  ;  and  the  election  of  the  said  burgesses 
for  the  city  of  Durham,  to  be  made  from  time  to 
time  by  the  major  part  of  the  mayor,  aldermen, 
and  freemen  of  the  said  city  of  Durham,  which 
from  time  to  time  shall  be  present  at  such  elec 
tions."  This  Statute  does  not,  like  the  Chester 
Act,  allege  that  any  specific  evil  had  arisen  from 
the  previous  want  of  representatives  ;  but  it  re 
cognises,  as  a  general  principle  of  the  English 
constitution,  that  the  interests  of  every  unrepre 
sented  district  are  in  danger  of  being  overlooked 
or  sacrificed,  and  that  the  inhabitants  of  such  dis 
tricts  are  therefore  interested  to  have  knights  and 
burgesses  in  Parliament,  "  of  their  own  election, 
to  represent  the  condition  of  their  country." 

The  principle  is,  in  effect,  as  applicable  to  towns 
as  to  counties.  The  town  of  Newcastle  had  then 
as  evident  an  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  county 
of  Durham,  as  the  county  of  Warwick  can  now 
have  in  the  prosperity  of  the  town  of  Birming 
ham  ;  but  the  members  for  Newcastle  were  not 
considered,  by  this  statute,  as  sufficient  guardians 
of  the  prosperity  of  the  county  of  D  urham.  Even 
the  knights  who  were  to  serve  for  the  county, 
were  not  thought  to  dispense  with  the  burgesses 
to  serve  for  the  city.  As  we  have  before  observed, 
the  distinct  interests  of  country  and  town  were 
always,  on  such  occasions,  provided  for  by  our 
ancestors ;  and  a  principle  was  thereby  established, 
that  every  great  community,  with  distinct  interest, 
ought  to  have  separate  representatives. 

It  is  also  observable,  that  the  right  of  suffrage 
is  not  given  to  all  the  inhabitants,  nor  even  to  all 
the  taxable  inhabitants,  but  to  the  freeholders  of 
the  county,  and  freemen  of  the  city,— who  have  a 
common  interest  and  fellow-feeling  with  the  whole. 
As  these  electors  were  likely  to  partake  the  senti 
ments  of  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants,  and  as  every 
public  measure  must  affect  both  classes  alike, 
the  members  chosen  by  such  a  part  of  the  people 
were  considered  as  virtually  representing  all. — 
The  claim  to  representation  is  acknowledged  as 
belonging  to  all  districts  and  communities,  to  all 
classes  and  interests, — but  not  to  all  men.  Some 
degree  of  actual  election  was  held  necessary  to 
virtual  representation.  The  guardians  of  the  in 
terest  of  the  country  were  to  be,  to  use  the  lan 
guage  of  the  preamble,  "  of  their  own  election  ;" 
though  it  evidently  appears  from  the  enactments, 
that  these  words  imported  only  an  election  by  a 
considerable  portion  of  them.  It  is  also  to  be 
observed,  that  there  is  no  trace  in  this  Act  of  a 
care  to  proportion  the  number  of  the  new  repre 
sentatives  to  the  population  of  the  district,  though 
a  very  gross  deviation  on  either  side  would  proba 
bly  have  been  avoided. 

When  we  speak  of  principles  on  this  subject, 
we  are  not  to  be  understood  as  ascribing  to  them 
the  character  of  rules  of  law,  or  of  axioms  of 
science.  They  were  maxims  of  constitutional 
policy,  to  which  there  is  a  visible,  though  jy>t  a 
2z  2 


594 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


uniform,  reference  in  the  acts  of  our  forefathers. 
They  were  more  or  less  regarded,  according  to 
the  character  of  those  who  directed  the  public 
councils  :  the  wisest  and  most  generous  men  made 
the  nearest  approaches  to  their  observance.  But 
in  the  application  of  these,  as  well  as  of  all  other 
political  maxims,  it  was  often  necessary  to  yield 
to  circumstances, — to  watch  for  opportunities, — 
to  consult  the  temper  of  the  people,  the  condition 
of  the  country,  and  the  dispositions  of  powerful 
leaders.  It  is  from  want  of  due  regard  to  con 
siderations  like  these,  that  the  theory  of  the  Eng 
lish  representation  has,  of  late  years,  been  dis 
figured  by  various  and  opposite  kinds  of  reasoners. 
Some  refuse  to  acknowledge  any  principles  on 
this  subject,  but  those  most  general  considera 
tions  of  expediency  and  abstract  justice,  which 
are  applicable  to  all  governments,  and  to  every 
situation  of  mankind.  But  these  remote  princi 
ples  shed  too  faint  a  light  to  guide  us  on  our  path  ; 
and  can  seldom  be  directly  applied  with  any  ad 
vantage  to  human  affairs.  Others  represent  the 
whole  constitution,  as  contained  in  the  written 
laws  ;  and  treat  every  principle  as  vague  or  vision 
ary,  which  is  not  sanctioned  by  some  legal  au 
thority.  A  third  class,  considering  (rightly)  the 
representation  as  originating  only  in  usage,  and 
incessantljMhough  insensibly  altered  in  the  course 
of  time,  erroneously  infer,  that  it  is  altogether  a 
matter  of  coarse  and  confused  practice,  incapable 
of  being  reduced  to  any  theory.  The  truth  is, 
however,  that  out  of  the  best  parts  of  that  prac 
tice  have  gradually  arisen  a  body  of  maxims, 
which  guide  our  judgment  in  each  particular  case  ; 
and  which,  though  beyond  the  letter  of  the  law, 
are  better  defined,  and  more  near  the  course  of 
business,  than  general  notions  of  expediency  or 
justice.  Often  disregarded,  and  never  rigorously 
adhered  to,  they  have  no  support  but  a  general 
conviction,  growing  with  experience,  of  their  fit 
ness  and  value.  The  mere  speculator  disdains 
them  as  beggarly  details:  the  mere  lawyer  asks 
for  the  statute  or  case  on  which  they  rest:  the 
mere  practical  politician  scorns  them  as  airy  vi 
sions.  But  these  intermediate  maxims  constitute 
the  principles  of  the  British  constitution,  as  dis 
tinguished,  on  the  one  hand,  from  abstract  notions 
of  government,  and,  on  the  other,  from  the  pro 
visions  of  law,  or  the  course  of  practice.  "  Civil 
knowledge,"  says  Lord  Bacon,  "  is  of  all  others 
the  most  immersed  in  matter,  and  the  hardliest 
reduced  to  axioms."  politics,  therefore,  if  they 
should  ever  be  reduced  to  a  science,  will  require 
the  greatest  number  of  intermediate  laws,  to  con 
nect  its  most  general  principles  with  the  variety 
and  intricacy  of  the  public  concerns.  But  in  every 
branch  of  knowledge,  we  are  told  by  the  same 
great  Master,  (Novum  Organum,)  "that  while 
generalities  are  barren,  and  the  multiplicity  of 
single  facts  present  nothing  but  confusion,  the 
middle  principles  alone  are  solid,  orderly,  and 
fruitful." 

The  nature  of  virtual  representation  may  be  illus 
trated  by  the  oriuinal  contioversy  between  Great 
Britain  and  America.  The  Americans  alleged, 
perhaps  untruly,  that  being  unrepresented  they 
could  not  legally  be  taxed.  They,  added,  with 
truth,  that  being  unrepresented,  they  ou^ht  not 
constitutionally  to  be  taxed.  But  they  defended 
this  true  position,  on  a  ground  untenable  in  argu 
ment.  They  sought  for  the  constitution  in  the 
works  of  abstract  reasoners,  instead  of  searching 
for  it  in  its  own  ancient  and  uniform  practice. 
They  were  told  that  virtual,  not  actual,  represen- 
ration,  was  the  principle  of  the  constitution ;  and 
that  they  were  as  much  virtually  represented  as 
the  majority  of  ths  people  of  England.  In  answer 
to  this,  they  denied  that  virtual  representation  waa 
a  constitutional  principle,  instead  of  denying  the 
facr,  that  they  were  virtually  represented.  Had 
they  chosen  the  latter  ground,  their  case  would 


have  been  unanswerable.  The  unrepresented  part 
of  England  could  not  be  taxed,  without  taxing  the 
represented :  the  laws  affected  alike  the  members 
who  passed  them,  their  constituents,  and  the  rest 
of  the  people.  On  the  contrary,  separate  laws 
might  be,  and  were,  made  for  America :  separate 
taxes  might  be,  and  were,  laid  on  her.  The  case 
of  that  country,  therefore,  was  the  very  reverse  of 
virtual  representation.  Instead  of  identity,  there 
was  a  contrariety  of  apparent  interest.  The  Eng 
lish  land-holder  was  to  be  relieved  by  an  Ameri 
can  revenue.  The  prosperity  of  the  English  manu 
facturer  was  supposed  to  depend  on  a  monopoly 
of  the  American  market.  Such  a  system  of  go 
verning  a  great  nation  was  repugnant  to  the  princi 
ples  ot  a  constitution  which  had  solemnly  pro 
nounced,  that  the  people  of  the  small  territories  of 
Chester  and  Durham  could  not  be  virtually  repre 
sented  without  some  share  of  actual  representa 
tion. — Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xxxiv.  p.  477. 


B. 

THE  principle  of  short  Parliaments  was  solemn 
ly  declared  at  the  Revolution.  On  the  29th  of 
January  1689,  seven  days  after  the  Convention 
was  assembled,  the  following  resolution  was  adopt 
ed  by  the  House  of  Commons: — "  That  a  com 
mittee  be  appointed  to  bring  in  general  heads  of 
such  things  as  are  absolutely  necessary  to  be  con 
sidered,  for  the  better  securing  our  Religion,  Laws, 
and  Liberties."  Of  this  Committee  Mr.  Somers 
was  one.  On  the  2d  of  February,  Sir  George  Tre- 
by,  from  the  Committee  thus  appointed,  reported 
the  general  heads  on  which  they  had  agreed.  The 
llth  article  of  these  general  heads  was  as  follows  : 
— "  That  the  too  long  continuance  of  the  same  Par 
liament  be  prevented."  On  the  4th  of  February 
it  was  ordered,  "  That  it  be  referred  to  the  Com 
mittee  to  distinguish  such  general  heads  as  are  in- 
troductive  of  new  laws,  from  those  that  are  declar 
ratory  of  ancient  rights."  On  the  7th  of  the  same 
month,  the  Committee  made  their  Second  Re 
port  ;  and,  after  going  through  the  declaratory  part, 
which  constitutes  the  Bill  of  Rights  as  it  now 
stands,  proposed  the  following,  among  other 
clauses,  relating  to  the  introduction  of  new  laws: 
— "  And  towards  the  making  a  more  firm  and  per 
fect  settlement  of  the  said  Religion,  Laws,  and 
Liberties,  and  for  remedying  several  defects  and 
inconveniences,  it  is  proposed  and  advised  by 
[blank  left  for  '  Lords']  and  Commons,  that  there 
be  provision,  by  new  laws,  made  in  such  manner, 
and  with  such  limitations,  as  by  the  wisdom  and 
justice  of  Parliament  shall  be  considered  and  or 
dained  in  the  particulars;  and  in  particular,  and  \o 
the  purposes  following,  viz.  for  preventing  the  t<$o 
long  continuance  of  the  same  Parliament."  Thte 
articles  which  required  new  laws  being  thus  dis^ 
tinguished,  it  was  resolved  on  the  following  day, 
on  the  motion  of  Mr.  Somers,  "that  it  be  an  in- 
struction  to  the  said  Committee,  to  connect,  to 
the  vote  of  the  Lords,  such  parts  of  the  heads 
passed  this  House  yesterday  as  are  declaratory  of 
ancient  rights  ;  leaving  out  such  parts  as  are  intro 
ductory  01  new  laws."  The  declaratory  articles 
were  accordingly  formed  into  the  Declaration  of 
Rights;  and  in  that  state  were,  by  both  Houses, 
presented  to  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange, 
and  accepted  by  them,  with  the  crown  of  England. 
But  the  articles  introductive  of  new  laws,  thougf 
necessarily  omitted  in  a  Declaration  of  Rights, 
had  been  adopted  without  a  division  by  the  House 
of  Commons;  who  thus,  at  the  very  moment  of 
the  Revolution,  determined,  "  that  a  firm  and  per 
fect  settlement  of  the  Religion,  Laws,  and  Liber 
ties,"  required  provision  for  a  new  law,  "for  pre 
venting  the  too  long  continuance  of  the  same  Par 
liament." 


SPEECH  ON  THE  REFORM  BILL. 


595 


But  though  the  principle  of  short  Parliaments 
was  thus  solemnly  recognised  at  the  Revolution, 
the  time  of  introducing  the  new  law,  the  means 
by  which  its  object  was  to  be  attained,  and  the 
precise  term  to  be  fixed  for  their  duration,  were 
reserved  for  subsequent  deliberation.  Attempts 
were  made  to  give  effect  to  the  principle  in  1692 
and  1693,  by  a  Triennial  Bill.  In  the  former 
year,  it  passed  both  Houses,  but  did  not  receive 
the  Royal  Assent :  in  the  latter,  it  was  rejected  by 
the  House  of  Commons.  In  1694,  after  Sir  John 
Somers  was  raised  to  the  office  of  Lord  Keeper, 
the  Triennial  Bill  passed  into  a  law.*  It  was  not 
confined,  like  the  bills  under  the  same  title,  in  the 
reigns  of  Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.,  (and  with 
which  it  is  too  frequently  confounded,)  to  provisions 
for  securing  the  frequent  sitting  of  Parliament :  it 
for  the  first  time  limited  its  duration.  Till  the 
passing  of  this  bill,  Parliament,  unless  dissolved 
by  the  King,  might  legally  have  continued  till  the 
demise  of  the  Crown, — its  only  natural  and  ne 
cessary  termination. 

The  Preamble  is  deserving  of  serious  considera 
tion  : —  "Whereas,  by  the  ancient  laws  and 
statutes  of  this  kingdom,  frequent  Parliaments 
ought  to  be  held ;  and  whereas  frequent  and  new 
Parliaments  tend  very  much  to  the  happy  union 
and  good  agreement  of  the  King  and  People." 
The  Act  then  proceeds,  in  the  first  section,  to 
provide  for  the  frequent  holding  of  Parliaments, 
according  to  the  former  laws ;  and  in  the  second 
and  third  sections,  by  enactments  which  were  be 
fore  unknown  to  our  laws,  to  direct,  that  there 
shall  be  a  new  Parliament  every  three  years,  and 
that  no  Parliament  shall  have  continuance  longer 
than  three  years  at  the  farthest.  Here,  as  at  the 
time  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  the  holding  of 
Parliaments  is  carefully  distinguished  from  their 
election.  The  two  parts  of  the  Preamble  refer 
separately  to  each  of  these  objects :  the  frequent 
holding  of  Parliaments  is  declared  to  be  conform 
able  to  the  ancient  laws  ;  but  the  frequent  election 
of  Parliament  is  considered  only  as  a  measure 
highly  expedient  on  account  of  its  tendency  to 
preserve  harmony  between  the  Government  and 
the  People. 

The  principle  of  the  Triennial  Act,  therefore, 
seems  to  be  of  as  high  constitutional  authority  as 
if  it  had  been  inserted  in  the  Bill  of  Rights  itself, 
from  which  it  was  separated  only  that  it  might  be 
afterwards  carried  into  effect  in  a  more  convenient 
manner.  The  particular  term  of  three  years  is  an 
arrangement  of  expediency,  to  which  it  would  be 
folly  to  ascribe  any  great  importance.  This  Act 
continued  in  force  only  for  twenty  years.  Its  op 
ponents  have  often  expatiated  on  the  corruption 
and  disorder  in  elections,  and  the  instability  in  the 
national  councils  which  prevailed  during  that 
period :  but  the  country  was  then  so  much  dis 
turbed  by  the  weakness  of  a  new  government, 
and  the  agitation  of  a  disputed  succession,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  ascertain  whether  more  frequent 
elections  had  any  share  in  augmenting  the  dis 
order.  At  the  accession  of  George  I.  the  dura 
tion  of  Parliament  was  extended  to  seven  years, 
by  the  famous  statute  called  the  "  Septennial 
Act,"  1  Geo.  I.  et.  2.  c.  38,  the  preamble  of  which 
asserts,  that  the  last  provision  of  the  Triennial 
Act,  "  if  it  should  continue,  may  probably  at  this 
juncture,  when  a  restless  and  Popish  faction  are 
designing  and  endeavouring  to  renew  the  rebel 
lion  within  this  kingdom,  and  an  invasion  from 
abroad,  be  destructive  to  the  peace  and  security 
of  the  government."  This  allegation  is  now  as 
certained  to  have  been  perfectly  true.  There  is 
the  most  complete  historical  evidence  that  all  the 
Tories  of  the  kingdom  were  then  engaged  in  a 
conspiracy  to  effect  a  counter-revolution,  —  to 
wrest  from  the  people  all  the  securities  which  they 


6  W.  &  M.  c.  2. 


had  obtained  for  liberty, — to  brand  them  as  rebels, 
and  to  stigmatise  their  rulers  as  usurpers, — and  to 
re-establish  the  principles  of  slavery,  by  the  resto 
ration  of  a  family,  whose  claim  to  power  waa 
founded  on  their  pretended  authority.  It  is  beyond 
all  doubt,  that  a  general  election  at  that  period 
would  have  endangered  all  these  objects.  la 
these  circumstances  the  Septennial  Act  was  pass 
ed,  because  it  was  necessary  to  secure  liberty. 
But  it  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  highest  exer 
tions  of  the  legislative  authority.  It  was  a  devia 
tion  from  the  course  of  the  constitution  too  exten 
sive  in  its  effects,  and  too  dangerous  in  its  exam 
ple,  to  be  warranted  by  motives  of  political  expe 
diency  :  it  could  be  justified  only  by  the  necessity 
of  preserving  liberty.  The  Revolution  itself  waa 
a  breach  of  the  laws  ;  and  it  was  as  great  a  devia 
tion  from  the  principles  of  monarchy,  as  the  Sep 
tennial  Act  could  be  from  the  constitution  of  the 
House  of  Commons  : — and  the  latter  can  only  be 
justified  by  the  same  ground  of  necessity,  with 
that  glorious  Revolution  of  which  it  probably  con 
tributed  to  preserve — would  to  God  we  could  say 
perpetuate — the  inestimable  blessings. 

It  has  been  said  by  some,  that  as  the  danger 
was  temporary,  the  law  ought  to  have  been  passed 
only  for  a  time,  and  that  it  should  have  been  de 
layed  till  the  approach  of  a  general  election  should 
ascertain,  whether  a  change  in  the  temper  of  the 
people  had  not  rendered  it  unnecessary.  But  it 
was  necessary,  at  the  instant,  to  confound  the 
hopes  of  conspirators,  who  were  then  supported 
and  animated  by  the  prospect  of  a  general  elec 
tion  :  and  if  any  period  had  been  fixed  tor  its  du 
ration,  it  might  have  weakened  its  effects,  as  a 
declaration  of  the  determined  resolution  of  Par 
liament  to  stand  or  fall  with  the  Revolution. 

It  is  now  certain,  that  the  conspiracy  of  the 
Tories  against  the  House  of  Hanover,  continued 
till  the  last  years  of  the  reign  of  George  II.  The 
Whigs,  who  had  preserved  the  fruits  of  the  Revo 
lution,  and  upheld  the  tottering  throne  of  the 
Hanoverian  Family  during  half  a  century,  were, 
in  this  state  of  things,  unwilling  to  repeal  a  law,  for 
which  the  reasons  had  not  entirely  ceased.  The 
hostility  of  the  Tories  to  the  Protestant  succession 
was  not  extinguished,  till  the  appearance  of  their 
leaders  at  the  court  of  King  George  III.  proclaim 
ed  to  the  world  their  hope,  that  Jacobite  principles 
might  re-ascend  the  throne  of  England  with  a 
monarch  of  the  House  of  Brunswick. 

The  effects  of  the  Septennial  Act  on  the  consti 
tution  werp  materially  altered  in  the  late  reign,  by 
an  innovation  in  the  exercise  of  the  prerogative  of 
dissolution.  This  important  prerogative  is  the 
buckler  of  the  monarchy  :  it  is  intended  for  great 
emergencies,  when  its  exercise  may  be  the  only 
means  of  averting  immediate  danger  from  the 
throne  :  it  is  strictly  a  defensive  right.  As  no  ne 
cessity  arose,  under  the  two  first  Georges,  for  its 
defensive  exercise,  it  lay,  during  that  period,  in  a 
state  of  almost  total  inactivity.  Only  one  Parlia 
ment,  under  these  two  Princes,  was  dissolved  till 
its  seventh  year.  The  same  inoffensive  maxims 
were  pursued  during  the  early  part  of  the  reign 
of  George  III.  In  the  year  1784,  the  power  of 
dissolution,  hitherto  reserved  for  the  defence  of  the 
monarchy,  was,  for  the  first  time,  employed  to 
support  the  power  of  an  Administration.  The 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons  had,  in  1782, 
driven  one  Administration  from  office,  and  com 
pelled  another  to  retire.  Its  right  to  interpose, 
with  decisive  weight,  in  the  choice  of  ministers, 
as  well  as  the  adoption  of  measures,  seemed  by 
these  vigonms  exertions  to  be  finally  established. 
George  II.  had,  indeed,  often  been  compelled  to 
receive  ministers  whom  he  hated :  but  his  succes 
sor,  more  tenacious  of  his  prerogative,  and  more 
inflexible  in  his  resentment,  did  not  so  easily  brook 
the  subjection  to  which  he  thought  himself  about 
to  be  reduced.  When  the  latter,  in  1784,  again 


596 


MACKINTOSH'S  MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS. 


saw  his  Ministers  threatened  with  expulsion  by  a 
majority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  found  a 
Prime  Minister  who,  trusting  to  his  popularity, 
ventured  to  make  common  cause  with  him,  and 
to  brave  that  Parliamentary  disapprobation  to 
which  the  prudence  or  principle  of  both  his  prede 
cessors  had  induced  them  to  yield.  Not  content 
with  this  great  victory,  he  proceeded,  by  a  disso 
lution  of  Parliament,  to  inflict  such  an  exemplary 
punishment  on  the  majority,  as  might  deter  all 
future  ones  from  following  their  dangerous  ex 
ample. 

The  ministers  of  1806  gave  some  countenance 
to  Mr.  Pitt's  precedent,  by  a  very  reprehensible 
dissolution :  and  in  1807,  its  full  consequences 
were  unfolded.  The  House  of  Commons  was 
then  openly  threatened  with  a  dissolution,  if  a 
majority  should  vote  against  Ministers ;  and  in 
pursuance  of  this  threat,  the  Parliament  was  actu 
ally  dissolved.  From  that  moment,  the  new  pre 
rogative  of  penal  dissolution  was  added  to  all  the 
other  means  of  ministerial  influence. 

Of  all  the  silent  revolutions  which  have  materi 


ally  changed  the  English  government,  without 
any  alteration  in  the  latter  of  the  law,  there  is, 
perhaps,  none  more  fatal  to  the  constitution  than 
the  power  thus  introduced  by  Mr.  Pitt,  and 
strengthened  by  his  followers.  And  it  is  the 
more  dangerous,  because  it  is  hardly  capable  of 
being  counteracted  by  direct  laws.  The  preroga 
tive  of  dissolution,  being  a  means  of  defence  on 
sudden  emergencies,  is  scarcely  to  be  limited  by 
law.  There  is,  however,  an  indirect,  but  effectual 
mode  of  meeting  its  abuse : — by  shortening  the 
duration  of  Parliaments,  the  punishment  of  disso 
lution  will  be  divested  of  its  terrors.  While  its 
defensive  power  will  be  unimpaired,  its  efficacy, 
as  a  means  of  influence,  will  be  nearly  destroyed. 
The  attempt  to  reduce  Parliament  to  a  greater 
degree  of  dependence,  will  thus  be  defeated  ;  due 
reparation  be  made  to  the  constitution  ;  and  future 
ministers  taught,  by  a  useful  example  of  just  re 
taliation,  that  the  Crown  is  not  likely  to  be  finally 
the  gainer,  in  struggles  to  convert  a  necessary 
prerogative  into  a  means  of  unconstitutional  influ 
ence.—  Ibid.  p.  494. 


THE  END. 


[126  Chcsnut  street,  Philadelphia. 

CAREY  &    HART'S    NEW   PUBLICATIONS. 


THE     MODERN     ESSAYISTS, 

AT  LESS  THAN  HALF  PRICE. 

The  great  success  that  has  attended  the  publication  of  i  tioii  of  being  the  finest  wit  and  smartest  divine  of  the  age. 
the  Modern  Essayists,  comprising  the  Critical  and  Miscel-  j  That  celebrated  journal  made  reviewing  more  .-espectable 
laneous  writings  of  the  most  distinguished  authors  of  mo-  [than  authorship.  It  was  started  at  a  time  when  the  de- 
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sound  which  betokened  its  arrival, 

'  Whispered  with  white  lips,  the  foe!  it  comes!  it  comes  I' 
"In  the  early  and  palmy  days  of  the  Review,  when  re 
viewers  wwre  wits  and  writers  were  hacks,  the  shore  of  the 
great  ocean  of  books  was  '  heaped  with  the  damned  like 
pebbles.'  Like  an  'eagle  in  a  dovecote,'  it  fluttered  the 
leaves  of  the  Minerva  press,  and  stifled  the  weak  notes  of 
imbecile  elegance,  and  the  dull  croak  of  insipid  vulgarity, 
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Attila  on  the  Roman  Empire  was  not  a  more  awful  visita 
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Review  on  the  degenerate  denizens  of  Grub  Street  and  Pa 
ternoster  Row.  It  carried  ruin  and  devastation  wherever 
it  went,  and  in  most  cases  it  carried  those  severe  but  pro 
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burgh  r«viewers  were  found  not  to  he  of  the  old  school  of 
critics.  They  were  not  contented  with  the  humble  task  of 
chronicling  the  appearance  of  books,  and  meekly  condens 
ing  their  weak  contents  for  the  edification  of  lazy  heads  ; 
hut  when  They  deigned  to  read  and  analyze  the  work  they 
judged,  they  sought  rather  for  opportunities  to  display  their 
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author,  or  to  increase  hie  readers.  Many  of  their  most 
splendid  articles  were  essays  rather  than  reviews.  The 
writer,  whose  work  afforded  the  name  of  the  subject,  was 
summarily  disposed  of  in  a  quiet  sneer,  a  terse  sarcasm,  or 
a  faint  panegyric,  and  the  remainder  of  the  article  hardly 
recognised  his  existence.  It  is  to  these  purely  original  con 
tributions,  written  by  men  of  the  first  order  of  talent,  that 
the  Review  owes  most  of  its  reputation." 
The  North  American  Review  remarks  : 
"  We  have  intimated  our  high  opinion  of  the  value  of  the 
essays-tind  disquisitions  with  which  British  Periodical  litera 
ture  is  now  so  amply  filled.  An  eminent  publishing  house 
in  Philadelphia  has  very  wisely  undertaken  to  reprint  these. 


ever  appeared  in  The  Edinburgh  Review,  The  London  Quar 
terly  Review,  and  Blm  kwood's  Ma<raiine,  and  may  indeed  be 
ca!U;d  the  cream  of  those  publications. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  mention  the  names  of  those  au 
thors  whose  writings"  \v  Ml  appear  : 

T.  Babinfton  Mara-uliy,  Sir  Walter  Scott, 

Archibald  Alison,  Lord  Jeffrey, 

Ren.  Sydney  Smith,  Sir  James  Markintnsh 

Professor  Wils<-n,  T.  JVoon  Tulfourd, 

James  Stephen,  J.  O.  Lockhart, 

Thomas  Curly  I  e,  William  Gifford, 

Robert  Suuthey,  J.  Wilson  Crocker, 

The  popularity  of  the  ^u'hcrs,  and  the  extreme  modera 
tion  of  the  price,  recommend  them 

To  Heads  of  Families,  for  the.r  children,  as  perfect  mo 
dels  of  style 

To  Managers  of  Book  Societies.  Book  Clubs.  &c. 

To  Schonl  Inspectors,  Schooli. tasters,  and  Tutors,  as 
suitable  gifis  as  prizes,  or  adapted  for  School  Libraries. 

Travellers  on  a  Journey  will  find  in  those  portable  and 
cheap  vol  lines  something  to  read  oa  the  roaa,  adapted  to 
fill  a  corner  in  a  portmanteau  or  carpet-bag. 

To  Passengers  on  Board  a  Ship,  here  are  ample  materials 
in  a  nairow  compass  for  whiling  away  the  monotonous 
hours  ol  a  sea  voyage. 

To  Officers  in  the  Army  and  Navy,  and  to  all  Economists 
in  spai;e  or  pocket,  who,  having  limited  chambers,  and 
small  book-shelves,  desire  to  lay  up  for  themselves  a  «/«- 
centra  ted  Library,  at  a  moderate  expenditure. 

To  all  who  have  Friends  in  Distant  Countries,  as  an  ac 
ceptable  present  to  send  out  to  them. 

The  Modern  Essayists  will  yield  to  the  Settler  in  the 
Backwoods  of  America,  the  most  valuable  and  interesting 
writings  of  all  the  most  distinguished  authors  of  our  time, 
at  less  than  one  quarter  the  price  they  could  be  obtained  in 
any  other  form. 

The  Student  and  Lover  of  Literature  at  Home,  who  has 
hitherto  been  compelled  to  wade  through  volumes  of  Re 
views  for  a  single  article,  may  now  become  possessed  of 
every  article  worth  reading,  for  little  more  than  the  cost  of  the 
annual  subscription. 

The  following  is  extracted  from  a  very  able  article  on 
Mr.  Macaulay,  by  Mr.  E.  P.  Whipple  : 

"  It  is  impossible  to  cast  even  a  careless  glance  over  the 
literature  of  the  last  thirty  years,  without  perceiving  the 
prominent  station  occupied  by  critics,  reviewers  and  essay 
ists.  Criticism  in  the  old  days  of  Monthly  Reviews  and  Gen 
tlemen's  Magazines,  was  quite  an  humble  occupation,  and 
was  chiefly  monopolized  by  the  '  barren  rascals'  of  letters, 
who  scribbled,  sinned  and  starved  in  attics  and  cellars  ;  but 
it.  has  since  been  almost  exalted  into  a  creative  art,  and 
numbers  among  its  professors  some  of  the  most  accom 
plished  writers  of  the  age.  Dennis,  Rhymer,  Winstarley, 
Theophilus  Gibber,  Griffiths,  and  other  'eminent  f'ands,'  as 
well  as  the  nameless  contributors  to  defunct  peiiodicals  and 
deceased  pamphlets,  have  departed,  body  and  soul,  and  left 
not  a  wreck  behind ;  and  their  places  have  been  supplied 
by  such  men  as  Coleridge,  Carlyle,  Macaulay,  Lamb,  Ilaz- 
litt,  Jeffrey,  Wilson,  Gifford,  Mackintosh,  Sydney  Smith, 
Ilallam,  Campbell,  Talfourd  and  Brougham.  Indeed  every 
celebrated  writer  of  the  present  century,  without,  it  is  be 
lieved,  a  solitary  exception,  has  dabbled  or  excelled  in  criti 
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manded  both  applause  and  guineas,  when  the  unfortunate 
objects  of  it  have  been  blessed  with  neither.  Many  of  the 
strongest  minds  of  the  age  will  leave  no  other  record  be 
hind  them,  than  critical  essays  and  popular  speeches.  To 
th«se  who  have  made  criticism  a  business,  it  ha*  led  to 
success  in  other  professions.  The  Edinburgh  Review, 
which  took  the  lead  in  the  establishment  of  the  new  order 
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barristers  and  a  titheless  parson  ;  the  former  are  now  lords, 
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"And  not  less  for  that  wonderful  series  of  articles  by 
Wilson,  in  Blackwood's  Magazine— in  their  kind  an  truly 
amazing  and  as  truly  glorious  as  the  romances  of  Scott  or  the 
poetry  of  Wordsworth.  Far  and  wide  and  much  as  these 
papers  have  been  admired,  wherever  the  English  language 
is  read,  I  still  question  whether  any  one  man  has  a  just  idea 
of  them  as  a  whole." — Extract  from  Howitt's  "  Rural  Life." 

"The  outpouring  of  a  gifted,  a  tutored,  and  an  exuberant 
mind,  on  men  and  manners— literature,  science,  and  philo- 
•ophy — and  all  embued  by  the  peculiar  phases  of  that  mind, 
whether  viewed  in  the  light  of  humour,  wit,  sentiment, 
pathos,  fancy  or  imagination." — Literary  Gazette. 

"  A  blaze  of  dazzling  light  which  literally  blinds  us,  while 
the  tumult  that  its  perusal  causes  within  us,  makes  us  per 
fectly  helpless." — Cambridge  Chronicle. 


THE  WORKS  OF  THE  REV.  SYDNEY 

SMITH,  in  one  volume,  with  a  Portrait.    Price  On* 

Dollar. 


CONTENTS. 


Dr.  Pair, 

Dr.  Kennel, 

John  Bowles, 

Dr    Lang  ford, 

Archdeacon  Nares, 

Matthew  Lewis, 

Australia, 

Fievee's  Letters  on  England, 

Edgeworth  on  Bulls, 

Trimmer  and  Lancaster, 

Parnell  and  Ireland, 

Methodism, 

Indian  Missions, 

Catholics, 

Methodism, 

Hannah  More, 

Professional  Education, 

Female  Education, 

Public  Schools, 

Toleration, 

Charles  Fox, 

Mad  Quakers, 

America, 

Game  Laws, 

Botany  Bay, 

Chimney  Sweepers, 

America, 

Ireland, 

Spring  Guns, 

Observations  on  the  Histori 
cal  Work  of  the  Right 
Honourable  Charles  James 
Fox, 

Disturbances  of  Madras, 

Bishop  of  Lincoln's  Charge, 

Madame  d'Epinay, 

Poor  Laws, 

Public  Characters  of  1801-2, 

Anastasius, 

Scarlett's  Poor  Bill, 

Memoirs  of  Captain  Rock, 

Granby, 

Island  of  Ceylon, 

Delphine, 

Mission  to  Ashantee, 

Witman's  Travels, 

Speech  on  Catholic  Claims, 

Speech  at  the  Taunton  Re 
form  Meeting, 

Speech  atTaunton  at  a  Meet 
ing  to  celebrate  the  Acces 
sion  of  King  William  IV., 

Persecuting  Bishsps, 


Speech  at  Taunton  in  1831  on 
the  Reform  Bill  not  being 
passed, 

Prisons, 

Prisons, 

Botany  Bay, 

Game  Laws, 

Cruel  Treatment  of  untried 
Prisoners, 

America, 

Bent  ha m  on  Fallacies, 

Waterton, 

Man  Traps  and  Spring  Guns, 

Hamilton's  Method  of  leach 
ing  Languages, 

Counsel  for  Prisoners, 

Catholics, 

Neckar's  Last  Views, 

Catteau,  Tableau  des  Etata 
Danois, 

Thoughts  on  the  Residenca 
of  the  Clergy, 

Travels  from  Palestine, 

Letter  on  the  Curates'  Salary 
Bill, 

Proceedings  of  the  Society 
for  the  Suppression  of 
Vice, 

Characters  of  Fox, 

Speech  respecting  the  Re 
form  Bill, 

The  Ballot, 

First  Letter  to  Archdeacon 
Singleton, 

Second  Letter  to  Archdeacon 
Singleton, 

Third  Letter  to  Archdeacon 
Singleton, 

Letter  on  the  Character  of 
Sir  James  Mackintosh, 

Letter  to  Lord  John  Russell, 

Sermon  on  the  Duties  of  the 
Queen, 

The  Lawyer  that  tempted 
Christ :  a  Sermon, 

The  Judge  that  smites  con 
trary  to  the  Law :  a  Ser 
mon, 

A  letter  to  the  Electors  upon 
the  Catholic  Question, 

A  Sermon  on  the  Rules  of 
Christian  Charity, 

Peter  Plymley's  Letter. 


CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS 
ESSAYS  OF  THOMAS  CARLYLE,  in  one  8vo  vol.,  with 
Portrait.  Price  $1.75. 

CONTENTS. 

Jean  Paul  Friedrich  Richter— State  of  German  Litera 
ture — Werner— Goethe's  Helena— Goethe— Burns— Heyne 
German  Playwrights — Voltaire— Novalis— Signs  of  the 
Times— Jean  Paul  Friedrich  Richter  again — On  History — 
Schiller— The  Nibellungen  Lied— Early  German  Literature 
—Taylor's  Historic  Survey  of  German  Poetry-  Character 
istics —  Johnson  —  Death  of  Goethe  —  Goethe's  Works  »- 
Diderot— On  History  again — Count  Cagliostro — Corn  Lafcr 
Rhymes  —  The  Diamond  Necklace  —  Mirabeau  —French 
Parliamentary  History— Walter  Scott,  &c.  &c. 

CRITICAL    WRITINGS    OF    FRANCIS 

JEFFREY,  in  one  8vo  volume,  with  a  Portrait.  $2.00. 

"It  is  a  book  not  to  be  read  only,  but  studied.  It  is  a 
vast  repertory,  or  rather  a  system  or  institute,  embracing 
the  whole  circle  of  letters— if  we  except  the  exact  sciences 
—and  contains  within  itself,  not  in  a  desultory  form,  but 
in  a  well-ditrested  scheme,  more  original  conception,  bold 
and  fearless  speculation  and  just  reasoning  on  all  kinds  and 
varieties  of  subjects,  than  are  to  be  found  in  any  English 
writer  with  whom  we  are  acquainted  within  the  present  or 

the  last  generation His  choice  of  words  is  unbounded, 

and  his  felicity  of  expression,  to  the  most  impalpable  shade 
of  discriminat'ion,almost  miraculous.  Playful,lively,and  full 
of  illustration,  no  subject  is  so  dull  or  so  dry  that  he  cannot 
invest  it  with  interest,  and  none  so  trifling  that  it  cannot 
acquire  dignity  and  elegance  from  his  pencil.  Independent 
ly,  however,  o'f  mere  style,  and  apart  from  the  great  variety 
o'f  subjects  embraced  by  his  pen,  the  distinguishing  feature 
of  his  writings,  and  that  in  which  he  excels  his  contempo 
rary  reviewers,  is  the  deep  vein  of  practical  thought  which 
runs  throughout  them  all." — North  British  Kevitai 


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tual  excellence  and  moral  beauty.  The  kindliness  of  tem 
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THE  CRITICAL  WRITINGS  OF  SIR 
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We  have  spent  a  whole  day  in  the  society  of  his  mighty 
spirit,  and  felt  no  sensation  of  weariness  ;  we  read  till  mid- 
nigM,  and  reluctantly  laid  the  volumes  aside  in  obedience 
to  our  pained  and  heavy  eyelids.  We  were  ill,  but  illness 
could  not  keep  us  away  from  the  Magician  ;  for  on  the  fol 
lowing  morning  we  were  up  with  the— no,  not  the  lark,  but 
the  milk-man,  and  again  intent  upon  these  treasures  of  in 
struction  and  delight.  We  can  master  your  ordinary  two 
volume  American  novel  in  three  hours,  by  a  stop-watch ; 
but  here  we  have  only  got  through  with  these  Miscelfanies 
after  three  days'  constant  reading  !  Some  of  the  papers  we 
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[JYew  World. 

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tive  uniting   Walter  Scott's  liveliness  of  detail  and  dra 
matic  effect,  with  the  observance  of  historical  truth." — 
London  Quarterly  Review. 

"The  'Narrative  of  the  Merovingian  Era'  is  the  produc 
tion  of  the  mature  and  practised  hand  of  its  author,  it  is 
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I  POETS  AND  POETRY  OF  EUROPE, 

with    Biographical    Notices    and    Translations,    from 

the  earliest  period  to  the  present  time,  by  Henry  W. 

Longfellow.     In   one    large    8vo  volume,    800  pages. 

Illustrated.  Price  $5.00. 

The  above  volume  contains  translations  from  the  Anglo- 
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tains  selections  from  the  works  of  many  delightful  Poets 
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velation. 

In  the  previous  editions  of  this  work,  the  Annotations 
were  printed  without  the  Text,  thus  rendering  it  a  mere 
book  of  reference  for  the  study ;  in  this  edition  the  text  is 
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Genesis  to  the  Song  of  Solomon,  is  esteemed  among  theo 
logical  writers,  one  of  the  most  acute  and  sensible,  and 
therefore  useful  illustrators  of  the  Old  Testament.  "In 
his  Exposition,"  says  Dr.  Wotton,  in  his  Thoughts  con 
cerning  the  Study  of  Divinity,  "there  is  great  learning, 
and  great  variety,  and  what  will  save  the  reading  of  many 
volumes." 

DR.  LOWTH,  the  father  of  the  well-known  Bishop  of  Lon 
don,  completed  the  Old  Testament,  and  is  considered  one 
of  the  most  judicious  Commentators  on  the  Prophets.  Few 
men  were  more  deeply  versed  in  critical  learning,  there 
being  scarcely  any  author,  Greek  or  Latin,  profane  or  eccle 
siastical,  that  Dr.  Lowth  hath  not  read,  constantly  accom 
panying  his  reading  with  critical  and  philosophical  re 
marks  ;  he  adheres  strictly  to  the  literal  meaning  of  the  in 
spired  writer,  and  there  Is  not  a  great  appearance  of  criti 
cism,  but  the  original  texts  and  all  critical  aids  are  closely 
studied  by  this  most  learned  divine.  Bishop  Watson  pro 
nounced  Lowth's  to  be  the  best  commentary  OH  the  Prophets 
in  the  English  language. 

ARNALD  ON  THE  APOCRYPHA. — The  Apocryphal  Books 
of  the  Old  Testament,  though  not  a  part  of  the  inspired 
writings,  contain  much  historical  information,  and  are  use 
ful  for  illustrating  the  idiom  of  the  New  Testament.  Ar- 
nald's  is  a  Critical  Commentary  on  such  books  of  the  Apo 
crypha  as  are  appointed  to  be  read  in  churches.  The  work 
was  originally  published  at  different  times,  and  is  deserved 
ly  held  in  high  estimation.  Archbishop  Cranmer,  in  the 
Preface  to  his  Bible,  says,  "that  men  may  read  them  (the 
Books  of  the  Apocrypha)  to  the  edifying  of  the  people,  but 
not  to  confirm  and  strengthen  the  doctrines  of  the  church." 
DR.  WHITBY  ON  THE  GOSPELS  AND  EPISTLES. — The 
Commentary  on  the  New  Testament  is  by  Dr.  Whitby, 
who,  in  the  course  of  his  work,  exhibits  labour  and  research 
worthy  of  the  subject.  Few  men  have  brought  a  larger 
portion  of  sagacity,  and  a  larger  measure  of  appropriate 
learning,  on  the  interpretation  of  Scripture.  His  know 
ledge  of  the  Bible  itself  was  thorough  and  complete,  and 
his  acquaintance  with  the  writings  of  the  fathers  and  of 
modern  interpreters  was  profound.  On  a  difficult  text  or 
expression,  the  reader  will  seldom  consult  him  in  vain.  Dr. 
Adam  Clarke,  in  the  learned  Preface  to  his  Commentary, 
says,  "  The  best  comment  on  the  New  Testament,  taken  in 
all  points  of  view,  is  certainly  that  of  Whitby.  He  has 
done  all  that  should  be  done  ;  he  is  learned,  argumentative, 
and  thoroughly  orthodox." 

LOWMAN  ON  THE  REVELATION.— Bishop  Tomline  in 
cludes  this  work  in  his  List  of  Books  for  Clergymen  and 
Biblical  Students.  Dr.  Doddridge  has  said  of  it,  that  he 
"has  received  more  satisfaction  from  it,  with  respect  to 
many  difficulties,  than  he  ever  found  elsewhere,  or  expected 
to  find  at  all."  Lowman's  scheme  of  the  Seven  Seals  is 
also  approved  by  the  late  Rev.  David  Simpson,  in  his  Key 
to  the  Prophecies. 

03-  The  reader  will  thus  see,  from  the  authorities  cited  in 
this  brief  view,  that  the  learned  writings  of  Patrick,  Lowth, 
Arnald,  Whitby  and  Lowman,  form  a  perfect  and  invaluable 
series  of  English  Commentaries  on  the  Old  and  New  Tes 
taments,  and  on  the  books  of  the  Apocrypha. 

THE  WORKS  OF  LORD   BACON, 

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ings,  by  Basil  Montagu,  Esq.,  in  three  volumes,  Svo. 
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English  edition,  that  of  Basil  Montagu,  Esq.,  which  has  re 
cently  issued  from  the  celebrated  press  of  Pickering,  (the 
modern  Aldus,)  in  seventeen  octavo  volumes.  It  contains 
the  complete  works  of  the  illustrious  philosopher,  those  in 
Latin  being  translated  into  English.  In  order  to  render  the 
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THE  AMERICAN  FARMER'S  ENCY 
CLOPEDIA,  and  DICTIONARY  of  RURAL  AFFAIRS, 

embracing  all   the   recent  discoveries  in   Agricultural 
Chemistry.     By  Cuthbert  W.  Johnson.     Enlarged,  im 
proved,  and  adapted  to  the  United  States,  by  Governeur 
Emerson.     This  invaluable  work  is  now  completed  in 
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in  recommending  as  a  School  Book  and  suitable  premium  to 
be  given  by  Agricultural  Societies— THE  FARMER'S  ENCY 
CLOPEDIA,  by  Cuthbert  W.  Johnson,  adapted  to  the  United 
States   by  Governeur   Emerson— a  work   with  which,  on 
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tled  to  an  easily  accessible   place   in  the  library  of  every 
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livered  by  J.  S.  Skinner,  Esq. 

The  only  Complete  French  Dictionary. 

A  NEW  AND  COMPLETE  FRENCH 
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LORD    BOLINGBROKE'S    VvORKS, 

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;i  4  volumes,  cloth  gilt,  which  has  been  reduced  to  $6. 

THE  DIARY  AND  LETTERS  OF  MA 
DAME  D'ARBLAY,  Author  of  "  Evelina,"  "  Cecilia,'* 
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beautifully  printed  on  fine  paper,  cloth,  gilt — $3.00. 


14  DAY  USE 

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